signifies our nature and its faculties as under corruption The faculties in which the sinfull privations are by reason of those privations doe lust against the working of the Spirit And now I might take my leave of Mr. P. but that I am told of no lesse than 17 cogent Arguments used by him in his Divine Philanthropie which I had not the courage to venture on When Mr. B. told him that he durst not quote the Assemblies Confession he is made a lyar for that speech If he deserve such a censure so I am sure doth Mr. P. How could I be said to want courage to meddle with that which I had never read over And which now that I have been forced to read over hath rather exercised my patience than my courage so far am I from looking upon them as convincing Demonstrations that I think I should honour them sufficiently if I but say that they are good enough for a Sophister to use when he is put to course in the Horse-fair ex tempore He ptetends to have proved in ample manner That sinne hath an efficient cause properly so call'd being angry it seems with the saying of Augustin that makes it to have a deficient rather than an efficient properly so call'd Pag. 145. If man be not the efficient cause saith our doughty Disputant then he is either the material or formal or final Rather than we will seem to be too much frighted we will say that man is the material or subjective cause of the action such a material or subjective cause as evill can have And he is the efficient cause too of the evil of the action if by an efficicient he meane no more than that unto which it may be ascribed But he and I both were best not to make too much noise least wee should awaken the youngsters to fall aboard us with such an Argument as this If man be the efficient cause either of a good action or a bad action then hee doth effect it by another action and so we may proceed in infinitum To let that pass the deficient cause is reduceable to the efficient and this is to be said Suppose the first sin of Angels to have been a proud desire to be equal unto God the cause of this proud desire was the will of the Angel but it was the cause of the action in such a sense as a causality may be said to have a cause per se of the vitiosity of the action it was onely the cause per accidens per concomitantiam nor doth the vitiotsiy of the effect alway suppose a vitiosity in the cause though it alway pre-supposeth an imperfection in the cause and where the cause it self is vitious its vitiosity is not the cause of the vitiosity of the effect for vitiosity of it self neither can effect nor be effected but the vitious cause taking together the being and the supervenient privation is the cause of the vitious effect taking it in like manner for the beeing and the superadded privation But if we contradict him we must say that God damns men for nothing Anselm in the place I before referred my Reader to makes this objection and laugheth at its weaknesse De Con. vir c. 6. Quidam cum audiunt peccatum nihil esse solent dicere si peccatum nihil est cur punit Deus hominem pro peccato cum pro nihilo puniri nemo debeat quibus quamvis humilis sit quaestio tamen quia quod quaerunt ignorant aliquid respondendum est What doth hee mean when he saith that God then must punish men for nothing If he meane that God would punish men because they have not that in their faculties habits actions which should be in them what absurdity is there in that Is not the punishment just except it be for positive entities How many men have been imprisoned for not paying summes of money which they did owe Yea I beleeve Mr. P. could well enough bear my being punished for not paying him his Arrears which he vainly enough fancyeth to bee due to him and yet non-payment cannot be accounted a positive entity nor doth Mr. P. know how to place it in any predicament of Beeings Siu is a punishment but punishment is a positive entity erg There is a punishment of losse which scarce ever any man said was positive There is a punishment of sense and this we say is no other way an evil or a punishment unto us than as it doth deprive us of some perfection of which we are capable The punishment of sense may be said to be positive as to its foundation not in its formality that is it is not positive if wee consider that in which the very evill of that punishment formally consists As to the rest of his Arguments they are partly such as I have met with before and partly such as others upon whose expressions they are grounded are more concerned in than my selfe When Mr. P. will undertake to vindicate every expression that hath been used in the managing of these controversies by men of his opinion then may I perhaps sense some kind of obligation to try whether I can justifie every thing that hath fell from Mr. W. and Mr. B. in the mean time they are of age let them speak for themselves if they count it needfull if they count it not needfull why should I spend labour about that â—n the doing of which I cannot take any great pleasure and for the doing of which â—hey will con me no great thanks This I â—annot but observe that though none durst undertake Dr. Twisse in the Arminian Conâ—roversies whilest he was alive yet since his death every puny will be nibling at him upon all occasions which puts me in minde of that paltry fellow in Pausanias who being never able to get the mastery in his life time of one Theagenes a famous Wrestler came many a night after hee was dead and scourged his Statue which was erected in the honour of him Paus in Attic. If Mr. T. P. or Mr. I. G. doe verily believe Dr. Twisse to be an enemy of that Divine grace which he pretends to have maintained let them follow him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he did those with whom hee tooke occasion to deale and when they shall have so done Mr. Jeanes a person of a very scholastical head will not long let them be without an answer And so I leave my Combatant resolving if it may be never more to come so near him till I am told by others that his breath smels sweeter Upon the review of my book J cannot but recal what I have often read from Gilbertus Cognatus of a man with an ulcer in his face who passing over a Bridge where the passengers were to pay a certaine piece of mony for every malady of body found upon them was required to pay the accustomed tribute for the ulcer in his face but hee refusing to pay it the Officer pulls off his
is therefore not caused by God because it is not ens but non ens as they commonly call that which is but a privation e g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. contra gentes p. 6. De incar verbi p. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nys Tom. 2. 490. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who is such a stranger to St. Augustin that hath not read such sentences as these from him de lib. arbit lib. 1. Credimus ex uno Deo esse omnia quae sunt tamen non esse peccatorum auctorem Deum in 1 cap. Joh. v. 1. Peccatum quidem non per ipsum factum est quia peccatum nihil est Mali author non est qui omnium quae sunt author est quia in quantum sunt in tantum bonâ—… sunt 83 Quaest It would be endlesse to put together all sayings of the Ancients that are of this nature I shall take off my Pen when I have only transcribed the remarkable determination of Aquinas 1ª 2 ae q. 79. ar 2. in corpo actus saith he peccati est ens est actus ex utroque habet quod sit adeo omne enim ens quocunque modâ—… sit oportet quod derivetur a primo ente-omnis autem actio causatur ab aliquo existente in actu quia nihil agit nisi secundum quod est actu omne autem ens actu reducitur ad primum actum sc Deum sicut in causam quâ—… est per suam essentiam actus unde relinquitur quod Deus sit causa omnis actionis in quantum est actio peccatum nominat ens actionem cum quodam defectu Defectus autem ille est ex causâ creatâ sc libero arbitrio in quantum deficit ab ordine primi agentis i. e. Dei unde defectus iste non reducitur in Deum sicut in causam sed in liberum arbitrium sicut defectus claudicationis reducitur in tibiam curvam sicut in causam noâ— autem in virtutem motivaÌ„ a qua tamen causa tur quicquid est motionis in claudicatione secundum hoc Deus est causa actus peccati non tamen est causa peccati quia non est hujus quod actus sit cum defectu Nor secondly do I know any other way of defining what ens primum is but this that it is such a being which is not from any other being and which is the cause of all the beings that are Thirdly this positive being of sin is it a finite and participate being If not how is it not God if How is it not from the Fountain of all essences Fourthly I am the more confirmed that ther 's no medium betwixt Deus creatura because Mr. Pierce after all his enquiry hath not been able to finde any For whereas he doth tell me that the works of the Devill are a medium he could not sure but think that I would distinguish in blasphemy lying c. Betwixt the vital act and it's deficiency and dissonance from the Law of God the act it self I hold to bee positive and from God the irregularity of that act from which it is denominated blasphemy lying c. I would derive onely from mans corruption and the Devills temptation If he will not take this from me let him take it from those Gamaliels at whose feet he'el not account it any disparagement to sit as a disciple Dr. Fr. White Pag. 104. Defence of his Brother whereas sin is a deficience and aberration from the rule of justice it cannot subsist alone but even as halting must necessarily be joyned with some motion of the body hoarsnesse of speech with the action of speaking so the evill of sin is conjoyned with some action or motion of the Soul or body which hath a naturall and positive being and where unto there hapneth a going astray from Divine Law even as it hapneth to a lame mans naturall motion to have halting concurring with it Of that which is positive naturall in sinfull actions Divines acknowledge God to be the Author both in that he perserveth mans will and faculties whereby he is enabled to his operations and also because as the first cause he produceth together with the 2d. cause all positive motion Dr. Sand. 1 Tim. 4.4.5 Ser. Ad pop there is a naturall or rather transcendentall goodnesse honitas entis as they call it in every action even in that where to the greatest sin adhereth and that goodnesse is from God as that action is his creature but the evill that cleaveth unto it is wholy from the default of the person that commiteth it and not at all from God Dr. Abbot answer to Bishop Pag. 124. We say and you will say no lesse that God is the Author of all the actions in the World yet we say that sin is wholly and onely of man himself distinguish the accident from the subject the sin of the action from the action it self God in the one shall be glorified man justly condemned for the other Nay what if M. Pierce himself say that the sinfull action so far as it is an action is from God He saith that every good action of man is from the special grace of God Now seeing all the good actions that are done per gratiam viatoris be and must necessarily be on some account sinfull concerning these actions I demand are they from God If not how is every good action from God If they be then he spits in the face of his judicious Dr. Jack who saith exact Col. p. 3013. To imagine there should be one cause of the act and another of his obliquity or sinfullnesse of the act would be as grosse a solaecisme as to a assigne or seek after any other cause of the rotundity of a sphere or bullet besides him that frames the one or moulds the other or else he must say that the action that in perfect morall goodnesse which is in it are from God but the sinfull imperfection it self is from man through Gods permission and this he doth say 172. But then he ought not to be offended if we take the same liberty Pag. 158. He saith God made idolaters men And 159. men themselves are the works of God onely which is to grant more then with truth can be granted But thus I argue if God be the cause of men than of Davids child begotten by the action of Adultery for Scripture will alow me to call that child so soon as borne a man John 16.21 If the cause of that child undoubtedly then the cause of the action of generation by which as by a causality that child was produced Yet was he not the cause of the adulterious pravity cleaving unto that action Quid mirum si dicaemus deum facere singulas actiones quae fiunt malâ voluntate cum fate amur eum facere singulas substantias quae fiunt injustâ voluntate in honest â actione Ans de casu
the Readers purse and patience that I fill it no fuller Secondly I might strengthen my opinion from the Schoolmen amongst whom I have an Army to a man as is confessed even by Arriaga The first that ever was against me as Faventinus thinks was Cajetan and those that assert the positivity of sin are by Rada called Cajetanistae so that I may say to Mr. P. where was your opinion before Luther for Luther and Cajetan are known to be contemporaries Yet not to wrong Cajetan he onely holds the essence of the sin of commission to be positive but that the sinfullnesse of omission was so he never dreamed Do these authorities signify nothing with Mr. P hear him Pag. 174. If either the Schoolmen erre or were mistaken or were never read who can help it I see judgement often varieth with interest and things acquire a price not so much for what they are in themselves as for what they are relatively to our ends and purposes The Schoolmen's authority is no good money when he should take it is currant coyne when he should pay it I must needs say that the generall suffrage of the Schools doth signify much to me in matters where they are not overawed by a Church Canon But he hath a prettier evasion than this Pag. 170. The Jesuits in waggery did purposely propagate many blasphemies arising from the tenet of unconditionall reprobation in Protestant parts of the Christian world that by making them odious they might fright men from thence into the Church of Rome If there be any Jesuits that do propagate what they apprehend to be blasphemy I should think a fitter name might be given to so Devilish a practice than that of waggery Who betrayed him into this observation Dr. Jackson who yet doth not bluntly say that it 's the designe of the Factours for the Church of Rome to have this Doctrine generally embraced or acknowledged by us but inserts these words of Caution or at least to have the World believe that it were generally acknowledged by us Beshrew Mr. Bar who put Mr. P. upon a necessity of reading this Author if he can make no better use of him The Jesuits are generally reputed very Politick but if this be the best policy they have I should think we need not much fear their plots For what if they should fasten the Doctrine of absolute reprobation upon the Church of England Why thence it would follow that the God of heavē were worse than an incarnate Devil yea thou any wicked Spirit or the Devil himself can without stander be supposed to be But doth he not think that men would enquire whether that frightfull conclusion were rightly deduced from the former principle would they not tell those Popish factours that their Pastours teach them to confesse their sins and to take the shame of them to themselves Would they not bid them dwell at home and take notice of their own Dominicans who as strenuously assert the Doctrine of absolute reprobation as any that go by the name of Calvinists the same Dr. Jackson saith Pag. 3012. He that would diligently peruse Aquinas his writings and in particular his resolution of that Question An detur causa praedestinationis may finde him as strait lace't as Calvin was one and the same girdle would be an equall competent measure for both their errors Nay the Dr. saith the Dominican's and other Schoolmen were more faulty than Zuinglius or his followers But with Mr. P. Doctor Twisse is worse than the Jesuit's though the Jesuit's and Dominican's are too bad Pag. 170. Let me adde that two Papists as learned as ever did engage for upholding the Popish cause do acquit us of this imputation the making of God the Author of sin Suarez opus lib. 2. cap. 2. p. 111. The Hereticks potestants know well that God intendeth not that which is formall in sin nor inclineth the will of man to intend it Vasquez dis 99. cap. 4. n. 22. Calvin Zuinglius Beza do plainly affirm that sin as sin is not to be referr'd to God as the cause thereof both these Testimonies I take upon trust from D. F. Wh. P. 145. Having not the books themselves by me at the present But to requite him for this observation out of Dr. Jackson who attempts not the proof of it by any one example I shall give him another That the Popish Priests will sometimes go over to the Lutherans and pretend a conversion whereas their designe is onely to blow up the coals of contention betwixt them and the Calvinists And at the managing of such a designe I am sure Mr. P. hath as good a faculty as any man alive What successe can Mr. Duree expect in his negociations for peace when as men of bitter Spirits from among our selves do not stick to make the opinions of the Calvinists worse then those of the Atheists And that the Arminians are the consin-germanes to the Jesuits and do underhand aime at the introducing of Popery I shall give him the opinion of the whole house of Commons whose word 's in a Declaration of theirs to his Majesty are The hearts of your subjects are perplexed when with sorrow they behold a dayly growth and spreading of the faction of the Ariminians that being as your Majesty well knows but a cunning way to bring in Popery and the Professors of those opinions the common disturbers of the Protestant Churches and incendiary's of those states in which they have gotten any head being Protestants in shew but Jesuit's in opinion and practice Vid. a necessary introduction to the Archbish tryall by Mr. Prinne If he except against the house of Commons let him learn the same from a Jesuit's letter to the Rector at Bruxells Father Rector c. We have now many strings to our bowes and have strongly fortify'd our faction and have added two Bulwarkes more for when K. James lived we know he was very violent against Arminianisme and interrupted with his pestilent wit and deep learning our strong designes in Holland now we have planted the soveraigne drug Arminianisme which we hope will purge the Protestants from their heresy This letter was seized in the Archbish Study and attested against him at the Lords bar If yet there be not witnesse enough wee 'l call in the Lord Falklands speech p. 7. As Sir Tho. Moor sayes of the Casuists their businesse was not to keep men from sinning but to inform them quam prope ad peccatum sine peccato liceat accedere so it seemed their worke was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospell without bringing themselves into danger of being destroyed by the Law Mr. Speaker to go yet further some of them have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspicion that in gratitude they desire to return thither or at least to meet it half way Some have evidently laboured
diab c. 10. So that we are but where we were at the first setting out For the actions in which the evill of sin is subjected I 'le grant to be positive but from God as well as the creature the evill of sin from which they are denominated sinfull is but a privation and requireth no proper efficient cause at all such as it hath man is and not God But I have obstructed his good nature in working Pag. 157. He goes on further to tell me that res in Metaphysicks hath three acceptions in the first of wich it comprehendeth entia rationis as opposed to nihil Before he tell what the other two acceptions are he corrects himself my design is to convert and not confound him this charity as is more than probable did both begin and end at home had any benefit been intended to me by it you should have ceased sooner For I was confunded before that politick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was made For let any one tell mee how this discourse about ens rationis is here brought in First was it to let the World understand that our Author knew what ens rationis meant That 's but a low design and yet he cannot accomplish it neither for he placeth the model of an house to be built hereafter among entia rationis yet that is as far from being onely objective in intellectu from not being longer than it is thought on as the East is from the West Secondly hath he a mind to insinuate that sin is ens rationis if so it must either be privatio which is that he all along denieth or a negation against which his arguments militate with more strength or a relatio rationis which is affirmed by Vasquez but against all good reasons as I shall soon shew him if forced to so great severity by his owning such a paradox Thirdly was it his businesse to intimate that all the entia rationis are so the works of men as that God cannot be termed the cause of those actions by which they are made I will not torture his ingeniolum with that perplexed question whether the Divine intellect do fabricate ens rationis but without all peradventure the action of the understanding though not the imperfection is from God are not all our notiones 2 ae in Logick entia rationis yet is the act of the understanding causing them so far from not being from God that God hath indeed a more than ordinary common concourse to it The privative nature of sin may be thus further evicted If a thing be therefore sinfull because it wants some perfection that it ought to have and cease to be sinful when it hath all the perfection which it ought to have than is sin a privation but a thing is therefore sinfull c. Ergo the consequence of the proposition is as clear as the noone day light the assumption also needs rather explication than confirmation ther 's not a novice but knows the old rule bonum ex integrâ causâ malum ex quolibet defectu To make an action good there must be a concurrence of all the three goods object end circumstances the mere want of any of these three makes the action sinfull because the Law requires that all the three goodnesses should be in the action the want of that which the Law requires to to be in any subject is a sin or else we must reject not onely Aristotle but the Apostle who saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This argument is used by Greg. Arim. a noble and ancient Schoolman and largely insisted upon by Faventinus the most acute Scotist I 'me not ignorant that various replies are made to the argument but answers also are commonly given to those replies which to transcribe would be a matter of more trouble than profit My fourth and last argument against the pretended positivity of sin I dispose in this enthymem Original sin is not positive ergo sin as sin is not positive The consequent I conceive will be yeelded sine sanguine sudore otherwise the old Canon a quatenus ad omne valet consequentia would soon command it as to the antecedent I deny not but our Protestant Divines in their disputes against the Papists doe make a positive as wel as a privative part of original sin but how that terme may be understood so as not to prejudice my assertion in the least is largely shewed by Gisber Voetius in his accurate discourse de propagatione peccati originalis He that calls it a privation of Gods image saith the whole nature of it is a sentence of Mr. John Calvin That I may prove original sin not to be positive in the sense we now use the word positive I must lay down this as a postulatum That the soul is not by propagation or ex traduce as they speak but immediately created by God If this postulatum should not be granted me I should not fear the demonstrating of it by evidence of Scripture and strength of reason to any gain sayer but such my charity forbids mee to think Mr. P. This supposed I thus argue If original sin be a thing positive 't is either the soul it self or some of its faculties or some accident or adiunct agreing immediately to the faculties mediatly to the soul it self but none of all these ergo To say with Flaccius Illyricus that it is the soule it self were with more than heathenish impiety to calumniate the goodnesse of our Creator and the like absurditie will follow if we assert it to be one of the faculties of the soul If we say it is an accident inhering in the faculties of the soul then it was either put into them by God which will make God the Author of the worst of sins or else it is caused in them by the souls presence in and union to the body or from some action of the soul it self Not by any action of the soul it self for it's faculties are sinfull before it put forth any one act of reason Not from its presence in or union to the body for who can imagine how the soul which is spiritual and immaterial should be defiled by being joyned to a body which thoughfull of naturall imperfections is not sinfull and if it were sinfull could nor communicate its sinfullnesse to the soule that informes it But now holding original sin to be a privation in an active subject we do avoid all these inconveniences by saying that Adam by his first transgression did sin away the image of God from himself and his posterity who were in him not onely as a naiurall but as a federal head also and so God createth the souls of men void of his image and yet justly looks on them as sinners for wanting this image because they ought to have it and by their own folly deprived themselves of it As for the reasons Mr. P. hath against the privative nature of sin he hath so slipt glided them