every man in the world In this likewise the novice leads me in a mist for if his meaning be that the death of Christ and the shedding of his bloud is sufficient for every man in the world but effectuall onely to those to whom it is intended then I joyn with him but if he be otherwise minded then the close of that Position trips up the heels of the former part But I could have heartily wisht that this Seraphical Doctor had not so magisterially dogmatized and after an Apostolical manner sat in his Cathedral Chair by delivering his dictates like an ipse dixit I say unto you but rathet that he had endeavoured to have proved out of the sacred Scriptures what he hath so crudely ventilated so might we better have tryed the spirits whether they be of God or no 1 Ioh. 4.1 Truly I do profess by what I find in these positions I cannot discern of what sect he is for by what he writes he is neither pure Pelagian Papist Arminian Socinian nor Anabaptist but a hotch-porch of them all jumbled together And that as it is written of Mahomet at the first he framed his Alchoran by the advice of Sergius the Monk a renagado partly of the Jews partly of the Christians and partly of the Gentiles opinions so hath this Evangelist composed his doctrinals So that in this we may see what fruits may be expected at Cockolds-pit and all such places of such illiterate and confused assemblies ex ungue leonâ—m ex pede Herculem If the blind lead the blind both must fall together into the ditch Matth. 15.14 But so it was in the Apostles time there arose such amongst them who desiring to be teachers 1 Tim. 1.7 understood not what they said themselves nor wherof they affirmed yea this was foreprophesied 2 Pet 2.1 that false teachers should arise up amongst them who should bring in damnable heresies but never so fully accomplisht as in these our dayes wherein many unheard of formerly and blasphemous opinions are daily ventituted under some specious appearances of truth and holiness The God of love and truth lead us into all truth So prayeth he that is the less then the least of all Saints James Rawson Short heads of the subsequent discourse THe title of the Pamphlet examined Page 1 2 The Preface examined 4 Toleration rightly stated 5 Magistrates power to interpose in matters of Religion 6 Bishops vindicated 7 Matth. 23.29 30. interpreted 8 Whether the doctrine of the Anabaptists be tolerable 9 Who are inconstant in their profession 11 2 Cor. 10.4 5. Examined 12 Eph. 6.11 12. Examined 13 Universal redemption offered to consideration 14 Isa 53.4 5 6. Interpreted 15 16 Psal 145.8 9. Cleared 17 Joh. 3.16 17. Opened 18 Rom. 5.18 19 2 Cor. 5.14 15. Interpreted 20 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Discussed 21 Tit. 2.11 Examined 22 Heb. 2.9 and 1 Pet. 3.9 Opened 23 Baptisme of Infants confirmed 24 c. Whether the Anabaptists be fixt to their principles page 27 Or at unity among themselves 28 Thom. Tazwells first position questioned 29 Whether the second position be not Pelagianisme 30 Ambiguity in the stating of the position 31 Psal 4.3 Explained 31 Who they be that are elected 32 Psal 37.9 c. Opened 34 Pro. 3.33 and Mar. 16.16 Discussed 34 Of the decrees of God 35 Of Gods foreknowledge and predestination 36 Of election 38 Of reprobation 39 My first Argument confirmed 40 Gods foreknowledge Independent 41 The pamphleter plowes with another mans heyfer page 42. As God decrees the end so likewise he decrees the means 43 Election to be distinguished from justification 44 Arminians make faith a foreseen cause of election page 45 c. Deut. 7.7 8. Expounded 48 Faith no foreseen cause of election 50 What place faith hath in justification 52 Rom. 9.1 c. ad ver 19. Analysed and interpreted page 53 c. The laws impotency to satisfie 57 What efficacy faith hath in justification 58 How God a respecter of persons to be understood 59 Absolute justification flows from Absolute election 60 Faith as much as works excluded from election 61 Gods alone will the cause of cause of election 62 Grace flows from the decree of election 63 Acts 13.48 Vindicated 64 c. Absurdities following foreseen faith in election 68 Other absurdities following that doctrine 69 What God did foresee in election 71 Marks of election no causes of election 72 Instrumental causes of salvation no causes of election 73 As God decreed the end so he decreed the means 74 Joh. 16.27 Explained 75 Of reprobation 76 Eph. 1.5 Discussed 77 Of the decree of election 78 Isa 45.9 Opened 79 No contradiction in what I do assert 80 What place Gods foresight in election and reprobation 81 God as he decrees the end so he decrees the means 82 The pamphleter begs the question 83 A twofold reprobation one before all time another in time 84 The pamphleter interferes with his own positions 85 Could Reprobates truly believe they might be saved 86 Reprobation includes both a denyal of the end and means of salvation 86 God the immediate worker of all spiritual graces 87 Sin foreseen not the cause of Reprobation 89 Sin the efflux not the effect of reprobation 90 Sin the consequent of reprobation 91 Our doctrine intrenches not on the divine attributes 92 Reprobation inforceth not to sin 93 A threefold necessity 94 Reprobation as by us stated not against the mercy of God 95 Nor against the truth of God 96 Ezek. 18.23 32. and 33.11 Explained 97 Absolute reprobation and exhortation to repentance argue no Hypocrisie in God 99 Absolute non election not against the wisdome of God 100 Isa 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Interpreted 101 God may expect the performance of our duty though we cannot do it 103 Matth. 11.25 26. Vindicated 104 What God doth in time he decreed to do before all time 105 What power we have to do good we have from God the redeemer 106 Those whom God decrees to save he decrees to save them by faith 108 Sin the cause of positive reprobation viz. of damnation 109 1 Pet. 2.8 Vindicated 111 c. Rom. 9.19 c. Analysed and interpreted 116 c. Thom. Tazwells uses upon the doctrine of reprobation 124 What use the Saints may make thereof 125 Though there be no external yet there is an internal cause of reprobation viz. the will of God 128 Arminian positions very aequivocal 129 Rom. 11.33 44. Vindicated 139 Mille narianism not inconsistent with the Articles of faith 132 Absurdities cleaving to Tho. Tazwells positions 132 Whether sin foreseen be the cause of reprobation 133 c. Whether Infants may have faith though not the use of faith 135 c. Whether any Infant can be damned 137 Infants elected or reprobated as well as others 138 c. Hope onely of such Infants as are within the covenant 140 The Spirit of God and not the word that doth regenerate 141 Rom. 4.15 and 5.13 Opened
his own will and accountable to none it is lawful for him to do what he will with his own c. Mat. 29.15 Rom. 11.35 As a just Judge and so he punisheth none but for sinne Rom. 1 32. 2 Thess 1.6 And thus having drawn you a fair copy of election and Predestination I am now at leisure to see what you will say to my first Argument which in forme is this If the rise of our election be sounded on the meer mercy and free grace of God then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing the means of salvation But it is founded in the meer mercy and free grace of God therefore not upon the foresight of the embracing the means To which you frame this answer The first proposition or Major he saith is unquestionable and that is all the proof that we have from him for it saying there is but one cause to produce the effect The Minor he bringeth Scripture for the proof of it the truth of which I do not question the Scriptures are Deut. 7.7 8. and 10.15 Matth. 20.15 Luk. 12.32 Rom. 9.11 18 21. Eph. 1.5 11. 2 Tim. 1.9 The Minor it appears you give fair quarter to and let it pass upon its paroll T is the major you quarrel at as having nothing to second it but this saying that there is but one cause to produce the effect and truly Sir I believe that might have been unquestionable to any but you and your comrades who do nodum in scirpo quaerere I had thought it might have past for unquestionable divinity that God is so jealous a God that he will not communicate his glory to any other and that if any act of Grace pass singly and solely from himself that then no other creature could have been a copartner with him and that if of grace then not of works which is nothing else but the embracing of the means And to that foundation which was laid before all time other foundation can no man lay then that is laid especially in time And that as to the foreknowledge of God or his foresight God doth not foresee any thing which he hath not decreed either efficaciously to do or permit to be done So that his foreknowledge should rest upon the decree and at no hand to depend on the things to be done but that all things depend upon that and that God did see nothing in their causes which he did not before see in his decree these I thought had been unquestionable truths till Thomas Faswel calls them into question pretending that though grace may be of free and meer mercy yet there may be a concurrence of mans actings in the embracing of the means And whence doth all this arise but from an embasing of the Majesty of God by measuring his corn by your bushel Isa 55.8 9. making his waies like our waies and his thoughts like our thoughts No Sir I would have you go to school and learn the vast difference between humane and divine knowledge humane knowledge doth depend upon the existence of things and things are the measure thereof but for divine knowledge that is the measure of things and things depend upon that not that on them And certainly unless this be granted the foundation of divine providence must needs come to wrack God could not hold his prerogative royal of being the first cause of all things yea second causes would be made independent in many acts yea consequently in all for how the second cause could work or be appointed to work without the concourse of the first cause it looks like contradictio in objecto Or how else could God certainly foresee such things to come to pass which are supposed onely to be foreseen and not withal to be provided for and preordained For as the things are so is the knowledge of the things and that which hath not certain causes of futurition cannot certainly be foreknown for certainly to foreknow what is not certainly to come to pass is to have a knowledge of a thing not as what it is but as what it is not and what will then become of Gods foreknowledge But whereto tends the designe of the adversary surely that an in let may be made and beds of roses troden out to introduce that great Diana the liberty of the will to choose or refuse what shall be presented to it notwithstanding all prescience or decree and to make that a â—oynt-share with God nay if not to have the greatest predominan y in the whole work of mans salvation so placing nature in the stead and room of grace but let God bâ— true and all men lyars For mine own sake yea even for mine own sake will I do it and I will not give my glory unto another Isa 48.12 You double your alarm against my Major thus But notwithstanding he setteth such a strong guard upon his Major saying it is unquestionable yet I must needs question the the mans meaning in the sequel or consequence of it Then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing the means of salvation Non veniunt e pharetris istae sagittae tuis Answ These notions were not darted out of a weavers shuttle Sir you are too well known then that any man can believe you that you can spit out Greek and speak in a dream of propositions Categorical Hypothetical antecedent consequent Major Minor sequel c. It was not the Serpent that spoke but the Devil in the Serpent Judg. 14.18 Doubtless you plough with another mans heifer Not that I atttribute any such excellency to the piece for as it will appear it is full gorged with abundance of falsities incongruities inconsistencies that no profest Scholler might own it and therefore what Davus soever it was that was your confederate he thought it best to lie coucht under the shadow of your wing and so make you his Bellerophon his packhorse to bear all his absurdities shame and scorn and so you must for I know none else that will proceed as you do Now if his meaning be that God doth not at all respect the embracing of the means of salvation then it is by me denyed for although mans believing and obeying the Gospel or embracing the means of salvation be not to be accounted of as a motive incentive or a procuring ground or cause for which God elects men and women to eternal life yet it hath been the good will and pleasure of our God through his loving kindness and freeness of his grace even when he was at liberty and might have left mankind in that lost and perishing condition that mans sinne had brought him into and have been just in so doing but I say it hath been his pleasure when he was at liberty to engage himself by purpose and decree to elect justifie and save all those men and women that did or should in time embrace the means of salvation which from before the foundation of the world he did intend
when I meet it in its due place I shall then encounter it In the mean time for what is comprehended in this Section If I should yield you all I should receive no loss by it not your cause any advantage and therefore I shall dismiss it with the appendant question and answers without further trouble to my self or the Reader Onely let me tell you that so far as I perceive by your discourse you have not dived into the bottom of the absurdity contracted to your self by your Position which doth assert that the rejection of that means of salvation viz. the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel and continuing in sin and unbelief are the causes of reprobation as conceiving it inconsistent with the justice mercy and wisdom of God to reprobate without these causes whereas our constant affirmation is that the sole good will and pleasure of God is the alone and single cause of non election or negative reprobation from eternity God having that absolute power over his creature as that it rests solely in his will not to elect him but to suffer him to sin and so to run himself into eternal perdition and that therefore those who are contrary minded that do imagine that this absolute non election cannot well consist with the divine attributes as his justice mercy wisdom c. as you do in your strange acclamation p. 16. Then you do confine the infinite soveraignty of God that he hath over his creature as though he might not do with his own what he list without our controll but as I have shewed he may either annihilate or cast into hell whom he pleaseth as Lord Paramount But to this you have spoken nothing at all as to this reprobation all that you have said is to a Gospel declaratory way that no man gainsayes neither is it the subject of this our present discourse But you further write And so it cometh to pass that those two different events which do or shall befall the sons of men which is salvation to all that sort or kind of people that do imbrace the means and believe in Jesus Christ and reprobation and everlasting destruction to the other sort or kind of people that do continue in sin and unbelief rejecting the means of salvation and these two different events come to pass according to that purpose and decree of God which was from before the foundation of the world but the decree of God which was before time doth not necessitate thse different actings of men that came forth in their generations in time which is the penitency faithfulness and obedience of those that thereby come to be under the decree of election to everlasting life nor the impenitency unbelief and disobedience of those that for that cause fall under the decree of reprobation to everlasting destruction no more then the law and decree that was made by the Governours of this Nation many ages and generations past concerning the protection of honest men and the punishment of them that do evil But as the decree that was made as aforesaid many ages and generations past since it was made is yet a tendency and conducement if it be considered of to lead all men to live honestly So the decree of God that was before time and published or made known to the sons of men in time is so far from the necessitating men to do wickedly viz. to continue in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation that it is of such tendency and conducement upon the right consideration thereof in respect of the great benefit on the one hand to be the portion of penitent and obedient persons believing in Jesus Christ and the great woe and misery on the other hand that doth and will befal all those that continue in sin and unbelief and reject the means of salvation that it doth I say being considered of as aforesaid tend strongly to the perswading of all ungodly persons speedily to break of their sins by righteousness and their iniquities by cleaving unto Jesus Christ in believing and walking in that truth undoubtedly they shall be saved Answ T is right Sir what you say that there is salvation for one sort of people and destruction for another sort of people and that according to the decree of God from all eternity But when you are put to it notwithstanding the decree all may be saved and none damned or all may be damned and none saved for you do not affirm that God hath purposed any thing as to persons but meerly as to qualifications T is likewise true we say as you that he that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and this is according to decree but this is not all that is decreed for some particulars he hath elected others he hath not elected but reprobated those whom he hath elected he hath likewise decreed to give them faith and therefore it is called the faith of Gods elect Tit. 1.1 The rest he hath decreed not to give them he hath denied them that grace he did not bear so much of love unto them as to those he did elect It is likewise true what you say that the decrees of God do not necessitate the different actings of men if you mean such a necessity as of compulsion or coaction but if we have a respect unto a necessity either of infallibility or immutability and so Quicquid fit necessario fit in respect of these all things that are are necessarily so as they are for Gods foresight cannot be deceived and his decrees cannot be changed But of this sufficiently hath been spoken before pag. 95. and 96. To what you say that the published decrees of God are of such a tendency and conducement to the perswading of men to forsake their sins and believe in Jesus Christ I deny not but that those decrees which are so published in the Scriptures may be of the like import as some other portions of Scripture are viz. of tendency to perswade men to forsake their sins and believe in Jesus Christ But I must tell you that they are onely morally and instrumentally so and not physically they work onely on the outward man they cannot change the heart that is Gods chamber of presence Prov. 21.1 there is his throne alone t is he alone that changeth that and turnes it as the rivers of water Phil. 1.29 2 Tim. 3.25 Ezek. 11.19 Rom. 8.15 2 Co. 5.14 Joh. 1.12 Cant. 8.6 Were those decrees published unto men every houre yet they can never work faith until that God shall give them to believe and repent and take away their stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh Somewhat they may do by setting forth the danger and horror of a reprobate estate and so to bring a man under the Spirit of bondage to fear but surely it is the alone love of Jesus Christ that hath a constraining power to put a man into a capacity
the purpose and therefore to clear the point between us I shall give you a brief Analysis of this part of that chapter From the 1. ver to the 20. of it is comprised a prophesie of deliverance to the people of Israel from the captivity of Babylon In the 6 first verses this is declared that God will do it That which was the main obstruction which hindered the work was the murmuring of the people that they were so long in captivity as though that God had dealt unjustly with them in suffering the Babylonians to oppress them so long Against this God asserts his own justice partly from the baseness and vileness of them that did so murmur partly from the Majesty of him against whom they did murmur both of which he illustrates by two examples one was feigned where is brought in the potsheard contending with his maker ver 9. woe unto him that striveth with his maker let the potsheard strive with the potsheards of the earth shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it what makest thou or thy work he hath no hands Wherein expostulating with the murmuring Israelites because he suffered their captivity so long he vindicates his own power and sovereignty over all his creatures the work of his hands and therefore that he hath a free disposing power over them to do with them what shall seeme good in his own eyes They were but as clay in the hands of the potter base vile contemptible compared with God their maker fram'd of a lump of earth and therefore if the potter have so much power when he hath made a vessel to dash it in pieces hath not God much more power to dispose of his own fabricke without a dispute had with sinful flesh and to be made obnoxious to render an acount for his so doing And I pray wise Sir revise my writing again and see whether this text of Isa is not most apposite to prove so much as I intended it for which howsoever it was not specifically to Reprobation in terminis yet it clearly proves the absolute sovereignty and power that God hath over all his creatures that he hath made to put them into what condition he shall please without any replication to be made by the creature he is Lord Paramount of our lives estates and fortunes and hath the Keyes both of Hell and death Rev. 1.18 and as he is Lord of his creatures may dash in pieces and send to hell the greatest majesty on earth without the control of any Job 9.12 who can hinder him or who shall say unto him what dost thou And did I cite that text to any other purpose then to prove this absolute sovereignty as most expresly it doth notwithstanding your put blind eyes could not discern it That which follows is a chip of the same block and hath as little marrow in it as this which is before where you write And how this which he hath here set down will agree together I shall leave to reasonable men to judge viz. That there is no other ground or reason assigned for Reprobation either of Sin unbelief or rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy will and yet say it is true that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments Answ Sir I shall with as much confidence expose my self to the censure of any reasonable men whether there be any inconsistency or not rather a sweet harmony between those two assertions viz. That there is no other ground or reason assignable for Reprobation but the meer good pleasure of Gods will and that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments If these two positions be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why had not your wisdome assigned where the irreconâ—ileable discord did lye Judg. 7.22 1. If they are like those forelorn Midianites that sheathed their swords in each others bowels and like Iacob and Esau trip up the heels one of another why had not you like another Solomon determined the controversie Hos 12. 1 King 4.16 but leave things thus as you found them and so to the judgement of reasonable men And surely Sir if you be a man of reason whereof your writings give me cause to doubt I must tel you that your supposed error either must be in the first assertion viz. That there is no other ground or reason assigned for Reprobation either of Sin or unbelief or the rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy will and this is but Idem per idem a trifling of words or barely without proof of contradiction to deny it is but petitio principii a bare and base begging of the question Or else it must be comprehended in this viz. That sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the proper and meritorious causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments which so far as I perceive by you neither of us do deny And yet I must put in some caution because you are so apt to misunderstand 1. That Gods foresight of sin unbelief and rejecting of the means which he is no waies bound to prevent is not affirmed to be a cause why this man rather then another is not elected it is only as a certain note and infallible consequent of men not elected Causa probationis non rei ipsius And whereas I do assert that negative Reprobation which is Gods absolute eternal and immutable decree of not electing depends only on Gods free pleasure as he is Lord and Soveraign over all his creatures and may annihilate all or do with them else whatsoever he pleaseth Yet damning or decreeing such persons to hell and eternal torments being an act of Judiciary power and proceeding according to the tenor of the revealed Gospel that never proceeds according to the forementioned good pleasure but is suited according to mens several actions and demerits 2. I do not affirm that this decree doth impose any necessity upon the non-elect or reprobated that they should unavoydably sin or that it excludes all such persons from all possible means of salvation that so they may justly and immutably be damned Onely I assert that together with this free good pleasure of non election or reprobation God foreknoweth that such persons not elected or reprobated wil out of the freedom of their own wills neglect and abuse such means of their salvation and thereby commit such sins as for which so foreseen of God is unto him a just cause of their damnation whereby he will glorifie himself in the manifestation of his justice upon them In short I do readily acknowledge that God as he adjudicates none to eternal torments but sinners unbelievers and rejecters of the means so hath he not decreed to adjudge any but such unto hell and eternal
torments from both of which it follows that sin and unbelief is the cause of the adjudication to hell and eternal torments and that by the decree of God but is by no means the cause of the decree it self that singly proceeds from his good pleasure And as it is an undoubted truth that God as he never saves any adult person but such as are penitent and studious of good works so he hath not decreed to save any but such so qualified with repentance and good works whence we argue that repentance and good works are truly the causes of salvation 2 Thess 2.13 and that by the decree of God who hath from the beginning chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth but it doth not thence follow that repentance and good works are causes of the decree for upon that account election should be dependent not onely upon faith foreseen as you would have it but likewise upon good works as antecedent to it which hitherto for ought I see you have not that impudence to affirme The like must be said of reprobation That as he never damns or decrees to torment and adult person but such as are impenitent unbelievers and rejecters of the means so he hath not decreed to damn any but such so qualified and whence the like Argument may likewise be taken up that impenitent unbelief and rejecting of the means are truly the causes of damnation Heb. 11.6 Heb. 12.14 and that by the decree of God who hath declared that without faith it is impossible to please him and that without holiness no man shall see the Lord But it doth not thence follow that impenitence unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the causes of the decree reprobates were not sinners at least in existence when the decree of non election or reprobation first pâ—â— upon them which was from all eternity as the elect were not penitents at the first instant of their election in the mean time God hath not decreed to adjudge any but sinners and unbelievers unto eternal torments as he hath not decreed to reward any with eternal life but penitents For what God doth or permitteth to be done in time the same and no otherwise hath God decreed to be done or permitted to be done before all time so that the prevision of sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means did no more antecede negative reprobation then the prevision of repentance and good works did antecede the decree of election So that I hope reasonable men will or may now judge that I have reconciled the enmity that your dim deluded sight had imagined and broken down that partition-wall which your Panick fears raised between these two positions and by the good hand of God have so reconciled your supposed difference between them that they go neer like Hippocrates twinnes hard â—n hand together though that the one ordine naturae not temporis have a priority before the other to which the last is subservient So that now I am at liberty to attend to what you will say to my first Argument which is this That which the holy Ghost in Scripture ascribes to the sole will and good pleasure of God that we are not to assigne to other causes But the Scripture assignes reprobation soley to Gods will Therefore To which you answer His Major proposition he bringeth nothing at all to prove for proof of his Minor he alledgeth these Texts Rom. 9.18 20 21 22. Mat. 11.25 Matth. 20.15 16. Rom. 9.11 12 13 17. Answ to which I answer The Scriptures which he quoteth and all that he can find in all the book of God cannot prove his argument for it is false in the Minor proposition therfore the Scripture cannot prove it for 1 Ioh. 2.21 no lye is of the truth although the Scripture doth speake of the will of God as a cause concerned in mans reprobation in having his eyes blinded and his heart hardned and the like yet the Scripture doth not assign it solely and singly to the will of God without assigning it to any other cause but on the contrary it doth assign the continuance in sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means of salvation as a cause thereof Answ I pray learned Sir what need I prove the Major that is unquestionable even to you i. e. would you have me beat the ayre and fight against mine own shadow No Sir t is the Minor that sticks in your sides so that you cannot breath out any one thing in a probable way of contradiction to any one of those texts by me alledged Yet with a face as full of impudence as ignorance you adventure to say but do not to which I answer c. This passage of this Doctor-like undertaker calls to my mind a Doctor of Oxford whom I well did know and to this day he is well remembred for it by some who in an University sermon of his falling upon a point of controversie wherein he found Bellarmine his adversary uttered words to this effect I will saith he confute him in two words mentiris Bellarmine and marke I pray whether this Gentleman tread not in the same steps he begs the question by saying it is false therfore the Scripture cannot prove it And what doth he do less than give the lye to the Spirit of truth when by his own confession the Scripture ascribes reprobation to the will of God which though afterwards he palliates by saying that it doth not assigne it solely to the will of God but that sin unbelief are concomitant causes yet he might have shewed some ingenuity in alledging of such places of Scripture which had done as he did say that so there might have been some appearance of an answer and not that Pythagoras-like his ipse dixit should be taken for currant coyne when as I am certaine it is but counterfeit but to give the lye and that to his betters as I am informed is as ordinary a dish with him as his dayly bread Well Sir but to attend your procedure which is thus But whereas he saith that sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but not the causes of Reprobation I do understand that the decree of God which was before time resteth for the ground thereof more peculiarly in the will of God without assigning other causes to it than reprobation it self which is the execution of the same purpose and decree of God in time â—â—en and where the continuance in sin and unbeleif and the rejecting of the means of salvation is found in men Answ Here like a Sorbon Doctor speaking ex cathedra you tender your simple sense of the decrees of God wherein your mistake is supposing that we confound the decrees of God with the execution of those decrees which is not ours which hath been your errour all along For this reprobation which I
Ioh. 10.26 Ioh. 12.39 40. Rom. 9.18 33. Rom. 11.7 8. 1 Pet. 2.8 Whereunto you say To which I answer first by distingushing upon his Major proposition and to enquire into his meaning therein now if he mean by Reprobation the decree of God before time distinct from Reprobation in time or Rom. 1.28 Gods giving them over to a reprobate mind which is the execution of the decree then I deny that sin and unbelief is the effect of it for God is so far from decreeing and appointing men to commit sin or that sin is an effect that cometh to pass by his decree and appointment that he doth not so much as tempt any man to sin as we may see Iam. 1.13 yea the Apostle Iames is so far from laying sin upon Gods decree as if that should be the cause that should produce such an effect as sin and unbelief that he saith v. 14. that every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and inticed and then v. 15. he saith when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death By which we may see that the Apostle doth not make Gods decree the cause of sin but that indeed which is the cause which bringeth it forth is even lust Quem recitas meus est Sed male dum recitas incipit esse tuus Answ Here were matter for you to work upon indeed if I would own the Argument as it is by you thus mistated and truly I do not well know how this error crept in as you have thus translated my second Argument whether you lookt upon it with a squint eye or a wry neck and so had a mind to pervert both the words and sense of it but I am sure in mine own written paper which one alone and no more I ever had which is now in my custody where as your pamphlet hath it That which is the effect and consequent of Reprobation is and so should be That which is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation which one word of effect for efflux doth much vary the case and overthrows at least silenceth a great part if not all what you have said against it for I utterly disown the word effect I know sin followes negative Reprobation or non-election not as an effect the cause but as the consequent flowing from and following its antecedent and therefore I protest against the word as spurious and illegitimate and no brood of my brain But yet if cause may be lookt upon in the latitude it is many times used and taken for I see not but that in a large sense Reprobation may be said to be a cause of sin viz. causa sine qua non for had there not been such a negative reprobation or non-election as the mother sin at least actual sin had never been born nor brought into the world as the daughter Had God elected all at least had not God decreed to permit the sin of Adam and of his posterity he had not permitted it at all for whatsoever he purposed to do or permitted to be done in time the same he did decree before all time so to do or to permit to be done and if he had not permitted sin at all and so decreed to permit it sin would never have been but it must have been hindred But I insist not upon this but apply my self to that member of your distinction of Reprobation viz. that which is before all time Wherein for so much as is contended for by you in this paragraph if I may gratifie you in it I will sâ—bscribe unto it abating me but this that whereas you say lust is the cause of sin I say the devil combining with the corruption of mans nature which is originally and totally depraved and hath little of other proper and innate quality but to sin and so I come to the other member of your distinction which is worded thus Secondly if by Reprobation he meaneth the act or execution of Gods decree in time which is Gods giving up of people to their own hearts lust and to a Reprobate mind as aforesaid then also we find that Gods act in the first place is not the cause of mans sin but mans disobedience in the first place is the cause why God doth execute the same as his just and righteous judgement upon them for their continuance in sin c. as it is expressed in this Position as appeareth Psal 81.11 12. Rom. 1.22 23 24 25 26 27 28. and yet I do not deny but sin and unbelief may be the effect and consequence of Reprobation in this sense as mens delaying and not coming in while the door is open is the cause of the door being shut against them and the door being shut against them is the cause of their abiding still without Wherefore strive to enter in at the straite gate before the good man of the house be risen up and hath shut to the door Luke 13.24 25. While it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Answ I wonder why you should think I meant it of Reprobation in time which is not in the decree about which our controversie is but onely the execution of the decree though this be your practise yet I use no such extravagancies as to run from the question which is onely about Reprobation before all time and therefore this requiring no other answer I proceed to that where you hit the nail on the head for thus you write But I do partly believe that his meaning by reprobation in his argument is that which is generally held amongst them That Gods will and decree before any thing was brought forth in order or before man had any being is the onely and alone cause of Reprobation and so consequently of sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation and that no other fruits at any time can be brought forth by them notwithstanding all that they can do but that these things must unavoydably follow they being bound up thereunto by the decree of God and that which doth make me inclinable to believe that his meaning is so is because I find his Arguments tend much to the maintaining of such a thing Answ All this I stedfastly believe saving an ill-favoured expression that is interwoven viz. That being bound up thereunto by the decree of God which in my subsequent discourse shall be clearly refused But as though that in thus affirming I had maintained some formidable doctrine abhorrent to the Churches of the Saints he seems to bless himself from it thus But as I tender the honour and glory of God in the exaltation of his Psal 145.8 9. tender mercies over all his works and the purity of that truth and sincerity that is in himself together with his faithfulness in his upright and sincere dealings towards the sons of men and also when I think upon the excellency of
his wisdome I cannot but stand up in detestation of such a doctrine which striketh at the very being of these attributes in God Answ Alas Reverend Sir have I incurred crimen laesae majestatis that you seem so passionate or is it onely an affected garbe of one of your Hypocritical raptures No Sir I doubt not evidently to make it so appear that our doctrine dorh not in the least degree intrench upon any of the Divine attributes but that it gives to the most High God the honour due unto his name by exalting him infinitely beyond all the creation shewing their necessary dependance on him in all they have do or hope to enjoy Whereas your Doctrine whatsoever offers and fair pretences it makes yet t is no better then Iaels bottle of milk to Sisera Judg. 4.19 when ready to perish with thirst she administers withal a nayle and with a hammer beats it into his temples for howsoever you make a fair flourish of vindicating the free grace of God yet the issue of all tends to this namely to usher in that mincing minion free-wil so to set her cheek by jowle by God himself neither are you contented with this alone but that in those grand determinations of mans salvation or damnation you plainly give the casting voyce to her so that the result of all must be as she will please to accept or refuse grace offered so that all the while you will make God as an Idle spectator till she hath been pleased to interpose her umpirage and yet all of which must be suspended untill the moment of death for according unto your principles which unto me is a paradox Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet dici beatus What prejudices you muster up as in defiance and detestation of our Doctrine you do reduce unto three heads as striking at as you vainly imagine first the mercy secondly the truth thirdly the wisdome of God but all of these are built on one and the same false and rotten foundation and therfore the labour is not so great as to lay it all even with the ground and for the original of it to return it to hell where it was first forged I shall then in your own order wait upon you in your march and so examine what you have to say for your self and cause which begins thus First if God hath by an absolute decree brought forth such an effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means of salvation so as the greatest part of men must be cast into the lake of fire which is the second death for doing nothing but what they must do by the decree of God and cannot do otherwise then where is the tender mercy of our God which is over all his works Answ My good friend I must tell you that we utterly abjure that which you infer as a sequel of our doctrine and for answer unto yours say that this which his companions the other two seeming gravamens are all alike grounded on a false hypothesis wherein you discover a gross mistake conceiving that non-election or negative Reprobation draws along with it an invincible necessity of committing of sin or that it doth determine mans will to sin either by compulsion or necessity for which such so reprobated are afterwards condemned but no such inferences can be drawn from our opinions We say the negative will of God is no cause at all of mans sin or misery but his own positive will is the cause both of his wickedness and of his wretchedness He is the true and principal cause of any effect or event who imployeth his faculties and endeavours to bring it into being and not he who onely resolveth not to hinder such evill effects though he foresee they will come into being if he prevent them not The infallible prevision of God seeth from all eternity the actions of men and their ends and yet this maketh not the modus agendi to be necessary or compulsory but leaveth the agent most free as if he had never foreseen it so that the absolute decree of not giving faith final perseverance and eternal life unto the non-elect which he is no waies bound to do howsoever it deny them that grace which would effectually and infallibly make them bring forth fruits meet for repentance Mat. 3.8 yet it depriveth them not of their own natural freedome and liberty neither doth it necessitate compel or constrain them unto any their unbelief or committing or continuing in sin T is he and he alone or chiefly may well be said to be invincibly drawn into sin and plunged into and cast into the like of fire who fights against sin with all his strength and striveth to avoid damnation And yet by the overmastring power of another is thrust into the one and hurld into the other which the consciences of the most wicked in the world can tell them that there is no such forcing power in non-election or reprobation Yea the non-elect Angels which are now Devils in hell cannot upon their non-election charge God that either their transgression or damnation was invincibly inforced upon them they indeavouring to escape it Take a view of any of the men of the world whom you much conceive may be ranked among the number of such castawaies and therein see whether the decree of reprobation had any such influence upon their outward wiâ—ked actions that they might say for excuse they were necessitated thereunto The decree of reprobation did not compel or necessitate Cain to the murtherous act of the killing of his brother neither was there any obligation upon Absalom incestuously to defile his fathers Concubines Neither did it unavoydably inforce Iudas to the selling and betraying of his Master all these sinful actions and all the like committed by other the like reprobates proceed meerly out of their own election having a power whereby they might have abstained from the committing of them And therefore my kind neighbour to help you one of this mire that you sink not into grosser absurdities as it is too incident to those of your Tribe who open every casement to entertain all your new lights though many of them prove but ignes fatui It will be expedient to take notice of a threefold necessity which may have a dependency upon a subject person and by means whereof a man may be said that he must do so and that he cannot do otherwise There is a necessity of immutability a necessity of infallibility and a necessity of coaction or compulsion I shall explain the terms I call that a necessity of immutability which doth befal all such things as are appointed by the eternal and immutable decree of God for God cannot change his counsel but it must of necessity come to pass Psal 33.11 The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever and the thoughts of his heart to all generations Mal. 3.6 I am the Lord I change not Secondly necessity of
the supply of those graces without which they cannot expect such graces necessary to salvation But I wonder much what vertigo possessed this mans brains when he writes thus of the wisdome of God Is it not below the wisdome that is in men of the world c. do they expect grapes when they plant nothing but brambles do they look for an harvest of wheat in that field in which they sow nothing but tares c. Reverend Sir be serious and tell me who own such a doctrine as teacheth that God plants brambles and soweth tares No Sir for the brambles and tares they were never of Gods planting and sowing but the envious man i. e. the Devil did it and mans nature freely contributed assent unto it we say with Solomon Eccles 7.29 God made man righteous but they have found out many inventions The decree of reprobation implants no evil what it finds not but it doth onely deny to remove that evil that it doth find God in that decree sows no tares but as a righteous Judge he appoints the tares to be bound in bundles and cast into the fire and now let those that have understanding judge what nerves or sinews there are in this your crimination Neither is there much more in that of yours which follows thus But God that excelleth in wisdome doth not so read and consider Isa 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. and see what the Lord himself saith ver 4. what could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes See also vers 7. and he looked for judgment but behold oppression for righteousness but behold a cry See also Ier. 2.21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine wholly a right seed how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me Answ But I pray kind Sir what would you infer from these places by you alledged for you have drawn no conclusion thence but suspend it wholly upon the readers good liking and therefore by your good licence I will take the boldness to thrust my sickle into your harvest and thence glean these not inforced consectaries 1. That here hence the doctrine of absolute non-election or negative reprobation is strongly confirmed in that those who are so reprobated notwithstanding all the outward means used towards them yet they will not cannot believe or repent but continue in their sins 2. That nothing more on Gods part could be expected either of desert or of right then what he had done to his vineyard onely this that God did do more to that part of the vineyard which he did make fruitful then towards that part which remained barren and that in order to and that antecedently to its fruitfulness 3. That something more was necessary to the conversion of them that were not converted it manifestly appears from hence because that God beyond that which was common to all made a reservation of some according to the election of grace Rom. 9.19 and 11.4 5. viz. by taking away the vail from off their hearts 2 Cor. 3.45 Isa 25.7 and by giving of them a new heart and a new Spirit and writing his laws in their heart Ier. 31.33 Ezek. 11.19 and 36.26 27. 4. That howsoever it be taken yet might God well demand of those unprofitable and disobedient people what could he do more then he had done that he might make them fruitful 1. Because he owed them no more nor so much in exact justice though he might have done more of meer grace and favour 2. Because those means already used were the chiefest in respect of outward means 3. Because they had not done so much as by reason of the means they both ought and might have done 4. Because that none of them herein appealing to their own consciences had askt any thing more of God which he had not granted to them And this I hope will be satisfactory to the ingenuous and from hence I could willingly proceed to his exceptions against my third argument and pass a slur upon some of his frivolous objections and answers wherein he doth onely verba dare wasts time and spoils clean paper with nothing but vapour and smoke But because it may be pretended 1 Cor. 3.12 that there was something substantial in it what wood hay stubble I can find in it I will bring it to the fire that it may be burnt The first objection is thus languaged But it may be objected that God knew that such effects would follow notwithstanding and therefore he could not wait in expectation of better things Answ I deny not but that God in his foreknowledge did know what would come to pass and doth know what men will do before they come to act and yet nothing as from God in respect of his foreknowledge or decree before man had any being doth necessitate or is the cause that doth produce any such effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. and therefore I say that the oppression and unrighteousness that was committed by the house of Israel and men of Iudah was not unknown unto God before it was â—ommitted or that it came to pass without or contrary to his knowledge but it was brought forth directly contrary to the mean that God used towards them or afforded unto them which was of such a nature and tendency had it not been abused to b ing foâ—th those good things that God said he looked so but the contrary was b oâ—ght forth by them and upon this aâ—co m iâ— is th t the Lord hath said to Israel Isa 65. 2. I have stâ—eâ—câ—ed forth mâ— hands all the day unto a rebellious people which wâ—â—â—â— in away that was not good after their own thoughts Yea so â—â— w â—th â—â—ouâ—in â—â—â—ce in â—n from being the effect of Gods de râ—â— of reprobation from before the foundation of the world that he plainly saith Ier. 19.5 that he commanded it not nor spake it neither came it into his mind Answ My very good friend what you say as that nothing in the decree of Reprobation did necessitate or was the cause that doth produce any such effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. I yield you as to cause and likewise to necessity so far as to co-action and compulsion But as before I have affirmed as it was a decree of the immutable wil of God which changeth not and proceeding likewise from his prescience resting on that decree and so I say again that it was necessary necessitate immutabilitatis et infallibilitatis that such things would follow notwithstanding expectation of better things which word expectation is used by the Prophet but by an anthropopathy after the manner of men for our better apprehension which signifies nothing else but that God expects and requires from us what our debt and duty is which yet nevertheless is done without any frustration of
of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his wayes past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his counsellour To which I answer first that had I not been acquainted with the blindness of these men that love to be called of men Rabbi or Master I should have been taken up with admiration that one boasting so much of schollarship should make a parcel of Arguments directly against the truth and yet should appear no better the one with the other In this first Argument in answer to this Position he giveth out as if the will of God were solely and singly the cause of reprobation and that no other cause can be assigned for it either of sin unbelief or rejecting the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous will as in the preamble to his Argument and in the minor proposition of the Argument it self he saith the Scripture assignes Reprobation solely to Gods will and yet in this third Argument he strongly calleth in question the truth of all this in giving out as if the true and undoubted cause cannot be assigned or as if that which solely singly was the cause of Reprobation were not the true and undoubted cause of it what a piece of confused stuff is this let them that have understanding judge Answ Truly I do not malice but rather pity this simple sophister who doth Nodum in scripo querere peeps about for contradictions in my Arguments whereas if a man be not blinded through prejudice he shall find a most harmonious concord Sir I willingly pass by your scandalous Ironies of blindness Rabbi Master boasting of scholarship as unworthy of a return but I now tell you t is very true that in my first Argument and so indeed al along I do ascribe non-election or Reprobation solely and singly to the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous will But I pray Sir make it to appear how in this third Argument I do trip up the heels of my former Argument calling into question the truth of all this as though the true and undoubted cause could not be assigned or that the will of God were not solely and singly the cause of Reprobation Curious Sir learn this from me that he that doth exclude all outward causes as to Reprobation which are transient and in time are acted in and by the creature doth not thereby exclude all inward causes which are immanent immutable and eternal resting in the bosome and breast of God himself which we call his will and good pleasure now the first we deny this later we affirm to be the alone cause of Reprobation That which makes the decree of non-election or Reprobation to be mysterious and unsearchable is not because there is no cause of it at all for I have affirmed the will of God to be the inward and eternal cause thereof but this is that for which the Apostle calls it mysterious because that no external cause can be assigned but that the further that men out of curiosity or rather desperate boldness have attempted to find out an external cause the more they have entangled themselves and the more have they intrencht upon the holy majesty of God And therefo e where in all the holy Scripture the Spirit of God hath not a tongue to speak of any such external cause or causes of eternal reprobation there must not Gods people have an ear to hear but in defect of an external cause to ascribe all to the internal viz. the good will and pleasure of God himself 2 Thes 1.7 1 Cor. 13.12 Phil. 3.15 who hath no otherwise been pleased in his revealed word to give any other account unto us of such his actings besides his own will But when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed and that we do behold him face to face this which now is unto us a mystery and unsearchable by reason of humane frailty God shall then reveal even this unto us and in the mean time let us lay our hands upon our mouthes Rom. 11.33 and with admiration say O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out And now my good friend let those that have understanding judge whether this of mine be a piece of confused stuff or that it rather be not simplicity in grain in you to suppose a contradiction in that which doth most strongly confirm what is most destructive to your Position but such crude stuff as you have here vented is as ordinary with you as your meat and drink But you proceed further 3. Again why doth he say If sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the onely causes why God reprobates any what need he put in that expression onely since the position doth not say expresly that it is any cause at all but that God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation c. and these he reprobated and if that sort or kind of people that continue in sin and unbelief and reject the means of salvation be not those that God doth reprobate then let him shew us by plain Scripture-proof who or what sort of people they be that so they may be known But the truth of it is that he can find no expression in the position that he can except against and therefore he putteth expressions into his Arguments which be of his own making and them he quarrels at and shews what great absurdities follow when there is no such thing in the position But I have followed him a litle in owning his expressions as far as they will stand with the truth viz. that rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief are in some measure the cause of Reprobation and through the good hand of my God upon me have proved it by Scripture And notwithstanding this man hath so strongly opposed it in his two first Arguments in answer to this position yet one would think by what he saith in this third Argument that he were a little inclinable to be of my mind or otherwise why doth he use those words the onely cause if he do not in some measure grant these things to be a cause of Reprobation Answ Sir if the word onely disgust your palate let it be expunged and yet the Argument will hold well enough without it and when so I will never stand quarrelling upon the punctilio of a word And whereas you say that the position doth not say expresly that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are causes of Reprobation I yield you for surely every one of your positions are as so many gins and snares and that generation of men that are of your judgement ordinarily your positions are so intricate and involved so full of Amphibologies equivocations and mental reservations that you onely stand at the catch
of a horse is a horse c. and therefore by the name of the Son of man is understood him not which is simply a man as Adam was but him that is born of a man Adam was a man made not born and therefore he is called a man but not the Son of man It is observed therefore that the Hebrews in this their manner of speaking when they say thou art a son or child of disobedience a son of perdition c. that they assign as it were disobedience and perdition to be as the father and that thou art born of that and therefore that such expressions do not barely signifie that thou art disobedient but that thou wert born disobedient not that thou art in a perishing condition but that thou wert born a son of perdition not that thou art a sinner but that thou wast born a sinner So likewise in those words a child of wrath not that thou art obnoxious to wrath and condemnation because of thy sins but that thou art born a child of wrath guilty of eternal condemnation so much of the first The second thing considerable is how they were by nature the children of wrath The word nature hath several acceptations First sometimes it is taken for the substance and essence of a thing but thus acording to his essence and substance man is not a child of wrath because the substance is not sin though it be infected with sin Secondly for the first principle of motion and rest in every thing whether that principle be in the substance or that it be the natural quality and propriety of the thing And after this manner the first nature of man was good yea very good for in that the Lord did imprint a power of motion to that which was good to know love and worship God and thereby to have life everlasting but this nature was lost by the sin of Adam and instead thereof there succeeded a naughty quality whereby it comes to pass that there is no natural motion in us but unto that which is evil viz. against God and against his son Jesus Christ and no rest but in that which is not good This evil quality came by the temptation of the Devil and it is as a pestilence that hath infected both the soul and body of man man I say remaining the same in his essence and substance is infected with the venome of this evil quality so that he can effect or work nothing but that which is like himself because from this he is moved unto all actions Hence it is that there arise all the evil thougths in the mind all the perverse and distempered affections in the heart and all wicked motions and desires in the will And this corruption of the whole nature which is otherwise called concupiscence the Apostle cals in this place nature viz. the first principle or beginning of all evil actions and motions whether external or internal and therefore whereas this is sin it doth deservedly make such the children of wrath Thirdly nature is oftentimes taken for nativity or birth natura a nascendo because that every one being conceived in sins and born in iniquities Psalm 51.5 and that we are born ungodly and enemies to God and therefore most worthy that God should be angry with us and inflict eternal punishments on us and therefore in this sense likewise are we said to be the children of wrath i. e. rom our first conception and nativity and because we are descended from Adam and sinned in him and all are born children of wrath even infants likewise though they have not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression i. e. actually Rom. 5.14 yet because they are born of sinful parents the infection becomes hereditary to them and they likewise children of wrath as well as others After this manner of speech is that of the Apostle Gal. 2. We which are Iews by nature i. e. Jews by birth and nativity And by this I hope the judicious Reader will find that I have both confuted your reasons and confounded your gloss so that the third absurdity will stick as close to your proposition as the spots do to the Leopard and now I shall have leisure to attend your motion in the removal of your quarters to the fourth absurdity which is this Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.21 in not assigning sin to be the cause of reprobation Answ Paul was not mistaken for he hath assigned continuing in sin and unbelief to be the cause of reprobation Rom. 9.32 and 11.20 and 1.2 6 28. Answ Sir this hath been your dealing in all this tract of reprobation wherein you make no distinction between non-election or negative reprobation which is before all time whereon your position is built and against which my undertakings are as you deliver it and whereof there is no cause assignable besides the good pleasure of Gods most holy will and that reprobation which is in time and whereof sin is the cause and whereunto those Scriptures by you quoted do answer which no man contradicts But yet this last reprobation or that in time is not immutable as is the other Jer. 6.30 Isa 1.25 Zac. 13.9 Ro. 11.23 for a man or a nation may be as reprobated silver today and yet refined from the dross to morrow they may be broken off to day and grafted in again to morrow for God is able to graft them in again But for that reprobation whereabout our dispute is as it is immanent in God and eternal so it is also immutable and unchangeable as is God himself And so I pass to the fifth absurdity which is this Absurd 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to these objections Rom. 9.13 19. The first is If God reprobated Esau because he hated him he was unjust The second ver 19. why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for he might in one word have answered to both objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. when they had done neither good nor evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Answ To the first when I shall hear any say that God reprobated Esau because he hated him without assigning any other cause and prove it I shall say more to it and in the mean time I shall desire to have this question resolved Whether those that shal preach such doctrine As that God reprobated Esau because he hated him and for no other cause do not make God much like the envious Jews Ioh. 15.25 who hated the man Christ Jesus without cause Answ Sir for the resolving of your question and satisfying of the scruple I must tell you first that God is said to have hated Esau before he was born or that he had done either good or evil that is called hatred comparatively in respect of that love he shewed unto Iacob he may be said to hate him
he pleaseth and it shall prosper in the thing whereto it is sent Amen so be it Thomas Tazwels QUERIES Counter-questioned SIR when at first I surveyed over your bundle of Queries I was divided in my thoughts whether it was fittest for me to undertake an answer to them yea or no T is true I did not conceive that they were proposed by such a one that breathed after satisfaction for then I had been bound in conscience because directed to me to have given a direct account for the resolution of a troubled spirit but I was better acquainted with the temper of such Scepticks Seekers Queristers the top of whose Religion consists most what in abstruse Questions But that which caused this distraction in me was the calling to mind Solomons advice Prov. 26.4 5. Answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou also be like unto him And Answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit So that which way soever I did address my self I was sure to be gored by one of the hornes of that Dilemma Therefore I did the rather make choice of a middle way neither directly to answer to any of your queries nor yet to leave any of them unresolved but when I apprehended them as captious Questions more to try abilities then to expect satisfaction I thought it best to follow our Saviours example Mark 12.13 Who when the primates of the Pharisees had sent unto him certain of that sect with the Herodians to catch him and intangle him in his words they began first by insinuation Master we know that thou art true and carest for no man for thou regardest not the persons of men but teachest the way of God in truth Secondly by question Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not shall we give or shall we not give But Christ who was privy to the secret guil of their hearts desiring a penny to be brought him askes them this question Whose is this Image and superscription they say Caesars then saith he give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods so that he makes no direct answer but by a Question The like may you see Mark 11.28 29. when the chief Priests and Scribes askt of Christ by what authority dost thou these things Iesus answered I will also ask you one question and answer me and I will tell you by what authority I do these things c. The like course I shall take with you I have not positively delivered my judgement to any of your queries but for the resolution of them have set down antiquestions to which if you give a direct answer according to the Scripture you must then needs answer your self to all those of your own queries So that making Christ his practise a president to my self I shall both follow his example and withall observe the wise mans direction both to answer a fool in his folly and yet not to answer a fool in his folly viz. implicitly and consequentially to answer by a question but positively and directly not to answer to the words 1. Whether it can be proved from the word of God that the fall which we had in the first Adam were any further than to the dust from whence we were taken 2. Whether it be not improper to say that we died in the first Adam a spiritual death when the Scripture doth say that that was not first which was spiritual but that which was natural and afterwards that which is spiritual 1 Cor. 15. 3. Whether there need to be any talk at all of any wisdome power or strength of our own when it is by all granted that we have our life and being in Iesus Christ and have nothing that we have not received 4. Whether God the Father have any other end or designe in giving of or sending his Son into the world but onely that the world through him might be saved 5. Whether the elect are at all in the Scripture demonstrated under any such term as that word world 6. Whether the Lord Iesus Christ doth use or exercise any other power in bringing of men and women to believe to the saving of their souls but that which may be resisted or rejected 7. Whether Gods decree before the foundation of the world be any other thing but that believers should be saved and unbelievers should be damned 8. Whether God can be said to judge the world in Righteousness and yet condemn those for unbelief which never had power to believe 9. How can the Saints be said to judge the world righteously if they are carried on to believe by a power that they cannot resist and those that are to be judged by them cannot believe for want of the same power 10. Whether if the salvation of some and the condemnation of others be necessitated by the decree of God without any respect at all to obedience or disobedience then to what end is it said in the Scripture of truth that men did or might choose or refuse 11. Whether is unbeliefe the cause of Reprobation or Reprobation the cause of unbelief 12. Whether it be not sin to say that the secret will of God is not according to his revealed will 13. Whether that opinion which some men hold concerning God be not damnable namely to say that God declareth in his word that he would have all men to be saved by his Son and yet never intendeth that they should be saved 14. Whether there be any Gospel to be preached to that man or woman for whom God never intended salvation in the death of his Son and if there be any then I would know what Gospel it is and who they are that should preach it 15. Whether condemnation to the second death or lake of fire was ever threatned but for personal rejection of the means afforded 16. Whether those that perish to eternity might not have been saved had they in their day improved the means afforded 17. Whether any can believe that Christ dyed for him upon a Scripture-account except he believe that Christ dyed for all 18. Whether Gods opening a door of salvation to all the Sons of men will not make his righteousness appear glorious in judgement 19. Can man be said to refuse that which he never was in a possibility to receive 20. Doth Christs bemoaning persons in the state of unbelief plainly argue they might believe 1. Whether we did not all sin in Adam as Rom. 5.18 19. 2. Whether the desert and reward of that sin be not death eternal as well as temporal as Rom. 6.23 where eternal death from Adam is placed in opposition to eternal life by Jesus Christ 3. Whether there was not in Adam immediately upon the eating of the forbidden fruit inward terrors and feelings of Gods wrath and thoughts that he was cast off and forsaken of God as Gen. 3.10 wherein the truth of that threatning was really accomplished Gen. 2.17 these
though the ill digesting and composing of them will not deserve a Schollars eye much less answer yet because if it be possible that the Authour may not further befool himself or further delude his over credulous proselytes and lead captive 2 Tim. 3.6 silly women laden with sin I will draw a line of confutation over his more remarkable Errors and willingly pass by his smaller faults of incongruous or improper expressions First I do consent that the most holy and high God from all not in Eternity by one sole and single act did see all whatsoever he purposed to do or permitted to be done by any of the creatures he intended to create for else he could not be Omniscient Omnipresent Infinite and Eternal But whereas it is said That God saw some men embracing the means of salvation and those he elected in Christ from the foundation of the world to everlasting life this is so far from soundness that it is flat Pelagianism an old Heresie exploded forth of the Church for many ages since by which it must be concluded that the eternal decree of Gods unchangeable election must be dependent on the intervention of mans liberty of willing and working but no proof from Scripture brought to evidence it nor appearance of any colour of reason Whereas the Scripture when it speaks of election makes it to be altogether independent on the creature or from ought at all wrought by or in the creature but wholly resting for the ground thereof in the bosome and holy will of God himself and therefore it is called Ephes 1.5 the good pleasure of his will and Ephes 1.11 the purpose and counsel of his will Nay so absolute and irrelative is this decree of election from any thing out of God besides his good pleasure as to be any motive or incentive for which God elects as a meritorius or a procuring ground or cause of it that even Christ himself is excluded as for whose merit man should be elected and therefore we are said to be elected in Christ not for Christ But because Socratical discourses are not so convincing I shall produce some irrefragable Arguments to which if the adverse party shall give any the least colour of answer to satisfaction then I shall say as they believe that learning is good for nothing but to puffe men up and gull the world but till that be done which I am certain will never be I shall bless the God of my salvation who Ephes 4.8 11. hath given such gifts unto men 1. Arg. If the rise of our election be grounded in the free grace of God then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing of the means of salvation but it is founded on the meer mercy and free grace of God therefore not upon the foresight of the embracing of the means The first proposition or major is unquestionable for that there is but one cause to produce the effect The second proposition or minor viz. that our election is founded on the meer mercy and free grace of God see for proof hereof Deut. 7.7 8. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself the Lord did not set his love upon or choose you because you were more in number c. but because the Lord loved you where the single love of God is pitcht upon as the cause of their election exclusively from any other outward causes See further Deut. 10.15 Matth. 20.15.21 Luk. 12.22 Rom. 9.11 18 21. Ephes 1.5 11. 2 Tim. 1.9 2. Arg. If the Patriarch Iacob was elected meerly out of grace without any respect had to any of his faith works or use of means then all others are likewise so elected for there is the one alike motive for the election of all as of one But Iacob was elected meerly out of the good will of God without any respect to faith works or the use of means at least for the moving of God to elect him Therefore all others are so likewise elected The minor proposition is confirmed out of Rom. 9.11 for the children being not yet born neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth It was said the elder shall serve the younger 3. Arg. If the decree of election be absolute without any respect had to faith works or means Then God did not elect upon a foresight of the embracing of the means but the decree of election is absolute c. Therefore See for proof Rom. 9.11 Rom. 11.5 6 7. Ephes 1.4 5 11. Matth. 20.16 and 22.14 4. Arg. If faith and works be the fruits and effects of election then they are no wayes causes of it for which God should elect but they are fruits and effects Acts 13.48 as many as were ordained unto life believed Ephes 2.4 7 8 9 13. 5. Arg. If our foreseen faith works or embracing of the means were the cause of our election they should be likewise the cause of our vocation and justification but the later is false therefore the first The major is proved by that undeniable axiome Quicquid est causa causae est causa etiam causati That which is the cause of a cause is also a cause of the thing caused i. e. of the effect The minor is proved 2 Tim. 1.9 and Ephes 2.8 Rom. 3.24 justified freely by his grace 6. Arg. If our election were dependent on mans embracing of the means then these absurdities would follow 1. Then the will of God should be moved and determined by an external cause i. e. the first cause should be ordered and guided by the second and thereby the first is made the second cause and e contra which is against the rules of all Philosophy and Divinity 2. God hereby is supposed to be capable of passion i.e. when thus moved but God is altogether immutable and impassible 3. Then there should be somewhat in the creature out of God before greater and better then God because that every cause is before and better then the effect 4. If there might be imagined to be any thing in the creature which might move God to the decreeing or appointing of this or that then it would follow that the actings or issues of things have not a dependence upon the decree of God contrary to Iam. 3.37 5. Then man might have just cause of boasting in himself 6. What then would become of children dying in infancy before they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of the means and which never were to have a being to act therefore they were never to be foreseen For the third Position That God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief those he reprobated to everlasting destruction But this hath the like unsoundness in it as the former of election there being no other ground or reason assigned for it either of sin or unbelief or rejecting of the means
but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous Will who will do with his creature what he will do neither can any expostulate why hast thou done thus Esa 45.9 It is true that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but yet not the causes of their reprobation that is solely and singly in the good pleasure of his Will Ephes 1.5 which I prove by these Arguments 1. Arg. That which the holy Ghost in the Scripture ascribes unto the sole will and good pleasure of God that we are not to assign other causes to But the Scripture assigns reprobation solely to Gods will Therefore For proof of the minor proposition see these texts Rom. 7.18 whom he will he hardeneth ver 20 21. Nay but O man who art thou that replyest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour ver 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and make his power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted or made up for destruction Matth. 11.26 Even so O Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Matth. 10.15 Is it not lawful to do what I will with mine own ver 16. Many called few chosen Prov. 16.4 The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Rom. 9.11 12 13. for the children being not yet born ver 17. for this same purpose have I raised thee 2. Arg. That which is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation cannot be the cause of it But sin unbelief and rejecting the means is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation Therefore The major is as clear as the sun The minor proposition is proved from these texts Math. 11.25 26. I thank thee father c. for so it seemed good in thy sight He hid those things not outwardly but inwardly Ioh. 6.36 37. Christ to the Capernaites I said unto you that ye also have seen me believed not all that the father giveth me shall come to me signifying that they are not given to him of the father and therefore reprobated Ioh. 8.46 47. Christ to the Pharisees If I say the truth why do ye not believe me he that is of God heareth Gods word ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God i.e. ye are reprobates Ioh. 10.26 Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep i. e. not of the number of my elect Ioh. 12.39 40. Of the whole company of the Jews Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts viz. God according to his decree Rom. 9.18 whom he will he hardens and ver 33. Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence Rom. 11.7 8. the election hath obtained it the rest are hardened for God hath given them the spirit of slumber c. 1 Pet. 2.8 which stumble at the word being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed 3. Arg. If sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means of salvation are the onely causes why God reprobates any then there is no such mystery in the decree of reprobation neither are Gods waies herein so unsearchable and past finding out but that the true and undoubted cause may be assigned But yet they are mysterious and unsearchable See Rom. 9.14 What shall we say then is there unrighteousness with God God forbid Rom. 1.33 34. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellour 4. Arg. If the foresight of sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation then these absurdities will unavoidably follow 1. That no child dying in infancy can possibly be reprobated 2. Neither such Gentiles or Turks Indians or Salvages that never heard of Christ who never enjoyed the Gospel nor ever had the means tendred to them for how can they believe in him on whom they have not heard Rom. 10. and how can they reject that which was never tendred unto them as many nations in the world who are strangers from the life of God Ephe. 1.12 3. If the foresight of sin should be the cause of Reprobation then the elect should be equally lyable to the decree of reprobation as the Reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams transgression Rom. 9.21 22 23 24. Iohn 15.19 20. If ye were of the world c. Ephes 2.1 2 3. children of wrath as well as others Rom. 3.10 and there is none righteous no not one 4. Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.11 in not assigning sin to be the cause of Reprobation 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to those objections Rom. 9.13 14. The first is if God reprobated Esau because he hated him then he was unjust The second ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will For he might in one word have answered to both the objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both of Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. When they had done neither good nor evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Mal. 1.2 6. Hereby we confine Gods infinite soveraignty over his creatures to the narrow scantling of our subordinate power as though he might not do with his own what he lists without our controll and not make a vessel either of honour or of dishonour unless he were accountable to us for the reason of his so doing For the fourth and fifth Positions These may pass with a grain of Salt bating some impropriety in the expressions and I am not so at leisure to teach such men to express themselves after a Theological manner either in their teaching or writing For the sixth Thesis I must ingenuously confess it is such a Mystery or Paradox and so involved with seeming contradictions that I want an Oedipus to unriddle the meaning of it I have been a little acquainted with the opinions of the Pelagians Semipelagians Papists Arminians Socinians and Anabaptists and amongst them all can observe none of them jumping in with this mans judgement for thus he writes All men are sometimes convinced of sin and the state of nature What his meaning is by the state of nature I cannot divine If his sense be that every man is at one time or other convinced that by nature he is a child of wrath and disobedience and dead in trespasses and sins and so t is false for most men have not such convictions Next And are made alive by the works of the spirit by this all men should be
not put my self to the trouble to fight against your vain shadows and so exit your own Position Et valeat ut valere potest Your next advance is to the rescue of your second Position viz. Position 2. That God saw persons embracing the means of salvation and those he elected in Christ from the foundation of the world to everlasting life c. This is so far from soundness you say that it is flat Pelagianism an old heresie exploded out of the Church for many ages since by which you say that it must be concluded that the eternal decree of Gods unchangeable election must be dependent on the intervention of mans liberty of willing and working c. To which you frame this answer What it was that Pelagius the Monk held you may see in the Ecclesiastical Chronography of Eusebius Pamphilus pag. 595. also it makes no matter to me in these things it is possible he might hold a truth as well as Calvin But the Fathers of whom we have learned these things are those that have not erred in their doctrine which are those before mentioned to wit Jesus Christ himself the holy Prophets and Apostles but the Scripture when it speaketh of election makes it to be altogether independent on the creature so as that nothing acted or done by the creature is to be accounted of as a motive incentive meritorious or procuring ground or cause as this man doth endevour to cast upon me I freely grant to be a truth according to the Scriptures by him brought in Ephes 1.5 11. Answ Sir there was no need to have informed me but to evidence your reading where I might have an account of the abominable paradoxes of blasphemous Pelagius cried down by all antiquity as well as by all our modernâ— for his detracting from the free grace of God and exalting of the liberty of the will and placing it in Gods stead at least putting them cheek by jowl together For though by other several Chronographers the grosseness of his heresie be more copiously painted out yet in the tripartite History according to you cited there is to be found so much as to abominate even the name of the man by reason of his cursed opinion being there ranked out in the columne of Hereticks and therefore it seems a wonder to me that any one that is but a pretender to Religion should have so much impudence and be so Galliolized Act. 18.17 as not to care for these things But to put him into the scales with reverend Calvin Psal 112.6 whose good name shall be had in an everlasting remembrance and whose lustre will dazle all your new lights I know none besides your self would have had the face of brass to have done it For the latter part of this paraphrase in your confession of Gods independency on outward things and that he hath not from thence any motive or incentive c. for his election of any I heartily thank you especially if I could imagine that this did not proceed ex labiis dolosis but that it were done in reality and truth but when I find that this acknowledgement of yours doth so much interfere with your often dictates I shall onely judge of you as of that clown in the fable who blowes both hot and cold with one breath here you seem to ascribe all to the good pleasure of Gods will in the business of election but otherwhere as I shall hereafter manifest a mans free will according to you in working and believing must be joynt-parceners with God so that the vote shall be as was the Harlots which came before Solomon to determine of the dead child 1 King 4.26 nec mihi nec tibi sed dividatur let it be neither mine nor thine but divide it You go one with your discourse neither is there any thing in this Position tending to the exaltation of the creature to be any motive or incentive cause for which God elects as a meritorious or procuring ground or cause of it for to say God saw some men embracing the means of salvation or that the embracing the means of salvation is a meritorious or procuring ground or cause of our election any more then the words of the holy Spirit spoken by David Psal 4.3 But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself should be a meritorious cause of the godly mans being set apart or chosen to the Lord neither is there any more ground or cause to call the words of this Position flat Pelugianism or an old heresie then there is to call the words of David so Answ It was heretofore generally observed that when anyone came to consult the Delphian Oracle whether out of curiosity or necessity it matters not that the responses of the Flamens were so abstruse and equivocall that which way soever the success did fall yet they might have a starting hole to preserve the credit of their Oracle As for instance in one of their answers Ibis redibis nunquam per bella peribis the issue thereof being contrary to expectation they made another sense of the words onely by pointing of them thus Ibis peribis nunquam per bella peribis and truly howsoever all those Oracles ceased at the coming of Christ in the flesh yet methinks I see the same spirit of delusion now working in these children of darkness for look upon this man as to his Positions here so by others his complices the Arminians and Socinians when they find themselves pincht by any Argument that they can finde no subterf ge for evasion then they betake themselves to shifts of Amphibology and fall to denying of the proper sense and scope of their own tenets because perhaps not comprehended in express syllables and words of their Positions for this man with whom I have to deal though he wants not that face of brass to deny that there is nothing couched under the Position to exalt the creature as in whom there should be somewhat which God should look upon as a motive or procuring ground or cause for God to elect such so qualified Yet by the assistance of my God I shall clearly make it to appear in my defence of my first Argument that according to these men believing or faith and perseverance therein is such a condition prerequisite and so lookt upon by God in the Act of election as without which he elects not and for which he doth elect and so becomes a moving or procuring cause why he doth elect any one as is generally by them maintained For that Scripture alledged Psal 4.3 is nihil ad Rhombum being quite alien from the case depending we are now treating of the eternal and Immanent act of God in electing before all time and the place quoted is to be understood of Gods effectual vocation a transient act of God in time where he actually sets apart him i. e. him that is in existence and being him that is Godly i. e. such
to election or Reprobation which are eternal acts before all time and these are transient acts being wrought in time For that of Mar. 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned I do readily acknowledge it a point declaratory of the Gospel for the way and means that God himself hath designed for the saving of souls but mark the manner of the discovery it saith He that believeth shall be saved but it saith not he that believeth shall be elected which is the business you are about It shewes that faith or believing is an ingredient and enters into the decree of the means conducing to the end which is salvation but it is not the decree it self of election which all along you shamefully confound jumbling together the decree and the means so that for want either of wit or will you do not at all distinguish between the Decree of election it self of saving a certain company which is the end and the decree of the execution of the means tending to that end And thus any one may see what a fair copy you have drawn of Gods decree of Election and Reprobation by such impertinent proofs which give no light at all to the point controverted Which doth much amaze me that a man that arrogates to himself to be a teacher of a selected company that shall make his brags as I have heard you have done that with his own hands he hath dipt so many should yet feed his over-credulous auditors with such extravagancies as these are Truly Sir if your luck be not better in your popular teachings then you are in this you will neither reap credit nor the people profit And unless you can bring more apposite texts of Scripture to prove your Doctrinals then you do here for the proof of your Polemicals you will make but blew work of it And whereas you say shew us a true copy of it if you can Sir for the satisfying you in this and that my procedure may be the more regular in what shal follow I conceive it will be no digression to give you a preliminary in brief Characters of the Decrees of God of Prescience of Predestination of Election and Reprobation 1. The decree of God is an action of God out of the counsell and purpose of his own will determining all things and all the circumstances and order of all things from eternity in himself certainly and unchangeably and yet freely Acts 2.23 and 4.28 and 11.18 For whatsoever either the creature doth or God about the creature that from eternity was decreed that it should be so done This decree of God we find it under several appellations in the Scripture sometimes styled the Counsel of God Acts 4.28 sometimes the determinate Counsel Acts 2.23 sometimes Good pleasure Ephes 1.9 sometimes Good pleasure of his will Ephes 1.5 sometimes the counsel of his will Ephes 1.11 sometimes the purpose of God Rom. 9.11 2 Tim. 1.9 sometimes foreknowledge of God Rom. 8.29 and 11.2 sometimes the will of God Rom. 9.18 Wherein yet we use that one and accustomed word of Decree to help our weak capacities as being the Judgement Counsel and Will of God which is indeed God himself willing and decreeing Not that we do conceive any ratiocination deliberation and collection from premises to conclusion proceeding from one thing to another which are usually incident to antecede the edicts and decrees of men no we dare not reduce God to such straits for what God herein doth it is by one single simple and eternal act of the will determining and decreeing what himself will do or permit to be done And for those decrees of God such is the freedom and liberty of that will of his which is himself willing that there can be assigned no cause at all either efficient meritorious or final without himself he being the primum movens which moveth all things and is moved of none But if we have a respect to the effects of those Decrees in the creature and so there may be assigned causes both efficient meritorious and final for so hath God decreed to confer salvation and glory on the elect by for and through the merit of Jesus Christ and so likewise eternally to punish the reprobate for their sin both of these to be manifested to the praise of his free grace and justice Having spoken thus of the decrees in general I proceed next to the foreknowledge of God as the effect following its cause I mean not that which is indefinitely called in the Schools simplicis intelligentiae which is the essential knowledge of God and which is extended to all things knowable both possible and impossible but that which is definite and intuitive called Scientia visionis and that is A certain and infallible knowledge of things which are to come to pass of this you may see Acts 15.18 Iob 28.24 Heb. 4.13 Psal 139.2 12. 2 Tim. 2.19 For whereas no forgetfulness can befall the Deity which by his decree he hath determined so is his foreknowledge certain Yet this foreknowledge is so to be understood not that it is dependent on the things that are to come to pass but meerly on the decree of God determining of the futurity of things and this is called practical foreknowledge But whereas all the decrees of God are as himself Immutable as Numb 23.23 1 Sam. 15.29 Psal 33.11 Gen. 14.24 27. Mal. 3.16 Heb. 6.17 as being acted by him that is most wise and Almighty and that this foreknowledge resting on this immutable decree is infallible Hence doth arise a double necessity of the futurition of things but both Hypothetical and conditional the one is a necessity of Immutability as in reference to the decree the other a necessity of infallibility as in reference to the foreknowledge this is clearly gathered out of Luke 24.26 27 44 46. and 1 Cor. 11.15 But this they have in respect of the first agent but in themselves and as by reason of secundary agents or causes they may still continue contingent and free The third in order is Predestination which I define to be an eternal immutable most wise and efficacious decree wherein God according to his meer good pleasure out of the whole lump of mankind fallen and lost in Adam hath decreed to save some by Jesus Christ the mediator to the praise of his most glorious Grace and the rest to leave in that miserable state and at the last for their sins to reward them with eternal punishment for the manifestation of his liberty and justice That this is dependent on the meer good pleasure of God see Matth. 11.26 Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Luke 12.32 It is your fathers good pleasure to give you a kingdom 1 Thes 5.9 the Apostle there comprehends both Election and Reprobation in a few words He hath not appointed us unto wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Iesus Christ All which shall
to tender unto fallen mankind by his son Jesus Christ and did not look at any thing that was in the creature or should be acted by the creature as any motive by which he was drawn thereunto but the moving cause was the fountain of everlasting love that was in himself towards his poor perishing creature freely to enter into an engagement by purpose and decree and from that purpose and decree to make forth promises in the Scripture that are 1 Cor. 1.20 yea and Amen in Christ Jesus to the glory of God by us that all sort or kind of people that do embrace the means of salvation to wit the free tenders of grace in the Gospel and continue in the faith and way of Jesus with a single heart and humble mind to the end of their lives Matt. 24.13 shall undoubtedly be saved and God can as soon cease to be as that he should fail in making good these promises to that sort or kind of people aforesaid because they flow from his purpose and decree which is unchangeable like unto himself as I shall by the assistance of God hereafter make appear in the following discourse Answ Here I will intreat the intelligent Reader considerately to take notice how this merchant of rags endeavours to juggle with me and by acting the Gypsies part to play fast and loose with my first Argument for howsoever it is by me affirmed that Gods election is absolute in it self irrespectrive and irrelative as to the end viz. salvation to which there was no motive or incentive whether of faith foreseen or embracing of the means or continuing therein or any thing else yet withal as before hinted I do maintain that the same God that determined of the end did likewise decree unto such persons so elected fit and suitable means conducing to that end viz. that he would send his Son to become a propitiation for them that he would effectually call them by his Gospel that he would give them faith to answer that call by believing that he would justifie their persons and sanctifie their natures and keep them by his power through faith unto salvation And whereas he writes although mans believing and obeying the Gospel be not a motive incentive or procuring ground or cause for which God elects c. who would not think here but that this man meant plainely and honestly but tuta frequensque via est sub amici fallere nomen for mark what followes but it hath been the good will and pleasue of God to engage himself by purpose and decree to elect justifie and save all those men and women that did or should in time embrace the means of salvation Answ Here is his warping for see how he fumbles together the decree it self of salvation with the means for the execution of that decree no waies distinguishing but confounding election with justification and embracing of the means It is very true and it is a Gospel-declaration that God will save all those that he doth justifie and who do embrace the means in sincerity and truth Rom. 8.29 Eph. 6.24 But if he prove out of any part of the Bible from Genesis to the Revelation that God will elect all those that do or shall embrace the means of salvation I will give him the cause and cry peccavi and it is to be marked that we are about the point of election and not of justification and therefore all such proofs that speak onely of justification and not specifically of election are alien to the point For all the rest of his words if the grant may gratify him I will freely give him viz. that all sorts of people that do embrace the means to wit the free tenders of grace in the Gospel shall undoubtedly be saved But what 's this to the Argument of Election You further add But if by these words Then it is not upon Gods foresight of mens embracing the means but onely that the embracing of the means is not a motive or moving cause for which God elects then his Argument is true in every part of it but I have some cause to except against the sequel of his major proposition viz. then it is not upon Gods foresight of mens embracing the means not so much in respect of any untruth I find in it if his meaning be as aforesaid but the exception that I make against it is in respect of the terms of it because it varieth from the position not answering the expressions of it for the position doth not say that God elected men upon the foresight of their embracing the means but the substance that is in it is that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected and therefore if it had answered to it it should have spoken thus Then God hath not elected those men which he saw embracing the means of salvation and then it had been so palpably false that it must needs have been denied without any further trouble but as it is it may be a truth and yet proves nothing in the position to be false Sir what need all these frothy words to wast time and to spoile clean paper you know my sense is that the embracing of the means is not a motive or moving cause for which God doth elect and howsoever it is that you are ashamed to outface so much clear light of the Scripture which confirms this truth but that your pretence is that you except against my Argument in respect of the terms of it because as you say it varieth from the Position not answering the expressions of it The substance whereof is this that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected Therefore now I must deal plainly roundly with you and shall unkennel you our of yout fox-holes You know the Water-men on the Thames when they cry Westward Hoe they have their faces Eastward So whiles you here pretend against motives incentives or procuring causes of election yet in very deed and truth you are most mainly for them as I shall God assisting me make plainly to appear Sir possible it is that you may not dive into the bottom of this mystery of Iniquity nor foresee at such a distance as you are into the depth of this design and therefore may with the more confidence protest against and utterly disclaim all motives incentives or procuring grouds or causes why God elects any but ascribe all to the good pleasure of his will as in words you seem to assert But if we cast a reflexe eye upon this Heresie I mean for eternal causes of election as it was at first hatched by Pelagius though shortly after it was crushed by a Councel and next again revived in part by the Semipelagian Papists and at last refined and put into a new garbe by those Interpolators your correspondents the Arminians it will be very visible to all considerate men that howsoever in words you deny any moving cause in respect of election yet so long as
the substance thereof is contained in your Positions and that you grant the force and virtue of a moving cause unto faith in respect of Gods electing it must thence be concluded that you assert some moving causes and That faith is lookt upon by you as a moving cause will appear by these ensuing Arguments 1. I know it will not be stood upon by you nor any of your gang that faith is a condition or qualification so lookt upon by God as that without which he doth not elect no as we affirm that to such persons so elected he decrees to give it but according to you that where he finds it which is the sense of their foresight there or those he will elect and if thus tell me in sober sadness what difference can you make between a qualification or condition wherein God placeth his purpose and decree and that which we call a moving cause 2. In election you make believers the adequate object thereof and faith is made the formal reason of this object now this is a known axiome to those versed in these controversies Ratio formalis adaequati objecti semper est specificans causa illius habitus potentiae vel actus cujus est objectum That the formal reason of the adequate object is alwaies a specifying cause of the habit power or act whereof it is the object So a thing that is good being apprehended by the intellect is the cause of willing because it hath the reason of its formal object So after the same manner when you set down faith in respect of election as the formal reason of the object and that as you teach God hath from without himself proper causes of willing you can give no just reason why we may not say that you make faith the cause of election 3. This moreover I believe you wil not deny that what place infidelity hath in the point of Reprobation the like should faith have in the point of election as being opposite species But according to you infidelity is not onely affirmed to be the cause of Reprobation but the contrary doctrine is cryed down by you as most abominable and therefore in election should faith be the cause thereof 4. If faith doth determine the will of God being otherwise indifferent to choose one rather then another then it is a cause of election But according to you faith hath this determining power for with you besides faith and the embracing of the means nothing antecedes the decree of election which is not common to the non-elect and nothing that is common doth determine and therefore it is necessary that the reason of the determination be placed in faith and embracing of the means so that notwithstanding all your fair flourishes of denyal of motives causes and inâ—entives I must needs conclude that you do at least implicitly assert faith foreseen in those that will believe is the motive cause and procuring ground of Gods electing any to salvation And thus I conceive my first Argument stands in its full strength notwithstanding the assaults of your dudgeon dagger drawn aginst it So that this may be enough to those who are wise to understand that which is good and for others I shall sit down quietly upon Solomons account Prov. 27.22 Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a morter with a pestle yet will not his foolishness depart from him But in the close of this you except against some of those portions of Scripture by me cited saying It is to be minded that the people spoken of in those Scriptures by him quoted out of Deut. 7.7 8. and 10.15 are said in the first verse of the seventh Chapter to be a holy people unto the Lord their God and those people which are said at that time to be a holy people and chosen to be a special people unto the Lord their God above all the people that were upon the face of the earth afterwards for their murmuring against God and tempting of him ten times and not hearkening to his voice were destroyed in the wilderness and their carcasses fell in the wilderness through their unbelief and doubtless saith God you shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein Numb 14.29 30. and thus they came to know his breach of promise vers 34. See also Heb. 3.16 17 18 19. Sir this excursion of yours I imagine is intended upon another account viz. to lay a stumbling-block in the Saints way that they may fall away from grace received for in so far as I made use of them to prove that there was no external motive in the object neither of holiness nor believing for which God did set his love upon them to elect them those places alledged will carry it clear enough And therefore to what you mind that they are called ver 6. a Holy people I hope you will distinguish of the holiness of a people There is first an external and federal holiness and this they had by circumcision outward profession and as being visible covenanters Secondly Internal and real holiness wrought onely by the finger of God in changing of their natures and making of them new creatures t is the first that is here meant and not the second And whereas you write that these people which are here called a holy people fell in the wilderness through unbelief Sir I must tell you that I do not take you to be so excellent at Chronography as to make it appear that they were these numerical people here spoken of See 1 Cor. 10.5 with many God not well pleased that so fell in the wilderness But admit they were it is said their carcasses fell in the wilderness i. e. they died in the wilderness but what followes hence did they all therefore fall into hell Absit God forbid that any one should make such a desperate conclusion But youl 'e say they fell through unbelief yet I must tell you that though they wanted that historical faith in not believing the relations of the searchers of the land of Canaan See 1 Cor. 10.4 they drank of that spiritual rock and that rock was Christ Numb 23.19 yet they might have a saving and justifying faith in believing Christ should be crucifyed for them notwithstanding what is here or can be alledged to the contrary But why you set these words and thus they came to know his breach of promise in words at length and not in figures I am unwilling to deliver my thoughts But do you think that God is a man that he should lye or as the son of man that he should repent hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good Isa 46.10 no his counsel shall stand and he will do all his pleasure But this is spoken by an Anthropopathy bringing in God to do after the manner of men for our weak capacities For the temporal promises of God are but conditions
any preparation or disposition thereunto but solely in the bosome of the God of heaven who according to the counsel of his own will from all eternity differenceth one person from another Iacob from Esau decreeing and destinating both unto glory as the end and likewise unto saving grace as the means conducing to that end For if besides the act of God thus specifying or distinguishing man should have any stroke as that through his own strength or acting at all Ephes 2.9 Hab. 1.16 1 Cor. 4.7 as to his own being decreed to salvation then a man had whereof to boast then might he sacrifice to his own net and burn incense to his own drag then man had made himself to differ and he had that which he never had received And if those former Scriptures by me alledged seem not to you of full weight Luk. 6.38 take these following to the bargain which doutbtless will make it good measure pressed down shaken together and running over First as to the exclusion of all creature-interests besides the alone will of God which is his decree of election Mat. 11.25 Luke 12.31 Secondly as to the confirming of this grant ad numerum numeratum as to a set definite and known number The Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2.19 he knows whom he hath chosen Ioh. 13.18 he knows his sheep Ioh. 10.27 yea he knows them by name Ioh. 10.3 their names are written in heaven Luk. 10.20 yea in the spirits book Rev. 13.8 even in the book of life Phil. 4.3 Rev. 21.12 So that having discharged this Argument likewise from the burden you cast upon it by your crude exceptions I am now at liberty to come to the relief of My fourth Argument which is this If faith and works be the fruits and effects of election then they are no waies causes of it for which God should elect But they are fruits and effects Acts 13.48 as many as were ordained to life believed Eph. 2.4 7 8 9 16. To which you answer First See here what ado the man makes with works and causes as the position never mentioneth Answ Sir that I inserted works into any of my Arguments I have given the reason thereof in my defence of my second Argument to wit for the avoiding of vain Tautologies I must refer the Reader and as to causes to my first Argument and though it be true that totidem verbis causes are not exprest in the position yet by an unavoydable consequence they are implied and therefore if the man had holden fast the forme of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 1 Tim. 6.3 and consented to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness much of this contest would have been spared The holy Scriptures and this mans learned writings were not calculated for the same meridian they will not easily suite for one hemisphere where find you in all the holy writings such a style as this especially as to matter of election God saw some men embracing the means and those he elected I have not found the like in Scripture whatsoever this man hath done in his rarer observations but sure I believe he laid it purposely as a gin to catch woodcocks no Sir when you set forth any doctrinal truth by way of a position you ought to keep as close to a Scripture-phrase as possibly the subject matter will bear Secondly you answer by way of a demand what ground he hath to say that faith and works be the fruits and effects of election except it be this that because election goeth before and faith and works follow after and by that way of reasoning he may as well say that Abels death was the effect of Cains birth and that may be accounted the cause of it but yet Cains being born had not effected it if he had not afterwards rose up against him and slew him and so he came to his death it being effected by that means so likewise notwithstanding the Decree of election was before man had any being yet faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God Rom. 10.17 as a means appointed by God for the effecting of it that so men might fall under the decree of salvation that is appointed by God to be the portion of believers from before the foundation of the world Answ I shall return upon you in our Saviours language Luk. 19.22 Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee thou wicked servant But even now did you consent Promises did flow from the decree of election and yet though we had not reum confitentem we are not so barren and empty of solid grounds for what we say or do affirm Ephes 1.3 that all those spiritual blessings in heavenly places thâ—â— a believer from first to last is made partaker of they all flow unto us and are conferred on us as fruits and effects of election Rom. 11.7 election hath obtained it that Christ was given of the Father that he was incarnate crucified dead raised from death to life that he ascended up on high and that now he sits on Gods right hand and acteth now daily as an intercessor all these flow from election Gal. 4.4 1 Pet. 1.20 Luk. 24.26 Phil. 2.6 c. That any are effectually called according to purpose t is the effect of election Rom. 8.28 and ver 23.24 c. Justification is from election 8.30 c. Sanctification from election Rom. 6.22 Your fruit unto holiness Ephes 1.4 Chosen that we should be holy All which Graces and priviledges as they are fruits and effects of election so are they all of them in their several stations and relations causes of salvation and every antecedent grace is a cause of its consequent grace and the salvation of the elect which is their consummate Glorification is the common effect both of the first cause as of all the intermediate and secondary causes At last you bid defiance to this Argument by having a fling at that Classical text of Scripture Acts 13.48 retorting it upon me thus To his Greek that he writeth in the margin of his paper from Acts 13.48 As many as were ordained c. I do desire him to look once more into his Greek Testament and then let him as he will be willing to answer it before the Judge of the world the Lord Iesus at his appearing when he shall come in his glory and let him speak according to his conscience upon that account whether he cannot read the same words in the Greek from which the word ordained is translated to be the same with that in 1 Cor. 16.15 from which the word addicted is translated and also I shall appeal to the consciences of reasonable people whether it be not a suitable and an agreeable kinde of reading it being directly contrary to what the Jews did v. 45. they spoke against those things which were spoken by Paul contradicting and blaspheming and so
embracing of the means then these absurdities would follow then 1. The will of God should be moved and determined by an external cause i. e. the first cause should be ordered and guided by the second and thereby be made the second cause e contra which is against the rules of all Philosophy and Divinity 2. God hereby is supposed to be capable of passion i. e. when thus moved but God is altogether immutable and impassible 3. Then there should be somewhat in the creature out of God before greater and better then God because that every cause is before and better then the effect 4. If there might be imagined to be any thing in the creature which might move God to the decreeing or appointing of this 〈◊〉 that then it would follow that the actings and issues of things hâ—â— not a dependence on the decree of God contrary to Iam. 3 3â— 5. Then man might have just cause of boasting in himself 6. What then would become of children dying in infancy bâ—fore they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of thâ— means and which never were to have a being to act thereforâ— they were never to be foreseen To which you frame this answeâ— If our election were so much dependent on mans embracing 〈◊〉 the means as that there might be imagined to be any thing in thâ— creature which might move God to the decreeing or appointinâ— of men and women to eternal life then I deny not many absurdities would follow and this Argument may do something where it hits but as it happeneth it hits not us for we hold no such thing neither is there any thing asserted in this Position as that our election is dependent on mans embracing the means 〈◊〉 as that God should be thereby moved to elect Answ This is no more nor other then what was said against the former Argument onely the baby is swadled in other clouts Nor is that ere a jot the better which follows But any rational man that shall read these Arguments with a single eye and with an honest and upright heart and with a single mind compare them with the Position they are brought to answer cannot certainly but judge that either the man did not well mind what was in the Position or else had forgotten what was in it when he writ his Arguments or otherwise it must be his folly for all the expressions he seemeth to quarrel at be of his own making for not one of the expressions be found in the Position as that anything wrought in or by the creature is any motive or incentive for which God elects as a meritorious or procuring ground or cause of it but the whole substance of it is that God saw some men embracing the means of Salvation and those he elected in Christ c. Answ Whereto I say that I did seriously weigh the fraud of your Position before ever I put pen to paper and was now again very considerate of what I had undertaken and though in terminis motives and incentives causes are not therein exprest yet in that you say that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected it is necessarily implyed that those must be singular and numerical persons who must be elected for or because of their embracing of the means for why God did chuse those that he did foresee would embrace the means rather then those rhat he did foresee would reject the means and whether in this is not embracing of the means according to you a cause of election I leave it to any unbyassed man to Judge Besides I do demand whether in this your supposed foresight that you ascribe to God did he foresee that which he himself would work in them viz. this embracing of the means or did he onely foresee that which they themselves that were so foreseen would woâ—k by their own power viz. that they would of themselves embrace the means If you ascribe it to God then I demand why he works that power in one rather then another 1 Cor. 4.7 wherein at last you must ascend to the good pleasure of his will But if you ascribe this power to man himself then man hath made himself to differ and hath that in himself which he hath not received and hath cause whereof to boast But upon this account besides the absurdities before mentioned the whole doctrin of predestination would be quite overturned for 1. So it might come to pass that notwithstanding any decree with you yet possible it were that no one might be saved viz. if no one would embrace the means which was in their own power to resist 2 So might there be an election unto life and yet no one elected to life 3 Those onely should be the persons designed to salvation who were objectively and antecedently believers and embracers of the means before their election not considered as such who by vertue of their election should consequentively and effectively be made to be believers thereupon the effects of election to be taken for antecedent conditions necessarily prerequired in the object 4 So should the whole fabrick of divine predestination be dependent on the free will of man which is abhorrent to all religion 5 So there would not be such a considerable difference between Iacob and Esau those to be saved and those to be damned as to a meer performance of the condition under which men are to be saved and damned 6 Upon this account predestination and election of men is to be adjourned even to the moment of death it being suspended not onely on the embracing of the means but continuance therein I could burden you with many more absurdities and evil consequences flowing from your opinion but these are enough for you to beare That of yours which follows is a chip of the same block But if he do or shall at anytime say in plaine words that which he seemeth to intimate in his Arguments that we hold that our faith works or embracing of the means is a motive incentive or procuring ground or cause for which God elects or that there is any such thing held forth in this position that God elects men in Christ for these things then let him receive the words of Solomon for an answer in Prov. 10.18 he that hideth hatred with lying lips and he that uttereth slander is a fool Answ Prov. 24.7 Sir I shall onely return upon you in Solomons language that wisdom is to high for a fool these absurdities and many more do unavoydably follow upon the position though your eies be so blinded that you cannot see it Prov. 26.3 and therefore a whip for a horse a bridle for the asse and a rod for the fools back that when he is told of it yet will not see his own error Answ For that which follows for we know and are sure that the Lord hath set apart or chosen to himself Psal 4.3 a godly man which godly
and means appointed of God for that end and one would think that this man were a little of my mind in this by what falleth from him in the close of this second Argument using these words at least for the moving of God to elect Sir If here where you make mention of any Instrumental cause you intend onely the Instrumental means of salvation then I joyne with you for as I have before asserted That as God hath decreed the end so likewise hath he decreed the means conducing to that end But as there is no external cause at all and therefore none Instrumental for which he doth elect before all time but all arising from within himself even his own love and good pleasure so when that decree comes to be put into execution in time then there are subordinate causes but all set on work by the first cause which is God himself but not as to election but all as tending to salvation And therefore that fell very advisedly from me when I said at least for the moving of God to elect where I place a vast difference between election and salvation God elects without respect had to faith works or use of means as to the decree but yet he saves with by and through faith works and use of means as in respect of the end 2 Thes 2.13 1 Pet. 1.2 You pack up these your fardles of exceptions thus Now if he do not hold that it is some cause by which men come to be more peculiarly interessed into the favour of God by believing then they are without believing why did he not rather say it must not be accounted any cause at all upon any account whatsoever But it is that which the Lord Christ hath said in Ioh. 16.27 which perswadeth me to be of that mind in that he hath said the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God and therefore If I should say that loving of Jesus Christ and believing in him were no cause at all by which we came to be chosen into the Fathers love I should sin against Christ in speaking contrary to his word But this is more then was in the Position and yet it is no more then truth Answ Sir now I will give you an account why I used that expression at least for the moving of God to elect my meaning was not that any man came to be interested into the first favour and love of God which is the good pleasure of his will immanent and eternal in himself more by believing then without believing For in election God lookt upon men as sinners enemies ungodly in their blood in a doleful plight and the objects of pity and compassion and not as on believers And therefore my words carried this sense that though there were no cause or motive at all why he should elect one rather then another because all were in an equally lost condition yet in the decree of election wherein there was a love unto and a purpose to save some he likewise decreed to save them by such means which in his wisdome he had ordained to be suitable for the attaining of the end so that salvation should have adequate causes for the effecting of it viz. faith works and use of means though election it self had none but singly and simply the love of God arising onely out of his own bosome And therefore it excluded causes as to election but did admit of causes as to the accomplishment of salvation For the rest of this paragraph of yours it trips up the heeles of all the former your seeming fair concessions and plainly discovers the secret guile and fraud of your heart For now you begin to speak plain enough saying If I should say believing were no cause at all by which we come to be chosen into the Fathers love I should sin against Christ Here indeed is plain dealing though all along before you have juggled with me and denyed all causes as to election And this indeed though you are not aware of it moâ—lders to nothing all your former exceptions which have still denied all causes motives c. And now you grant loving and believing to be causes and confirms every argument that I have raised and fortifies every of those absurdities that I have charged upon you as following upon your position to any of which you make not the least appearance of an answer But I tell you as before God in electing lookt upon men as in the corrupt mass and lumpe of perdition regarding nothing what they could be as of themselves for they must unavoidably be in a lost condition till by his own act transient flowing from that of Immanent in himself he made them believers by giving of them faith and all of this for the greater advance of his own free grace which he did not do to others For that place of Ioh. 16.27 brought to confirm their purpose I answer that the love of God hath a two-fold acception The first is amor benevolentiae which is the foundation and fountain of all the good his people have and receive t is the wombe that conceives and sends forth all the good things we do enjoy of which Ier. 31.3 I have loved thee with an everlasting love and so 1 Ioh. 4.10 we love him because he loved us first and of this no cause or reason can be rendred besides the good pleasure of his will The second is amor complacentiae when in time the Lord is delighted with the persons of those that he loved from eternity Ezek. 16.14 thy beauty was perfect through the comeliness I put upon thee Cant. 3.1 Behold thou art fair c. and thus the Lord crowns rewards and delights himself in those graces given to his elect ones and of this love of complacency is this text to be understood and not of the everlasting love spoken of Ier. 31.3 in electing of us before all time and whereof onely this controversie is And now gather up altogether and make up your accounts and see to what an excrescency of advantage your numerous exceptions against my arguments will amount unto and you shall find that the Summa totalis will be just o Hitherto have we fayled in that still river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God Psal 46.4 Psal 87.7 Rom. 11.33 and from whence all our springs flow viz. Gods electing of us to life eternal But now we are to lanch into that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that unfathomable gulfe of the wisdom and knowledge of God whose judgements are unsearchable and his waies past finding out viz. that of non-election or Reprobation Concerning which this Gentlemans Position did assert this viz. That God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief yet haply not without the exact form of godliness but denying the power those he reprobated to everlasting destruction from the foundation of the world But In
nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas Corpora c. Having taken counsel of his pillow by his second thoughts he hath transformed the terms of his position by putting it into a new dress and at his peril be it if it prove to his own disadvantage The Position is new moulded thus God saw some rejecting the means to wit the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel continuing in sin and unbelief denying the power of godliness those he reprobated to everlasting destruction but the foresight of God did not nor doth necessitate the thing seen To which my answer was Answ This hath the like unsoundness in it as the former of Election there being no other ground or reason assigned for it either of sin or unbelieving no other rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy Will who will do with his creature what he will do neither can any expostulate why hast thou done thus Isa 45.9 It is true that sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but yet not the causes of their Reprobation that is solely and singly in the good pleasure of his will Ephes 1.5 His reply is this especially to that Text of Ephes 1.5 This Scripture saith nothing at all of Reprobation or mans destruction but of the Predestinating or appointing of believers to the Adoption of children by Jesus Christ Answ T is very true Sir that the letters and syllables of that word Reprobation is not in terminis exprest in that text cited of Ephes 1.5 but if by a necessary and an unavoidable consequence it may be thence concluded I hope it will be as sufficient as though in express words it had been so declared The words are recorded as for the comfort and encouragement of elect believers in beholding of the certainty and stability of their Predestination and Election resting in the bosome of God and the counsel of his will So likewise to keep them in an humble posture and engage them to a continual duty of thankfulness that when as they were in the same corrupt mass and lump of perdition with others the worst of men yet the Lord meerly out of the good pleasure of his will and from no other argument or motive out of themselves did fix his love upon them and predestinated them to the Adoption of children But was there not then the same good pleasure of his wil in the preterition non-election or not predestinating to the Adoption of children the rest that were past by who in respect of themselves were in as great and as good a capacity of partaking of any indulgence as those that were elected and what will this then amount unto but to be non-elected which is the same as to be Reprobated according to the good pleasure of his will I presume all the art you have cannot assign a medium between the decrees or at least make two decrees of predestinating of some men and the not predestinating of others but that if some men were not predestinated or not elected they must thence necessarily be reprobated He give you a familiar instance Suppose ten men for the evil deeds that they have committed be arraigned indicted convicted and adjudged to death but that immediately before the time of execution an act of Grace or special Pardon issues out from the supreme Magistrate and relaxes and freely remits the punishment to five of those ten I hope you may hence safely conclude that the other five shall be executed So let us suppose that the number of mankind are two Millions of men If out of these by the eternal and unchangeable decree of God one Million onely be infallibly appointed and ordained to eternal life they being all alike equally culpable and liable to eternal wrath and death who can deny but that the other Million are also as absolutely comprised under that sentence of eternal death whereinto they had hurled themselves as the decree of predestination or election saves some of meer good pleasure so the same decree of preterition non election non predestination leaves the rest where it found them weltring in their own gore and so reprobates them I hope you will not with the Papists in another like kind make a limbo non praedestinatorum seu non electorum such as shall neither go to heaven or hell And this of the decree of God before all time But when it pleaseth God who separated such from the mothers womb to reveal his Son unto them in time Gal. 1.16 then it is after this manner He brings his elect ones to eternal life by giving of theâ—â— faith repentance and perseverance and the manner of Gods permitting the non-elect to run themselves on the rock of eternal death is by leaving them in their own natural blindness and perverse enmity of their own imbred corruptions and nor supplying them with any restraining assisting or saving grace being not bound unto his creature so to do without which they must unavoydably wallow in their own mire and out of which they are never able to extricate themselves but are justly by God suffered to continue in their infidelity and impenitency Farther I say that the formal decree of election contains an absolute and an eternal decree of preparing of effectual grace for those that are so elected But the formal decree of negative Reprobation or non-election an absolute eternal decree of not preparing this effectual grace for those who are so pretermitted From whence is plain that the divine prevision of faith works and use of means in the elect so likewise the continuing in sin and unbeliefe in the nonelect doth not nor cannot go before the forementioned decree as you vainly imagine but are concomitant and coordinate in and with the decree and that when some are predestinated and elected to the Adoption of children out of the good pleasure of Gods will Eph. 2.12 Others are not predestinated not elected but reprobated according to the same good pleasure of his will and still remain aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the covenant of promise having no hope and never made partakers of the joy of the elect Pro. 14.10 From the canvassing of this text you proceed to another but with the like success of which thus you dictate Neither is that In Isa 45. at all to the purpose for it speaketh not at all of Reprobation or mans eternal destruction but of Gods calling and raising up Cyrus to subdue nations before him and that he would direct all his waies that he should build his City and let go his Captives and it was his will so to do and therefore woe be unto him that should strive with his maker to go about to hinder or frustrate the designe of God in that thing as doth appear from ver 1. to ver 15. Answ Sure Sir whatsoever mine is I am sure this is little to
counsel hath decreed appointed to permit in the manner to come to pass But you have another bout with this text and say But secondly I do therefore affirme that the disobedience o◠unbelievers is in not doing of that which they should do by the appointment of God and as some of the former translations 〈◊〉 read being disobedient to that whereon they were set and if this man do but look on his Greek Testament and say no otherwise o◠this text then in his own conscience he judgeth to be the clea◠sense of it as he is freely willing to answer the same before the great and righteous Iudge the Lord Iesus at his appearing when he shall sit upon the throne of his glory Then I am perswaded that he will say no otherwise of it Answ Sir in answer to this your conclusive cathedral gloss viz. that the disobedience of unbelievers is in not doing of that which they should do by the appointment of God I must tell you it is very luxuriant and corrupts the text and perverts the whole scope of the Holy Ghost and sense of the words both of which according to the mind of the Spirit and given in before I need not to repeat it The word which the Translators here render disobedient is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies an unperswaded person an incredulous unbelieving and refractory person that wil give no assent unto that which he hears And now I pray learn me one lesson In what Grammatical construction can these words whereunto they were appointed have any manner of relation but onely unto their antecedent disobedient or unbelieving and not to any implicit command or injunction of God as it is by you feigned And then it must necessarily carry this Interpretation being disobedient unperswaded or incredulous unto which their disobedience misperswasion or incredulity they were before hand even from all eternity predetermined predestinated or appointed of God But that which followes of yours puts me into a wonder as it was to the Jews concerning Christ Ioh. 7.15 How knoweth this man Letters or Learning as it is in the Margin having never learned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I suppose you are not a pretender to any Enthusiastical raptures as if you could speak any exotick languages as by an immediate divine inspiration which you never learned as one in London once did in my hearing pretending a miraculous gift in his speaking of Hebrew and Greek he being no scholar but let that pass and him too that set you on this buz which onely makes a noise but comes to nothing For those former translations you mention which render the words being disobedient to that whereon they were set I have not met with any such and therefore leave them to their own sense But upon your proposal and heavy charge thereon I have surveyed the original the words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it properly signifies as I said before a person unperswaded not believing and for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereon you lay the stress of your interpretation if we shall follow the usual sense of the holy Ghost in divers other such like places it cannot in any other fair construction be rendred then Appointed ordained viz. by the decree of God and so is the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usually taken as Ioh. 15.16 I have chosen you and ordained you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 1 Thes 5.9 God hath not appointed us to wrath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now why you should tread in a path by your self and wave the best received Interpretation I know no cogent reason for it but that you have a vain affectati-of singularity Nor indeed much would it conduce to your purpose had you your desire in this sense of the word but such men as you are when they can no wayes evade the power of the Spirit speaking in any Scripture then they fall to their wrenches and turnings and doubles as the Hate doth when she is hard hunted and in danger to be taken and can find no other way to escape and therefore I will leave you to your vain subterfuges and attend to what you further say Object But the objection that usually is made against this is grounded upon Rom. 9.19 20. Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will Nay but O man who art thou that repliest against God c. Now that which some do infer from it is That God doth Reprobate men to eternal destruction without assigning or ascribing any other thing to be the cause of it but the will of God as this man doth in his argument Answ To which I answer that there is no need at all for men to dispute with God so as to demand of him a ground or cause of mans Reprobation for he hath shewed them the things of himself by the things that are made even his eternal power and God-head so that they are without excuse Rom. 1.20 and hath shewed sufficiently in the Scripture that the rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief is the cause of it as hath been already proved and yet I shall by the help and assistance of God endeavour to make it more plain for consider that the people that Paul speaks to in these words Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will c. were the Iews which notwithstanding all that God did publish and declare unto them by Jesus Christ and by his Apostles first tendring unto them the choice and precious mercies of himself in his Son Christ that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Ierusalem and so it was declared unto them Acts 4.10 11 12. that there was no other name under heaven given among men whereby they must be saved but onely by the name of Iesus of Nazareth whom they had crucified whom God hath raised from the dead Which is the stone that was set at nought by the builders the Iews yea this truth was plainly declared by Paul also in Acts 13. from ver 16. to ver 46. and he applying his speech to the men of Israel and children of the seed of Abraham in the conclusion thereof ver 38 39. saith these words Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses Beware therefore saith he ver 40 41. Lest that come upon you whsch is spoken of in the Prophets Behold ye despisers and wonder and perish for I work a work in your dayes which ye shall or see Hab. 1.5 will in no wise believe though a man declare it unto you and by this it may solely be concluded that Paul was not of
analogous to the business in hand Yet I have not spared to set the whole down having proposed that to my self to be my method at first that so it might apppear that I had not put a slur upon any part of his writing which had any appearance of substance in it And yet in my answer hereunto I shall not confine my self to such strict terms as to pursue him so closely in his wildgoose chace through thick and thin over hills and over dales Ultra Garamantas et Indos and so to wait upon him in his crooked waies or follow him in his extravagancies he gleans up and patcheth together divers impertinent places of Scripture as Act. 4.10 c. Act. 13.16 c. Ioh. 9.28 c. Rom. 2.17 Gal. 4.22 Gen. 25.23 Obad. 10. Rom. 10.18 and Ier. 18.4 and 2 Thes 2.10 11. and from these to drain out the Apostles meaning in this place But my purpose is to keep me close to the words of the Apostle who best knew the meaning of the Spirit and who alone is sufficient to be his own interpreter and from thence to infer so much as to a rational man may give a full decision to the matter in controversie viz. that sin and unbelief is not the cause of Reprobation before all time but that it proceeds solely from the good pleasure of Gods most holy will to reprobate or pass by whom he pleaseth though this confident I might say impudent man saith he hath already proved the contrary But sure then it must be in one of his former printed volumes I am certain it cannot be found in this pamphlet But before I undertake to make an entry on the words I cannot over-slip one of his new discoveries whereof he desires the Reader to consider that the people that Paul speaketh to in these words Rom. 9.19 Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will c. were the Jews c. Sir may I be beholding to you for this your rare invention Your skill in Chorography it seems is not ordinary such a dull brain as I have did believe that Rome stood in Italy within the bounds of Europe but your dextrous art hath espied it out in Iudea within the climates of Asia many hundreds of miles distant from what I ever apprehended of it I pray Sir in your next inform me whether Rome stood in Ierusalem yea or no But what need I to wonder at thi for with such fopperies you gull your deluded Auditors who swallow down worse falsities then these without straining at such Camels For truly Sir I must tell you that you must help me to such a faith that can remove mountains in the twinkling of an eye nay cities too before I can yield to you that Paul here speaks to the Jews For if I may safely believe Paul rather then you it was directed to the Romans Rom. 1.7 for all that be in Rome and the Postscript written to the Romans from Corinthus Now who can be so ignorant as not to know that the Romans were Gentiles and not Jews and though in this chapter mention be made of the Jews his sorrow for them in respect of his near relation to them their ancient pedigree and great priviledges yet it is directed particularly to the Gentiles that they might make a holy use thereof So that your fabrick raised on so sandy a foundation your Babel consisting of a bare circumlocution of several texts of Scripture forced by you to speak what was never intended by the Holy Ghost in them it all moulders to powder But lest this may seem rather a tergiversation then an answer I will as I intended offer to the Readers view the genuine Analysis of the Apostle in this part of the chapter that so sorting it as collateral to your forced interpretation the judicious Reader may thereby censure whether is more suitable to the mind of the Holy Ghost yours or mine In the former part of this chapter the Apostle had been treating of the predestination of the Saints by the examples of Isaac and Iacob and now is he entred upon the doctrine of reprobation by the examples of Ishmael and Esau under which all Reprobates may be comprehended Of whom when he had concluded that it was not for any of their evil deeds but the meet good pleasure of Gods will that so rejected them and having proposed an objection to himself which carnal wisdome might alledge that if the matter were so then there was unrighteousness with God to deal so unequally with persons that were in all things in an equal condition He repulseth this objection as most absurd saying God forbid and withal he aggravates his protestation against such a conclusion as the charging of God with injustice by the testimony of God to Moses Exod. 33.9 I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy c. the reason whereof is drawn from Gods absolute and most free power that he hath over all his creatures to do with them what he pleaseth The same absolute sovereignty is likewise ratified by the example of Pharaoh in whom there is such a series and concatenation of acts of the divine providence in hardening and destroying and that written in such large Characters that all the future ages of the world might know that God is Lord Paramount over all the works of the creation and therefore that he may when and whom and where he pleaseth raise up some to be as potsheards that were made of purpose that his absolute power might be shewen on them as to shew mercy on whom he will so to harden whom he pleaseth This block being removed and thereby the point of absolute soveraignty being confirmed the Apostle now meets with another objection ver 19. Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will now from what the Apostle here objects it is palpable that in himself he concludes that it depends meerly on the will of God that some are Reprobated or not elected and thereby hardened and being hardened do unavoidably sin and perish For humane reason from what was said whom he will he hardens might conclude that the Apostles doctrine leads to an absurdity for if it must be so how can it be that God can justly complain of those which are hardened and so of those who are Reprobated when they do sin How may it be said can God complain and that for a double reason First because those who are hardened or reprobated when they sin they do onely such things as God doth will to permit by them to be done Secondly because those who are so reprobated and hardened they can do no other then thus sin if that unto that purpose they were so hardened and reprobated Now both of these things are very true neither doth the Apostle deny either of them But that which humane reason doth infer from thence viz. that therefore God cannot in justice find fault
to say such a thing was not exprest in the position those who are acquainted not onely with the Anabaptists but likewise with the Arminians and Socinians of both which you have a tange know so much You say it is not expresly which doth admit that it is comprehended in it implicitly which is as much as I look for if it may be deduced thence Howsoever the best of it is that I have reum confitentem that rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief are in some measure the cause of Reprobation but where you have proved these to be the causes he that hath eyes to see let him see I am sure I cannot find it You conclude what you have to say against this Argument thus 3. To the Scripture which he quoteth out of Rom. 9.14 I have spoken to it already and to that in Rom. 11.33 34. it speaketh not at all to that particular business of Reprobation but of that great love and tender respect that God yet hath to Israel for their fathers sake as doth appear from ver 25. and so forward and of the great things which shall be done for them in the latter dayes when their deliverer shall come out of Sion and shall turn away ungodliness from Iacob which great work of God in respect of the manner of it is much mysterious inasmuch as there is so much of the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God that his judgements to us are unsearchable and his waies therein past finding out until the fulness of time shall come that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea Isa 11.9 the Lord shal set again his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shiner and from Hamath and from the Islands of the sea c. ver 11. to the end But here I must break off from saying any more of these things at present for my leisure will not serve and it is likely this man will call this Millenarianism as he calleth the other Pelagianism Answ T is very right Sir you have spoken to that place of Rom. 9.14 but at so pitiful a rate and to so little purpose that the Reader will find it would have stood more with your credit if you had holden your peace And for that place of Rom. 11.33 34. howsoever it mentioneth not Reprobation yet it is a solemn conclusion of the things before delivered in the ninth tenth and eleventh Chapter For the Apostle having spoken of many difficult points as Election Reprobation rejection of the Jews calling of the Gentiles recalling of the Jews and having answered many questions prevented many cavils satisfied many doubts he now sets a period to this discourse with a sad exclamation O the depth c. whereby he signifies that he was driven into a wonderful admiration of the wisdom and knowledge of God in the administration of his love to the elect and displeasure to the Reprobate As a man wading into a deep river that is not fordable when he comes up to the neck and feels the water begins to heave him up and his feet to fail him cries out O the depth c. and goes back so the Apostle having waded so far as he could by the leading of the Spirit in those unfordable mysteries and being almost swallowed up with admiration at Gods administrations unable to pass any further into that bottomless gulf he silenceth himself because the Spirit ceaseth to give him further discoveries and resolves to enter upon no more questions but to admire the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God whose mind i. e. his will and pleasure is no waies to be known of us but by the effects and consequents And I pray learned Sir did I alledge this place to any other purpose then that whereas you and other bold baiards will desperately undertake to assign reasons and external causes for those immanent actings of God we do with fear and reverence ascribe all to the good will and pleasure of God because by that and no way else hath he discovered himself in his word We do plainly see by the effect of it that it was his will so to be else had it not been and therefore we say it was appointed and ordained to be so by his good will and pleasure as for other reasons or causes we see and know none and surely Sir you limit this too narrowly straitning it to the recalling of the Jews which would the scope and purpose of the Apostle beare it yet would it serve sufficiently for my purpose neither should I make any scruple thereby of your turning Millenary for to that and a hundred more of other unstable doctrines are such men of your temper inclined unto being constant onely in inconstancy persisting in nothing but change But whereas you seem to put Millenarianism into the scales as to poise against Pelagianism Sir herein thâ—s far I shall discover my judgement upon them both that a man may be a Millenary I mean in so much as the reign of Christ upon the earth for a thousand years and yet with a charitable interpretation hold all the Articles of the Christian faith and so be eternally saved I know many learned good and gracious men have been of that judgement but for Pelagianism their doctrine is so gross in the whole lump yea so destructive to and inconsistent with the fundamentals of Christian Religion that to be a Pelagian in all their known profest tenets and to live and die so I do much doubt whether any one of them can be saved But what have I to do to judge another mans servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth Rom. 14.4 I have enough to do to attend my own calling but in the mean time to wait what great matters will flow from your wisdom in the rear of all I mean what you have to say to my fourth and last Argument which is as followeth Arg. 4. If the foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation then these absurdities will follow 1. That no child dying in infancy can possibly be Reprobated 2. Neither such Gentiles or Turks Indians and Savages that never head of Christ who never enjoyed the Gospel nor ever had the means tendred unto them for how can they believe in him of whom they never heard Rom. 10. and how can they reject that which was never tendred unto them as many nations in the world who are strangers from the life of God Ephes 2.12 3. If the foresight of sin should be the cause of Reprobation then the Elect should be equally lyable to the decree of Reprobation as the Reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams Transgression Rom.
9.21 22 23. Ioh. 15.19 Ephes 2.1 23. Children of wrath as well as others Rom. 3.10 and ver 20. None righteous no not one 4. Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.11 in not assigning sin to be the cause of Reprobation 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to those objections Rom. 9.13 19. The first is If God Reprobated Esau because he hated him he was unjust The second ver 9. Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for he might in one word have answered to both objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. When they had done neither good no evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated 6. Thereby we confine Gods infinite soveraignty over the creatures to the narrow scantling of our subordinate power as though he might not do with his own what he list without our controll and not make a vessel either to honour or dishonour unless he were accountable to us for a reason of his so doing Answ 1. I cannot but take notice of his evil dealing in the making of his Arguments that he should make no less then ten Arguments against two Positions and not one in all the ten that answers to either of them now as I have said before I must be constrained to say yet once more that the Position doth not say that foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejection of the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation but the Position saith God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation to wit free tenders of Christ in the Gospel continuing in sin and unbelief c. which word continuing is forgotten and not mentioned in all the Arguments but I must not abate him that expression Continuing lest I should be guilty of letting the truth suffer through my negligence for if he had put in that expression into his Argument and framed his Argument accordingly to have answered the Position as it lyeth there could not one absurdity have followed but yet I shall examine your absurdities particularly to see whether they follow from the Position or any thing that we hold or whether they will all prove to be absurdities yea or no. Answ There are a sort of beggers that give them what you will to yield to their craving natures yet they are never satisfied Some of our children are of such pettish and peevish dispositions that answer what you will to their wanton fancies yet they are never contented Sir take it not amiss that I must rate you with one of these two though I have given you ten to two the least of which might have been satisfactory to a rational man yet nothing will convince you but that you are stil grumbling that my answers and Arguments hit not your positions because I bring not every several word of your Positions into my Arguments severally therefore you say they are not framed against what you do hold Sir before this I did not conceive that the rules of arguing limited men to such punctilioes of words but if that any thing might be necessarily deduced from the Positions besides the bare letters and words of the Position it might have been a warrantable way of argumentation let the word continuing be put into any or every of the Arguments and you will get nothing by it nor will it abate any of those absurdities I have already marked out to flow from your doctrine If the subtilty of any of your party have drawn out and stated your Positions so as to lye at the catch for a starting-hole when you feel your selves pincht by an Argument it will prove but a jadish trick to shift your necks out of the collar by saying such expressions are not in the position or this contains not all that is in the position Howsoever it is these your concessions and owned by you as they are stated by me will convince you that though your position be God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation c. and those he reprobates c. yet your reserved meaning is that the foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejection of the means of salvation be the cause of Reprobation and indeed what can be less collected thence God saw some men rejecting of the means of salvation those he reprobates and why did he reprobate those that did reject the means rather then those that did embrace the means of salvation but onely for this because they did reject the means so that the rejecting of the means according to you must be the cause of their Reprobation and hence it is that p. 33. of your Pamphlet you set down these words in a great and distinct character because they receive not the love of the truth and for this cause God shall send them strong delusions But I will quarrel no more about words but see how you will shake off those absurdities laid at the door of your position But hereby the way let it be taken notice of that you have not swept the door of your former position clean from those absurdities which cleave fast unto it but you have skipt them all over because in deed they were too hot for your fingers onely you make an adventure to have a fling at the sixth absurdity flowing from that former position by comparing it with the first that flowes from this concerning which thus you write Absurdities answered And I shall compare the first absurdity as he calleth it with that sixth or last absurdity which he putteth to his sixth Argument in answer to the second position viz. God saw some men embracing the means of salvation those he elected in Christ c. and there he giveth out as if such an absurdity must needs follow that no children dying in infancy could be saved saying what then would become of children dying in infancy before they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of the means which never had being to act and to this he saith that such an absurdity as this must needs follow that no child dying in infancy can possibly be reprobated Now whether two such different things can follow these two positions I shall leave to the judgement of others that have understanding Answ Sir if any Lyncean eyes can spy out the least inconsistency or contradiction between those two absurdities laid to your charge to say they clash one against another according to your principles ce do quemvis arbitrum I appeal to any that hath understanding to judge And yet you have not so much confidence as to make out this your supposed enterfering you onely speak to the absurdities apart thus To the first of these he seemeth to make their election to eternal life very doubtful if at all possible and the ground or reason is because that children dying in infancy have not the use of faith or works Answ T is true Sir I do so according to
because he loved him less than he did Iacob Gen. 29.31 Thus Leah was said to be hated by Iacob comparatively with the love shewed to Rachel because she was less beloved then Rachel so he that serves two masters will hate the one and love the other i. e. will love him less then the other And thus God loves the reprobates less than he doth the elect but it cannot hence be concluded that the Lord doth absolutely hate any creature of his own making â—en 1.31 for they were all good yea very good and Wisd 11.24 thou lovest all things that are and abhorrest nothing that thou hast made T is true God hates sin because he made it not and this hatred hath an influx upon the sinner as he is a sinner because God made him not so But God hates not a non-elected person or a reprobate as he is a reprobate neither doth he condemne him or decree to condemne him for his negative reprobation which is Gods act Isa 55.8 but for his sin which is mans act Secondly I say that this hatred in God his wayes not being like our waies is not to be considered as to hold proportion with the passions and affections of men in their hatred For this confusion or indistinct consideration or comparison of divine things with humane is that great witchcraft that puts such a stumbling-bloâ—k in the way to the knowledge of things that we cannot discover the truth thereof with so discerning an eye as otherwise we might And therefore though I do attribute hatred to God yet that hatred in God anteceding reprobation or which is assigned as a cause of reprobation is nothing else but Gods absolute will of denying that special benefit of effectual grace and infallible direction unto eternal life and permitting some men by their own defective freewill deservedly to fall under the misery of eternal death And therefore in some sort I may say that the hatred of God is as much visible and doth as sensibly discover it self in the denyal of effectual grace as in the inflicting of the torments of hell For God the Father wounded bruised tormented the soul of his dear Son for our sins without any diminution of his love unto him But he never denied him effectual grace whereby he had an immunity from sin And therefore say some It is more desirable to have the benefit of effectual grace whereby we are preserved safe in the love of God than to obtain an immunity from the torments of hell Christ was not exempted from this last though he was never excluded from the former Thirdly I would here distinguish of the hatred of God as it signifies in him first his affection or secondly his effection if I may use such a word or otherwise the effects of his affection though I do confess that these affections as of love hatred anger c. are not properly in God but are attributable to him ex anthropopathia by similitude and resemblance First for the hatred of God as it is an affection so it doth precede Reprobation it being the will and purpose of God to deny grace to such whom he will not elect which is that whith we call reprobation Secondly the hatred of God as it signifies an effect to wit the execution of that hatred anger wrath inflicted on sinners and so it follows reprobation To summe up all in a few words that God bare less love to his creature Esau then to Iacob is manifest That that lesser degree of love which he bare to Esau may comparatively to that manifested to Iacob be called hatred That God may deny some grace to one that he bestowes upon another without injustice that equall grace is not given to Esau as to Iacob That those who from the love of God are not elected by a necessary consequence must be reprobated or not elected Ephes 1.4 5 6 7. 2.4 5. or loved with a lesser love The love of God was the cause of our election and therefore the lesser love or hatred the cause of our reprobation And now Sir if you peruse this what I have here said you may easily answer your own frivolous question And yet I must withal tell you that though I do affirm that God reprobated Esau or did not elect him onely because he would not it was not the good pleasure of his will so to do or it was his wil absolute not to do it that he denied that favour to him that he shewed to Iacob and so may be said to hate him without any external cause lookt upon as in Esau why he should be reprobated rather than Iacob neither of them having done either good or evil yet there was an internal cause of the hatred or reprobation namely the good pleasure of Gods most holy will for the manifestation of his own glory in his power and justice And therefore God cannot without blasphemy be compared to the envious Jews who howsoever they hated the man Christ Jesus without a cause yet God had a cause motive or incentive from within himself even the manifestation of his own glory in shewing his power and justice on those so reprobated which glory of his is more precious and to be prefered before the saving and preserving from the torments of hell the persons of all both men and Angels and yet withal I say that the vindictive punishment of God or positive reprobation which is Gods appointing to torments and hatred of God as it is an effect of the former is never inflicted without a just and meritorious cause viz. the sin of man And thus much to what you answer to the first objection to the second you write thus To the second I have already shewed that Paul directed his words to the Jew who rested in the law and made his boast of God and was confident that he was in the way of God and thence it was that he said thou wilt say unto me who hath resisted his will But Paul had more than the single term sin to assigne as a cause of their being reprobated blinded or broken off from their own olive-tree to wit a continuance in sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation when the hands of the Lord were stretched forth unto them all the day long and yet they were a disobedient and gainsaying people Answ To this I have already answered pag. 115. that the words were directed to the Gentiles to which I refer the Reader And whereas afterwards you say that Paul had more then that single term to assigne as a cause of their being reprobated blinded broken off c. to wit a continuance in sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation Sir this is but gratis dictum you onely say but cannot prove it shew me any such expression in this whole chapter wherein this text alledged lies yea or any where else in all the Scripture It is true those words of yours of the Lords hands stretched