against its exaltation to this height of independencie I oppose First every thing that is independent of any else in operation is purely active and so consequently a God for nothing but a divine will can be a pure act possessing such a libertie by vertue of its owne essence every created will must have a libertie by participation which includeth such an imperfect potentiality as cannot be brought into act without some praemotion as I may so say of a Superiour Agent neither doth this motion being extrinsecall at all prejudice the true libertie of the will which requireth indeed that the internall principle of operation be active and free but not that that principle be not moved to that operation by an outward Superiour Agent nothing in this sense can have an independent principle of operation which hath not an independent being it is no more necessary to the nature of a free cause from whence a free action must proceed that it be the first beginning of it then it is necessarie to the nature of a cause that it be the first cause Secondly if the free acts of our wils are so subservient to the providence of God as that he useth them to what end he will and by them effecteth many of his purposes then they cannot of themselves be so absolutely independent as to have in their owne power every necessarie circumstance and condition that thoy may use or not use at their pleasure Now the former is proved by all those reasons and Texts of Scripture I before produced to shew that the providence of God overruleth the actions and determineth the wils of men freely to doe that which he hath appointed and truely were it otherwise Gods dominion over the most things that are in the world were quite excluded he had not power to determine that any one thing should ever come to passe which hath any reference to the wils of men Thirdly all the acts of the will being positive entities were it not previously moved by God himselfe in whom we live move and have our being must needs have their essence and existence solely from the will it selfe which is thereby made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a first and supreame cause indued with an underived being and so much to that particular Let us now in the second place looke upon the power of our free-will in doing that which is morally good where we shall finde not onely an essentiall imperfection in as much as it is created but also a contracted defect in as much as it is corrupted the abilitie which the Arminians ascribe unto it in this kinke of doing that which is morally and spiritually good is as large as themselves will confesse to be competent unto it in the state of innocencie even a power of beleeving and a power of resisting the Gospel of obeying and not obeying of turning or of not being converted The Scripture as I observed before hath no such terme at all nor nothing equivalent unto it but the expressions it useth concerning our nature and all the faculties thereof in this state of sinne and unregeneration seeme to imply the quite contrary as that we are in bondage Heb. 2. 15. dead in sinne Ephes 2. 3. and so free from righteousnesse Rom. 6. servants of sinne ver 16. under the reigne and dominion thereof vers 12. all our members being instruments of unrighteousnesse vers 13. Not free indeed untill the Sonne make us free so that this Idol of free-will in respect of spirituall things is not one whit better then the other Idols of the heathen Though it looke like silver and gold it is the worke of mens hands it hath a mouth but it speakes not it hath eyes but it sees not it hath eares but it heares not a nose but it smels not it hath hands but it handleth not feet but it walkes not neither speaketh it through the throat all they that made it are like unto it and so is every one that trusteth in it O Israel trust thou in the Lord c. That it is the worke of mens hands or a humane invention I shewed before for the rest it hath a mouth unacquainted with the mysteries of godlinesse full onely of cursing and bitternesse Rom. 3. 14. speaking great swelling words Iude vers 16. great things and blasphemies Revel 13. 5. a mouth causing the flesh to sinne Eccles 6. 5. his eyes are blinde not able to perceive those things that are of God nor to know those things that are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. eyes before which there is no feare of God Rom. 3. 18. his understanding is darkened because of the blindnesse of his heart Ephes 4. 18. wise to doe evill but to doe good he hath no knowledge Ierem. 4. 22. So that without farther light all the world is but a meere darkenesse Iohn 1. 5. he hath eares but they are like the eares of the deafe Adder to the word of God refusing to heare the voyce of the Charmer charme he never so wisely Psal 54. 8. beeing dead when this voyce first cals it Iohn 5. 25. eares stopped that they should not heare Zach. 8. 11. heavie eares that cannot heare Isa 6. 10. a nose to which the Gospel is the savour of death unto death 2 Cor. 2. 16. hands full of blood Isa 1. 15. and fingers defiled with iniquitie Chap. 59. 3. feet indeed but like Mephibosheth lame in both by a fall so that he cannot at all walke in the path of goodnesse but swift to shed blood destruction and miserie are in their waies and the way of peace they have not knowne Rom. 3. 15 16 17. These and divers other such endowments and excellent qualifications doth the Scripture attribute to this Idol which it cals the old man as I shall more fully discover in the next Chapter and is not this a goodly Reed whereon to rely in the paths of godlinesse a powerfull Deitie whereunto we may repaire for a power to become the sonnes of God and attaining eternall happinesse the abilities of Free-will in particular I shall consider hereafter now onely I will by one or two reasons shew that it cannot be the sole and proper cause of any truely good and spirituall act well pleasing unto God First all spirituall acts well pleasing unto God as faith repentance obedience are supernaturall flesh and blood revealeth not these things not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of the will of God Iohn 1. 13. That which is borne of the flesh is flesh and that which is borne of the spirit is spirit Iohn 3. 6. Now to the performance of any supernaturall act it is required that the productive power thereof be also supernaturall for nothing hath an activitie in causing above its own sphere nec imbelles generant feroces aquilas columbae but our free-will is a meerly naturall faculty betwixt which and those spirituall supernaturall acts there is no proportion unlesse
it be advanced above its owne or be by inherent habituall grace Divine Theologicall vertues differing even in the substance of the act from those morall performances about the same things to which the strength of nature may reach for the difference of acts ariseth from their formall objects which to both these are divers must have another principle and cause above all the power of nature in civill things and actions morally good in as much as they are subject to a naturall perception and doe not exceed the strength of our owne wils this facultie of Free-will may take place but yet not without these following limitations First that it alwaies requireth the generall concurse of God whereby the whole suppositum in which Free-will hath its subsistence may be sustained Matth. 10. 29. 30. Secondly that we doe all these things imperfectly and with much infirmitie every degree also of excellency in these things must be counted a speciall gift of God Isa 26. 12. Thirdly that our wils are determined by the will of God to all their acts and motions in particular but to doe that which is spiritually good we have no knowledge no power Secondly that concerning which I gave one speciall instance in whose production the Arminians attribute much to Free-will is Faith this they affirme as I shewed before to be in-bred in nature every one having in him from his birth a naturall power to beleeve in Christ and his Gospel for Episcopius denies that any action of the holy Spirit upon the understanding or will is necessarie or promised in the Scripture to make a man able to beleeve the word preached unto him So that it seemes every man hath at all times a power to beleeve to produce the act of faith upon the revelation of its object which grosse Pelagianisme is contrary First to the doctrine of the Church of England affirming that a man cannot so much as prepare himselfe by his owne strength to faith and calling upon God untill the grace of God by Christ prevent him that he may have a good will Artic. Secondly to the Scripture teaching that it is the worke of God that we do beleeve Ioh. 6. 29. It is not of our selves it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. To some it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdome of heaven Matth 13. 11. And what is peculiarly given to some cannot be in the power of every one To you it is given on the behalfe of Christ to beleeve on him Phil. 1. 29. Faith is our accesse or coming unto Christ which none can do unlesse the Father draw him Ioh. 6. 44. and he so draweth or hath mercy on whom he will have mercy Rom. 9. 19. and although Episcopius rejects any immediate action of the holy Spirit for the ingenerating of faith yet Saint Paul affirmeth that there is no lesse effectuall power required to it then that which raised Christ from the dead which sure was an action of the Almightie Godhead That we may know saith he what is the exceeding greatnesse of his power to usward who beleeve according to the working of his mightie power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Ephes 1. 19 20. So that let the Arminians say what they please recalling that I write to Christians I will spare my labour of further proving that faith is the free gift of God and their opposition to the truth of the Scripture in this particular is so evident to the meanest capacitie that there needs no recapitulation to present the summe of it to their understandings CHAP. XIII Of the power of Free-will in preparing us for our conversion unto God THE judgement of the Arminians concerning the power of Free-will about spirituall things in a man unregenerate meerely in the state of corrupted nature before and without the helpe of grace may be laid open by these following positions First That every man in the world reprobates and others have in themselves power and abilitie of beleeving in Christ of repenting and yeelding due obedience to the new covenant and that because they lost not this power by the fall of Adam Adam after his fall saith Grevinchovius retained a power of beleeving and so did all reprobates in him he did not loose as they speake at the Synod the power of performing that obedience which is required in the new covenant considered formally as it is required by the new covenant he lost not a power of beleeving nor a power of forsaking sin by repentance and those graces that he lost not are still in our power whence they affirme that faith is called the worke of God only because he requireth us to do it now having appropriated this power unto themselves to be sure that the grace of God be quite excluded which before they had made needlesse they teach Secondly That for the reducing of this power into act that men may become actuall beleevers there is no infused habit of grace no spirituall vitall principle necessary for them or bestowed upon them but every one by the use of his native endowments doe make themselves differ from others Those things which are spoken concerning the infusion of habits before we can exercise the act of faith we reiect saith the Epistle to the Walachrians That the internall principle of faith required in the Gospel is a habite divinely infused by the strength and efficacy whereof the will should be determined I deny saith another of them Well then if we must grant that the internall vitall principle of a supernatural spirituall grace is a meere natural faculty not elevated by any divine habit if it be not God that begins the good work in us but our own free-wils let us see what more goodly stuffe wil follow one man by his own meere indeavours without the aid of any received gift makes himself differ from another What matter is it in that that a man should make himselfe differ from others there is nothing truer he who yeeldeth faith to God cōmanding him maketh himself differ from him who will not have faith when he cōmandeth they are the words of their Apologie which without question is an irrefragable truth if faith be not a gift received from above for on that ground only the Apostle proposeth these questions who made thee differ from another or what hast thou that thou hast not received and if thou hast received why boasteth thou as if thou hast not received the sole cause why he denies any one by his own power to make himself differ from another is because that wherein the difference consisteth is received being freely bestowed upon him deny this and I confesse the other will fall of it selfe But untill their authoritie be equall with the Apostles they would do well to forbeare the naked obtrusions of assertions so contradictory to theirs and so they would not trouble the Church let them take all the glory unto themselves
to do what he will then grant him to be contented to do what he may and not much repine at his hard condition certainly if but for this favour he is a debtor to the Arminians theeves give what they do not take having robbed God of his power they will yet leave him so much goodnesse as that he shall not be troubled at it though he be sometimes compelled to what he is very loath to do how doe they and their fellows the Iesuits exclaime upon poore Calvin for sometimes using the harsh word of compulsion describing the effectuall powerfull working of the providence of God in the actions of men but they can fasten the same terme on the will of God and no harme done surely he will one day plead his own cause against them but yet blame them not si violandum est ius regnandi causa violandum est it is to make themselves absolute that they thus cast off the yoke of the Almightie and that both in things concerning this life and that which is to come they are much troubled that it should be said that every one of us bring along with us into the world an unchangeable preordination of life and death eternall for such a supposall would quite overthrow the maine foundation of their heresie viz. that men can make their election voide and frustrate as they joyntly lay it down in their Apologie nay it is a dreame saith Dr. Iackson to thinke of Gods decrees concerning things to come as of acts irrevocably finished which would hinder that which Welsingius laies down for a truth to wit that the elect may become reprobates and the reprobates elect now to these particular sayings is their whole doctrine concerning the decrees of God inasmuch as they have any reference to the actions of men most exactly conformable as First their distinction of them into peremptory and not peremptory termes rather used in the citations of litigious courts then as expressions of Gods purpose in sacred Scripture is not as by them applyed compatible with the unchangeablenesse of Gods eternall purposes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say they or temporary beleevers are elected though not peremptorily with such an act of Gods will as hath a coexistence every way commensurate both in its originall continuance and end with their fading faith which sometimes like Ionas gourd is but filia unius noctis in the morning it flourisheth in the evening it is cut down dried up and withereth a man in Christ by faith or actually beleeving which to do is as they say in every one 's own power is in their opinion the proper object of election of election I say not peremptory which is an act pendent expecting the finall perserverance and consummation of his faith and therefore immutable because man having fulfilled his course God hath no cause to change his purpose of crowning him with reward thus also as they teach a man according to his infidelitie whether present and removeable or obdurate and finall is the only object of reprobation which in the latter cause is peremptory and absolute in the former conditionall and alterable it is the qualities of faith and unbeliefe on which their election and reprobation doe attend Now let a faithfull man elected of God according to his present righteousnesse apostate totally from grace as to affirme that there is any promise of God implying his perseverance is with them to overthrow all religion and let the unbeleeving reprobate depose his incredulitie and turne himselfe unto the Lord answerable to this mutation of their conditions are the changings of the purpose of the Almightie concerning their everlasting estate againe suppose these two by alternate courses as the doctrine of Apostacie maintaineth they may should returne each to their former estate the decrees of God concerning them must againe be changed for it is injust with him either not to elect him that beleeves though it be but for an houre or not to reprobate unbeleevers now what unchangeablenesse can we affixe to these decrees which it lies it in the power of man to make as inconstant as Euripus making it beside to be possible that all the members of Christs Church whose names are written in heaven should within one houre be enrolled in the blacke book of damnation Secondly as these not-peremptory decrees are mutable so they make the peremptory decrees of God to be temporall finall impenitencie say they is the only cause and the finally unrepenting sinner is the only object of reprobation peremptory and irrevocable as the Poet thought none happy so they thinke no man to be elected or a reprobate before his death now that denomination he doth receive from the decree of God concerning his eternall estate which must necessarily then be first enacted the relation that is betweene the act of reprobation and the person reprobated importeth a coexistence of denomination when God reprobates a man he then becomes a reprobate which if it be not before he hath actually fulfilled the measure of his iniquitie and sealed it up with the talent of finall impenitencie in his death the decree of God must needs be temporall the just judge of all the world having till then suspended his determination expecting the last resolution of this changeable Proteus nay that Gods decrees concerning mens eternall estates are in their judgement temporall and not beginning untill their death is plaine from the whole course of their doctrine especially where they strive to prove that if there were any such determination God could not threaten punishments or promise rewards Who say they ean threaten punishment to him whom by a peremptory decree he will have to be free from punishment it seemes he cannot have determined to save any whom he threatens to punish if they sinne which is evident he doth all so long as they live in this world which makes God not only mutable but quite deprives him of his foreknowledge and makes the forme of his decree run thus if man will beleeve I determine he shall be saved if he will not I determine he shall be damned that is I must leave him in the meane time to doe what he will so I may meet with him in the end Thirdly they affirme no decree of Almightie God concerning men is so unalterable but that all those who are now in rest or misery might have had contrary lots that those which are damned as Pharaoh Iudas c. might have been saved and those which are saved as the blessed Virgin Poten Iohn might have been damned which must needs reflect with a strong charge of mutabilitie on Almightie God who knoweth who are his divers other instances in this nature I could produce whereby it would be further evident that these innovators in Christian religion doe overthrow the eternitie and unchangeablenesse of Gods decrees but these are sufficient to any discerning man and I will adde in the close an
1 Sam. 14. 41. Ionah chap. 1. 8. Matthias Act. 1. 26. And yet this overruling act of Gods providence as no other decree or act of his doth not rob things contingent of their proper nature for cannot he who effectually causeth that they shall come to passe cause also that they shall come to passe contingently Fourthly Gods predetermination of second causes which I name not last as though it were the last act of Gods providence about his creatures for indeed it is the first that concerneth their operation is that effectuall working of his according to his eternall purpose whereby though some agents as the wils of men are causes most free and indefinite or unlimited Lords of their owne actions in respect of their internall principle of operation that is their owne nature are yet all in respect of his decree and by his powerfull working determined to this or that effect in particular not that they are compelled to doe this or hindered from doing that but are inclined and disposed to doe this or that according to their proper manner of working that is most freely For truly such testimonies are every where obvious in Scripture of the stirring up of mens wils and minds of bending and inclining them to divers things of the governing of the secret thoughts and motions of the heart as cannot by any means be referred to a naked permission with a government of externall actions or to a generall influence whereby they should have power to doe this or that or any thing else wherein as some suppose his whole providence consisteth Let us now joyntly apply these severall acts to free agents working according to choyce or relation such as are the wils of men and that will open the way to take a view of Arminian Heterodoxies concerning this Article of Christian beliefe and here two things must be premised First that they be not deprived of their own radicall or originall internall libertie Secondly that they be not exempt from the moving influence gubernation of Gods providence the first whereof would leave no just roome for rewards and punishments the other as I said before is injurious to the majestie and power of God St. Augustine judged Cicero worthy of special blame even among the heathens for so attempting to make men free that he made them sacrilegious by denying them to be subject to an over-ruling providence which grosse errour was directly maintained by Damascen a learned Christian teaching things whereof we have any power not to depend on providence but on our owne free-will an opinion fitter for a hogge of the Epicures heard then for a Scholler in the Schoole of Christ and yet this proud prodigious error is now though in other termes stifly maintained For what doe they else who ascribe such an absolute independent libertie to the will of man that it should have in its owne power every circumstance every condition whatsoever that belongs to operation so that all things required on the part of God or otherwise to the performance of an action being accomplished it remaineth solely in the power of a mans owne will whether he will doe it or no which supreame and plainely divine liberty joyned with such an absolute uncontrollable power and dominion over all his actions would exempt and free the will of man not onely from all fore-determining to the production of such and such efffects but also from any effectuall working or influence of the providence of God into the will it selfe that should sustaine helpe or co-operate with it in doing or willing any thing and therefore the authours of this imaginarie liberty have wisely framed an imaginary concurrence of Gods providence answerable unto it viz. a generall and indifferent influence alwaies wayting and expecting the will of man to determine it selfe to this or that effect good or bad God being as it were alwaies ready at hand to doe that small part which he hath in our actions whensoever we please to use him or if we please to let him alone he no way moveth us to the performance of any thing now God forbid that we should give our consent to the choyce of such a Captaine under whose conduct we might goe downe againe unto Paganisme to the erecting of such an Idol into the Throne of the Almightie No doubtlesse let us be most indulgent to our wils and assigne them all the libertie that is competent unto a created nature to doe all things freely according to election and foregoing counsell being free from all naturall necessity and outward compulsion but for all this let us not presume to denie Gods effectuall assistance his particular powerfull influence into the wils and actions of his creatures directing of them to a voluntary performance of what he hath determined which the Arminians opposing in the behalfe of their darling Free-will doe worke in the hearts of men an overweening of their owne power and an absolute independence of the providence of God For First they deny that God in whom we live and move and have our being doth any thing by his providence whereby the creature should be stirred up or helped in any of his actions that is God wholly leaves a man in the hand of his owne counsell to the disposall of his owne absolute independent power without any respect to his providence at all whence as they doe they may well conclude That those things which God would have to be done of us freely such as are all humane actions he cannot himselfe will or worke more powerfull and effectually then by the way of wishing or desiring as Vorstius speakes which is no more then one man can doe concerning another perhaps farre lesse then an Angel I can wish or desire that another man would doe what I have a minde he should but truly to describe the providence of God by such expressions seemes to me intollerable blasphemie but thus it must be without such helpes as these Dagon cannot keepe on his head nor the Idoll of uncontroulable Free-will enioy his dominion Hence Corvinus will grant that the killing of a man by the slipping of an axes head from the helve although contingent may be said to happen according to Gods counsel and determinate will but on no termes will he yeeld that this may be applied to actions wherein the counsell and freedome of mans will doe take place as though that they also should have dependance on any such overruling power whereby he absolutely excludeth the providence of God from having any soveraigntie within the territory of humane actions which is plainly to shake off the yoke of his dominion and to make men Lords paramount within themselves so that they may well ascribe unto God as they doe onely a deceiveable expectation of those contingent things that are yet for to come there beeing no act of his owne in the producing of such effects on which he can ground any certainty onely he may take a
certaine that God determineth divers things which he would not did not some act of mans will goe before Armin. Some decrees of God praecede all acts of the will of the creature and some follow Cor. Men may make their election voide and frustrate Rem Apol It is no wonder if men doe sometimes of elect become reprobate and of reprobate elect Welsin Election is uncertaine and revocable and who ever denies it overthrowes the Gospel Grevin Many decrees of God cease at a certaine time Episcop Lib. Arbit God would have all men to be saved but compelled with the stubborne malice of some hee changeth his purpose and will have them to perish Armin. As men may change themselves from beleevers to unbeleevers so Gods determination concerning them changeth Rem All Gods decrees are not peremptory but some conditionate and changeable Sermon at Oxford CHAP. III. Of the praescience or foreknowledge of God and how it is questioned and overthrowne by the Arminians THE praescience or foreknowledge of God hath not hitherto in expresse termes beene denied by the Arminians but onely questioned and overthrowne by consequence in as much as they denie the certaintie and unchangeablenesse of his decrees on which it is founded it is not a foreknowledge of all or any thing which they oppose but onely of things free and contingent and that onely to comply with their formerly exploded error that the purposes of God concerning such things are temporall and mutable which obstacle being once removed the way is open how to ascribe the presidentship of all humane actions to omnipotent contingencie and her Sire Free-will Now we call that contingent which in regard of its next and immediate cause before it come to passe may be done or may be not done as that a man shall doe such a thing to morrow or any time hereafter which he may chuse whether ever he will doe or no. Such things as these are free and chanceable in respect of men their immediate and second causes but if we as we ought to doe looke up unto him who fore-seeth and hath ordained the event of them or their omission they may be said necessarily to come to passe or to be omitted it could not be but as it was Christians hitherto yea and Heathens in all things of this nature have usually upon their event reflected on God as one whose determination was passed on them from eternitie and who knew them long before as the killing of men by the fall of a house who might in respect of the freedome of their owne wils have not beene there or if a man fall into the hands of theeves we presently conclude it was the will of God it must be so he knew it before Divines for distinction sake ascribe unto God a two fold knowledge one intuitive or intellective whereby he foreknoweth and seeth all things that are possible that is all things that can be done by his Almightie power without any respect to their future existence whether they shall come to passe or no yea infinite things whose actuall being eternitie shall never behold are thus open and naked unto him for was there not strength and power in his hand to have created another world was there not counsell in the storehouse of his wisdome to have created this otherwise or not to have created it at all shall we say that his providence extends it selfe every way to the utmost of its activitie or can he not produce innumerable things in the world which now he doth not now all these and every thing else that is feazable to his infinite power he fore-sees and knowes Scientia as they speake simplicis intelligentiae by his essentiall knowledge Out of this large and boundlesse territory of things possible God by his decree freely determineth what shall come to passe and makes them future which before were but possible After this decree as they commonly speake followeth or together with it as others more exactly taketh place that praescience of God which they call visionis of vision whereby he infallibly seeth all things in their proper causes and how and when they shall come to passe Now these two sorts of knowledge differ in as much as by the one God knoweth what it is possible may come to passe by the other onely what it is impossible should not come to passe things are possible in regard of Gods power future in regard of his decree So that if I may so say the measure of the first kinde of Science is Gods omnipotencie what he can doe of the other his purpose what certainly he will doe or permit to be done With this praescience then God foreseeth all and nothing but what he hath decreed shall come to passe For every thing to be produced next and under him God hath prepared divers and severall kindes of causes diversly operative in producing their effects some whereof are said to worke necessarily the institution of their nature being to doe as they doe and not otherwise so the Sunne giveth light and the fire heat And yet in some regard their effects and products may be said to be contingent and free in as much as the concurrence of God the first cause is required to their operation who doth all things most freely according to the counsell of his will thus the Sunne stood still in the time of Ioshua and the fire burned not the three Children but ordinarily such agents working necessitate naturae their effects are said to be necessarie Secondly to some things God hath fitted free and contingent causes which either apply themselves to operation in particular according to election chusing to doe this thing rather then that as Angels and men in their free and deliberate actions which they so performe as that they could have not done them or else they produce effects 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meerely by accident and the operation of such things we say to be casuall as if a hatchet falling out of the hand of a man cutting downe a tree should kill another whom he never saw now nothing in either of these waies comes to passe but God hath determined it both for matter and the manner even so as is agreeable to their causes some necessarily some freely some casually or contingently yet all so as having a certaine futurition from his decree he infallibly foreseeth that they shall so come to passe but yet that he doth so in respect of things free and contingent is much questioned by the Arminians in expresse termes and denied by consequence notwithstanding Saint Hierome affirmeth that so to doe is destructive to the very Essence of the Deitie First their Doctrine of the immutabilitie of Gods decrees on whose firmenesse is founded the infallibilitie of this praescience doth quite overthrow it God thus foreknowing onely what he hath so decreed shall come to passe if that be no firmer settled but that it may and is often altered
saw before in the examples of Pharaoh and Abraham Now the will of God in the first acceptation is said to be hid or secret not because it is so alwayes for it is in some particulars revealed and made knowne unto us two wayes First by his word as where God affirmeth that the dead shall rise we neither doubt not but that they shall rise and that it is the absolute will of God that they shall doe so Secondly by the effects for when any thing cometh to passe we may cast the event on the will of God as its cause and looke upon it as a revelation of his purpose Iacobs sonnes little imagined that it was the will of God by them to send their brother into Egypt yet afterward Ioseph tels them plainly it was not they but God that sent him thither Gen. 45. but it is said to be secret for two causes First because for the most part it is so there is nothing in divers issues declarative of Gods determination but only the event which while it is future is hidden to them who have faculties to judge of things past and present but not to discerne things for to come Hence Saint Iames bids us not be too peremptory in our determinations if we will doe this or that not knowing how God will close with us for its performance Secondly it is said to be secret in reference to its cause which for the most part is past our finding out his paths are in the deeps and his footsteps are not known It appeareth then that the secret and revealed will of God are divers in sundry respects but chiefly in regard of their acts and their objects First in regard of their acts the secret will of God is his eternall decree and determination concerning any thing to be done in its appointed time his revealed will is an act whereby he declareth himself to love or approve any thing whither ever it be done or no. Secondly they are divers in regard of their objects the object of Gods purpose and decree is that which is good in any kinde with reference to its actuall existence for it must infallibly be performed but the object of his revealed will is that only which is morally good I speake of it inasmuch as it approveth or commandeth agreeing to the Law and the Gospell and that considered only inasmuch as it is good for whither it be ever actually performed or no is accidentall to the object of Gods revealed will Now of these two differences the first is perpetuall in regard of their severall acts but not so the latter they are sometimes coincident in regard of their objects for instance God commandeth us to beleeve here his revealed will is that we should so do withall he intendeth we shall doe so and therefore ingenerateth faith in our hearts that we may beleeve here his secret and revealed will are coincident the former being his precept that we should beleeve the latter his purpose that we shall beleeve in this case I say the object of the one and the other is the same even what we ought to doe and what he will doe And this inasmuch as he hath wrought all our works in us Isaiah 26. 12. they are our own works which he works in us his act in us and by us is ofttimes our dutie towards him he commands us by his revealed will to walke in his Statutes and keep his Laws upon this he also promiseth that he will so effect all things that of some this shall be performed Ezek. 36. 26 27. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walke in my statutes and you shall keepe my iudgements and doe them so that the selfe same obedience of the people of God is here the object of his will taken in either acceptation and yet the precept of God is not here as some learned men suppose declarative of Gods intention for then it must be so to all to whom it is given which evidently it is not for many are commanded to beleeve on whom God never bestoweth faith it is still to be looked upon as a meere declaration of our dutie its closing with Gods intention being accidentall unto it there is a wide difference betwixt doe such a thing and you shall doe it if Gods command to Iudas to beleeve imported as much as it is my purpose and intention that Iudas shall beleeve it must needs contradict that will of God whereby he determined that Iudas for his infidelitie should goe to his own place his precepts are in all obedience of us to be performed but doe not signifie his will that we shall actually fulfill his commands Abraham was not bound to beleeve that it was Gods intention that Isaac should be sacrificed but that it was his duty there was no obligation on Pharaoh to thinke it was Gods purpose the people should depart at the first summons he had nothing to doe with that but there was one to beleeve that if he would please God he must let them goe Hence divers things of good use in these controversies may be collected First That God may command many things by his word which he never decreed that they should actually be performed because in such things his words are not a revelation of his eternall decree and purpose but only a declaration of some thing where with he is well pleased be it by us performed or no in the forecited case he commanded Pharaoh to let his people goe and plagued him for refusing to obey his command hence we may not collect that God intended the obedience and conversion of Pharaoh by this his precept but was frustrated of his intention for the Scripture is evident and cleere that God purposed by his disobedience to accomplish an end farre different even a manifestation of his glory by his punishment but only that obedience unto his commands is pleasing unto him as 1 Sam. 15. 22. Secondly That the will of God to which our obedience is required is the revealed will of God contained in his word whose compliance with his decree is such that hence we learne three things tending to the execution of it First that it is the condition of the word of God and the dispensation thereof instantly to perswade to faith and obedience Secondly that it is our duty by all means to aspire to the performance of all things by it enjoyned and our fault if we doe not Thirdly that God by these means will accomplish his eternall decree of saving his elect and that he willeth the salvation of others inasmuch as he calleth them unto the performance of the condition thereof now our obedience is so to be regulated by this revealed will of God that we may sin either by omission
for them is either eternall happinesse or eternall miserie I speake onely of the former the act of Gods predestination transmitting men to everlasting happinesse and in this restrained sense it differs not at all from election and we may use them as Synonyma termes of the same importance though by some affirming that God predestinateth them to faith whom he hath chosen they seeme to be distinguished as the decrees of the end and the meanes conducing thereunto whereof the first is Election intending the end and then takes place Predestination providing the meanes but this exact distinction appeareth not directly in the Scripture This Election the word of God proposeth unto us as the gracious immutable decree of Almightie God whereby before the foundation of the world out of his owne good pleasure he chose certaine men determining to free them from sinne and miserie to bestow upon them grace and faith to give them unto Christ to bring them to everlasting blessednesse for the praise of his glorious grace or as it is expressed in our Church Articles Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly decreed by his counsell secret to us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankinde and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation as vessels made unto honour wherefore they who are endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to Gods purpose c. Now to avoid prolixitie I will annex onely such annotations as may cleere the sense and confirme the truth of the Article by the Scriptures and shew briefly how it is overthrowne by the Arminians in every particular thereof First the Article consonantly to the Scripture affirmeth that it is an eternall decree made before the foundations of the world were laid so that by it we must needs be chosen before we are borne before we have done either good or evill the words of the Article are cleere and so also is the Scripture He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world Ephes Chap. 1. vers 4. The children being not yet borne before they had done either good or evill it was said c. Rom. 9. 11. We are called with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace which was given us in Jesus Christ before the world began 2 Tim. 1. 9. Now from hence it would undoubtedly follow that no good thing in us can be the cause of our election for every cause must in order praecede its effect but all things whereof we by any meanes are partakers in as much as they are ours are temporarie and so cannot be the cause of that which is eternall things with that qualification must have reference to the sole will and good pleasure of God which inference would breake the necke of the Arminian election wherefore to prevent such a fatall ruine they deny the principle to wit that election is eternall So the Remonstrants in their Apologie Compleate election regardeth none but him that is dying for this peremptorie election decreeth the whole accomplishment and consummation of salvation and therefore requireth in the obiect the finished course of faith and obedience saith Grevinchovius which is to make Gods election nothing but an act of his justice approving our obedience and such an act as is incident to any weake man who knowes not what will happen in the next houre that is yet for to come and is this post-destination that which is proposed to us in the Scripture as the unsearchable fountaine of all Gods love towards us in Christ yea say they we acknowledge no other predestination to be revealed in the Gospel besides that whereby God decreeth to save them who should persevere in faith that is Gods determination concerning their salvation is pendulous untill he finde by experience that they will persevere in obedience But I wonder why seeing election is confessedly one of the greatest expressions of Gods infinite goodnesse love and mercy towards us if it follow our obedience we have it not like all other blessings and mercies promised unto us is it because such propositions as these beleeve Peter and continue in the faith unto the end and I will choose thee before the foundation of the world are fitter for the writings of the Arminians then the word of God neither will we be their rivals in such an election as from whence no fruit no effect no consolation be derived to any mortall man whilest he lives in this world Secondly the Article affirmeth that it is constant that is one immutable decree agreeably also to the Scriptures teaching but one purpose but one fore-knowledge one good pleasure one decree of God concerning the infallible ordination of his elect unto glory although of this decree there may be said to be two acts one concerning the means the other concerning the end but both knit up in the immutabilitie of Gods will Heb. 6. 17. The foundation of God standeth sure having this seale God knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2. 19. His gifts and calling are without recalling not be repented of Rom. 11. 29. now what say our Arminians to this why a whole multitude of new notions and termes have they invented to obscure the doctrine Election say they is either Legall or Evangelicall generall or particular complete or incomplete revocable or irrevocable peremptory or not peremptory with I know not how many more distinctions of one single eternall act of Almightie God whereof there is neither volanec vestigium signe or token in the whole Bible or any approved Author and to these quavering divisions they accommodate their doctrine or rather they purposely invented them to make their errours unintelligible yet something agreeably thus they dictate There is a complete election belonging to none but those that are dying and there is another incomplete common to all that beleeve as the good things of salvation are incomplete which are continued whilest faith is continued and revoked when that is denied so election is complete in this life and revocable againe there are say they in their confession three orders of beleevers and repenters in the Scripture whereof some are beginners others having continued for a time and some perseverants the two first orders are chosen vere truly but not absolute prorsus absolutely but only for a time so long as they will remaine as they are the third are chosen finally and peremptorily for this act of God is either continued or interrupted according as we fulfill the condition but whence learned the Arminians this doctrine not one word of it from the word of truth no mention there of any such desultory election no speech of faith but such as is consequent to the one eternall irrevocable decree of predestination they beleeved who were ordained to eternall life Acts 13. 48.
no distinction of men halfe and wholly elected where it is affirmed that it is impossible the elect should be seduced Matth. 24. 24. that none shall snatch Christs sheep out of his fathers hand Ioh. 11. 28 29. what would they have more Gods purpose of election is sealed up 2 Tim. 2. 19. and therefore cannot be revoked it must stand firme Rom. 9. 11. in spight of all opposition neither will reason allow us to thinke any immanent act of God to be incomplete or revocable because of the neere alliance it hath with his very nature but reason Scripture God himselfe all must give place to any absurdities if they stand in the Arminian way bringing in their Idoll with shouts and preparing his throne by claiming the cause of their predestination to be in themselves Thirdly the Article is cleere that the object of this predestion is some particular men chosen out of mankinde that is it is such an act of God as concerneth some men in particular taking them as it were aside from the middest of their brethren and designing them for some speciall end and purpose the Scripture also aboundeth in asserting this veritie calling them that are so chosen a few Mat. 20. 16. which must needs denote some certaine persons and the residue according to election Rom. 11. 5. those whom God knows to be his 2 Tim. 2. 19. Men ordained to eternall life Acts 13. 48. us Rom. 8. 39. those that are written in the Lambes booke of life Revel 21. 27. all which and divers others clearely prove that the number of the elect is certaine not only materially as they say that there are so many but formally also that these particular persons and no other are they which cannot be altered nay the very nature of the thing it selfe doth so demonstratively evince it that I wonder it can possibly be conceived under any other notion to apprehend an election of men not circumscribed with the circumstance of particular persons is such a conceited Platonicall abstraction as it seemes strange that any one dares professe to understand that there should be a predestination and none predestinated an election and none elected a choise amongst many yet none left or taken a decree to save men and yet thereby salvation destinated to no one man either re aut spe indeed or in expectation in a word that there should be a purpose of God to bring men unto glory standing inviolable though never any one attained the proposed end is such a riddle as no Oedipus can unfold now such an election such a predestination have the Arminians substituted in the place of Gods everlasting decree we deny say they that Gods election extendeth it selfe to any singular persons as singular persons that is that any particular persons as Peter Paul Iohn are by it elected no how then Why God hath appointed without difference to dispense the means of faith and as he seeth these persons to beleeve or not to beleeve by the use of those means so at length he determineth of them as saith Corvinus well then God chooseth no particular man to salvation but whom he seeth beleeving by his own power with the helpe only of such means as are affoorded unto others who never beleeve and as he maketh himselfe thus differ from them by a good use of his own abilities so also he may be reduced againe into the same predicament and then his election which respecteth not him in his person but only his qualification quite vanisheth but is this Gods decree of election yes say they and make a dolefull complaint that any other doctrine should be taught in the Church it is obtruded say the true born sons of Arminius on the Church as a most holy doctrine that God by an absolute immutable decree from all eternitie out of his own good pleasure hath chosen certaine persons and those but a few in comparison without any respect had to their faith and obedience and predestinated them to everlasting life but what so great exception is this doctrine lyable unto what wickednesse doth it include that it should not be accounted most holy nay is not only the matter but the very tearmes of it contained in the Scripture doth not it say the elect are few and they chosen before the foundation of the world without any respect to their obedience or any thing that they had done out of Gods meere gracious good pleasure that his free purpose according to election might stand even because so it pleased him and this that they might be holy beleeve and be sanctified that they might come unto Christ and by him be preserved into everlasting life yea this is that which gals them no such will can be ascribed unto God whereby he so willeth any one to be saved as that thence their salvation should be sure and infallible saith the father of those children Well then let St. Austine his definition be quite rejected that predestination is a preparation of such benefits whereby some are most certainly freed and delivered from sinne and brought to glory and that also of Saint Paul that by reason of this nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ what is this election in your judgement Nothing but a decree whereby God hath appointed to save them that beleeve in Christ saith Corvinus be they who they will or a generall purpose of God whereby he hath ordained faith in Christ to be the means of salvation yea but this belongs to Iudas as well as to Peter this decree carrieth an equall aspect to those that are damned as to those that are saved salvation under the condition of faith in Christ was also proposed to them but was Iudas and all his company elected how came they then to be seduced and perish that any of Gods elect goe to hell is as yet a strange assertion in Christianity notwithstanding this decree none may beleeve or all that doe may fall away and so none at all be saved which is a strange kinde of predestination or all may beleeve continue in faith and be saved which were a more strange kinde of election We poore souls thought hitherto that we might have beleeved according unto Scripture that some by this purpose were in a peculiar manner made the Fathers thine they were and by him given unto Christ that he might bring them unto glory and that these men were so certaine and unchangeable a number that not only God knoweth them as being his but also that Christ calleth them all by name Ioh. 10. 3. and looketh that none taketh them out of his hand we never imagined before that Christ hath been the Mediatour of an uncertaine Covenant because there are no certaine persons covenanted withall but such as may or may not fulfill the condition we alway thought that some had been separated before by Gods purpose from the rest of the perishing world that Christ might lay down
his life for his friends for his sheepe for them that were given him of his Father but now it should seeme he was ordained to be a King when it was altogether uncertaine whether he should ever have any subjects to be a head without a body or to such a Church whose collection and continuance depends wholly and solely on the will of men These are doctrines that I beleeve searchers of the Scripture had scarse ever been acquainted withall had they not lighted on such Expositors as teach that the only cause why God loveth or chooseth any person is because the honesty faith and pietie wherewith according to Gods command and his own dutie he is endued are acceptable to God which though we grant it true of Gods consequent or approving love yet surely there is a divine love wherewith he looks upon us otherwise when he gives us unto Christ else either our giving unto Christ is not out of love or we are pious just and faithfull before we come unto him that is we have no need of him at all against either way though we may blot these testimonies out of our hearts yet they will stand still recorded in holy Scripture viz. that God so loved us when we were his enemies Rom. 5. 8. sinners vers 10. of no strength that he sent his only begotten Sonne to die that we should not perish but have life everlasting Ioh. 3. 16. but of this enough Fourthly Another thing that the Article asserteth according to the Scripture is that there is no other cause of our election but Gods own counsell it recounteth no motives in us nothing impelling the will of God to choose some out of mankinde rejecting others but his own decree that is his absolute will and good pleasure so that as there is no cause in any thing without himselfe why he would create the world or elect any at all for he doth all these things for himselfe for the praise of his own glory so there is no cause in singular elected persons why God should choose them rather then others he looked upon all mankinde in the same condition vested with the same qualifications or rather without any at all for it is the children not yet borne before they do either good or evill that are chosen or reiected his free grace embracing the one and passing over the other yet here we must observe that although God freely without any desert of theirs chooseth some men to be partakers both of the end and the means yet he bestoweth faith or the means on none but for the merit of Christ neither doe any attaine the end or salvation but by their own faith through that righteousnesse of his the free grace of God notwithstanding choosing Iacob when Esau is rejected the only antecedent cause of any difference betweene the elect and reprobates remaineth firme and unshaken and surely unlesse men were resolved to trust wholly to their own bottomes to take nothing gratis at the hands of God they would not endeavour to rob him of his glory of having mercy on whom he will have mercy of loving us without our desert before the world began if we must claime an interest in obtaining the temporall acts of his favour by our own indeavours yet oh let us grant him the glory of being good unto us only for his own sake when we were in his hand as the clay in the hand of the potter what made this piece of clay fit for comely service and not a vessell wherein there is no pleasure but the power and will of the framer it is enough yea too much for them to repine and say why hast thou made us thus who are vessels fitted for wratth let not them who are prepared for honour exalt themselves against him and sacrifice to their own nets as the sole providers of their glory but so it is humane vilenesse will still be declaring it selfe by claiming a worth no way due unto it of a furtherance of which claim if the Arminians be not guiltie let the following declaration of their opinions in this particular determine We confesse say they roundly that faith in the consideration of God choosing us unto salvation doth precede and not follow as a fruit of election so that whereas Christians have hitherto beleeved that God bestoweth faith on them that are chosen it seemes now it is no such matter but that those whom God findeth to beleeve upon the stocke of their own abilities he afterwards chooseth Neither is faith in their judgement only required as a necessary condition in him that is to be chosen but as a cause moving the will of God to elect him that hath it as the will of the Iudge is moved to bestow a reward on him who according to the law hath deserved it as Grevinchovius speaks which words of his indeed Corvinus strives to temper but all in vaine though he wrest them contrary to the intention of the Author for with him agree all his fellows the one only absolute cause of election is not the will of God but the respect of our obedience saith Episcopius At first they required nothing but faith and that as a condition not as a cause then perseverance in faith which at length they began to call obedience comprehending all our dutie to the precepts of Christ for the cause say they of this love to any person is the righteousnesse faith and pietie wherewith he is endued which being all the good works of a Christian they in effect affirme a man to be chosen for them that our good works are the cause of election which whither it were ever so grossely taught either by Pelagians or Papists I something doubt And here observe that this doth not thwart my former assertion where I shewed that they deny the election of any particular persons which here they seeme to grant upon a fore-sight of their faith and good workes for there is not any one person as such a person notwithstanding all this that in their judgement is in this life elected but onely as he is considered with those qualifications of which he may at any time divest himselfe and so become againe to be no more elected then Iudas The summe of their Doctrine in this particular is laid by one of ours in a Tract intituled Gods love to mankinde c. a Booke full of palpable ignorance grosse sophistrie and abominable blasphemie whose Authour seemes to have proposed nothing unto himselfe but to rake all the dunghils of a few the most invective Arminians and to collect the most filthy scumme and pollution of their railings to cast upon the truth of God and under I know not what selfe-coyned pretences belch out odious blasphemies against his holy name The summe saith he of all these speeches he cited to his purpose is That there is no decree of saving men but what is built on Gods fore-knowledge of the good actions of men No decree no
then in respect of his purpose to save them by Christ some are said to be his thine they were and thou gavest them unto me Iohn 17. 6. they were his before they came unto Christ by faith the sheepe of Christ before they are called for he calleth his sheepe by name Iohn 10. 30. before they come into the flocke or congregation for other sheepe saith he I have which are not of this fold which must also be gathered Ioh. 10. 16. to be beleved of God before they love him herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us 1 Ioh. 4. 10. Now all this must be with reference to Gods purpose of bringing them unto Christ and by him unto glory which we see goeth before all their faith and obedience Thirdly Election is an eternall act of Gods will he hath chosen us before the foundation of the world Ephes 1. 4. consummated antecedently to all dutie of ours Rom. 9. 11. now every cause must in order of nature praecede its effect nothing hath an activitie in causing before it hath a being operation in every kinde is a second act flowing from the essence of a thing which is the first but all our graces and workes our faith obedience pietie and charitie are all temporall of yesterday the same standing with our selves and no longer and therefore cannot be the cause of no nor so much as a condition necessarily required for the accomplishment of an eternall act of God irrevocably established before we are Fourthly If Predestination be for faith foreseene these three things with divers such absurdities will necessarily follow first that election is not of him that calleth as the Apostle speakes Rom. 9. 11. that is of the good pleasure of God who calleth us with an holy calling but of him that is called for depending on faith it must be his whose faith is that doth beleeve secondly God cannot have mercy on whom he will have mercy for the very purpose of it is thus tied to the qualities of faith and obedience so that he must have mercy only on beleevers antecedently to his decree which thirdly hinders him from being an absolute free agent and doing of what he will with his owne of having such a power over us as the Potter hath over his Clay for he findes us of different matter one clay another gold when he comes to appoint us to different uses and ends Fifthly God sees no saith no obedience perseverance nothing but sinne and wickednesse in any man but what himselfe intendeth graciously and freely to bestow upon them for faith is not of our selves it is the gift of God it is the worke of God that we doe beleeve Iohn 6. 29. he blesseth us with all spirituall blessings in Christ Ephes 1. Now all these gifts and graces God bestoweth onely upon those whom he hath antecedently ordained to everlasting life For the election obtained it and the rest were blinded Rom. 11. 7. God added to his Church daily those that should be saved Acts 2. 47. therefore surely God chooseth us not because he foreseeth those things in us seeing he bestoweth those graces because he hath chosen us Wherefore saith Austine doth Christ say you have not chosen me but I have chosen you but because they did not chuse him that he should chuse them but he chose them that they might chuse him We choose Christ by faith God chooseth us by his decree of election the question is whether we choose him because he hath chosen us or he chooseth us because we have chosen him and so indeed choose our selves we affirme the former and that because our choyce of him is a gift he himselfe bestoweth onely on them whom he hath chosen Sixthly and principally the effects of election infallibly following it cannot be the causes of election certainly praeceding it this is evident for nothing can be the cause and the effect of the same thing before and after it selfe but all our faith our obedience repentance good workes are the effects of election flowing from it as their proper fountaine erected on it as the foundation of this spirituall building and for this the Article of our Church is evident and cleere Those saith it that are indued with this excellent benefit of God are called according to Gods purpose are iustified freely are made the sonnes of God by adoption they be made like the image of Christ they walke religiously in good workes c. Where first they are said to be partakers of this benefit of election and then by vertue thereof to be entitled to the fruition of all those graces Secondly it saith those who are endued with this benefit enioy those blessings intimating that election is the rule whereby God proceedeth in bestowing those graces restraining the objects of the temporall acts of Gods speciall favour to them onely whom his eternall decree doth embrace both these indeed are denied by the Arminians which maketh a further discovery of their Heterodoxies in this particular You say saith Arminius to Perkins that election is the rule of giving or not giving of faith and therefore election is not of the faithfull but faith of the elect but by your leave this I must deny but yet what ever it is the sophisticall heretique here denies either antecedent or conclusion he fals foule on the word of God they beleeved saith the holy Ghost who were ordained to eternall life Act. 3. 48. And the Lord added daily to his Church such as should de saved Act. 2. 47. from both which places it is evident that God bestoweth faith onely on them whom he hath praeordained eternall life but most cleerely Rom. 8. 29 30. for whom he did fore-know he also predestinated to be conformed to the Image of his Sonne moreover whom he did predestinate them also he called and whom he called them he also iustified and whom he iustified them also glorified Saint Austin interpreted this place by adding in every linke of the chaine onely those how ever the words directly import a precedency of predestination before the bestowing of other graces and also a restraint of those graces to them onely that are so predestinate Now the inference from this is not onely for the forme Logicall but for the matter also it containeth the very words of Scripture faith is of Gods elect Titus 1. 1. For the other part of the proposition that faith and obedience are the fruits of election they cannot be more peremptory in its denyall then the Scripture is plentifull in its confirmation He hath chosen us in Christ that we should be holy Ephes 1. 4. not because we were holy but that we should be so holinesse whereof faith is the root and obedience the body is that whereunto and not for which we are elected the end and the meritorious cause of any one act cannot be the same they have divers respects and require repugnant conditions againe we are predestinated unto the adoption of
children by Iesus Christ vers 5. adoption is that whereby we are assumed into the family of God when before we are forreigners aliens strangers a far off which we see is a fruit of our predestination though it be the very entrance into that estate wherein we begin first to please God in the least measure of the same nature are all those places of holy writ which speake of Gods giving some unto Christ of Christs sheepe hearing his voyce and of others not hearing because they are not of his sheepe all which and divers other invincible reasons I willingly omit with sundry other false assertions and hereticall positions of the Arminians about this fundamentall Article of our Religion concluding this Chapter with the following scheme S. S. Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Sonne that he might be the first borne among many brethren moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also iustified and whom he iustified them he also glorified so that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Rom. 8. 29 30. 39. He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy Ephes 1. 4. Not for the workes that we have done but according to his owne purpose and grace which was given us in Iesus Christ before the world began 2 Tim. 1. 9. For the children being not yet borne before they had done either good or evill that the purpose of God which is according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth c. Rom. 9. 11. Whatsoever the Father giveth that cometh unto me Ioh. 11. Many are called but few are chosen Matth. 22. 14. Feare not little flock it is your Fathers pleasure to give you the kingdome Luk. 12. 32. What hast thou that thou hast not received 1 Cor. 4. 7. Are we better then they no in no wise Rom. 3. 9. But we are predestinated to the adoption of children by Iesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will Ephes 1. 5. Iohn 6. 37. 39. Iohn 10. 3. Chap. 13. 18. and 17. 6. Act. 13. 48. Titus 1. 1. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Iames 1. 17 c. Lib. Arbit No such will can be ascribed unto God whereby he so would have any to be saved that from thence his salvation should bee sure and infallible Arminius I acknowledge no sense no perception of any such election in this life Grevinch We deny that Gods election unto salvation extendeth it selfe to singular persons Remonst Coll. Hag. As we are iustified by faith so we are not elected but by faith Grevinch We professe roundly that faith is considered by God as a condition preceding election and not following as a fruit thereof Rem Coll. Hag. The sole and onely cause of election is not the will of God but the respect of our obedience Episcopius For the cause of this love to any person is the goodnesse faith and piety wherewith according to Gods command and his owne dutie he is endued is pleasing to God Rem Apol. God hath determined to grant the meanes of salvation unto all without difference and according as he fore-seeth men will use those meanes so he determineth of them Corvin The summe of their doctrine is God hath appointed the obedience of faith to be the meanes of salvation if men fulfill this condition he determineth to save them which is their election but if after they have entred the way of godlines they fall frō it they loose also their predestination if they will returne againe they are chosen anew and if they can hold out to the end then and for that continuance they are peremptorily elected or postdestinated after they are saved now whether these positions may be gathered from those places of Scripture which deliver this doctrine lot any man iudge CHAP. VII Of Originall sinne and the corruption of nature HErod the great imparting his counsell of rebuilding the Temple unto the Iewes they much feared he would never be able to accomplish his intention but like an unwise builder having demolished the old before he had sate downe and cast up his account whether he were able to erect a new they should by his project be deprived of a Temple wherefore to satisfie their jealousies he resolved as he tooke downe any part of the other presently to erect a portion of the new in the place thereof Right so the Arminians determining to demolish the building of divine providence grace and favour by which men have hitherto ascended into heaven and fearing lest we should be troubled finding our selves on a sudden deprived of that wherein we reposed our confidence for happinesse they have by degrees erected a Babylonish Tower in the roome thereof whose top they would perswade us shall reach unto heaven First therefore the foundation stones they bring forth crying haile haile unto them and pitch them on the sandy rotten ground of our owne natures Now because heretofore some wise master-builders had discovered this ground to be very unfit to be the basis of such a lofty erection by reason of a corrupt issue of blood and filth arising in the middest thereof and over-spreading the whole platforme to incourage men to an association in this desperate attempt they proclaime to all that there is no such evill fountaine in the plaine which they have chosen for the foundation of their proud building setting up it selfe against the knowledge of God in plaine termes having rejected the providence of God from being the Originall of that goodnesse of entity which is in our actions and his predestination from being the cause of that morall and spirituall goodnesse where with any of them are cloathed they endeavour to draw the praise of both to the rectitude of their nature and the strength of their owne endeavours but this attempt in the latter case being thought to be altogether vaine because of the disabilitie and corruption of nature by reason of originall sinne propagated unto us all by our first Parents whereby it is become wholly voyd of integritie and holinesse and we all become wise and able to doe evill but to doe good have no power no understanding therefore they utterly reject this imputation of an inherent originall guilt and demerit of punishment as an enemie to our upright and well deserving condition and Oh that they were as able to root it out of the hearts of all men that it should never more be there as they have been to perswade the heads of divers that it was never there at all If any would know how considerable this Article concerning Originall sinne hath ever been accounted in the Church of Christ let him but consult the writings of Saint Augustine Prosper Hilary Fulgentius any of those learned Fathers whom God stirred up to resist and enabled to overcome the spreading Pelagian heresie or looke on those many
and that powerfully by the effectuall operation of his holy Spirit to which the Arminians oppose a seeming necessitie that they must needs be our owne acts contradistinct from his gifts because they are in us and commanded by him the head then of this contention betwixt our God and their Idol about the living child of grace is whether he can worke that in us which he requireth of us let us heare them pleading their cause It is most certaine that that ought not to be commanded which is wrought in us and that cannot be wrought in us which is commanded he foolishly commandeth that to be done of others who will worke in them what he commandeth saith their Apologie O foolish Saint Prosper who thought that it was the whole Pelagian heresie to say That there is neither praise nor worth as ours in that which Christ bestoweth upon us foolish Saint Augustine praying Give us O Lord what thou commandest and command what thou wilt foolish Benedict Bishop of Rome who gave such a forme to his prayer as must needs cast an aspersion of folly on the most high O Lord saith he teach us what we should do shew us whither we should goe worke in us what we ought to performe O foolish Fathers of the second Arausican Councel affirming that many good things are done in man which he doth not himselfe but a man doth no good which God doth not so worke that he should doe it And againe as often as we doe good God worketh in us and with us that we may so worke In one word this makes fooles of all the Doctors of the Church who ever opposed the Pelagian heresie in as much as they all unanimously maintained that we are partakers of no good thing in this kinde without the effectuall powerfull operation of the Almightie grace of God and yet our faith and obedience so wrought in us to be most acceptable unto him yea what shall we say to the Lord himselfe in one place commanding us to feare him and in another promising that he will put his feare into our hearts that we shall not depart from him is his command foolish or his promise false the Arminians must affirme the one or renounce their heresie but of this after I have a little farther laid open this monstrous errour from their owne words and writings Can any one say they wisely and seriously prescribe the performance of a condition to another under the promise of a reward and threatning of punishment who will effect it in him to whom it is prescribed this is a ridiculous action scarce worthy of the Stage that is seeing Christ hath affirmed that whosoever beleeveth shall be saved and he that beleeveth not shall be damned Matth. 16. 16. whereby faith is established the condition of salvation and unbeleefe threatned with hell If God should by his holy Spirit ingenerate faith in the hearts of any causing them so to fulfill the condition it were a meere mockery to be exploded from a Theater as an unlikely fiction which what an aspersion it casts upon the whole Gospel of Christ yea on all Gods dealling with the children of men ever since by reason of the fall they became unable of themselves to fulfill his commands I leave to all mens silent judgements well then seeing they must be accounted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things inconsistent that God should be so righteous as to shew us our dutie and yet so good and mercifull as to bestow his graces on us let us heare more of this stuffe faith and conversion cannot be our obedience if they are worught in us by God say they at the Hague and Episcopius That it is a most absurd thing to affirme that God either effects by his power or procureth by his wisedeme that the elect should doe those things that he requireth of them So that where the Scripture cals faith the gift and worke of God they say it is an improper locution in as much as he commands it properly it is an act or worke of our owne And for that renowned saying of Saint Augustine that God crowneth his own gifts in us that it is not to be received without a graine of salt That is some such glosse as wherewith they corrupt the Scripture the summe at which they aime is that to affirme that God bestoweth any grace upon us or effectually worketh them in us contradicteth his word requiring them as our dutie and obedience by which means they have erected their Idol into the throne of Gods free grace and mercy and attribute unto it all the praise due to those many heavenly qualifications the servants of God are endowed withall for they never have more good in them no nor so much as is required all that they have or doe is but their dutie which how derogatorie it is to the merit of Christ themselves seeme to acknowledge when they affirme that he is no otherwise said to be a Saviour then are all they who confirme the way to salvation by preaching miracles martyrdome and example so that having quite overthrowne the merits of Christ they grant us to be our owne Saviours in a very large sense Rem Apol. fol. 96. All which assertions how contrary they are to the expresse word of God I shall now demonstrate There is not one of all those plaine texts of Scripture not one of those innumerable and invincible arguments whereby the effectuall working of Gods grace in the conversion of a sinner his powerfull translating us from death to life from the state of sinne and bondage to the libertie of the sonnes of God which doth not overthrow this prodigious error I will content my selfe with instancing in some few of them which are directly opposite unto it even in termes First Deuter. 10. 16. The Lord commandeth the Israelites to circumcise the fore-skin of their hearts and to be no more stiffe necked so that the circumcising of their hearts was a part of their obedience it was their dutie so to do in obedience to Gods commands and yet in the 30. Chapter vers 6. he affirmeth that he will circumcise their hearts that they might love the Lord their God with all their hearts So that it seemes the same thing in divers respects may be Gods act in us and our dutie towards him and how the Lord will here escape the Arminian censure that if his words be true in the latter place his command in the former is vaine and foolish ipse viderit let him plead his cause and avenge himselfe on those that rise up against him Secondly Ezek. 18. 31. Make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will you die O house of Israel The making of a new heart and a new spirit is here required under a promise of a reward of life and a great threatning of eternall death so that so to doe must needs be a part of their dutie and obedience
of a new vitall principle by the powerfull working of the holy Spirit And indeed granting this I shall most willingly comply with them in assigning to Free-will one of the endowments before recited a power of resisting the operation of grace but instead of the other must needs ascribe to our whole corrupted nature and every one that is partaker of it an universall disabilitie of obeying it or coupling in that worke which God by his grace doth intend If the grace of our conversion be nothing but a morall perswasion we have no more power of obeying it in that estate wherein we are dead in sinne then a man in his grave hath in himselfe to live a new and come out at the next call Gods promises and the Saints prayers in the holy Scripture seeme to designe such a kinde of grace as should give us a reall internall abilitie of doing that which is spiritually good but it seemes there is no such matter for if a man should perswade me to leape over the Thames or to flye in the Ayre be he never so eloquent his sole perswasion makes me no more able to doe it then I was before ever I saw him If Gods grace be nothing but a sweet perswasion though never so powerfull it is a thing extrinsecall consisting in the proposall of a desired object but gives us no new strength at all to doe any thing we had not before a power to doe But let us heare them pleading themselves to each of these particulars concerning Grace and Nature and first for the nature of Grace God hath appointed to save beleevers by grace that is a soft and sweet perswasion convenient and agreeing to their free-will and not by any Almighty action saith Arminius It seemes something strange that the carnall minde being enmitie against God and the will inthralled to sinne and full of wretched opposition to all his wayes yet God should have no other meanes to worke them over unto him but some perswasion that is sweet agreeable and congruous unto them in that estate wherein they are and a small exaltation it is of the dignitie and power of grace when the chiefe reason why it is effectuall as Alvarez observes may be reduced to a well digested supper or an indisturbed sleepe whereby some men may be brought into better temper then ordinarie to comply with this congruous grace But let us for the present accept of this and grant that God doth call some by such a congruous perswasion at such a time and place as he knows they will assent unto it I aske whether God thus calleth all men or onely some if all why are not all converted for the very granting of it to be congruous makes it effectuall If onely some then why they and not others Is it out of a speciall intention to have them obedient but let them take heed for this will goe neere to establish the decree of election and out of what other intention it should be they shall never be able to determine Wherefore Corvinus denies that any such congruitie is required to the grace whereby we are converted but onely that it be a morall perswasion which we may obey if we will and so make it effectuall Yea and Arminius himselfe after he had defended it as farre as he was able puts it off from himselfe and falsly fathers it upon Saint Austine So that as they joyntly affirme they confesse no grace for the begetting of faith to be necessary but onely that which is morall which one of them interpreteth to be a declaration of the Gospel unto us Right like their old Master Pelagius God saith he worketh in us to will that which is good and to will that which is holy whilest he stirs us up with promise of rewards and the greatnesse of the future glory who before were given over to earthly desires like bruit beasts loving nothing but things present stirring up our stupid wils to a desire of God by a revelation of wisedome and perswading us to all that is good Both of them affirme the grace of God to be nothing but a morall perswasion working by the way of powerfull convincing arguments but yet herein Pelagius seemes to ascribe a greater efficacie to it then the Arminians granting that it workes upon us when after the manner of bruit beasts we are set meerely on earthly things but these as they confesse that for the production of faith it is necessarie that such arguments be proposed on the part of God to which nothing can probably be opposed why they should not seeme credible so there is say they required on our part a pious docilitie and probitie of minde So that all the grace of God bestowed on us consisteth in perswasive arguments out of the word which if they meet with teachable mindes may worke their conversion Secondly having thus extenuated the grace of God they affirme That in operation the efficacie thereof dependeth on Free-will so the Remonstrants in their Apologie And to speake confidently saith Grevinchovius I say that the effect of grace in an ordinary course dependeth on some act of our free-will Suppose then that of two men made partakers of the same grace that is have the Gospel preached unto them by the same meanes one is converted and the other is not What may be the cause of this so great a difference Was there any intention or purpose in God that one should be changed rather then the other No He equally desireth and intendeth the conversion of all and every one Did then God worke more powerfully in the heart of the one by his holy Spirit then of the other No The same operation of the spirit alwayes accompanieth the same preaching of the word But was not one by some Almightie action made partaker of reall infused grace which the other attained not unto No for that would destroy the liberty of his will and deprive him of all the praise of beleeving How then came this extreme difference of effects Who made the one differ from the other or what hath he that he did not receive Why all this procedeth meerly from the strength of his owne free-will yeelding obedience to Gods gracious invitation which like the other he might have reiected This is the immediate cause of his conversion to which all the praise thereof is due And here the old Idol may glory to all the world that if he can but get his worshippers to prevaile in this he hath quite excluded the grace of Christ and made it nomen inane a meere title whereas there is no such thing in the world Thirdly they teach That notwithstanding any purpose and intention of God to convert and so to save a sinner notwithstanding the most powerfull and effectuall operation of the blessed spirit with the most winning perswasive preaching of the word yet it is in the power of a man to frustrate that purpose resist that operation
and reiect that preaching of the Gospell I shall not need to prove this for it is that which in direct tearmes they plead for which also they must doe if they will comply with their former principles For granting all these to have no influence upon any man but by the way of morall perswasion we must not onely grant that it may be resisted but also utterly deny that it can be obeyed We may resist it I say as having both a disability to good and repugnancie against it but for obeying it unlesse we will deny all inherent corruption and depravation of nature we cannot attribute any such sufficiency unto our selves Now concerning this weaknes of grace that it is not able to overcome the opposing power of sinfull nature one testimony of Arminius shall suffice It alwaies remaineth in the power of Free-will to reiect grace that is given and to refuse that which followeth for grace is no Almightie action of God to which Free-will cannot resist Not that I would assert in opposition to this such an operation of grace as should as it were violently overcome the will of man and force him to obedience which must needs bee prejudicial unto our libertie but onely consisting in such a sweet effectuall working as doth infallibly promote our conversion make us willing who before were unwilling and obedient who were not obedient that createth cleane hearts and reneweth right spirits within us That then which we assert in opposition to these Arminian Heterodoxies is that the effectuall grace which God useth in the great worke of our conversion by reason of its owne nature being also the instrument of and Gods intention for that purpose doth surely produce the effect intended without successefull resistance and solely without any considerable co-operation of our owne wils untill they are prepared and changed by that very grace The infallibilitie of its effect depends chiefely on the purpose of God when by any meanes he intends a mans conversion those meanes must have such an efficacie added unto them as may make them fit instruments for the accomplishment of that intention that the counsell of the Lord may prosper and his word not returne empty But the manner of its operation that it requires no humane assistance and is able to overcome all repugnance is proper to the being of such an act as wherein it doth consist Which nature and efficacie of grace in opposition to an indifferent influence of the holy Spirit a metaphoricall motion a working by the way of morall perswasion onely proposing a desireable object easie to be resisted and not effectuall unlesse it be helped by an inbred abilitie of our owne which is the Arminian grace I will briefly confirme having promised these few things First although God doth not use the wills of men in their conversion as maligne Spirits use the members of men in enthusiasmes by a violently wrested motion but sweetly and agreeably to their owne free nature yet in the first act of our conversion the will is meerely passive as a capable subject of such a worke not at all concurring co-operatively to our turning It is not I say the cause of the worke but the subject wherein it is wrought having only a passive capabilitie for the receiving of that supernaturall being which is introduced by grace The beginning of this good worke is meerely from God Phil. 1. 6. Yea faith is ascribed unto grace not by the way of conjunction with but of opposition unto our wils not of our selves it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. Not that we are sufficient of our selves our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. Turne thou me O Lord and I shall be turned Secondly though the will of man conferreth nothing to the infusion of the first grace but a subjective receiving of it yet in the very first act that is wrought in and by the will it most freely co-operateth by the way of subordination with the grace of God and the more effectually it is moved by grace the more freely it worketh with it Man being converted converteth himselfe Thirdly we doe not affirme grace to be irresistible as though it came upon the will with such an over-flowing violence as to beat it downe before it and subdue it by compulsion to what it is no way inclinable but if that terme must be used it denoteth in our sense onely such an unconquerable efficacie of grace as alwaies and infallibly produceth its effect For Who is it that can withstand God Acts 11. 17. As also it may be used on the part of the will it selfe which will not resist it all that the Father gives unto Christ will come unto him Ioh. 6. 37. The operation of grace is resisted by no hard heart because it mollifies the heart it selfe It doth not so much take away a power of resisting as give a will of obeying whereby the powerfull impotencie of resistance is removed Fourthly Concerning grace it selfe it is either common or speciall common or generall grace consisteth in the externall revelation of the will of God by his word with some illumination of the mind to perceive it and correction of the affections not to much to contemne it and this in some degree or other to some more to some lesse is common to all that are called speciall grace is the grace of regeneration comprehending the former adding more spirituall acts but especially presupposing the purpose of God on which its efficacy doth chiefly depend Fifthly This saving grace whereby the Lord converteth or regenerateth a sinner translating him from death to life is either externall or internall externall consisteth in the preaching of the word c. whose operation is by the way of morall perswasion when by it we beseech our hearers in Christs stead that they would be reconciled unto God 2 Corinth 5. 20. and this in our conversion is the instrumentall organ thereof and may be said to be a sufficient cause of our regeneration in as much as no other in the same kinde is necessary it may also be resisted in sensa diviso abstracting from that consideration wherein it is looked on as the instrument of God for such an end Sixthly internall grace is by Divines distinguished into the first or preventing grace and the second following cooperating grace the first is that spirituall vitall principle that is infused into us by the holy Spirit that new creation and bestowing of new strength whereby we are made fit and able for the producing of spirituall acts to beleeve and yeeld Evangelicall obedience For we are the workmanship of God created in Christ Iesus unto good workes Ephes 2. 10. By this God gives us a new heart and a new spirit he puts within us he taketh the stony hearts out of our flesh and gives us a heart of flesh he puts his spirit within us to cause us to walke in his statues Ezek. 36. 26 27. Now this first grace is not properly and formally