a most necessary truth to say that God is the Author or cause of sin I have more abundantly made apparent in Three distinct Tracts viz. Correct Copy p. 9 10 50. especially Div. Philanthropy defended ch 3. sect 34. p. 132. c. to p. 139. sect 35. p. 141. and again Div. Purity def ch 4. sect 3. p. 19 20. And I shall do it yet more effectually in the second and third Chapters of this following Work in particular ch 3. sect 13. 27. And therefore Thirdly That they would not so frequently and affectionately contend for that very Doctrine which sometimes though very rarely they confesse to be false blasphemous but that they find it must follow from their espoused Principles of God's Decrees so as they see they must relinquish either both or neither I have abundantly evinced in the Div. Pur. def ch 4. sect 7. p. 33 c. to p. 39. especially from the citations out of Doctor Twisse Du Moulin Remigius and the other friends of Gotteschalc Bishop Cuthert Tunstal and above all out of Prosper whom they many times dream to have been their Patron and therefore cannot gainsay him without Discomfort And again I shall evince it in several parts of the following work and in particular ch 3. sect 8. 10. Besides that the thing is so conspicuous of it self that I may venture to make the Adversary the sole Iudge of the Businesse For Nothing but their Principles of Gods Decrees can lead them to blasphemies of such a nature Sect. 8. I demand of any man living what should move such learned men as Huldericus Zuinglius Doctor Twisse Piscator Zanchy Triglandius Beza Calvin Martyr Borrhaus and many others to teach posterity in their printed works That God doth make men transgressors For the several pages of their works see the Div. Philan. def ch 3. sect 34. especially the Div. Purity def ch 4. sect 3. p. 19 20. sect 6. p. 31 32. and is the Author of adultery and that murder is the work of God and that sinners do sin by the force of Gods will that God predestines men to sin and to sin quatenus sin that he is the Author of evil not onely of punishment but of sin too that he is the cause not onely of humane actions but of the very defects and privations that he effecteth sins that he exciteth and tempteth and * All the excuse Mr. B. makes for the saying that God doth compel men to sin is that they use it but seldom See what shall be said ch 3. sect 27. num 5. compelleth men to sin and a world the like stuff I say what moved them to print such loathsom Doctrines Was it that they esteemed them as flowers of Rhetorick or witty sentences or pretty conceits or well-sounding periods or soul-saving preachments or Hosanna's to the most High This cannot be no not so much as to be imagined What invited Mr. Hobbs to say That Mr. Hobbs of Liberty and Necessiâ—y p. 23 24. sin may be necessarily caused in man by God's ordering all the world that God doth will it and necessitate it and * Id. in Animadvers p. 11. 107. 106. cause men to erre and is the principal Agent in the causing of all actions which he who saith doth also say that he findes no difference betwixt the action and the sin of that action from which great truth he should have inferred that God cannot be the cause of sinful actions not that he is the cause of sins What made the * p. 36 37 Comforter of believers to say that God is the Author of sinfulnesse it self and hath more hand in mens sinfulness then they themselves Were these Writers afraid lest men should think too reverently of God too hardly of the Devil and too profanely of themselves or were they moved with an itch to revive the Doctrine of Carneades and to make men believe that sin is nothing but a name invented by Ecclesiasticks and that the thing call'd sin is just as good as the thing call'd virtue as being equally the work of God 't is very hard to think this Or if this was one of their reasons yet it was not certainly the first But I have yet a harder Question What should move Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Barlee in the very books which they have printed on purpose to vindicate their Doctrine from all the horrible absurdities wherewith they stood charged and wherein they knew it concerned them to speak as warily as they were able as knowing that they were liable to be publickly called to an account what I say should move them at such a time and in such a manner to affirm that God * For Mr. W's several pages where these things are taught see the first and second chapters of the following work especially the second and in that for instance Sect. 14. doth will and work sin that he hath an efficiency in sin that in all the wickedness in the world God hath a hand a working hand yea the chief hand that sin doth make for Gods glory and that it hath a respect of good and that God hath a hand in effecting it yea that God doth act in it as a natural cause that God decreed the sin of Adam and so ordered the whole business that he should certainly fall that it was necessary the first man should sin that the Gospel doth stirr up evil affections in the hearts of wicked men and hardens mens hearts and God intends it should do so and sends it for this very purpose that of sinful actions God is the Author and proper Cause yea that he doth both will and work in the Sin of the Act because not onely the action simply consider'd but the very Pravity and Deformity of it makes way for Gods glory What moved Mr. Barlee to adde his suffrage to Mr. Whitfield and to say in plain terms That * For Mr. B's several pages where these things are taught see the third whole chapter of the following work and the Index of the Divine Philanthropy Def. which will direct to the rest God is the Soveraign Author of the material part of sin which is the doing or leaving undone not onely a natural but moral act such as David's lying with Bathshebah or Cain's killing Abel as Doctor Twisse himself interprets the material part of sin nay farther that God is the cause of the very Obliquity of the Act of Sin that God exciteth men to the act of adultery that he stirreth them up to unjust acts as a man puts spurrs to a dull Jade that he tempts men to sin and a world the like blasphemies Nay what made him and Mr. Hick to tell the World †See what shall be said ch 3. Sect. 18. that if sin is a positive Entity either God is the Creator of sin or else sin it self is God Did this prodigious pair of Writers think that these were quaint Apophthegms which
by him who doth not cite so much as one in this place who can help it 3. S. Austin might erre as well in this as in many other things wherein Mr. B. will say he erred 3. S. Austin August lib. 12. De Civit. Dei cap. 7. ubi de causâ malae voluntatis agit conferatâ—r um ejusdem lib. 21. de Civitate Dei cap. 24. ubi paâ—um inquit veraciter dicitur quod dicitur Mat. 12.32 nisi essent quibus etsi non in isto tamen remâ—tteretur in futuro saeculo His new degree of Arminianism and in the very same book which here he cites I say he might not that he does For Mr. B. understood not his own citation which being seemingly for him doth make against him in reality For Austin's speech belongs onely to the cause of the evil will not of every evil act of which the will is the cause Again it onely belongs to the causes that are without the man and this is that which I would have that God is far from being the efficient cause of an evil will he is not so much as the deficient because he is not wanting in those things that are necessary to make an evil will good so far is Austin from pleading that sin hath no efficient cause Notwithstanding all that he hath spoken the impious man 's own will is the efficient cause of his impiety 4. Whereas he saith that my opinion is most contrary to Arminius he contradicts a good part of both his books wherein he saith that my opinions are †c. 3. p. 25. all derived from Arminius I had formerly proved by many * Div Phi. def c. 1. p. 12 13 c. instances how far himself was an Arminian and how impossible it was that I should be so Now he lends me another instance wherein Himself and Mr. Hick are at agreement with Arminius and I am contrary to all three But I am of opinion he wrongs Arminius and makes him more Presbyterian then indeed he was had he read any such thing he would in all probability have set down the â—lace His case is sad whether he pretends to Truth or Falshood If to the first he hurts himself and Mr. Hick If to the second he slanders Arminius and stabbs himself Sect. 25. Having made this way for his own unhappinesse Mr. Hick's heathenish expression of sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commended by Mr. B. for 1. learned 2. witty and 3. well written by that variety of attempts to which Mr. Hick it seems betray'd him he acts the well-natur'd man and even blesseth the Author of his unhappinesse He declares that Mr. Hick is his cordial friend who wrote well to him told him learnedly and wittily that Mr. T. P. is the first who gave sin this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an extraordinary invention p. 114. Here is his tragical Exit for many reasons 1. Mr. Hick.'s saying that my invention is extraordinary is no proof that Arminius doth say the contrary or that Mr. Hick did write well or that his saying was both learned and witty Each of these I deny and have sufficiently disproved in my eighteenth Section 2. He knowes that I had never mentioned any such Heathenish expression as sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor was it ever to be found in any Author but Mr. Hick And he knowes that it was clearly his own invention either arising from his opinion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pono and signified the posicive entity of sin which though a sad miscarriage of the Scholar is yet the very best that his friends can make of it or from his sadder apprehension that sin must needs have a Godhead if it is none of God's creatures and yet a positive thing To believe the former were a huge act of charity but there is no place for it with Mr. Hick who hath forced me to the severity of believing the later 3. All Mr. Hick hath displayed is his being overflown with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which could its banks have contained it would not thus have gushed over on no occasion when 't is plain that the effect could be nothing else but to drown his credit with a yellow as well as his cause with a blacker Jaundise But evenit malo male and * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Erynnis as they say still pâ—oves a virgin for poor Perillus is the first who is likely to be tortured with his invention and believe me the brazen Bull was a lesser miserie then to be found in the imâ—iety of making the foulest actions to be the Rivulets issuing out by a necessity from God the Source What Spirit but an unclean one can be the cause of uacleannesse that is of sin Who are they whom I have proved to have printed in plain terms that God is the cause of that uncleannesse When the Pharisees heretofore who were the Jewish Puritans or Preciâ—ans and recâ—oned themselves the godly party of the land had slandered our Saviour with having an unclean Spirit who although he was God did appear to them as he was man too our Saviour told them on that occaâ—â—on the danger of blaspheming against the holy Ghost Let them who love the Lord Jesus in sâ—ncerity and tender the safety of their own as well as of other mens soules not onely read but consider and then apply what is spoken Mar. 3.28 29 30. I now dismisse the signal Paragraph which Mr. Hick suggested to Mr. Barlee and Mr. Barlee hath vented to all the People which yet I should not have dismissed so soon but that my Reader may be referred to several Sections for an enlargement as ch 1. sect 2. from p. 7. to p. 13. ch 2. sect 5. p. 69 70. sect 10. p. 79 80 81. sect 14. p. 88 90. All which being considered Mr. B. doth fitly dislike the stile of Unfortunate Writer for if it ever belonged to any it doth to him and Mr. Hick Sect. 26. Mr. B. having thus far miscarried by the help of Mr. Hick proceeds to plead for himself A short speciâ—â—â— of M. B's remâ—â—nt of Abst rsions in ord r to the Readers and Pâ—inrs â—ase and his guilty Mâ—sters in such a treacherous manner both to them and himself that to give my Readers an account of such numerous failings were to draw out the man's unhappinesse to an intolerable length And because a Pigmy as well as Hercules may be judged of by a foot I will leave the Reader by that which followes to guesse at the body of his abstersions 1. What I had cited out of Calvin's Institutions he affirmed to have been fetched from Calvin's Book De Providentiâ and said I did as good as name it I * Div. Philaâ— def ch 3. p. 127 c. shew'd him the grosseness of his mistake and prov'd the wilfulness of it which raised the error into a sin Now by way of abstersion he confesseth the fact p.
of the Church of England exhibited to us in the last clause of the Article The second is grounded on another Confession of the contrary party in their definition of Gods Decrees Sect. 13. Mr. W's mistake of the thing in question represented in clearer and fairer colours The general Contents of the several Chapters Chap. I. Sect. 1. MAster W's fanciful Creation of three general Objections The distrust he puts in his cause His studied aiming beside the mark He overthrows his own rampire His second overthrow of himself and of his Absolute Decrees Sect. 2. His third overthrow of himself by a most crimson contradiction He enters on that which Mr. Calvin judged the worst part of Libertinism His new contradiction about the manner of Gods working His down right Libertinisme Libertines no Christians A Dilemma as a touch stone to try his meaning The determination of mans will to wicked actions is not Gods work He inferreth God to be worse then the Author of sin His meaning ferreted out of his words His abuse of Scripture to serve his turn He speaks worse of God then can be truely said of Satan His ugly Doctrine of God spoken out by Mr. Barlee Sect. 3. His third general Answer a meer majestick mistake Sect. 4. He descends from Generals to Particulars beginning with the charge of making God the Author of sin and with a Tergiversation and Imposition on the Scripture He asperseth God with the decreeing of sin in the first attempt of his excuse His memorable Answer to his own Objection His meaning caught in a Dilemma His foul use of the word Permission and its odious impropriety represented in other colours The common Poultice for a sore Doctrine Sect. 5. He moulds a new Objection against himself and grants what his Doctrine is charged with His Answer consists in shifting the duty of a Respondent and speaking quite another thing He confounds the Permission of sin with sin and tries to blot his Doctrine fair His abuse of Saint Austin He argues that God doth will sin perfectly because he wills the permission of it And fain would have Scripture to speak against God by speaking his activity in the production of sin 1. From the selling of Joseph 2. Pharaoh's obduration 3. The Candanites hardening 4. Absaloms defiling his Fathers Concubines 5. Shimei's cursing David 6 7 8. Three other Texts 9. The Egyptians hatred of Israel 10. Gods being said to deceive the Prophet 11. Giving up to vile affections 12. Giving eyes not to see 13. Sending delusion 14. The Nations making league with the Romans All which Scriptures are explained and vindicated from the frightful misapprehensions of this Mistaker Sect. 6. Mr. W. most groundlesly infers God to sit still and to be an idle Beholder if he is not busie in the efficiency of sin Chap. II. Sect. 1. OF the common Hebraisme by which such verbs are active in sound are onely permissive in signification by the admission of which Rule the foul Absurdities aforesaid would be avoided and Scripture expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. W's manifold unhappiness in rejecting that Rule He makes contradictions in Scripture and overthrows his own interest in other cases He is convinced by that which he cannot but confess His woful shifts in expounding Scripture and the mischiefs ensuing on it His Masters contradict themselves by not observing the Hebraisme Mr. W. makes light to be a sin and incest to be no sin by making a parity of Gods working in either case He is beaten with his own weapons by any Atheist Dialogue-wise condemned out of his own mouth Scripture interprets Scripture against Mr. VV. Sect. 2. His return to his first method of forging Objections to himself He is at odds with Doctor Twisse To make men sin is a a sin of the worst size yet ascribed unto God by that sort of men Sect. 3. The ease and ordinary perversion of the Scriptures Mr. W. mistakes the errors for the persons of some Protestants and confounds them with the Papists His party clamour against themselves and affront God with an Epitrope Mr. W's clamours against Protestant Divines He jumps in so doing with the Jesuited Papists Sect. 4. His foulest imputation cast upon the Scriptures Saint Peters caveat touching Pauls Epistles The literal plalnness of some Scriptures doth make them difficult to some A short direction to the means of remedy or prevention removing a stumbling-block out of the peoples way Sect. 5. Mr. W. either means that God hath a hand in evil because in good or that the act of sin is not the sin or that God is the proper cause and efficient of sin and that he means the last is proved by a Dilemma Humane learning a good foundation for a Divine Sect. 6. Mr. W's rare essayes to separate the wickedness from the act of the wicked act Sect. 7. His first essay is a bare Dictate including eight gross absurdities Of actions Natural and Unnatural Of nature Corrupted and Uncorrupted Mr. VV. denies Gods Omnipotence and makes him the proper cause of sin Sect. 8. His second essay is an Impertinence beyond example or what is so much worse as that it ought not to be named He is forced to be pertinent and his answer challenged Sect. 9. His third essay is a continuance of his Tergiversation and inferreth God the efficient of sin Mr. VV. vindicated from his abuses put upon himself The probable causes of his chiefest aberrations Five Expedients proposed to undeceive him Sect. 10. His fourth essay makes the wickedest actions to be good and from God Sect. 11. His fifth essay doth betray him to a confession that he maketh God the Author of sin He mistakes a moral for a natural action and is hampered in some Dilemma's The method by which he is led into all his blasphemies Sect. 12. Sin is inseparable from the sinful action which Mr. VV. seems to see by his Tergiversation He makes an Accident the subject of Inhesion to an Accident Confounds the act of differing with the passive power of being parted Makes Davids lying with Bathshebah no sin And the sin of Adultery separable from it self Sect. 13. He sheweth his cause is desperate by speaking purposely beside the purpose He attempts the washing of wet from water roundness from a Globe Sect. 14. Mr. VV. affirms that God doth will and work sin and hath a hand in effecting it and that sin makes for Gods glory Concludes sin to be good or Gods working it as evil Feigns God to work evil to a good end Q. Whether he infers not God to be a sinner His inconsistence with Mr. Hick and Mr. B. and with himself He frames not his propositions to the nature of God but the nature of God to his propositions Sect. 15 16. Mr. W's great forgery in that little which he cites His foul sense of Gods determination that sin shall be done His impious expression or Gods having a hand in sin and the Importance of that phrase Sect.
unbelievers lest the light of the Gospel should shine unto them 2 Cor. 4.4 Again it is said of our God who cannot endure the least sin He hath blinded their eyes and hardned their hearts that they should not see with their eyes c. Joh. 12.40 where because the two senses of those two Texts cannot possibly be the same the former must needs be active and the later onely permissive It is to be seriously considered whether any such men can be fit for the Ministry to be intrusted with the Key of Knowledge to be Stewards of the Mysteries of the living God who are not able to distinguish betwixt those Scriptures which differ most but help the people to confound the works of God and of the Devil I confesse my indignation is very great at this instant whil'st I observe M. W. in a book * So he professeth in his Epistle to the Reader p. 2 3. intended for the unlearned to present the letter of such Texts without the least explication nay opposite Texts without the least offer of reconcilement nay teaching that God hath an †P. 24. efficiency in sin and * P. 19. worketh in the worst actions as a natural cause and * 25. He speaks worse of God then can be truly said of Satan determines the wills of men to every event whereas the Devil himself cannot contribute so much to sin by the utmost force of his Temptations He can but perswade and incline as a moral agent which cannot necessitate to wickednesse as the natural doth And if his parishioners or others as void of learning shall ask him the manner of God's working and efficiency in sin that they may know how it differs from the Devils manner of working in the very same sin and from the manner of working in which the sinner himself worketh behold his answer is onely this It beseems us humbly to acknowledge our ignorance in apprehending the manner of his working p. 19. and again we be not able to apprehend his secret and wonderful manner of working in evil actions p. 23. lin ult How then Good Sir saith the amazed Catechumenist what shall we do in this Case when our light is darkness where shall we seek knowledge when our Priests lips cannot preserve it Mr. W's answer is at hand * P. 24. lin 3 4. Though he doth it miro ineffabili modo as Austin speaks yet we are not to deny the doing of it But first the people are abus'd with Austins name who never said any such thing His †P. 20. lin 1. Enchirid. ad Laurent c. 100. words are quite contrary id non fit that is not done beside the will of God which is done against it Mark Reader He doth not say what God doth but what is done against Gods will by Gods permission which is not beside his will to permit it Next suppose Austin had said any such thing had not that been one of his many Errors But thirdly 'T is well Mr. W. will yield any authority to Austins Enchiridion which is perfectly * August Enchir c. 98. destructive to Mr. W's Doctrine Well Mr. W. declares his ignorance to the unlearned Quaerist touching the manner of God's working and efficiency in sin as a natural cause which being precisely his own expressions do put us in mind of his contradiction whilst he confidently defines in some places what he professeth not to know in others as being wonderful and ineffable Make but room for Mr. Barlee and he will help his Fellow-labourer to make it out with a wet finger * Mr. B's Neces vin ch 3. p. 12. He that cannot or will not tell how God may be said to excite men to the Act of Adultery which to the Adulterer so excited is sin ☞ though not to God neither will he tell how God without sin doth stir up men to the act of lying with their lawful Wives †ad utrumque ejusdem generis excitatio concursus Idabid for the excitation and concurrence to both is of the same kind Observe the growth of this Student since his Correp Correction He there expressed his Divinity of God stirring up men to sin by his putting spurs to a dull Jade Now he tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in downright terms that God hath the same concurrence to the most unlawful and the most lawful actions S. Paul no sooner said Marriage is honourable but immediately added and the bed undefiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immaculate pure and spotlesse but Adultery is Rebellion against the Monarch of all the world And yet he stirs up the wicked to the unclean Act of Rebellion against Himself by the same incitation saith Mr. B. whereby he excites his loyallest subject to the most blamelesse thing that can be named not onely not forbidden but commanded by God for propagation whereas Adultery is an Act which God forbids by his law and from which he restraines by his Grace disswades by his Spirit and which his children cannot commit but by resisting his Grace and by grieving his holy Spirit by whom alone we are sealed unto the day of Redemption But M. B. may say that I now torment him before his time I therefore return to his majorite whose third general Answer doth now ensue Sect. 3. Mr. Whitfield saith Mr. W's third General Answer a mâ—er Majestick mistake that the summe of what Mr. P. or any of his Predecessors in this controversie about Gods absolute Decree hath objected against it is included in that which the Apostle objects against himself speaking of his subject Rom. 9.14 Is God unjust and who hath resisted his will which he answers with an Absit quis tu es And if we should give no other answer but this it might suffice p. 20. What will not some be bold to say rather then want wherewith to gain-say First he forgeth a certain Tale and gives it the Name of a Third general Answer If he had called it a Whirligig his impropriety had been lesse for the Question there is the contrary to what it is here There it was of God free mercy which well might be without mans merit Here it is of his wrath which cannot be without our demerit No lesse are the wandrings of Mr. W. But Secondly Where was he told that this is the summe of whatsoever hath been objected against his mythical Decree He neither names his Author nor gives his Reason nay speaks precisely against his knowledge and crudely dictates stilo satis praetoriano This is the summe I answer with more Truth but much lesse Majesty that this indeed is the summe of all their subter-fuges and salvo's Quis tu es Who art thou O man who objectest against God that he hath not an efficiency and hand in sin This was the very last plank which Mr. Hobbs was fain to betake himself unto when he found himself ship-wreckt by the most learned Bishop Bramhall in his book of
in his creatures Mr. W. proclaims that I deny Gods omnipotence And this is just the very calumny of Atheistical * Orig. contra Cels l. 4. Celsus against Origen But I have †See Correct Copy p. 22 23. elsewhere shewed that if God were able to be the Author of such actions he were able not to be God which were onely a power of being impotent There are many things of which the Scripture saith God cannot do them As he cannot deny himself 2 Tim. 2.13 He cannot lie Tit. 1.2 What God hath promised absolutely he cannot but perform Heb. 6.18 Ge. 18. â—5 Gen. 19.22 Heb. 6.10 And therefore I am the asserter of Gods omnipotence because of his purity and Mr. W. is the man who disputes against both 6. He again is the man that denies Gods omnipotence who denies him to be able to decree the end in consideration of the means or to make a rational creature with such a liberty of will as to be able to determine his will ad hoc to this or that forbidden object without an efficiency from his creator 7. What kind of Theist may he be thought who doth not think that the creating and governing of a world and the being the Author of all good things are proofs enough of an omnipotence unlesse the filthiest actions to be imagined may be admitted for Jewels in that rich Diadem Sect. 8. 1. His second essay is an impertinence beyond Example His second Answer runs thus Doth not the Scripture tell us expresly that in him we live move and have our being Act. 17.25 As he is the Author of our being so also of those Natural motions that arise from our being p. 25. Thus the same Fallacy continues his error which made him erre And here I might repeat my former Section if that were as seemly as otherwise fit but referring my Reader thither I here will adde 1. My amazement at the impertinence for I had said It is impossible to separate the wickedness of the wicked act to wit of Blasphemy Adultery or the like from the act which is wicked And Mr. W. instead of instancing in any one wicked act and shewing how the wickedness may be separated from the act of wickedness or which is all one the wicked act doth onely tell us of things which are no wicked acts viz. our living moving and being in God c. 2. Or what is so much worse as that it ought not to be nam'd 2. If he pretends that he is not impertinent he is infinitely worse as the shallowest Reader can infer for if the Apostle there spake of wicked acts which to think is most unpardonable let him perform his enterprise by shewing which is the wickedness and which the act and by shewing the separation which he denies to be impossible 3. He is enforced to be pertinent and his Answer challenged 3. But let us inforce him to be pertinent and challenge his Answer to this Question Doth the Scripture any where say explicitely or implicitely that in God we blaspheme and murder and commit adultery such as these are confessedly the wicked acts to which I alluded in my objection Again I ask Mr. W. Can the wickedness of an actual blaspheming be possibly separated from the act of blaspheming Can the wickedness of Davids congress with Bathshebah be possibly separated from the act of his congress with Bathshebah Since his Answer of necessity must be Yes or No I am bound in duty both to God and my neighbours to exact thus much of Mr. W. That he will either shew how this may be done or confess in print that he hath undertaken impossibilities and that his first absurdity being swallowed this is one of the thousand which follow after Had he been able to shew it or had he but thought he had been able he would sure have tried and offer'd at it at least he would have taken some one wicked act for his instance displaid his tooles and begun his dissection and made us perceive this separability if not the separateness it self at least with the eyes of our Metaphysical understandings But because he hath meerly propos'd an objection and forsaken it speaking as far from his Theme as he could devise I must needs believe he understood his own weakness and felt the strength of the objection yet I am checkt in my belief by finding his answers grow worse and worse as I think will appear by what now follows Sect. 9. His third Essay is a continuance of his Tergiversation and inferreth God the efficient of sin His third Answer is this Was not Natures work the same in Adam when he ate the forbidden fruit as when he did his necessary food and in David when he lay with Bathshebah as when he lay with his lawful wife It is a true Rule Deus agit in peccato non tanquam causa moralis sed tanquam causa naturalis p. 25 Now he makes us a discovery of his mind 1. He had said a little before Answ 1. that God is the Author of the actions of nature look forward on Sect. 12 13. and a little before that that of natural motions and actions to which sin cleaves God is the efficient and proper cause p. 24. now he addes that natures work is the same in the most unlawful and lawful actions and exemplifies his meaning not onely after but before the Fall also From whence his Tenent must be concluded unavoidably this That God was the efficient and proper cause of Adam's eating the forbidden fruit as well as of his eating his necessary food and as much the efficient and proper cause of David's lying with Bathshebah as of his lying with lawful wife He shall be greater then great Apollo if he can shew the least flaw in this deduction Now to separate the act of Adam's eating forbidden fruit from the wickedness of the act which consisted in eating forbidden fruit Mr. W. doth not so much as trie And if he cannot do it hereafter neither as I am sure he cannot because it cannot be done then it is cleerly his opinion at least his Doctrine that God is the efficient and proper cause of all sin 2. Nature depraved and undepraved are opposite things 2. It was the work of undepraved nature for Adam to eat his necessary food before he eat the unnecessary forbidden food But to eat the forbidden was the ruine of nature and not the work I mean that nature wherewith God made him not simply a man but an innocent man And by Adam's eating that prohibitum Mr. W. must not think to say he meant the motion of Adam's jawes onely without his consent to the temptation or his determination of his will to a forbidden object for the eating the forbidden fruit was plainly the predicate in Mr. W's proposition as Adam was the subject of it not eating without forbidden fruit nor eating fruit without forbidden And if twenty words are in the
predicate as possibly they may they all can make but one term and are equally coupled to the subject by a never-failing verb substantive either expressed or implied 3. Adam sion'd before he eat in the determination of his will to eat 3. Besides Adam sinned before he eat in the determination of his will to eat and if that was also the work of Nature as well as his volition to eat of any lawful fruit as Mr. W. must say or eat up what he hath said then according to Mr. W. God was the efficient and proper cause of that sin also which lies in puncto indivisibili perhaps more intelligibly then others may 4. Mr. W. vindicated from his abuses put upon himself 4. Because Mr. W. hath been abused by himself in the misapprehension of his own Rule I think it my duty to disabuse him And I shall do it by saying no more then this 1. That as God doth give and continue the being of his creature with the natural endowments of such a being such as Life Loco-motive Reason and Will in his creature called Man he doth not work as a moral but as a natural cause 2. But as he moves his creature by his grace to chuse a right use of all his Faculties in applying his actions to their proper objects he onely works as a moral cause 3. And as he suffers or permits his creature to determine his will to forbidden objects and in pursuance of that choice to apply his faculties to execute what the will hath decreed be it to kill to blaspheme to hate God or the like in this third case he neither worketh as a natural or moral cause but suffers his creature to pervert and abuse his Faculties of Nature into a contrary thing to that which God made them As for example Adam's Faculty to will was the work of God and under God of Nature a very excellent and noble Faculty But Adam's applying that faculty to the forbidden fruit which was his choice or act of willing that numerical thing was neither the work of God nor of Nature Gods handmaid but the work of Adam against God and against that Nature which God had given him and which Adam with Satans help did deprave or pervert into another thing Yet am I willing that Mr. W. should say that there was in it the work of Nature if he will say that he means that work of that Nature which could not be possibly the work of God but of Adam onely in one respect and of the Devil in another 5. Five expedients proposed to undeceive M. W. by pointing at the causes of his mistakes 5. The not distinguishing rightly betwixt Nature and Nature Gods Handmaid and his Rebel Nature created by the good will of God and Nature corrupted by the wicked will of the creature doth seem to me a prime cause of Mr. W's errors in this affair Another cause doth seem to be his want of a steady consideration that Adam's sin did begin in the first aversion of his will which was his rational appetite from God and his Precept unto the creature which was forbidden His determining of his will per actum imperatum to the forbidden object was the same sin in its growth His actual eating in obedience to that Empire of his will was the same sin in its perfection In each of which three acts God had no hand at all which because Mr. W. did not discern the third cause of his errors doth seem to be his not continuing to meditate or to remember that the Being of sin is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the habitude and * This confessed by Dr. Twisse himself in Vin. Gra. l. 2. par 2. Crim. 3. Sect. 1. p. 155. Col. 2. relation and indissoluble connexion of a voluntary act to a forbidden object after a fancied separation of which two we cannot so much as fancy the sin to be For consider Adam's eating as unapplied to forbidden fruit and so it cannot be conceived to be a sin any more then the eating of a natural Agent it being as natural to eat as to grow by eating Which makes me guesse a fourth cause of Mr. W's error to be this that either he did not exactly know or not incessantly bear in mind that the same man as to several actions is both a natural and a voluntary agent We eat and drink as we are animals but we fast and pray and do our duties or eat and drink against Precept as we are men the former as we are spiritual and the later as carnal men But Mr. W. in his instances of Adam and David did confound the brutish with the rational property of the men The fifth cause of his miscarriage doth seem to be his not animadverting that sin is a concrete in respect of sinfulness and notes the same thing in one word which sinful act doth note in two which I will make him apprehend do what he can to the contrary beside not reading what I am writing by shewing that a sin and a sinful * Note that what is said of a sinfull Act is as true if applyed to action or motion which are also Mr. W's Termes act have the same enunciation in all propositions to be imagined Ex Gr. It is as true a praedication and in sense the same to say that David's lying with Bathshebah was his sin as to say it was his sinful act Again as true a praedication and in sense the same to say it was his adultery as to say his adultery was his sin Mr. VV. shall find upon every turn of the tongue that these terms are convertible and that in Recto and finding that he will confess that either he must separate the same thing from it self or acknowledge his making God to be efficient of sin Thus far am I brought beyond what I was bound to or at first intended by the meer strength of my desire to convert my Aggressor whil'st I confute him And having done thus I shall onely put him in mind of his concurrence with Mr. B. as well as of his discord with Doctor Twisse 1. He concurres with that of Mr. B. That Gods concurrence and excitation to the Act of adultery and to the husbands lying with his lawful wife is the same ch 3. p. 12. 2. He is at discord with Doctor Twisse who saith that * See Correct◠Copy p. 10. God doth so administer the occasions of sin and doth so urge them that they smite the sinners mind c. which is to act in sin as a moral cause whereas Mr. W. affirms his acting to be as a natural cause only I will not exagitate the noysome instance by which he clears his meaning to us nor will I shew how he hath gratified his carnal Readers I rather hasten to his ensuing words Sect. 10. His fourth essay infers the wickedest Actions to be good and from God His fourth Answer is That every new action and motion
Gods glory or that God may get himself glory by it and be apt to plead upon his committing of adultery or incest that he did not do it as 't was forbidden by the word which is * This is the Doctrine of Dr. Twisse others particularly owned by Mr. W. p. 47. improperly called the will of God say they but as God did secretly will it as it made for Gods glory or to the end that God might get himself some glory by it He did it not out of lust or as a sin but to procreate a Saint and increase the number of the godly and withal to glorifie that discriminating mercy which could not be exercised in the pardoning of such sins if they were not committed by them in whom they are capable of being pardoned that is to say by the Elect. I put this Case to fright men out of those premisses from which if God restrain them not they have been known by experience to draw such horrible conclusions And had I not been able to give examples I should not have thought this method needful Mr. W. tells us plain enough both p. 26. and here too that so far as sin makes for Gods glory God may both **** Note that all are his own expressions â— 26 28. which must be compared to which purpose look on what I hâ—ve said sect 14. of this Chapter will and * work it and have a hand in 〈◊〉 effecting or * working of it And though sin be in it self evil yet it may have some respect of * good As for that which he calls a true Rule and what he hath out of Austin against himself I will not exagitate his unhappinesse therein as I must also forbear to do it in many other particulars meerly for fear I should be endless Sect. 20. Mr. W. proceeds to a sixth Argument wherby he proves his great willingness to prove that God hath efficiency and hand in sin Mr. W's dangerous mis-apprehension of that figurative Sentence That God doth punish sin with sia but more then his willingness to prove it he proveth not For his Argument is but this That God punisheth one sin with another and punishment is more then a bare permission It were ridiculous to say that a Judge onely permitteth a malefactor to be arraigned condemned and executed p. 28. lin ult p. 29. lin 1 2 3 4. First it is not any where said in Scripture that God doth punish one sin with another but 't is a sentence of the Schoolmen as commonly known to be catachrestical as any beggar knowes his own dish and hath neither truth nor sense in it unless it be figuratively meant For God punisheth the sinner and not the sin Nor doth he imprint sin on him as the Lictor doth stripes but withdraws his grace and leaves the sinner to himself whereupon he sinneth without restraint But I have spoken of this in * See the Sinner Impleaded c. 1. p. 9. another place where I have also recorded S. Austins suffrage for the truth 2. His making God the proper cause of the greatest sins 2. But Mr. W. hath so prodigiously misunderstood that sentence or else so guiltily dissembled his understanding as to express Gods punishing of sin with sin by the positive actions of a Judge in his arraigning condemning and execution of malefactors which is to make God the Author and proper cause of the greatest sins in the world such as are the later sins which are called the punishments of the former It being frequently the Doctrine of Mr. W. that of all positive actions God is the Author and †Ext. of Gods Prov. c. 4. p. 11. proper cause But Idolatries and Adulteries Blasphemies and Murders and the sins not to be named Rom. 1.26 are positive actions and punishments in the Schoolmens sense and so according to Mr. W. God is blasphemously inferred to be their Author and proper cause 3. Which he also extends to the very sin of the act 3. Now we see what moved him to say in print That God must * Ibid. p. 12. Iin. 1 2. needs some way both will and work in the sin of the Act. Mark well good Reader He doth not say as at other times the act of sin or the sinful act but the sin of the act meaning the pravity and deformity and obliquity it self as he explains himself in the next two lines wherein he saith that God gets glory to himself by that very pravity and deformity 4. He treads a step beyond Calvins worst 4. Mr. W. in this doth tread a step beyond Calvin not onely †Calv. Instit l. 1. c. 18. sect 1. fol. 68. followes him through thick and thin For though Mr. Calvin speaks broadly that the wicked man whilest he acteth is * Id. ib. sect 2. fol. 69. Apparet cer â destinatione Dei fuisse impulsos Fateor quidem interpositâ Satanae operâ saepe Deum agere in Reprebis sed ut e jus impulsu Satan ipse suas partes agat unde hoc nisi quod à Deo manat efficacia erroris ut mendacium credant c. Ibid. Summa haec sit quum Dei voluntas dicitur rerum omnium esse cause ut non tantùm vim suam exerat in electis sed etiam reprobos in obsequium cogat Ibid. Et jam satis apertè ostendi Deum vocari eorum omnium Authorem quae isti censores volunt otioso tantum ejus permissu contingere Id. ib. sect 3. p. 7. acted by God and that the Assyrians were thrust on to rob and plunder by the sure destination of God and that God doth act in the reprobates by the interposition of Satan's help that Satan by God's impulse may act his own part also and that the efficacy of error proceeds from God and that when he casts men into filthy desires he is the chief Author of his just vengeance that is of sin in Mr. W's sense and Satan onely the Minister and that the will of God is the cause of all things and that his providence doth not onely exert its force in the elect who are ruled by his holy Spirit but doth also compell the reprobates to be obsequious and that God is called the Author of all those things which the censorious will have to happen by his idle permission onely though these are frightful expressions and applied in such a manner as not to be capable of excuse yet Mr. VV. as I shewed hath stept beyond him 5. The †Veteres religiosiù interdum simplicem veritatis confessionem in hac parte reformidant Ne Augustinus quidem illâ superstâ—tione interdum solutus est quemadmodum ubi dicit indurationem excaecationem non ad operationem Dei sed ad praescientiam spectare Calv. Inst l. 2. c. 4. Sect. 3. fol. 95. Ancient Fathers were afraid to ascribe that to God's working which they saw could onely be the object of his praescience and his permission
that ever pretended to stir up laughter I will immediately address my self to the uncovering of his Doctrines and of those in the first place which have most endear'd him to Mr. Whitfield by forging God to have a hand in all the wickedness in the World without exception and not onely to be the Author but which is much more frightful the Necessitator of sin His first Abstersion in this kind for so he was resolved to word it His acknowledgment of the crime for which be Apologizeth and the Printer it seems did let him have his own will is a plain acknowledgment of the Crime with which he stands charged For of Div. Philan. c. 3. from p. 1â—3 to p. 139. all those Authors and Assertions which I objected to Mr. B. as to a Follower and a Disciple he professeth to disown no more then two His words are these I will onely except against monstrous Leviathan Hobbs and the Book which he calls Comfort for Believers These I disown from ever having been my Masters c. 3. p. 7. Away with these two then they are excepted against But for Zanchie Borrhaus Piscator Beza Zuinglius and Martyr and all the other ingredients in that long Catalogue Mr. B. avows them to be his Masters Ingenuum est agnoscere per quos profeceris But it is taught by those Authors in the very †Ibid. pages by him cited That both the Reprobates and the Elect were preordained to sin as sin That God is the Author of sin in general of Murder and Adultery in particular That he is the cause of sin and in particular the cause of Incredulity That God doth thrust men on unto wickedness and the like Therefore these and the rest from p. 133. to p. 139. are avowedly the Doctrines of Mr. Barlee And why Mr. Hobbs is out of favour who hath not spoken so noisomly as these have done for ought I have hitherto observed I cannot guess at the reason unless he hath offended by his comparative reservedness Sect. 2. 1. He contradicts his own and his Readers eyes without the least possibility of gaining by it His next Abstersion c. 3. p. 11. hath the unhappiness to begin with a very bold falshood in contradiction to his ovvn and his Readers eyes For he professeth every where in his Correp Correction to have carefully distinguished these three things least possibility of gaining by it 1. The material part of sin 2. The formal part of sin 3. The ruling and over-ruling the sin and sinner This he professeth to have done in all the places which I directed unto and fears not to say that his heedful Readers may easily see it Either he is confident of no such Readers or else he hath a worse confidence to affirm point-blank he cares not what For when he spake of Gods tempting men to sin p. 79. he said he was not at leisure to tell in what sense nay he did peremptorily pronounce that God doth not onely determine all things and actions without exception but their several modalities too and that of all such modalities God is the supreme cause p. 86 87. So that according to Mr. B. God was not onely the Determiner and soveraign Cause of David's lying with Bathshebah which was a Thing or Action but of every Circumstance or Modality and so of the sinfulness it self the application of David's will to the forbidden object and of every point of Aggravation with which the Adultery was loaded Now though the broad-est-mouth'd Libertine must study hard to speak worse yet this was one of Mr. B's most careful speeches 2. He professeth his care for the clearing of God from having any efficiency in sin 2. His inconsistency with himself with Mr. W. and Mr. Hick as such p. 11. yet it was flatly his language as well as Mr. VV's p. 24. that God must needs have some efficiency in sin And his Masters say in sin as sin as hath been shewed If by the word as such he means another modality then he either contradicts what was so lately cited from him or else it is his Divinity that God is the cause of sin as such But this again is a contradiction to his clearing God from it If he means as Mr. VV. that God doth will and work sin not as it is sin but as it makes for Gods glory then he is liable to all those miseries into which Mr. VV. hath plunged himself and condemns himself out of his own mouth as well as out of Mr. VV's and Mr. Hick out of both In a word he is ruined seven several wayes for an Acquaintance with which I send him back to my second Chapter Sect. 14. But. 3. Let us come to the utmost of his Acumen and his Care He saith that the material part of sin 3. He betrayes himself many ways in his very provision for an escape Look forward on Sect. 7. and 12. of this Chapter is the doing or leaving undone some positive natural or moral act and of that he calls God the soveraign Author p. 11. So that if Davids Adultery or lying with Bathshebah was a positive act either natural or moral which he cannot deny he is declaredly of opinion that God was the soveraign Author of it Again he calls it a part of sin whilest he calls it the material part of sin and addes that God is the Author of it but every part of the whole must needs participate the nature of the whole especially in Accidents and even so he makes God to be the Author of sin not only in equivalence but even in those very terms Nor will it help him to say materiale substratum for by that he must mean either the substance or the action either David himself or his lying with Bathshebah If the former he is undone for 't is to say that a substance is a part of an accident and that David himself was a part of his Adultery If he flies unto the later he is worse undone then in the former for 't is to say that the Action which is confessedly positive is a part of that which according to him and Mr. Hick is meerly privative and that Davids lying with Bathshebah was but part of his Adultery or at least that his Adultery was but part of his sin If to avoid these Absurdities he shall say the very truth that the Action it self to wit Davids lying with Bathshebah was indeed his whole Adultery and so his whole sin then his miseries are as pressing as when he spake the greatest falshood unless he cry peccavi and yield the whole cause For either he must deny that Davids lying with Bathshebah was a positive thing or say that God was the Author of it as here he doth or else he must say that Sin is God which is his own Inference c. 3. p. 112. or he must spit in the face of his pious friend Mr. Hick who betrayed him to that senseless blasphemous Inference Now let
with that natural liberty that is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to do good or evil From whence it followes that Adam's determination of his free will to the eating of forbidden fruit which was a positive entity was meerly from Adam and not from God Unlesse they will say he had a necessity supernatural though not from nature which if they say it will be at their perill Again 't is granted by all that man since the fall hath a liberty of will in things not moral and in many things which are meerly moral which inferres them to be the Authors of many positive Acts. 5. They are farther uncovered by being supposed to be catcchized 5. If Mr. B. and Mr. Hick were to be publickly Catechized and first asked who made them men 2. who made them sinners 3. who made them Priests 4. who made their Dublets either long or short-wasted 5. who is wont to wash their cloaths to cleanse their hands and their feet and to do some other much viler offices they would not say for shame that God did make or do those things which they know to be positive and real Entities but to each of those Questions they would certainly return a severe Answer Again if they are askt who made the short-wastedness of the Dublet aforesaid they will say the same Taylor who made it a short-wasted Dublet Ask them then who made the sinfulness of the sinful Action to wit Davids lying with Bathshebah they will say the same Agent who made the sinful Action that positive Entity David's lying with Bathshebah against the Law Who made that positive Entity or sinful action Even God say * Mr. W. saith that of every positive act God is the proper efficient cause p. 24. Mr. B. and Mr. H. the same and wors as hath been shewed they but say I the Adulterer against the precept and will of God and against that measure of his grace which had been sufficient to prevent it if David had not been a resolute and wilful sinner I conclude this Section with the confession of Mr. W. That he who is the Author of the Action must needs be the Author of the sin also which is unseparable from it p. 25. But both himself and Mr. Hick and Mr. B. do say that God is the Author and maker of the action as being a positive and real thing therefore according to their concessions they do all make God the Author of sin Sect. 20. Mr. B's second chip of the old block Mr. B. hews out his second chip thus He must hold that there be myriads of myriads of actions in the world which are not wrought by God c. p. 113. This second chip is wonderful if compared with the first 1. His inconsistency with himself and his inferring all sinful actions to be wrought by God for there he would have me bound up by my Thesis to maintain that God is the Author of sin though here he makes me to hold that there are 100000. of Actions not wrought by God if the first were swallowed there is no place for the second and if the second then no place for the first For if I hold as I do that there are myriads of sins or sinful actions whereof not one can by any possibility be wrought by God then by no possibility can I make God the Author of sin But now Mr. B. declares his Tenet that all the actions in the world however filthy and noysome are wrought by God I say the contrary that there is a world of wickedness which is none of Gods making but of the Devils and his party whether in Hell or in Earth 2. His unsuccesful reliance on the Jesuites 2. Whilest I deny that any sinful actions are wrought by God I do not deny that he permits them and I have often shewed how the sinner depends on God both for his power to live and move What he saith of the sesuites may well be true for they are kinsmen in these affaires The Jesuites in waggery did purposely propagate many blasphemies arising from the Tenet of unconditional Reprobation in many Protestant parts of the Christian world that by making them odious they might fright men from thence into the Church of Rome I find the observation in the Renowned and Judicious * Exact Coll. l. 10. ch 39. sect 6. p. 3189. Dr. Jackson whom Mr. B. put me upon reading by his saying that I had read him when indeed I had not And since the Jesuite Suarez is of so much Authority with his Cousin of the Kirk I will observe out of †Proprio reali influxu concurrit Deus ad actus liberi Arbitrii ut reales actus sunt etiamsi saepissimè intrinsecè mali sint nam cùm hi actus sint verè res effectus reales necesse est ut saltem illam dopendentiam à Deo habeant quae omnibus causarum secundarum effect bus generalis omnino necessaria est Suarez de concursu motione auxiliis Dei lib. 2. Suarez that the acts of Free-will are real acts though evil and the real effects of second causes which Mr. Hick and Mr. B. are both intreated to chew upon And again I will observe that Suarez gives those acts but a general dependance upon God whereas Doctor Twisse as I lately cited him makes God to be causa particularis uniuscujusque actus which is worse then the Jesuite though the Jesuites and Dominicans are too too bad in their Assertions Sect. 21. Mr. B's 3d. chip more pitiful then the former Mr. B. saith farther It will follow that the more sinful acts any commits the more he is a Creator and a kind of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God of himselfe p. 13. Still a chip of the same block But 1. what pretence hath he for this when I have said so often that though the sinner in some sort may be called the Creator of his sins yet the evil which he doth he doth by that power and freedom of will which he had from God How then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any sense 2. To be a God of evil is a very sad priviledge And the word God is so far from signifying Him onely who is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that * Exod. 22.28 men and †1 Cor. 8.5 Idols are called Gods in Scripture and Satan himself the * 2 Cor. 4.4 God of this world And so the summe of Mr. B's acumen is but this That the more sins a man commits of the more sins he is the Author The more evil the Devil invents the works of the Devil are so much the more Very pretty Look back on Sect. 18. 19. Num. 5. Sect. 22. Mr. B's fourth chip the most lamentable of all Mr. B. begins to be more extravagant then himself not onely more then other men by arguing from the supposal of sins being a thing
17. His gross error in the notion of Gods permission His tremendous notion of Alworking providence without exception of wickedness Sect. 18. He puts himself afresh into his old streights betwixt gross blasphemy and extraordinary impertinence He affirms that God hath an active hand in the sins of Oppression Rebellion Murders Trechery Violence and VVrong How the Great Turk proceeds on those maximes He justifies the Ranters by ascribing all our English changes to the hand of God God is cleared from carelesness or weakness with which he is charged by Mr. VV. Sect. 19. God is cleared from willing and effecting what he hateth A case put to shew the danger of Mr. VV's Doctrine in order to practice Sect. 20. Mr. VV's dangerous misapprehension of that figurative sentence that God doth punish sin with sin His making God the proper cause of the greatest sins which he also extends to the very sin of the act the pravity it self He treads a step beyond Calvin worst Sect. 21. The desperate nature of Mr. VV's Salvo's And the hardness of his Emollients His open profession that Gods secret will is quite contrary to his revealed will in respect of the very same objects Chap. III. Sect. 1. MAster B's Confession of the Fact of which he pleads not guilty His making God the Author of sin and worse then so in his endeavours to speak as warily as his principles will suffer him Sect. 2. He contradicts his own and his Readers eyes without the possibility of gaining by it His inconsistency with himself with Mr. VV. and Mr. Hick He betrayes himself many wayes in his provision for an escape making God verbatim the soveraign Author of sins both of omission and commission Grants the whole charge or understands not a moral act His mixture of blasphemies with contradictions on the right and left hand Sect. 3. He is ashamed to cite his own words truly Proves himself conscious to himself of being left without excuse in charging God with being a Tempter unto sin Pretends a want of leisure to excuse or extenuate his blasphemy yet baulks it at his greatest leisure He accuseth God of that which is the worst quality of Satan Flatly contradicts the Scripture Commits the worst of contradictions as well as blasphemies Sect. 4. He is enraged that his meaning should be measured by his words Slanders ancient and modern both Papists and Protestants Saint Austin in particular And implies it a sin for corn to grow Sect. 5. His uncharitable reflexion on his own Dr. Twisse The Doctors words cited Sect. 6. Mr. B's severity to himself proving his falshoods by self-contradictions He unavoidably chargeth God with sin in himself irrefragably proved from Heb. 6.18 He implies his blasphemies common to him with his party He is convicted by Dr. Twisse of making God the Author of sin Sect. 7. He makes no difference betwixt the act of Adultery and Marriage but equally makes God the Author of both worse then the Encratitae Sect. 8. The undeniable blasphemies which ensue upon the Doctrine of unconditional Praedestination The great Disease of making God the Author of sin The original Cause of the Disease The Patient proved extremely sick of the Disease by his own acknowledgement of the Cause Four short Arguments to confirm it Sect. 9. The easie and infallible means of cure to all that are not resolved to continue sick The nature of Knowledge opened and distinguished from Decree Gods absolute Decree doth cause a necessity of event but his foreknowledge doth not nor possibly can it The Absurdities which would follow if it were so An Argument taken from the knowledge of what is past The wide difference shewed between a necessity of consequence and a necessity of the consequent 'T is vain for the Adversaries to quit the first error unless they quit the second also D. Reynolds his concurrence with T. P. in this point Gods praescience doth not praesuppose a praedetermination But rather praedetermination doth connotate praescience if not praesuppose it The cause of the error shewed and removed The Application to the present case and a way opened to reconcilement Sect. 10. Mr. B's unavoidable consequential blasphemies that God determined all wickedness before be could foreknow it His ignorant use of the words Futurition Will certain Counsel A threefold blasphemy besides a self-contradiction Sect. 11. His positive Doctrine of Gods ordaining sin both original and actual Non-sense added to Blasphemy Sect. 12. His self-contradiction in denying and also affirming that he maketh God the Author of sin He is convicted by his own words and the Assemblies and Mr. W's and Dr. Twisse and Mr. Hobbs which last is justified by Mr. W. Sect. 13. Mr. B's 10000. curses upon himself and his Masters with his confession of the blasphemy of which he was accused The like confession of his owned Masters together with their Commissions of the crime confessed Sect. 14. His confession of faith touching Gods commerce with sin He professeth openly to believe that God is the cause of sinfulness it self Sect. 15. Concerning the efficient cause of sin The state of the case from the beginning Sin proved to have a true efficient cause and by Mr. B's confession who also denies it How his railings in lieu of answers do strike at S. James but hit himself and his party of Jam. 1.15 Sect. 16. Of the positive entity of sin clearly proved Sect. 17. Mr. B's first Argument to prove the goodn'ss of sin in which Mr. Hick is equally concerned The noysomness of the Disease The purging out of the peccant humour Of metaphysical and moral bonity The dangerous effects in Mr. B. and Mr. Hick of being but Smatterers in Metaphysicks Dr. Twisse his foundation of irrespective decrees a thin Sophisme How a lye is verum as much as siâ— bonum Albertus Magnus his words explained and Austin's vindicated from the impertinence of the Citation Sect. 18. The most remarkable impiety of one Mr. Hick and Mr. B. called by the name of a second Argument Inferring the Godhead of sin on one hand or its being Gods creature on the other Mr. H. miserably tost by the two horns of his own Dilemma A way opened to his rescue from his ineffable dangers He is shewed a medium betwixt God and Gods Creatures where he could see none How Mr. H. and Mr. B. do infer Atheism it selfe to be the Creature of God or God himself Sins positive things because inward habits Man the Author of some positive things and God of some privatives Mr. H. confounds Negative and privative as well as privative and privation To harden our own hearts and consent unto temptations are positive things Our destruction from our selves a positive thing Sin spoken of in Scripture as a positive thing Mr. Hick convinced by his own party He will confess he hath blasphemed in case that sin is something positive which is further proved many wayes The sad effects of forging God to be the maker of all things real without exception
Sect. 19. Mr. B's first chip hewen out of Mr. H's block He foists into the Creed the word Real and makes it supply the place of good Provides a Creed for the Libertines viz. that God is the maker of all sins if sins are things real and things not real implies a contradiction The different methods of our reasonings and what comes of it They ascribe the filthiest of positive Entities unto God Aâ—c convinced by the Assemblies confession of Faith Are farther uncovered by being supposed to be catechized Sect. 20. His second chip of the same block Inconsistency with himself and making all sinful actions to be wrought by God His unsuccesful Relyance on the Jesuits Sect. 21. His third chip more pitiful then the former Sect. 22. His fourth chip the most lamentable of all His arguing concludes him Pelagian or Libertine He is impertinent on purpose to make God the Author of sin Sect. 23. By his fifth chip he denies Gods Praescience of all wickedness unless he also praedetermined it Sect. 24. His impositions upon the Scripture The Schoolmen Austâ—n His new degree of Arminianism Sect. 25. Mr. Hick's Heathenish expression of sins 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 26. Of Calvins Doctrine that God commands yea compels the Devil and all that are wicked to Conceive execure their evil dving Sect. 27. Mr. B's affected Tergiversation in his chiefest concernments Of Zuinglius his Doctrine that God is in plain terms the Author of sin How Mr. B. holds the same even in that which he confesseth to be the proper notion of the word Author He accuseth Calvin in excusing him for saying that God doth will sin And Piscator as well as Calvin for saying that God doth thrust men into wickedness He confesseth his Masters do some times teach a coaction from God to sin He forgeth new Texts upon the Scripture Sect. 28. He turns his back to the prime charge and tacitly yields the whole cause Sect. 29. Of Adams inclination to sin before he sinned The birth and growth of the very first sin with the very wide difference betwixt the inclinations of the sensitive appetite and the will Sect. 30. The whole importance of the word Author How the Adversaries say worse then if they had only said verbatim God is the Author of sin Mr. Rollâ—cks strange Salvo Chap. IV. Sect. 1. OF the signal fallacy swallowed first by Dr. Twisse then by his followers Mr W's essay to cover it The Fallacy shewed in its deformity The first cause of the whole mistake about the order of intentions and execution That cause removed and the fallacy left naked Mr. W's indirect course to excuse Dr. Twisse in contradiction to him Dr. Twisse his error of Coâ—rdination in things subordinate Sect. 2. Mr. W's forgery of objections in other mens names Sect. 3. Mr. W's second part displayed and Universal Redemption vindicated as to the true intent and extent of Christs death from the feeble utmost of his attempts in a subdivision of eight Paragraphs Sect. 4. How the Presbyterians do nourish Socinianism in contracting Christs death and perverting Scripture Daille Camero Amâ—rald why they forsook their party abridging the benefit of Christs death Received rules for the interpreting of words and ending controversies The extream absurdity of dutiful misbelief exploded hy the Lord Primate Mr. W's reproch cast upon Christendom and the Gospel of Christ Europe Asia Africa and America inferred by Mr. W. to be the least part of the world Sect. 5. Universal Redemption proved from 2 Cor. 5.14 by S. Austin and Prosper to the stopping of Mr. W's and Mr. B's mouths Sect. 6. The conclusion giving reasons why no more time is to be lost in this employment AN INTRODUCTION To the three first Chapters Concerning the impious and unexcusable because blasphemous and unavoidable both Contradictions and other Absurdities which issue out from the Denial of Gods eternal respective or conditional Decrees SECT 1. The neerest way to end a controversie is to strike altogether at the root of error When once an Error is grown fruitful and hath run it self out into several Branches it is commonly found by sad experience to grow the thicker for being lopp't There is not an Error in all Theologie which doth seem to have taken so deep a Root or to have spread so sturdy Branches or to have born so lewd a fruit as that many-headed Error whose extirpation out of the Church ought so much the rather to be desir'd because it hath shed such a fatal and deadly influence upon a multitude of Professors who have lately sate under its shade Of those that have exercised themselves in so good a work I may call it my Lot and my Necessity to have been one of the meanest Faithfulness and Affection have been my chiefest qualifications and I esteem it a priviledge as well as duty to have done God service in any measure But in every good Labourer there is a skill and prudence as well as industry and faithfulnesse to be required It is not enough to be doing and working in a meer opposition to sloth and idlenesse but by contrivance and forecast to do a great deal of work in a little time Sect. 2. I am not quite so sensible of that unquestionable Aphorism set down by Solomon * Eccles 12.12 much study is a wearinesse to the flesh as of the words going before it in making many books there is no end This I knew a long time since but it is now that I consider it and lay it seriously to heart And therefore now I determine to make an end of the Task imposed on me not contenting my self with a bare Resistance but proceeding to a Dispatch of that Hydra-like Error of which I spake I will no longer amuse my self with striking off now and then a Head which besides that they are many are very apt to be succeeded by many others growing up out of the very same Trunk but rather compendiously endeavour to strike the Monster into the heart which besides that it is but one is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first part that lives and the last that dies in every creature Sect. 3. The grand Error about God's Decrees and its numerous off-spring is rooted in the mistake of two things The false conceit of God's prescience and predetermination makes up the error of irrespective and unconditional Decrees I do not say of the most natural but of the most voluntary actions and effects neither reward nor punishment nor sin it self being excepted This I take to be the heart imparting life and activity to every member and limb of that body of error whose most affectionate friends and abettors have conspired to find me my late imployment With this grand error all the rest which grow from it must live and die In this Mr. Whitfield hath put his chief trust Upon this he hath been poreing as his admirers have â—oasted these thirty years In his Apologie for â—his he hath
publickly chosen to display his whole strength as if by this he were desirous that eveâ—y part of the controversie should be decided I â—ccept his challenge and heartily thank him for the â—ontrivance He having given me an occasion of taking much a neerer way to my journeys end then I first intended Sect. 4. The speedy way to conviction For if I prove out of his mouth and out of the mouths of his predecessors that what they publickly acknowledge to be blasphemously false doth unavoidably follow from their espoused notion of God's Decrees then can he not chuse but acknowledge that such a notion of God's Decrees must needs be dangerously false He must confess that his book is an insufferable Libel against his Maker and such as against which he must publickly enter his protestation Now that it is false and blasphemous to say that God is the Author or cause of sin both in those very terms and in others as bad and in many others much worse is ever acknowledged by themselves in some parts of their Writings wherein forgetful of their Doctrines they consider nothing but duty who yet in other parts of their own writings wherein forgetful of duty they reason onely from their Doctrines do most dogmatically deliver it for very great truth Sect. 5. Made plain and open by a manifestation of three things In great affection to the most vulgar and less intelligent Readers whose deliverance and liberty from the worst kind of thraldom I do especially aim at in what I publish I will use the greatest plainness and perspicuity of speech which by study and meditation I am able to contrive Our whole Dispute will be concluded by a most cogent demonstration of these three things First that it is granted by the Adversaries themselves to be both false and blasphemous to say that God is the Author or Cause of Sin Secondly 't is affirmed by the very same Party to be neither false nor blasphemous but a most necessary truth to say that God is the Author or Cause of Sin Thirdly it cannot be denied by the aforesaid Party that what they sometimes confess to be both false and blasphemous they would not at other times affirm to be neither false nor blasphemous but that they find it to be the natural and unavoidable issue flowing out from their Principles of Gods Decrees Sect. 6. The three things I do solemnly take upon me after mature deliberation undertaken solemnly to be proved and in a full comprehension of the several evidences and proofs to make a cogent demonstration of those three things A demonstration so cogent that the most stomachful adversaries shall not be able to gainsay it unless they will say that they never say what they say and that they have not printed what they have printed or that the world lieth in darkness so as we cannot read either their Latine or their English but onely dream that we read what indeed we do not Either they will or they will not proceed to those later degrees of madness If they will they will prove the liberty of their wills to speak against their own light and against their own speakings and against their testimonies of conscience and against the witness of other mens eyes as well as of their own and what is this but to sin as with a Cart-rope to turn Grace backward to bid righteousnesse stand afar off and to say we will be stubborn in spight of evidence and conviction Thus it is if they will proceed to the degrees of madnesse above specified And if they will not as sure they will not then in spight of themselves and their own perversnesse they must fly by way of Refuge to these following confessions First That they have published self-contradictions beyond compare affirming what they deny and denying what they affirm calling that by the name of blasphemy which they professe to think Orthodox and asserting that for true Divinity with one stroke of their pen which with another dash of the same pen they call the Doctrine of Devils Their Second Confession must be this that being proved to have printed such contradictions in several parts of their Writings as their occasions did require or their necessities enforce them they are obliged indispensably to declare their last thoughts and to name that part of their contradiction to which they will finally adhere and in adherence to which they will quit the contrary from this day forward whether the affirmative or the negative part of the contradiction whether that which is for God or that which is against him If the later they are declaredly Libertines and Ranters and I shall wish for nothing more then the publick'st trial in the World to prove them such there being nothing now wanting but a sufficient publication and notification of the thing to effect its solemn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or total Banishment out of the World Thus it is if they adhere to the later part of their contradiction And if they adhere unto the former which God of his mercy and by his grace may be pleased to work in them both to will and to do I know not how they can escape an entire conversion unto the truth or how obstinacy it self can slip its neck out of the collar which the Soveraignty of Light hath sitted for it and in a willing submission unto which the ghostly freedom of the obstinate doth chiefly stand The same men affiâ—m it to be both blasphemy and truth to say that God is the Author or cause of sin Sect. 7. To prove the three things of which I spake in my last Paragraph but one and to prove them so largely as I desire is not the businesse of this place but of my following Chapters of the second and third more especially to which I now am but writing my Introduction I will therefore say no more here then what may serve to stay the appetite of any possible impatient and longing Reader First That the Adversaries do grant it to be both false and blasphemous to say that God is the Author or cause of sin Note the double concession of Mr. B. First that his Masters do call it an excerable blasphemy p. 129 c. and yet they teach in other places 1. That God is the Author of sin 2. Wills Sin 3. Impells to it 4. Forceth men to it p. 132 133. where he labours to make it good I have abundantly proved in my Defence of God's purity chap. 4. Sect. 6. p. 30 31. and shall farther do it in this following work in particular chap. 3. sect 13. 27. Nor can they possibly eat their words but at the peril of renouncing the whole stream of Church-Writers both ancient and modern of whom I have given a large specimen in my Divine Purity Def. ch 4. sect 5. p. 22 c. to p. 29. And yet Secondly That the same party do affirm it to be neither false nor blasphemous but
first he decrees the end and then the means p. 7. Doth M. W. here mean by Prioritas Rationis one of the quinque modi priorum commonly known to all the World or doth he not If he doth he should have told us which and have confessed that his Argument p. 3. is against his own Doctrine p. 6. But if he doth not then either he asserteth a sixth way of priority which no man living can imagine or else he speaks of a verbal priority as oppos'd to real and then his fetch is no deeper then this that there is no priority in God's Decrees except no priority and because it is ugly to say there is none except none he therefore expresseth his meaning of none by prioritas Ration is Just as Wollebius and others do first affirm that God's * Decretum reverâ est ipsissima Dei voluntas docendi tamen causâ voluntas ut causa efficiens Decretum verò ut effectum consideratur Loco superiùs paulò cit p. 29. Decree is really his will ipsissima voluntas his very very very will and then docendi gratiâ considers his will as the efficient cause of his Decree and his Decree as the effect of his will This is still Mr. W's practice To bring about his little ends and to effect impossibilities he considers God's Decrees as such in some places as p. 6 7 42 which he professeth in other places to be impossible that they should be as p. 3 44. And what is this but to acknowledge that they cannot procure for their Doctrines any colour of truth but by grounding their Discourse upon the most declared falshoods 6. He argues against the Tenent for which he argues 6. His Argument is subversive of his own dear Tenent for which he argues Because if God * Note that Mr. W. proceeds to say p. 3. God could not foresee Faith or any other grace in man before man had any being in the World as if he either denied all foresight in God or understood not what foresight means Again he saith p. 42. that the foresight of sin cannot go before God's Decree foreknew nothing but because the first had foreordained it which is the saying of the whole party his praescience then would be conditional of his Decree and so there would be place for a cendition in eternity which Mr. W. whilest he inserrs endeavours to prove to be impossible This is rare impossible one way and yet another way unavoidable Again when he saith that God decreed to permit sin he either means that God decreed the permission onely in praescience of the sin or that he decreed as well the sin as the permission If the later he either means that the Decree was of the permission before the sin or of the sin before the permission Let him avow which he will he must either avow a conditional Decree or that his Doctrine is blasphemous and that it is but his Parties salve when they say that God decreed to permit men to sin and mean his decreeing that men should sin 7. He is fain to make God's Decrees to be actus Dei ad intra against his own party who teach them to be ad extra 7. His memorable Parenthesis that God's Decrees are acts within himself and therefore not really different from himself p. 3. hath quite undone him many wayes For first he means that God's Decrees are not onely immanent but also actus ad intra as he saith in terminis p. 37. But this is lamentably false his own Teachers being witness for those are actus Dei ad intra which relate to nothing without God as his contemplation of himself the generation of his Son the procession of the Holy Ghost But those are actus Dei ad extra which are referred to any thing without the Godhead such are God's Praedestination and Creation which respect his creatures whereof the former is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the later 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but both ad extra for immanent and transient are the divisive members of actus or opera Dei ad Extra as every Novitius in these controversies can well inform him If he did not know the difference betwixt immanent and ad intra or is a self-contradicter betwixt his p. 3. and p. 37. he alone is to answer for it But this is the least of his absurdities For 8. He makes Gods actions to be God himself against his own Masters and common sense 8. The very thing which he affirmes to be actus Dei ad intra p. 37. and here an act within himself he affirmes to be no other then God himself But that God himself should be an act of God within God is a strange conception Let him consult his Master Wollebius and he will say that God's Decree is an internal * Decretum Dei est interna voluniatis Divinae Actio p. 28. action of the Divine will Again let him ask his Master †Gomar T. 3. Disp 9. Thes 29 Gomarus and he will say that God's Decree is an action and therefore not God and therefore different from God so inconsistent he is with such as gave him his Lawes But he is also inconsistent with common sense For 9. Five blasphemons absurdities which that absurdity doth inser 9. If God's Decree is not really different from himself and so really is himself then 1. He depends upon himself as upon a free Agent which was at liberty once to have decreed or not decreed the redemption of the world and by consequence at liberty to have been or not to have been 2. It would also follow that God was the efficient cause of himself because of his Decree and so in order of nature before himself 3. It would follow that God could not chuse but Decree because he could not chuse but be himself and so that his Decree is falsely defined by all Divines of all Parties except Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Whitfield 4. It would follow that the generation of God the Son would be God himself as being actus Dei ad intra whereas Decretum is but ad extra 5. It would follow that the Son might be said to have begot the Father and the Father to have proceeded from the Son and the Holy Ghost because the essence of God is equally common to each person in the Trinity But these are things which are blasphemously absurd therefore God's actions are not his essence and therefore different from his essence and by consequence from himself 10. He makes God himself to be Reprobation 10. Mr. W. forgetting what he here saith by that time he comes to p. 44. will have it there to be Improper to say that God doth decree to reprobate as if he should decree to decree where as reprobation it self is the Decree p. 44. Were I not striving to put an end to my Introduction I would examine whether he knew what is the English of decernere and whether he
are good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things vvhich become him All the rest are the †1 Joh. 3.8 works of the Devil and of his genuine Children vvho are resolved to do their * Job 8.41 44. Fathers works This vvas Christs Doctrine this vvas Saint Johns and Saint John believe me vvas a Christian All Gods works are done in (a) Psal 33.4 Truth therefore lyes are none of his and so * Piscat loco paulo superius citato Piscator vvas out The Lord is (b) Psal 145.17 holy in all his works Adultery and Murder are therefore none of Gods vvorks * Zuing. loc jam citat Zuinglius therefore vvas deceived by his Doctrine of Decrees and Mr. W. by Zuinglius The Lord shall (c) Psal 104.31 rejoyce in his works but hath (d) Psal 5.4 no pleasure in wickedness therefore Martin Borrhaus spake very madly when he dared to say that * Borrhaus in Exod. cap. 4. p. 448. sins do please God and Mr. Wh. more madly when he saith that God doth will sin with a perfect will p. 22. We see what must follow if Mr. W. shall answer yes to my Dilemma But if his answer shall be No then he must burn his own Books and all those Books from whence he made up his Cento and publickly subscribe to the truth of mine If he shall say his meaning is p. 22. that Gods will of which he speaks is onely objected on the wise permission or patient suffering of all sins and not upon the sins themselves why then did he entitle his book against me and not against Mr. Barlee or against his unconverted self He and I will shake hands if he will say he meant thus and not as Doctor Twisse who * See the place cited Correct Copy p. 10. saith that the will of God doth pass not onely into the permission of the sin but into the sin it self which is permitted Utrum horum mavelit accipiat Let him now take his choice and speaking distinctly to my Dilemma let the world know what he is for without any Tricks or Tergiversations But I will tell him for his security that he were better be tryed by the waters of jealousie if his meaning shal be found in the former part of the Dilemma by how much a lesser evil it is for * Num. 5.21 the thigh to rot and the belly to swell then for a man but to mean or say in his †Psal 14.1 heart that adultery and murder are the works of God And therefore timely let me advise him to use the * Num. 19.13 waters of separation that the uncleanness of such Doctrines may not be on him 5. The Determination of mans will to wicked actions is not Gods work 5. In the next place let us consider what he means by those words God worketh most determinately certainly and infallibly in the various and mutable motions of mans will I do but passingly take notice of his unscholar-like use of the word Infallible as if he knew not its meaning or did not consider its Derivation the fault is too small to be observed in a Writer of his bredth and thickness I will rather try him by another Dilemma Doth he mean that God doth so work on the wills of men as to determin them of necessity to all their objects and actions both good and evil or doth he not mean this but rather grant that mans will doth determine it self If the later all is well he hath no more to do next but to abandon his * Especially Mr. Barlee and his brother Hickman who say that whatsoever positive thing is not from God is God c. 3. p. 112. The apex of Blasphemy as shall be shewed hereafter party and burn his books whereas if the former is his meaning as hitherto it hath been I know not what to do for him to lighten the weight of his calamities which will press him down deeply do what I can For first he implyes a contradiction as I demonstrated to a person of greater worth And therefore here I repeat it not but refer him to the * See The Divine Purity defended ch 8. sect 2. p. 80 81 82. sect 5. p. 86 87. place where he cannot fail of it Next it inferreth unavoidably that God is the natural cause of all the wickedness in the world For example suppose a wicked man hath conceived Adultery in his mind or committed it in his Heart as our †Mat. 5.28 Saviour speaks If God did predetermin that wicked man to that physical Act of Concupiscence and the will of that man to a consent as well as the appetite to a complacency he was not onely the cause but the sole cause of the Adultery Nay farther yet if the inward intention of the end is the determination of the will to the first act of sin as the subtilest of them do say and if that Intenâ—ion or whatever else is the Determination of the will and the Determination it self is a positive act which none can deny and if God is the Creator or Maker or proper cause of whatsoever thing is positive as these precious ones do affirm He is not onely concluded the sole cause of the Adultry in his Creature Verum etiam id ipsum quod dicere nolo but also that which is worse and ineffably blasphemous And here I ask Mr. Wh. was that adulterous thought or intention so determined to its object in that respect evil or was it not If in that respect evil he accuseth God if not evil in that respect he acquitteth the wicked man and unavoidably inferreth that there was never any Adulterer Murderer or the like but was carried to the doing of all his wickedness with a good intention a good desire a very good determination of his will And reason good too For the Determination of mans will they say is Gods work or Gods share in the procurement and accomplishment of sins And Gods part in the business they say is good But then they leave man no share at all in his impieties if they do let them name it which they never yet did Indeed they talk in the general that God is the * Note this distinction which Mr. Barlee makes ch 3. p. 55. natural cause of the meer Act of sin and a meer Accidental Cause of the obliquity of the act of sin But bid them instance in some particular then they see that they are blind and quickly speak themselves speechless VVhen a man hates God or †Leviâ— 24.15 curseth God or any otherwise blasphemes against him let Mr. Wh. or Mr. B. or Mr. Hick be asked which is the act of that sin and which is the obliquity of the act of that sin you shall have them as mute as three dead Fishes If the cursing of God is a whole sin it is an act of sin or an obliquity of an Act or both together and that
either separably or inseparably If onely an act where is the obliquity if onely an obliquity of an act where is the act it self for all the whole sin is the cursing of God nor more nor less if both together and separably let them make that separation in words or dumb signs that we may hear and conceive it But if both are inseparably together let them confess the thousand blasphemies and the six hundred contradictions which have and may be detected in all their Doctrines and Distinctions and after confession let them amend too I ask no more 6. His meaning ferreted out of his words 6. It may from hence be collected what is meant by Mr. W. when he immediately addeth that God worketh most holily in those very Actions wherein man works unrighteously p. 19. Even the same with †See Correct Copy p. 10. Zuinglius abetted also by * Twiss Vind. Gra. l. 2. part 1. p. 36 37. Dr. Twisse that the very same sin viz. Adultery or Murder as it is the work of God the Author Mover and Impeller it is not a crime but as it is of man it is a great one which is onely to say that sin is Gods work but God is no sinner He is the Author of sin in others but sins not himself He co-operates with the sinner to the effecting of his sin but being God he is not guilty That this must be the meaning of Mr. W. I can demonstrate by many Arguments 1. By his denying Scientia media though I am not sure he understands it and holding with Mr. Calvin that God foresaw nothing but because he fore-ordained it 2. By his * Note that in his Epistle to the Reader he argues the later from the former with a must concession that there is the same reason of the fore sight of sin and the Decree of Reprobation with the foresight of Faith and the Decree of Election But 't is the Doctrine of him and all his party that Faith is the proper effect of Election and not foreseen untill decreed Vpon the very same ground to use his own words in my violentum he doth and must hold that God did not foresee sin until he had decreed it too Nor will it lessen the absurdity to say that God decreed to permit sin onely unlesse by permission he means a sufferance or a wise not hindering if so he is right but then he must burn Doctor Twisse his books and retract his own it being their constant doctrine That God's permission of sin is efficacious Nay no * Twiss Vin. Gra. l. 2. part 1 p. 142 143 c. lesse efficacious is God's decree in the permission of evil than in the production of good so very sore are their very salvo's Thirdly His meaning may be evinced as by all other passages of his book which I have and shall cite so by comparing his present words with the nature of sin it self which is found to consist in such an indivisible point that to say God works in it is to say as much as that he works it As for example To hate God is a sin or a sinful action two expressions for one thing The very sinfulness of the sin doth intirely consist in the hating of God not in God without hating for he is purity it self not in hating without God as the object of it for hatred in it self is a thing indifferent and as apt to be good as evil and even communicable to God who hateth sin with a perfect hatred but in the union and application of that act to that object As the nature of man consists not in a body oneâ—y nor onely in a soul but in the union of the one with the other so that the sinfulness of that sin of hating God is nothing else but the union of that act with that object And that is punctum indivisibile for sin it self is a Physical abstract at the * Note that there is no such thing as pecceitâ— in any Profane or Sacred Writer grossest of which sinfulness at least is an abstract Metaphysical which admitting not any Composition cannot farther be abstracted so much as in imagination How then can God work in the hating of God and that no lesse than as a natural cause for so he doth saith Mr. W. p. 25. without being the cause of the sin it self when in the hating of God there is nothing but sin Here I exact of Mr. W. to tell the World what he means or to satisfie for his words of which he dares not tell the meaning But again 4. He gives us notice of his true meaning if not of the meaning which he will own by three Texts of Scripture which he applies to the purpose of which I spake for thus run his words 7. His abuse of Scripture to serve his turn 7. How else can it be said when Josephs brethren sold him into Egypt out of envy that God sent a man before c. And when David numbred the people it is said not onely that Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number the people 1 Chron. 21.1 but that the Lord moved David against them in that he said go number Israel 2 Sam. 24.1 By these he seeks to make it credible that God doth work in the wickedst actions as a natural cause although these Texts do prove the contrary To the first and most impertinent of the two allegations I have fâ—oken so * In the Divine purity defended ch 7. Sect. 6. p. 63 64 65. largely to Doctor Reynolds that Mr. W. must fetch his answer thence To the second consisting of two contradictory Texts as to the letter I make an ease return by shewing the literal inconsistence of the one with the other unlesse the first may be allowed to explain the second For when the very same thing is said to be done by God and by Satan either one of the two must needs be figuratively spoken or else there will be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irreconcileables in Scripture not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bare appearances of Discord else farewel to Torniellus and all other Writers in that kind who reconcile the Scriptures which seem to differ and contradict First I take it for granted that the word of God is not chargeable with any self-contradictions That the very same action cannot at once be good and evil Divine and Devilish That God and Satan cannot do the same works From whence it followeth of necessity that when God is said to * Activum pro Passivo ut saepè inquit Grotius in locum move David to number the people 2 Sam. 24.1 the meaning must be He * permitted Satan to move David For so the Scripture explains it self afterwards 1 Chron. 21.1 by saying that Satan provoked David to that deed Another example will make it plainer It is said of the Devil the God of this world that he hath blinded the mindes of
Tremendous mistakes of the Texts above mentioned Rom. 1.24 26. 2 Thes 2.11 and of the greatest part of the ninth Chapter to the Romans to name no more may serve for a warning to the ignorant and seduced people of the Nation not to presume on such places without an Interpreter at their Elbow I mean a qualified authentick uncontroulable Interpreter and such as may easily be had and be as easily used by English Readers that is in a word Doctor Hammond's Annotations upon the whole New Testament Sect. 5. 1. Mr. W. either means that God hath a hand in evil because in the contrary Mr. W. incurs another danger which he also calls an other Argument Some will laugh I am sure but others I hope will rather weep at it His words are these That God hath some hand in the Acts of sinful men appears because the substratum or subject of sin namely the natural motion or action whereunto the sin cleaveth is that whereof he is the proper cause and efficient therefore he must needs have some efficiency in it p. 24. If by the Substratum he means the man who is the subject of sin Look forward on c. 3. sect 14. God indeed is the cause of man but man is not a motion much less a sin If by Motion Act and Action he means that which is natural as the act of walking eating digesting speaking thinking and the like God again is the cause of these but not of any thing that is sinful it being no more sinful to walk eat speak or think then to be as God made us not onely moveables but men So that if Mr. W. doth mean no more he speaks not a syllable to the purpose but plainly deserts his undertaking And to prove that God hath a hand in evil because he hath a hand in that which is good is to say a thing is because it is not or that it is thus because it is quite otherwise By such Logick as this he may say that the Devil hath a hand and efficiency in good giving this for his reason because he is the efficient and proper cause of evill And indeed it is much less impious to ascribe something of Nature to that perverter of nature then the least perversion of nature to the God of all grace 2. Or that the Act of sin is not the sin But 2. It appears by the scope and tenour of his Book that when he saith God hath a hand in the Acts of sinful men he certainly means the sinful Acts which sinful Acts are the Acts of sin or to speak it in other words the sins themselves for that these are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three expressions of the same thing will be made undeniable by this example The act of sinful David was the Act of lying with Bathshebah The Act of lying with Bathshebah was the sinful Act to wit the Act of Adultery and so the sin For whether we say that his lying with Bathshebah was his Adultery or his Act of Adultery we say the same thing and we find them promiscuous in all men discourses of the thing Now that his Adultery or his Act of lying with Bathshebah was the sin it self which he committed not the Substratum or Subject of his sin distinguishable from it tanquam accidens à subjecto aut res à re I am confident Mr. W. will not dare to deny It being granted by men of all sides that to pollute another mans Wife is Adultery it self and that Adultery is the sin it self which is called by that name and by that distinguished from other sins 3. Or that God is the proper cause and efficient of sin and this proved by a Dilemma 3. From whence it followes unavoidably that Mr. W. affirms God to be the proper cause and efficient of sin it self Nor can he escape it let him go which way he will to the negative or the affirmative of what I said just now For let him answer to my Dilemma Was David's lying with Bathshebah by which she was impregned the meer substratum or subject of his sin of adultery or the very sin of adultery it self If Mr. W. shall say the first then it is cleerly his Doctrine that God was the proper cause and efficient of David's lying with Bathshebah for 't is his positive assertion that of the motion or action to which the sin cleaves God is the proper cause or efficient And if Mr. W. shall say the second then he must run into the very same mischief or yield me up the whole cause and bid particular defiance to Mr. Barlee and Mr. Hick which will soon appear by this other Dilemma Was Davids lying with Bathshebah which is granted to be the very sin of Adultery in the second member of the first Dilemma an Act or an Action or a Motion or a positive thing or was it none of these four If he shall say it was an act an action or a motion then again he calls God the proper cause or efficient of the sin it self Davids lying with Bathshebah for if the Reader will look back he shall find all three in the subject of this Section and withal it implies a grosse contradiction to say that that is the sin it self which was said before to be the subject onely of sin to which the sin cleaves If he shall say that Davids lying with Bathshebah was a positive thing which he cannot but say if he shall say it is the other three then either he must acknowledge that Mr. Barlee and Mr. Hick are blasphemers in grain for having said expresly that * Mr. Hick's words in a letter to Mr. B. printed by Mr. B. ch 3. p. 112. whatever positive thing is not from God is God or else he must say it was the creature of God or else he must say it was God himself For so it follows in the two brethren †Ibid Look forward on ch 3. Sect. 18. there is no medium betwixt Deus Creatura making no distinction betwixt Gods creatures and the Devils but concluding that Davids lying with Bathshebah if a positive entity was as much Gods creature as David himself was But if to avoid these rocks Mr. W. shall throw himself on the later horn of the Dilemma and say that Davids lying with Bathshebah was no act action motion or positive thing that will tosse him out of all reason not onely set him at enmity with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common maximes of all mankind and even the judgment of common sense but also infer that sin is nothing and so that sinners are either not damned at all or damned for nothing or damned for something besides their sins 4. Humane learning a good foundation for a Divine 4. I will not here exagitate his wants of knowledge in Physiologie which would administer occasion of much discourse because his errors in Divinity are too apt of themselves to make me tedious I
is a new Entity now all entities and beings are from the first Being and so far forth they are good p. 25. Apply his generals to particulars and he is ever undone The first Rebellion against God that ever was was a new action or motion and so a new entity and therefore saith Mr. W. was from the first Being and so far forth was good Thus every new filthiness or elaborate sensuality which Petronius invented for Tiberius hath Mr. W's commendation for the goodness of its being and the Divinity of its extraction It was descended saith Mr. W. from the first Being which is God 2. His sentence out of * Ipsum quantulumcunque esse bonum est quia summum esse est summum bonum De verâ Relig. c. 4. Austin is either quite beside the purpose He speaking onely of Gods Creatures and not of Satans or taken on purpose by the left handle that Austin as well as Scripture may be pretended as a Factioner against Himself For the sin against the Holy Ghost is a Being as being really something because the cause of damnation without hope of reprieve But Saint Austin could not argue the least goodness in that sin from the greatest goodness of that God against whom it is committed 3. But it is added by Mr. W. That if any natural act quà actus proceedeth not from the God of Nature there must be a Creature without a Creator Ibid. But 1. Blasphemy or the sin against the Holy Ghost is not a natural act but an act contra-natural and yet it is a real act 2. When God is called the God of Nature it is to be meant of good Nature 3. Blasphemy is an act of malicious Nature against the Nature of God and against the God of good Nature but blasphemy as blasphemy or that act as that act proceedeth not from God and yet it is not a Creature without a Creator for men and Devils are the Creators of all sorts of blasphemy which Mr. W. and the * Mr. Hickm and Mr. B. spoken of before hereafter c. 3 sect 18. two brethren will have to be created by God himself or to be an Independent Creature This is therefore a sixth cause of his and their aberrations that they do not distinguish with the Scriptures betwixt the †Joh. 3.8 works of the Devil and the * Psal 103.22 works of God Sect. 11. His fifth Answer is the most to his disadvantage unless the confession of his guilt may lead the way to his repentance 1. His fifth essay doth insnare him with an implicit confession that he maketh God the Author of sin for believe me Reader though to believe it is very difficult these words which follow are all his own Doth not Mr. P. by this Doctrine make God the Author of sin for if God be the Author of all natural Actions as hath been proved and it be impossible as he teacheth to separate the sin from the action then he that is the Author of the Action must needs be the Author of the sin also which is unseparable from it p. 25. Thus he thinks he hath laid a Net for Mr. P. whilest Himself is caught in it Look forwards on ch 3. sect 12. Num. 4. sect 18. and cannot possibly get out For 1. He confesseth most explicitly though not in any humble Form that if it is proved to be impossible to separate the sin from the sinful action which I have often proved to be impossible he cannot chuse but take God to be the Author of sin Here then again he must be summoned to shew us how David's sin to wit his Adultery can be separated from his sinful action to wit his lying with Bathshebah which until he shall perform I must declare him out of his Book which is as much as from his own mouth to be an Assertor of that Blasphemy which yet he doth many times disown though not so often as he owns it 2. He is fain to miscal things to countenance his mistakes or else he knows not a moral action 2. To make a shew of having insnared me he is fain to call those things by the name of natural actions which he knew at that instant I have ever call'd sins or sinful actions or acts of sin unnatural actions or acts against nature But what he could not discern in the sins or sinful actions of Adam and David I will compel him to see clearly by these following Queries to which I shall earnestly expect his Answer * Mr. W. hampered in sâ—me Dilâ—mm's Is a mans lying with a beast a sin or not If not a sin how then was it * Exod. 22.19 forbidden upon pain of death If a sin is it an Action or not an Action If not an action what is an action and how defined But if it is an action is it a natural action or an action unnatural and against Nature If a natural action why saith Mr. W. that God is the efficient and proper cause and now the Author of all natural actions and so by consequence of a mans lying with a beast If to avoid that blasphemy he saith it is not a natural but an unnatural action why then did he say Ans 3. that Natures work was the same as well in wicked as lawful actions If he flies from that too now he is scared with the danger then let him say he is converted and abjure his own Book and joyn with me against Mr. Hick and Mr. B. who say that sin is God if a positive thing To make sure work I will appeal to Saint Paul whether it hath not of old been found very possible to * Rom. 1.26 change the natural use into that which is against Nature yet that change includes Action but contra-natural So again to worship †Jer. 2.27 stones and to serve the * Rom. 1.25 Creature more then the Creator Witchcraft and Incest are all against Nature But some of the Gentiles did by * Rom. 2.14 Nature the things contained in the Law whilest other mens actions were unnatural because as †2 Pet. 2.12 natural brute Beasts and not as men they spake evil of things they understood not 3. The method by which he is led into all his blasphemies 3. It is most apparent at every turn that the main thing to be discussed is whether the sin can be sequestred from the sinful Action If it can I must acknowledge my error and make amends if I am able But if it cannot then Mr. W. and his party must do the like My Method is first to lay it as my Principle That God cannot be possibly the Author of sin and thence to infer that he cannot be the Author of a mans lying with a Beast which is a real act and yet a sin and my reason is because I cannot conceive much less describe how that sin called Bestiality which consisteth in lying with a Beast can be
of it as the sinner himself and as much as Satan who tempts him to sin and in some respects much more then both VVhich before I come to demonstrate I will name the Cause of this Disease which being premised must needs be followed by its effects 3. The original cause of the disease 3. The Cause of it is this That they believe Gods praescience or fore-knowledge of all things and events to be neither praevious to nor simultaneous with but directly after his praedetermination of them Mr. Calvin expressed it thus * See the Divine purity defended ch 7. sect 8. p. 74. that God did therefore fore-know all things because he fore-ordained all things of which I have spoken on another occasion And now Mr. Barlee expresseth it thus Gods praescience of a thing future must needs praesuppose a praedestination or a praedetermination of it 4. The Patient proved extrembly sick of the disease by his own acknowledgment of the cause Look sorward on the tenth Section of this Chapter 4. That Mr. B. is sick of the disease I mentioned I now prove out of his words which declare the Cause to be reigning in him And to make the shorter work of it I shall proceed to conviction by this Dilemma Doth he believe Gods praescience of sin or not If he doth not then all his own party will send him packing to the Anticyrae every mouth will be opened full wide against him he will not therefore dare to say No to my Dilemma And if he saith Yes his calamity will be greater for adhering to his Maxime he must confess his Doctrine to be this That God did praedetermine sin antecedently to his praescience or fore-knowledge of sin To make it plain by Syllogism 1. He who holds that Gods praescience of what is future must needs p esuppose his praedetermination of it holds that the praedetermination praecedes the praescience 2. But Mr. B. doth declaredly hold the former 3. Therefore he also doth hold the later This being made thus evident to the most ignorant of his Favourers and undeniable to the most obstinate I will now go on to prove my Necessary Assertion That Mr. B. is sick of the most loathsome and the most dangerous Disease of making God to be the Author and Cause of sin 5. Four short arguments to confirm it left for every Reader to enlarge upon in his thoughts 1. If God foresaw nothing but as being first fore-appointed or predetermined by himself then he foresaw not any mans determination of his will to sin until himself had predetermined that mans determination of his will to sin Now if the Devil is the cause of another mans sinning by meerly inclining his will to sin and if the sinner himself is another cause of his sin by meerly determining his will to sin though not as sin but under the notion and appearance at least of good how can God be thought less if from all Eternity before the Man or the Devil had any existence he had predetermined doth the temptation of the one which is the sin of the Devil and the sin of the other who yields himself captive to that temptation yea the determination of both their wills to both their sins Yet thus he did saith Mr. B. at least in signo rationis before he could be able to foresee the one or the other 2. If he who shall command or advise a man to do a thing which he knows to be forbidden and so a sin cannot possibly be conceived to be less then a concause and coadjutor what then must he be concluded who doth absolutely and irresistibly predetermine and tye up the will to sin 3. God in his Law doth forbid the whole moral act to wit Adultery or Murder and the liberty of the Agent to commit it Thou shalt not do this or that he doth not onely forbid the obliquity of the Act abstracted from the Act as the repugnance of killing an innocent with the Law which saith Thou shalt not kill abstracted from killing for this last is impossible to be so much as conceived much less to be ex parte rei and implies a gross contradiction God forbids us to blaspheme he doth not forbid us to blaspheme amiss implying it possible to blaspheme aright So that if he predetermines the will of man or man as a voluntary Agent to the positive Act of blaspheming he predetermines to that which he forbids that is to sin And if the union of the pravity with the Act doth move God to forbid that the Act it self be freely done how can he then predetermine that it shall be done freely or admitting that he can who is then the Author of sin It is hard to say whether the impossibility on one hand or the absurdity on the other is more observable in the Case Impossibilium nulla est obligatio 4. If God is not by his predetermination of sin the Author of sin who is then the Author of it Man cannot be for in that case he cannot sin For can he possibly hinder the for bidden Act from having a pravity or filth on supposition that it be free and known to be forbidden Or can he so order the matter that there shall not be an Entity of the Act a wilfulness of the Agent nor a testimony of conscience against the thing done No this is impossible the predetermination being supposed or else it is a being too strong for God which is blasphemous as well as impossible How then can God be conceived to exact any thing of his Creature who doth the thing that is forbid being predetermined to the Act which is forbidden and to every circumstance of the Act What is said of man may be repeated of the Devil and if neither of them can be the Author of sin according to Mr. B's Maximes the Reader knowes what to think of Him and Them Sect. 9. To remove the cause of this Noysom and Inveterate Disease and to keep it from being Desperate 1. The easie and infallible means of cure to all who are not resolved to contine sick at least from being Epidemical I must clear the point of Gods Praescience to my less instructed and common Readers such as Mr. W. and Mr. B. appear to be And because they are reckoned as chief men of their party there must needs be great numbers who partake with them in their greatest wants First they seem not to consider that Praescience is nothing else but the Latine word for foreknowledge or else not to know what knowledge naturally importeth and so discern not precisely wherein Gods Knowledge doth differ from his Decree How else could they imagin with * Mr. W. discovers his opinion that whatever God foreknowes must necessarily come to pass and so all sins as well as whatever he decrees doth the like Mr. W. that Gods foreknowledge doth necessitate as well as his decree or how could they dream with Mr. B. that Gods foreknowledge
of what is future and so of all sins is after his praedetermination two gross absurdities not repugnant onely to reason and common sense but inconsistent with one another yet both affirm'd by the same sort of men By Mr. Hobbs amongst others in his Animadversions on Bishop Bramhal In his Answ to an Object p. 40. of his Extent of Div. Prov. Mr. B. c. 3. p. 26. and Mr. Hobbs p. 108. 2. They will soon quit the first if they have but the patience to conside◠2. The nature of knowledge opened and distinguished from decree that scientia est habitus conclusionis as simplex intelligentia is principiorum VVhen the mind is in possession of any conclusion immediately flowing from the premisses and united to them by an essential tye then the rational Agent is said properly to know Scire est per causam scire To know is not to make either the cause or the effect but to find out the effect by the cause as in Demonstration à priori or to track the cause by the footsteps of the effect as in Demonstration à posteriori This is great plainness to such as know but a little Latine but I labour for them who understand none at all to them I speak thus To know is properly an Act of the Intellect but to decree or determine is an Act of the Will The Act of knowing presupposeth the object which needs must be knowable by a priority of nature before it is possible to be actually known There may be scibile or a thing knowable where there is * Note that scibile and scientia are only Kelata secundum à ci and are not capable of being both ways converted per conversionem simplicem in respect of us who are not omniscient In which respect only this thing is spoken not yet scientia or an actual knowledge of it such as a very great part of the habitable world until Christopher Columbus and Americus Vespusius had begun their Discoveries But an actual knowledge cannot possibly be imagined before an object knowable nay must imply its being actually known And though the object is future as in all foreknowledge yet even then it must be actual in its Idea and made present unto the mind by its intelligible species In which respect it was rightly affirmed by the †Plotin Enn. 5. l. 9. c. 13. Enn. 6. l. 3. c. 1. Platonicks that before the Creation of this visible world there was in Gods mind a World Intelligible that is an Exemplary Cause an idea or Platform according to which the world was made But now to Decree is another thing as being an act of the will and being supposed to be absolute is for that very reason effective also For though Gods Decree alone abstractively considered will not cause a necessity yet his decreeing to do being alwayes followed with his doing what he decreeeth must needs in sensu isto composito necessitate the object which is decreed 3. Gods foreknowledge doth not make things simply to be and therefore makes them not to be of necessity 3. Though Gods absolute decree of doing any thing doth cause a necessity of the event yet his foreknowledge doth not nor possibly can it But his Decree I speak of must needs do both This may be illustrated by a Physicians foreknowledge of alteration in the Patient upon a critical day which yet hath nothing of efficiency in its coming to pass But if the Physician doth decree to work a change in the Patient by such or such means as he resolves on he is then the Author of such a change and if it be with a purpose to dispatch the Patient it is not his prophecy but his murder 4. If Gods foreknowledge did imprint a real necessity on the things foreknown 4. The absurdity which would follow if it were so this portentous absurdity would unavoidably follow that he must act in nothing freely but in every thing as a necessitated and limited Agent A blasphemy not to be escaped but by the denial of his omniscience from all Eternity which is every whit as great a blasphemy And to the same inconvenience the irrespective predestination must needs be subject 5. If Gods foreknowledge did necessitate the things foreknown it was either simply as foreknowledge 5. Other absurdities which would follow or as Gods foreknowledge in particular Not as the first because then the foreknowledge of every man that can prophesie would be the cause of things future which he foretells Cyrus then had been beholding to the Prophet Isaiah for his birth because the Prophet foreknew it a hundred years beforehand Not as the first therefore nor yet as the * Note that God foreknew what himself would chuse to do yet did not necessitate himself He eternally foreknew that he would in time let Adam fall and not onely let him but help him to rise unto repentance yet who dares say he was necessitated to either second because the act is not the cause of the object but by a priority of order as I shewed before the object of knowledge is before the act how long soever it may be after by a posteriority of Time It must first have been true that there should be such a man as Cyrus or else it had not been possible for the holy Prophet to have foreknown it God foreknew all things that are good as being certain that he would do them and he also foreknew all things that are evil as being certain that wicked Agents would freely do them if they were not hindered and as certain that he would not hinder but permit or suffer them to be done Both were present to his omniscience from all eternity 6. There is no quicker way to make this point most plain and easie 6. An Argument taken from the knowledge of what is past then by bidding the obstinate to consider that knowledge is as properly of things past as future But it implies a contradiction for a present act of knowledge to necessitate or cause a thing quite past The Almighty knows at this instant that Adam fell as well as he knew from eternity that Adam would fall Now all acts of true knowledge must needs imply infallibility else it cannot be perfect knowledge but some other thing as confidence belief opinion suspicion or shrewd conjecture From whence it follows that all acts of true knowledge do infer a necessity although they cannot make any to wit a necessity of consequence arising from the truth of a proposition But such a necessity is inferred from every true knowledge of what is past as well as from a foreknowledge of what is coming which my hasty Adversaries having not hitherto considered they have incessantly confounded it with the antecedent and absolute necessity of the consequent even such as is conferred by every cause on its effect And therefore next I must enforce them do what they can to the contrary to discern a palpable difference
implies a necessity after that manner as he foreknows but this is Necessitas onely Infallibilitatis in regard of his undoceivable knowledge which ever foresees things as they will certainly come to pass by the free or natural working of the Agents whence they proceed It is not necessitas coactionis or DETERMINATIONIS whereby the will of man is without any other disposition or propension in it self enforced or unspontaneously determined to the producing of such effects The actions of our will are not therefore necessarily executed ☜ because they were foreknown but therefore they were foreknown because our will would certainly execute them though not without freedom and election Now how contrary this is to Beza Wollebius and Mr. W. in particular all do know who have read these four And how contrary in general to all the enemies of Arminius all can tell who have any acquaintance with them all It is evident by the last period that Dr. Reynolds pleadeth for free-will as much as I have ever done I shall conclude this Subject by putting the Adversary in mind that the English of Infallible is undeceivable whereas the men of that way do use it to signifie irresistible which is as gross a mistake as if they should hearken with their eyes or try to see with their ears Were it not for the assistance of such obstinate mistakes they would want wherewith to mutter against the Cogency of Truth Two short propositions will subdue their error if it lies not protected by an invincible perverseness 1. What God decreed to effect will come to pass unavoidably and by a necessitation because his absolute will and his power cannot possibly be resisted 2. But what he onely decreed to permit will contingently come to pass yet in case he hath foreseen it will come to pass with a certainty of event because his foreknowledge is infallible and cannot possibly be deceived What he decreed to effect is every way good but what is morally evil he decreed onely to permit and patiently but wisely to suffer Men and Devils to effect that is not to hinder forcibly from being effected and being effected by the wilfulness of Men or Devils to over-rule and order to the best advantages and ends to which they are capable of being made to serve 10. Now I come to shew the senselesness of the next great error 10. Gods praescience doth not of necessity praesuppose a pradetermination which Mr. B. expresseth in these words That praescience of a thing future must needs praesuppose a praedestination or a praedetermination of it p. 13. It seems the man did not know even his Masters did not consider that causa exemplaris is in order of nature before the efficient and thought that God could decree to do something before he knew what he would decree to do If God did praedetermine before he foreknew he praedetermined at a venture he knew not what For he knew it not until he had praedetermined it if it was needful for his praescience to praesuppose his praedetermination But it is blasphemy to say what unavoidably doth infer That God decreed he knew not what until he had actually decreed it God knew all things which yet he cannot be conceived to have done if any thing can be conceived before his knowledge From the first moment of Eternity with pardon to the word Moment which I onely use to reveal my meaning as Unum in Metaphysicks is said to be momento primo verum secundo bonum tertio God knew himself his own essence attributes and actions his actions ad intra as well as ad extra therefore he knew he would decree as well as what he would decree and how he would decree it He knew he would decree a world and in that all voluntarily as well as natural Agents So that though this visible world was temporal yet the platform of it the intelligible world was eternal it being before it was created in mente Dei conceived For he did not know nothing when he knew he would create it at an infinite distance from its creation He knew it eternally but created it in time betwixt which two there is an infinite distance As he knew what so also how things would be and how himself would decree them Something 's absolutely as the being of man other things conditionally as the punishment of man which could not possibly be considered much less decreed without respect unto sin which the very word Punishment must praesuppose Besides if Gods praescience preceded not his Decrees of Election and Reprobation there was not a◠moment in Eternity in which he was free to elect or reprobate For the freedome to chuse must needs precede the act of choice and to deny God his freedom in his elections is as impious as irrational 11. But rather praedetermination doth connotate praescience if not in some sense praesuppose it also 11. Well then It being blasphemously irrational to say that God did praedetermine he knew not what or before he knew what in any sense 't is plain his praedetermination praeceded not his praescience and by consequence his praescience praesupposed not his praedetermination but rather his praedetermination of what he did praedetermine did connotate his praescience if not praesuppose it Let this one thing be well considered that though we cannot say with truth or modesty God decreed or praedetermined any one the least thing which he did not know yet we may say with great truth that he knew what he would †This is confessed by Mr. B. l. 3. p. 22. not decree as well as what he would And again Verum the object of the Intellect is in order of nature before Bonum the object of the Will So as his praescience in some sense praeceded his decree by a priority of order but his decree in no sense praeceded his praescience Nay in a perfectly wise Agent who doth nothing but according to the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 1.11 counsel of his will according to knowledge and consultation it is not conceivable by the most precise and metaphysical abstraction how a praedetermination can be before praescience As in order of Dignity Wisedom goes before Power so in order of Naeture Advice does go before Action and the act of the Understanding before that of the Will A wise resolution doth praesuppose Knowledge To determine before advice and consideration is counted rashness and folly in mortal men and so is impiously imputed to the All-wise God 12. The cause of the error shewed and removed 12. The cause of the error in Mr. B. and his Masters doth seem to me to be this that even whilest they use the word Future they do consider it as past And though their speech is of a praescience or foreknowledge in God yet their reasoning is clearly of a post science or after knowledge Because they know the wisest Agent cannot tell what he hath done until he hath done it they therefore conclude
not say †Ib. 45. that in all the sins which are committed by men God hath a secret working hand and in this his last Book he chief hand too p. 27. Thus I convince him out of his own mouth and Mr. W's 3. He is convicted out of his own and Dr. Twiffe his words also 3. I will next convince him out of his own and Dr. Twisse his mouth also First for his own part he professeth that he maketh God the soveraign Author of the material part of sin p. 11. Now because from Dr. Twisse he learn'd his distinction betwixt the material and formal part of sin and because I well remember what the Doctor saith of it let us next consider that Doctors words * Futtum omne duo netat viz. actum contrectâ—ndi sive surripiendi â—es alienas actus hujus deformitatem quatenus sc lege divinâ nobis interdiâ—itur rebuâ— alienis sur ipiendis Sic Homicidium duo consignificaâ— actum interficiendi hominem illicitam ejus conditionem sive cum lege Dei repugnantiam Similiter Adulterium duo connotat nimirum actum c ncumbendi cum alienâ atque hujus actus turpitudinem Twiss Vin. Gra. l. 2. par 1. Dâ—gr 2. cap. 14. p. 155. Theft doth note two things the act of snatching away another mans goods the material part of the sin and the deformity of this act in as much as we are forbid by the law of God to snatch away another mans goods the formal part of the sin So also Murder doth signifie two things at once the act of killing a man and the illegal condition of that act which is its repugnance with the law of God Likewise also Adultery doth connotate two things to wit the act of lying with another mans wife and the flagitious turpitude of this act These three are the examples which the Doctor gives us of his distinction betwixt the material and formal part of sin Compare these words with Mr. B's above cited and with the Doctors in divers places of his Books and Mr. B. must confess his printed Profession to be this That God is the soveraign Author of any mans robbing his Neighbours goods of any mans destroying his Neighbours person and of any mans lying with his Neighbours wife Or to instance in particulars it is the publick profession of Mr. B's Faith a special Article of his novel Creed That God was the soveraign Author of Achan's stealing the golden wedge of David's lying with Bathshebah and of Cain's killing Abel Now since 't is granted by all the world that the first was Theft the second Adultery the third Murder God is affirmed by Mr. B. to be the soveraign Author of Theft of Adultery and of Murder And because 't is also granted by men of all sides That Theft is a sin Adultery a sin and Murder a sin God is affirmed by Mr. B. to be the soveraign Author of the first sin of the second sin of the third sin and so by a parity of reason of all the sins in the world 4. He is convicted out of his own and Mr. Hobbs his mouth Mr. Hobbs his words being justified by Mr. W. 4. In the last place I will condemn him not onely out of his own mouth but out of Mr. Hobbs his also First Mr. B. as I shewed before doth make his Confession of Faith in the first person singular and speaks dogmatically thus I make God and what is it that he makes him he tells us in the next words I make God to be the soveraign Author But of what doth he make him the soveraign Author He tells us that in these words of the material part of sin And what doth he mean by the material part of sin he tells us distinctly in the same breath either the doing or the leaving undone some positive Natural or MORAL Act p. 11. What moral Act for example he tells p. 12. the Act of Adultery And how makes he God the Author of that Act he tells us in the same breath by exciting men to it What kind of excitation or stirring up doth he mean he told us that in his first appearance upon the stage even as a man puâ—s spurs to a dull Jade Correp Corr. p. 61. Now let us compare Mr. Hobbs his words who is as able a Calvinist as to these points as their party hath lately had He after all his meditation * Mr. Hobbs of Liberty and Necessity p. 23 24. cannot find any difference between an Action and the sin of that Action as for example between the killing of Uriah and the sin of David in killing Uriah nor when one is the cause both of the Action and of the Law how another can be the cause of the disagreement between them no more then how one man making a longer and a shorter garment another can make the inequality that is between them Whether Mr. Hobbs doth argue thus from his heart as being really seduced by Mr. Barlee's principles which he defends or doth onely talk it from his Teeth outward as playing the Drole with Religion upon the grounds which are given him by rigid Presbyterians I leave each Reader to pass his own judgement But sure his deduction is duly made from the error of absolute praedestination of praedetermination antecedent to praescience and so the necessitation of all events And I wonder if any of that patry who have granted and given him his premisses will adventure publickly to deny his conclusion Well we have the Confession of Mr. Hobbs what that Doctrine doth unavoidably infer which is common to him with Mr. W. and Mr. B. But because Mr. B. hath given him an Epithet and a Praenomen and expressed his detestation by calling him * c. 3. p. 7. Monstrous Leviathan Hobbs I will adde to his the like confession of Mr. W. That if 't is impossible to separate the sin from the action Look back onth 2. sect 10. then he that is the Author of the Action must needs be the Author of the sin also which is inseparable from it p. 25. Sect. 13. Notwithstanding all which hath been proved 1. Mr. B's 10000 curses upon himself and his masters And his implicit confession that that is blasphemy which I have called by that name Look forwards on Sect. 27. Num. 2 3 4 5. of this Chap. where Mr. B. confesseth tryes to justifie what here he poureth his curses on and will be proved yet farther from the printed words of Mr. B. that God is made by him to be the Fountain and Cause of sin yet like a desperate Malefactor he falls a cursing in these words I wish miriads of Anathematismes to light upon him who holds it be he who he will be if he repent not the sooner p. 54 55. One Miriad had been enough if he who writ Myriad and did not mend it in the Errata understood what it meant it being no less then 10000. yet more
inferred to punish men without cause 2. Where there is no efficient there is no effect that is there is nothing and so according to Mr. B. men are either not damned or damned for nothing 3. If the sinner is but deficient as to the being of sin he is less the cause of it then God is inferred to be by them who say that Gods will of sin is efficacious and irresistible as that which predetermines decrees and necessitates sin and efficacious ab efficiendo is prevalent forcible c. 4. Mr. B. confesseth in a sober fit that the sinning creature is the * Corrept p. 79. efficient cause of sin although he saith in a fit of passion that sin hath †Ib d. p. 55. no efficient cause 5. He often mentions the * Ibid. p. 79. Being of sin as when he saith that God * p. 178. ordained it Whereby he infers it to be effected and so to have an efficient 6. If he saith as at other times he doth that sin consists wholly in a deficiency he infers what is worse that no creature can effect sin nor by consequence commit it 7. Whilest he affirms Gods absolute ordination of sin in one breath and that sin hath onely a deficient cause in another breath he chargeth on God all the causality of sin of which he allowes it to be capable 8. As when he breaths hot he saith that God ordained and determined sin so when he breaths cold he saith that God can ordain nothing but good which is to infer that sin is good And to what is good he allows an efficient cause 9. If sins of omission as not praying and not giving almes c. had but a deficient cause yet sins of commission as cursing and sacrilege c. have a cause efficient with a witness 10. Admitting that sin were a privative Entity it would not follow that it hath not any efficient cause For he who deprives a man of life or sight is the efficient cause of death or blindness And darkness the privative of light was one of the works of Gods Creation Gen. 1.4 5. of all which he was the efficient cause 11. What is privative in one respect may be positive in another as our sicknesses and sins do daily teach us Murder is not onely privative of vertue but also constitutive of vice and must have something in it of positive to make it differ in specie from all other sins and in degree from all other murders Of some we say they are not good whilest others are not onely positively but superlatively evil 12. Every privation presupposeth an habit to which it stands in opposition but a man may be covetous who never was liberal 13. An Agent morally deficient in the performance of a Duty doth effect that evil action which is so morally deficient For 1. The Adulterer is the efficient of his filthy Act which is his sin 2. The Devil is the Father of lyes and a Father is an efficient 3. A man through grace is the efficient cause of a good Action And Mr. B. is worse then a Pelagian if he will say that man is more efficient of good then of evil 14. Mr. B. * Corrpt 111. confesseth in a lucid interval that there may be something positive in a privation 15. Punishment is a positive Entity and owned to have an efficient cause But Mr. B. saith often that sin is a punishment 16. Whilest he denies his making God the Author of sin because sin forsooth hath no efficient he unavoidably infers 1. Either that God is not the Author of death or 2. that he is the Author of sin if of death or 3. of both or 4. of neither 17. If when they say that God is the cause of sin they do not infer he is the Author because the cause is but deficient they plead no more for God then for the Devil for if nothing is an Author which is not efficient and if sin hath no efficient then neither Men nor Devils can be the Authors of sin 4. In stead of answering these things 4. Mr. B's impertinencies and railings in lieu of Answers do stricke obliquely at S. James Mr. B. talks thus p. 111. sect 3. First that my opinion of sins having a positive Entity and an efficient cause is a dreadful opinion Secondly that there is no question between us about any thing else which if true then my evincing this concludes the Controversie between us Thirdly that he trembles more at the thought of commiting sin then many of my party if not my self at the open acting of it Fourthly that Gods judicial hand appears against me Fifthly that my conclusion out of S. James ch 1. v. 15. is 1000. times more for Gods being the Author of sin then the words of his party which I have cited Sixthly that Gods just hand is upon me Seventhly Quem perdere vult Deus hunc dementat p. 112. These are his general Answers thrust up together into one Paragraâ—h Before I come to his particular Answers which are infinitely worse I will intreat my Reader to comâ—are my seventeen particulars with Mr. B's seven and with what I shall now say from the express words of S. James who saith that * Jam. 1.15 lust having conceived bringeth forth sin The conception of lust is before expressed by a mans being drawn away and enticed by his lust v. 14. The Spirit solicitâ— the Will on one side lust on the other If lust prevailes and carries away the wills consent then lust conceives or which is all one in effect the Will is †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drawn away and * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deceived or overreached by Lust not onely invited but insnared and wrought upon by the invitation so as to give up its consent Lust by this doth conceive and then bringeth forth sin as the Parent the Child VVhat is sin therefore but the production of the will consenting to Lust or drawn away by it The production I mean of the evil will which by thus consenting becomes evil Now this being the upshot of what I mean by the efficient cause and positive entity of sin against whom hath Mr. B. spent the expressions of his Pet against we onely who spake from S. James or against S. James also from whom I spake * Note how the bitterest of his censures do hit himself and his party Nay hath he not spent them upon himself who hath confessed even in Print the very same things which here he railes at He hath openly affirmed both that the sinning Creature is the efficient cause of his sin Corrept p. 79. and that there ☞ may be something of positive in a privation Ibid. p. 111. Nay are not all his railings against all his own party who say that God doth †Look back on ch 2. p. 90. efficere peccata and not onely will but ** M.W's. own words p. 26. of which I
have spoken ch 2. sect 14. and also sect 20 21. work sin and that he hath a hand in * effecting sin Sure these are very frequently the expressions of his Masters as well as Brethren and therefore judge good Reader whether S. James and Mr. P. or Mr. B. and his party are the pertinent objects of Mr. B's Invectives especially his last expressed in * Quem perdere vult Deus hunc dementat Of the positive Entity of sin Latine 1. Dementation sent from God and 2. as a token of Reprobation Sect. 16. To the Preface which he makes to his more particular Discussion wherein he onely takes occasion to call it a horrible opinion that sin as sin in respect of its obliquity hath a positive entity and efficient cause p. 112. lin 9 10. I have but three things to say 1. That if it were so indeed he would be utterly unexcusable for having embraced that opinion in that part of his Prints so lately cited or for railing at an opinion which himself confessed to be true or if he hath since seen his error why was not his second volume a Recantation of his first And what will he do to Mr. W. for saying that God had a hand in effecting sin whereby he inferred that sin had an effective or efficient cause 2. He cannot say he speaks of the formal part of sin as sin and not of the whole sin because he speaks of sin in respect of its obliquity which he is wont to call the formal part of sin And 't is non-sense to say that sin as sin in respect of its sin or that obliquity as obliquity in respect of its obliquity hath not a positive entity or efficient cause So as he dares not deny but that sin doth signifie the integrum peccati or whole filthy act such as Cains killing Abel or David's lying with Bathshebah whose repugnance with Gods Law is called obliquity And because that sin is an oblique or crooked or irregular action Mr. B. concludes it no positive Entity 3. But to rest on him to sobriety and common sense I shall need only to ask him whether Rectitude is not a positive Entity If he saith yes as I am sure he needs must what shew of reason can he pretend why obliquity is not as much so as Rectitude how much more that whole sin of which obliquity is accounted the formal part Is not a Circle quà talis as positively a figure or a round figure as a right line is a right line Is not crookedness or gibbosity in any mans shape as positively such as streightness or clean making When a crooked parent begets a child which is also as crooked is he less a positive and efficient cause then if he and his child were both well shaped When Adam begat Cain in a state of sin with Satans image in stead of Gods as some of the Fathers have expressed it was not the cause and the effect too as truely positive as if they both had been sinless An action flowing from an Agent hath as positive an Entity as the Agent himself from whom it flowes The sin of Murder is an Action as Cain's killing Abel So is the sin of Adultery as David's lying with Bathshebah Nor any whit the less such in respect of their being irregular actions any more then a wicked man is the less a man for being wicked David's lying with Bathshebah before she was his wife was as positive an Entity and had a cause as efficient as David's lying with Bathshebah after she was his wife which alone is sufficient to fill Mr. B. and Mr. Hick with confusion of Face and to compel them to Recantations unless they will shelter themselves under Rantism and Libertinism by saying that David's lying with Bathshebah was no adultery or such an adultery as was no sin or that it was a very good sin because a positive Entity and that which had an efficient cause For Mr. B's first Argument doth follow thus Sect. 17. If sin as sin be a positive Entity 1. Mr. B's first Argument to prove the goodness of sin in which Mr. Hick is equally concerned then it is a thing in it self good For every positive thing is good It is to all Scholars well known that unum verum bonum convertuntur p. 112. First he cannot but confess that if sin is a thing positive he seeks to prove by this Argument that sin is good But that it is a thing positive I have abundantly proved in my two last Sections and himself hath confessed in his Correptory * p. 79. p. 111. both before cited and compared with one another Correction therefore he cannot but confess that all the force of this Argument is onely to prove that sin is good 2. A thing that is privative in one respect is also positive in another 2. The noysomeness of the Disease as every Sciolist knows and Mr. B. hath virtually confessed Every Sciolist can tell that the corruption of one thing is the generation of another that what is privative of life or sight must needs be positive of death or blindness The Darkness which God created was not more privative of the Day then it was positive of the Night Nay doth not Mr. B. confess as much for in saying that the sinner is the * Correp p. 79. efficient cause of his sin he doth grant it to be a thing And in saying there may be something of * Ib. p. 111. positive in a privation he doth more then grant it to be a positive thing I therefore say more because a privation is but the abstract of privative And the Transgression of the Law which is sin is not a meer privation of vertue but a positive thing which is privative of vertue positive of vice Sin is so perfectly a concrete that unless it is a concrete it cannot be conceived to be a sin No no more then a concrete can be conceived to be a concrete when it ceaseth to be a concrete The most Poetical brain cannot fansie the least â—â—â—ial difference betwixt David's lying with Bathshebah and his adultery with Bathshebah at the time of her being Uriah's wife So that now Mr. B. must confess that the least part of his blasphemy is no less then this that sin is good as it is positive of evil although it is evil as it is privative of good This being the Printed Article of his unchristian Creed THAT EVERY POSITIVE THING IS GOOD 3. The purging out of the peccant Humour 3. Having shewed him the noysomness of his Disease I will now remove the peccant Humour by which it appears to have been fed to wit his Ignorance or Inadvercency that bonum metaphysicum which is converted with ens hath quite another signification then bonum morale And being Aristotles phrase who was neither a Prophet of the old Testament nor an Evangelist of the new should rather have been rejected as unsound and unsafe
mans own work but his Creators who then is made by Mr. Hick to be the Author of such impieties 8. Sin is so spoken of in Scripture as to be every where concluded a very positive thing 8. Sin spoken of Scripture as a positive thing There are that sin as with a (a) Is 5.18 Cart-rope and (b) Is 30.1 adde sin unto sin Christ (c) Is 53.10 12 bare our sins and made his soul an offering for them All sin shall be forgiven (d) Mat. 12.31 except that against the Holy Ghost We read of (e) Gen. 20.9 Joh. 15.22 19.11 1 Joh. 5.16.17 great and little sins in comparison We also read in proportion of (f) Mat. 23.14 Luk. 12.48 greater and lesser damnation Sin is the (g) 1 Cor. 15.56 sting of Death and death the (h) Rom. 6.23 wages of sin And the cause cannot have a lesser Being then the effect Sin (k) Rom. 7.8 wrought in me saith the Apostle all maner of concupiscence And perfectius est agere quâm esse saith Albertus Magnus Sin hath its (l) Rom. 7.8 9. life and death and resurrection There is a (m) Heb. 3.13 deceitfulness of sin And sin is said to have its (n) Heb. 11.25 pleasures Sin is a thing to be (o) Heb. 12.1 laid aside either totally or for a time There are that are (p) Rom. 7.14 sold under sin and are servants to it and cannot (q) 2 Pet. 2.14 cease from it Insomuch that sin doth rule and (r) Rom. 5.21 6.12 reign over them In a word it is evident from the Scriptures that from the time in which sin did make its (Å¿) Rom. 5.12 entrance into the world it was able to change the course of Nature And could a simple privation which is but the absence of an Entity supposed to have been present have been the cause of all this 9. Mr. Hick convinced by his own party 9. Mr. Hick's own party acknowledge sin to be a compound made up of a material and formal part The material part of it Mr. W. calls a natural act p. 25. Mr. B. both a natural and moral act p. 11. Doctor Twisse gives his instance in the act of lying with another mans wife All positive things Nay the formal part of sin is a positive Entity as themselves have defined it it being the result of two positive things to wit the repugnance of any Action with the Law of God Nay Mr. W. saith broadly that God must needs both will and work in the sin of the act the very pravity it self p. 12. implying it to have an efficient cause 10. He argues with the Libertines 10. Mr. Hick argues like the Libertines and as it were out of their mouths whilest he contends that all things positive are either Gods Creatures or God himself And so he comes to be concerned in what I said to Mr. W. ch 1. sect 2. p. 8 9 c. I leave the Reader to collect how Mr. Hick would frame his Answers to any man that should Catechise him in the very first Article of the Nicene Creed he having discovered to all the world in what a latitude he understands it 11. Mr. Hick will confess he hath blasphemed in case that sin is something positive which is many wayes proved 11. This Mr. Hick will unavoidably confess that if 't is impossible to separate the sinful act from the sin as David's lying with Bathshebah from his sin of Adultery nay that we cannot imagine or conceive how they can possibly be distinguished then sin must needs be something positive and so is inferred by him to be either Gods Creature or God himself But that there is not the least difference betwixt the sinful act and the sin as betwixt the act of hating God and the sin of hating God which is that act of hating God I have manifested * Look back on ch 2. sect 12 13. and also on sect 9 11. of the same ch 2. before to Mr. W. In all which Mr. Hick comes to be equally concerned and I refer him to four Sections pointed out in the * margin To all which I adde these following proofs 1. Sin being complexum quid in the acknowledgement of all cannot admit of an abstraction and yet remain the complexum which it was before abstracted God can separate the soul of man from the body but not the man from the man who is the upshot of their union This would imply a contradiction as that the parts are united when they are separated or not united To make it plain and naked for the thickest heads I shall use this example David's sin of Adultery was not possible to be meerly his repugnance with the Law abstracted from his lying with Uriah's wife nor meerly his lying with Uriah's wife abstracted from its repugnance with the Law of God But 't was the product or result of both united As a man is not his body onely without his soul nor onely his soul without his body but a compound consisting of soule and body 2. The sinful act being a Relative whose very being as such is in relation to the law which it transgresseth it is as impossible to separaâ—e the one from the other as to separate a Father from his very relation unto a Son 3. Mr. Hobbs hath * Liberty and Necess p. 23. confessed what his brethren of the Kirk will never be able to claw off either by owning or disowning that if God is the Author of the action which is a breach of the law as well as of the law of which it is a breach he must be the Author of the breach that is the sin and of the very repugnance betwixt the law and the action by which it is broken which shews the inseparability of which I speak And because the Author of all things requisite to the being of any thing must needs be the Author of the being therefore say I God is so far from being that 't is impossible he should be the Author of any one action which is a transgression of the law that is a sin but onely the Author of the man's free-will and of his power to use his freedom which power is innocent as hath been * Sâ—ct 18. Num. 7. shewed The sin begins not but with the abuse of that power in the determining of the will to the forbidden and wrong object which wrong determining of the will is the sinners own action and his alone since he did freely chuse it whilest yet the contrary was in his power to chuse The power to act being before the act is therefore separable from it though the act being done against the law is not separable from the obliquity which is its being done against the law 4. If it is said that man hath a pravity in his nature Who they are who make God the Author as well of original as actual sin
Look forwards on the 27. sect num 4. of this ch which accompanies the action of which God is the Author and so distinguishable from it and that God doth but make the lame horse go which was lame before he made him go and so is the cause of his going but not of his lamenesse that will be found to be a Reed which will run into the elbow of such as shall dare to lean upon it for when Adam was yet innocent he was not as a lame horse and yet he ceased to be innocent or if you please he grew lame by eating that which was forbidden So that if God was the cause of his eating that forbidden fruit he was also the cause of the sin which was nothing else but his eating the fruit forbidden if he made him eat he made him lame Besides if a horse which goes not and hath onely an aptitude to go lamely will of necessity go lamely if he be made to go at all he who shall cause that horse to go will also cause him to go lamely so will God be concluded the cause of sin if having first given us the power to act against his law he shall also reduce that power into that act so as that positive act shall be his creature yet so it must be saith Mr. Hick if a positive act And Doctor Twisse doth say as bluntly * Damus Deum esse causam uniuscujusque actûs Vin. Gr. l. 2. par 1. p. 40. we grant that God is the particular cause of every act Wherein this differs from that of the Libertines let him tell us who can 5. God hath forbidden in his law the positive acts of Stealing Adultery Murder and the like for which positive acts he will also cast into Hell It will be ill pleading for Cain that God alone was the Author of the positive act of his stabbing Abel and of the law which forbad it from which two the obliquity was an unavoidable resultance And if the sin of blasphemy is distinguishable from the act of speaking against God then did God forbid something besides the sin which implies a horrible contradiction and there may be a good act of speaking against God as well as an evil one which again implies another contradiction 6. When Mr. Hick.'s Masters are wont to say that God praedestin'd men to sin as the means of damnation they do and must mean to sin as sin because sin is no otherwise the means of damnation and divers of them do use that very reduplication Now because they teach also that God decreed the means as well as the end they infer sin as sin to be a positive act and therefore not distinguishable from it I have now done with Mr. Hick as to this particular which Mr. B. calls his second Argument uâ—on which I have the more enlarged because I perceive it to be the great block at which those men are wont to stumble and at which the Libertines have fallen down headlong Again I find it to be the block out of which Mr. B. hath hewed so many chipps and little splinters which having flown into his eyes have made him rageful as well as blind This will very much appear by the following Sections which for that very reason shall be so much the shorter Sect. 19. Mr. B's first chip hewn out of Mr. Hick.'s Block Mr. B. thus debauched by his leading friend as hath been shewed sticks not to say in plain termes He must either maintain God to be the Author of sin or else he must speedily renounce the very first Article of his Christian Creed and say that God did not make heaven and earth and all real things visible and invisible therein That in him we do not live move and have our being Act. 17.28 That every good and perfect gift in its kind is not from God Jam. 1.17 p. 113. Though this is a chip of the old block and might be sent for its reception to the former Section yet in order to his cure I will make him feel his infirmity 1. He foists the word real into the Creed and makes it to stand in the place of good and infers God the maker of all sins 1. The word reall is in neither Creed but foisted in by M. B. and if he intends it as exegetical of all things visible and invisible in the Nicaene Creed he makes a Creed for the Ranters who finding by experience that blasphemies and adulteries are real things and having been taught by whom think you to believe that God is the maker of all things real without exception conclude those things to be very good Such domestick Libertines must be taught that when God is said to be the maker of all things it is onely meant of all things that are good which alone are possible to be made by God not of all things that are real whereof many are evil and onely made by Men and Devils 2. The different methods of our reasonings and what comes of it 2. Mark Good Reader before thou goest any farther the different methods of our reasoning and the different effects I lay it down as my Principle that God is not the maker of sin therefore not of David's adultery therefore not of that action called his lying with Bathshebah therefore not of every positive and real thing But Mr. Hick and Mr. B. and the Libertines do build backwards thus They lay it down as their Principle That God is the maker of all things that are real without exception therefore of David's lying with Bathshebah acknowledged by all to be a real and positive thing therefore of his Adultery unless his Adultery can be differenced from his lying with Bathshebah therefore of his sin unless his sin can be differenced from his Adultery Again the Libertines argue thus God doth decree sin therefore it is good But I argue thus Sin cannot be good therefore God cannot decree it Of so great concernment it is that they be beaten out of their methods and wayes of reasoning and taught to begin at the right end 3. They ascribe all positive entities however filthy unto God 3. I who prove sin to be a positive entity do also prove it to be the work of men and Devils onely whereas 't is he and Mr. Hick who do impute it unto God on supposition of its positive entity What he saith from Act. 17.28 is wholly impertinent unless he thinks it to be a sin to live and to move and to have a being For that innocent liberty and power which we have from God we alone do determine to the doing of evil Much less pertinent is that from S. James c. 1. v. 17. unless he thinks that sin can be a good and a perfect gift or that every positive entity is such 4. They are convinced by the Assemblies confession of faith ch 9. Artic. 1. 4. It is part of the Assemblies confession of faith God hath endued the will of man
and good an Apostle should do so wickedly Or that Pelagius was no Heretick nor writ against by Austin because Austin commended him so very much which 't was not likely he would have done if he had thought him a Heretick 10. Ibid. He saith his Masters are not like to need an Apology like that of the Poet Lasciva est nostra pagina vita proba est 11. He granteth that his Masters have taught in Print 1. * p. 132 133. ☞ That God is the Author of sin 2. God wills sin 3. He impells to it 4. He forceth men to it These things Mr. B. takes upon him to excuse and the manner of it is wonderful 2. To the first of the four he answers thus 1 * p. 133. Of Zuinglius his Doctrine that God is the Author of sin That he doth at no hand like it that God should be the Author of any culpable evil Reader observe his partiality and self-contradiction When the Libertines pronounce the words then he calls it with Mr. Calvin an execrable blasphemy p. 129. and curses them that are so blasphemous 54 55. but now he finds the same blasphemy in his own Masters writings the case is alter'd and the worst he saith is He doth not like it for his own part Like indulgent old Eli reproving his Sons for their sacriledge and rapine Nay my Sons it is no good report which I hear why do ye such things 1 Sam. 2.23 24. There 's his partiality And here he professeth to dislike what he frequently approves as hath been shewed commending the Authors for very Classical and owning them for his Masters There 's his self-contradiction But now he hath said he likes not the blasphemy for his own part that 's the word he shews us how vehemently he likes it for those other mens parts who are his Classical Authors First for * Ibid. Note that of all who call God the Author of sin he names onely Zuinglius omitting Borrhaus who calls him the Author of the evil of sin as well as of punishment Zuinglius he alledgeth that a little Candor would interpret him to have meant that God is the Author of the evil of punishment rather then of sin But Zuinglius his word is peccatum which signifies sin onely And he doth instance in the sins called Adultery and Murder naming them Gods works and calling God their Author See Corr. Copy p. 10. Philan. c. 4. p. 59 60. So that the best of Mr. B's excuse is this that though Zuinglius calls God the Author of sin not speaking a word of punishment in the place which I cited and so must be confessed to have meant the evil of sin yet charity should interpret that he meant the evil of punishment also and rather that then the other Or 2. if Zuinglius did mean as he spake he did not mean that God was a moral Author of sin Ibid. How Mr. B. makes God the Author of sin in that which he confesseth to be the proper notion of the word Author Look back on sect 3 4. of this Chap. so as the Devil is by way of perswasion but it seems then a natural Author of sin which is infinitely worse as acting by way of necessitation But when Mr. B. said that God doth tempt men to sin he spake of a perswasion and now he saith that to perswade unto sin doth infer the proper Author of it So he is judged and condemned out of his own mouth again to have properly made God the Author of sin 3. He saith †Ibid. it is not credible that Zuinglius should mean any other Author or Cause of sin then non removens prohibens or causa per accidens But 1. I cited his words and not his meanings either beside or against his words 2. His words will not signifie such a meaning as this Else when the world is called Gods work Mr. B. may say God was but causa per accidens and that the world was not properly his work 4. Causa per accidens if causa is extreamly bad and God is in no sense the cause of sin 5. Removens prohibens he understands not if I may guess by the Use he makes of it For Zuinglius saith that God doth make men Transgressors as well as that sin is the work of God Last of all he produceth some Popish Writers Ibid. who write as grosly as Zuinglius the Presbyterian And who did ever doubt of it Sure none that knows their consanguinity Ocham and Gabriel do affirm Ocham Gabriel affirmant quod Deus in rigore proprietate Sermonis est causa peccati Medin in 1.2 q. 79. a. that God in a rigour and propriety of speech is the cause of sin What then Therefore the rigider sort of Papists are like the rigider sort of Presbyterians 3. To the second thing which he confesseth as his Masters Doctrine 3. Mr. B. accuseth Calvin in excusing him for saying God doth will sin viz. that God doth will sin he saith these things p. 134.1 That the meaning of the Orthodox hath been often explained 2. That Calvin explains himselfe And how should that be but that though God doth will sin yet he wills it not as sin The horrid nature of which shift I have * Look back on ch 2. sect 19. And see Div. Philanth c. 4. p. 42. elsewhere displai'd This is the fountain of those unclean sayings That Adultery is good in as much as it is the work of God the Author And that all sins are good in as much as they make for Gods glory That is from Zuinglius and this from Mr. W. 3. He tells us that Mr. Calvins meaning is no worse then the Schoolmens naming a Papist in the margin Look back on ch 2. sect 3. p. 61. according to his wont To shew a very great affinity betwixt the worst sort of Papists and Presbyterians doth universally pass with Mr. B. for an Abstersion Yet this is the man who rayles so frequently at others for having any good thing common to them with the Papists 4. To the third thing granted to be the Doctrine of his Masters 4. Mr. B. accuseth Piscator and Calvin in his way of excusing them for saying that God doth thrust men into wickedness viz. That God doth drive or thrust men on into wickedness and that men do sin by Gods impulse he hath returned four things p. 134 135.1 That neither Calvin nor Piscator do understand it in a flagitious or unconscionable manner And may it not be pleaded as well for the Pharisees that although indeed they said of Christ He hath an unclean spirit Mark 3.30 yet they did not understand it in a flagitious sense 2. That when himself had affirmed Gods stirring up the wicked to their wicked deeds as a man puts spurres to a dull Jade he brought the Simile to shew that the man is the Author of the going of the horse but not
being desirous to shew his good will to Mr. Rivet whom I had proved to be guilty of making God the Author of sin by saying the very inclination which Adam had to sin before he sinned could not chuse but be vitious and yet of God's making is fain to commit a world of faults for the making a salve to that one sore from p. 139. to p. 144. The chief ingredients in his salve are those that follow 1. Rivet was a strong Disputant before Mr. T.P. was brought forth into the world the same which he had pleaded for Mr. W. as if the oldest men must needs be-most orthodox and of quicker sight then their juniors 2. Other eminent men have used that argument as well as he as if to erre in company were either to be orthodox or very neer it 3. He speaks of concupiscence and lust which are a couple of sins whereas the question is onely of Adam's inclination before his very first sin 4. He speaks of lust after the fall Rom. 7.7 and which was in the will too whereas the subject of the dispute was before the fall nor in the will but in the appetite And so he either understands not or wilfully flies from the thing in question 5. He calls an inclination to sin a weighty plummet inclining at once an abstract and concrete in one and the same respect 6. He saith that Adam even before the fall had the Devils image upon him as well as God's if his inclination to sin was before his first sin as if he thought that potentia could not be before actus 7. He confounds temptation to sin with sin 8. He asks why I should be shie of granting that Christ had any inclination to sin which why should he ask if he did not think that impious thing which he imputes to Castellio without the least citation from him 9. He confesseth he cannot tell how to salve those absurdities which I had shewed his opinion must needs betray him into as progressus in infinitum and prius primo 10. He saith out of * Nulla peccati Adami in Adamo reddi eausa potest quae non sit ipsa peccatum Camero contra Epist viri docti p. 163. Camero that there could be no cause of Adam 's sin which was not also it self a sin And so his party by consequence must needs be charged by him and Camero with the crime of making God to be sin it self as often as they call him the cause of sin 2. Concerning the birth growth of the very first sin with the very wide difference betwixt the inclinations of the sensitive appetite and the will 2. Though I need not say more then what remains unassaulted in my Defence of the Divine Philanthropy ch 4. p. 23 24 25. or more then what I have added in the eighteenth Section of this Chapter Num. 6. yet because his understanding may be as dark in this Point as his will crooked I will endeavour to afford him sufficient light The inclination of the will to evil differs much from that of the sensitive appetite to which the Apple even in Paradise was very grateful The will we know is the middle faculty betwixt the sensitive appetite on one side and the reasoning faculty on the other The propension of the will to the sensitive appetite 's proposal of what forbidden was the very beginning of Adam's sin it having been his first degree of aversion from God unto the creature thus it was in Eve also before it was in Adam and was a sin in her will some insensible time before her eating but her fulness of consent and actual eating and giving her husband to eat also were all additions to that first sin which I call the first for this reason because nothing of sin can be so much as imagined before the propending of the will to the forbidden object and because it was in the will before it could be in the hand or mouth The very next degree of sin to the propending of the will was Delectation next Morosa Cogitatio next a plenitude of Consent next the actual eating what was forbidden But now the gratefulness of the sweet to one sense and of fair to another is less then the least of those degrees and the inclination of the sensitive appetite could be no sin at all remaining onely in the sense and winning nothing from the will which continued as yet in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when the will of Eve was debauched by her appetite into an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a bending of her will the wrong way so as her mind did hang or hanker after the apple that was clearly the beginning of her transgression Sect. 30. The importance of the word Author To conclude the whole Chapter and so to quit the whole subject I must satisfie a complaint which Mr. B. hath made c. 3. p. 129. That I charged him and his Masters with the crime of having said a great deal worse and in much worse terms then that God is verbatim the Author of sin Now that he may not complain afresh of his having complained to no purpose and to the end he may beware of rash complainings for the future I will prove my charge in such a manner as not to leave his very abettors the possibility to dissent The most succinct way to do it will be to lay down the whole importance of the aequivocal word Author and then to compare it with those expressions which are confessed by Mr. B. to have been used by his Masters as well as Brethren 1. Author quando que 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat quandoque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Priscian lib. 5. Idem valet quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Coel. Sec. Cur. Author est ut sic dicam Factor Laur. Val. l. 4. Hortator Author Cic. in partit Orat. 52. Consiliario Authore aliquid inire legitur apud Cic. ad Alt. l. 14.305.4 Suasor Author deditionis Cic. 3. Offic. p. 147. Author est in quo est vis potestas dignitas Liv. l. 1. ab urbe cond 72. Impero Authorque sumut me cuivis castrandum loces Plaut Aul. 7.73 suspende vinci verbera Author sum sino Idem Poenal 3.17 Authorâ—est à quo quis jus comparavit Cic. 7. Verr. Authores pupillorum vocantur in quorum administratione infirma aetas resque eorum sunt Paulus Juriscon Authores sunt qui Authoritatem suam decretum interponunt Liv. l. 1. ab urb cond Viae Author qui viam monstrat aut qui ire jubet Ovid. 3. Metam Etiam Duces militum Authores vocabantur Valla. l. 4. 1. Author sometimes doth signifie the first beginner of a work sometimes him who doth help advance it sometimes a factor sometimes onely a perswader sometimes a sole cause sometimes a concause sometimes a person of power and dignity by whose advice or command a thing is done sometimes him who confers a right sometimes
time in exposing these Authors to more pity and their Doctrines to more contempt 1. I am told by men of knowledge that their books are already become waste paper bought by a few onely of the many and read contentedly by none at all 2. I am importuned by divers not to consider them over-much who have not a dangerous plausibility amongst the vulgar but to reserve my spare houres for the most popular man of that party who as I am credibly informed is doing his utmost to find me work 3. They have adventured to nibble and but to nibble at so few things in my Answer that they do tacitely grant the greatest part to have left no colour for a Reply 4. A great part of their performances are visible shifts rather then serious oppositions even mean transitions à genere ad genus easie sneakings ab Hypothesi ad Thesin at every pinch Ignorationes Elenchi purposed sittings beside the Cushion and many times betwixt two stools too gratis dicta are their very least frailties as studied forgeries are the greatest and I confess it is painful to spend much time with Domitian in killing Flies 5. When they are brought to such straits that they find not a crevice or a key-hole whereat to attempt a creeping out they yield themselves up and all for which they have contended without so much as making any terms of mercy As for example Certissimum est nobis Decrevisse ut non nisi nolentes atque impii perderentur Twiss Vin. Gr. l. 1. p. 100. Mr. B. professeth He doth readily yield that God did not absolutely decree the Reprobation positive of any creature but upon praescience and supposition of wilful rebellion and impenitence p. 70 71. nay he professeth this to be the Doctrine of all Orthodox Writers ancient and modern p. 70. And why should He be much talked with who confesseth all in one breath which he denieth in another See the Div. Philanth ch 4. p. 4. especially p. 5. yet no sooner gets he loose but he denies the very thing which the necessity of his affairs had made him confess and pleads for want of a better excuse Lapsus linguae non est error mentis p. 77. what cares he how he miscarries who can so easily make amends 6. When this evader is so stomachful that he will not yield and yet so despairing of success that he will not resist a cogent Argument he makes no scruple to profess a Tergiversation As for example when I had pressed him with a * See the Div. Phi. ch 3. p. 65. Dilemma of huge importance even evincing out of his mouth that his Distinction of Positive and Negative Reprobation was but a shift he contents himself with this return Mr. Barlee needs not answer that Dilemma p. 81. And so when he knowes not what to say to the convincing points of my reasonings about the general extent and sincere intent of Christ's death he gives me the slip in these words It would be superfluous labour to spend more time and paper in giving more particular answers to his luxuriant discourses p. 93. 7. Mr. W. and he and Mr. Hobbs are so frequently condemned out of their own mouths that they would need no Confuters besides themselves if all their Readers were but attentive To give a few instances of many Mr. W. saith p. 29. God is not the Author of evil because not causa per se but per accidens Yet in his extent of Div. Prov. p. 40. he saith that causa per accidens never works till causa per se sets it on work Now because it is not man who sets God on work it is plainly his meaning that God is causa per se of sin and sets man on work who is causa per accidens which others call a deficient cause Again he confesseth in his last Work p. 25. that if it is impossible to separate the sin from the action then he who is the Author of the one is also of the other Yet he also confesseth p. 37. that the modi rerum are not really distinguished from the things themselves but so neerly conjoined as they cannot be separated Nor can any reason be rendred why Doctor Twisse should say Mr. Hobbs his prodigious self-contradictions that Fornication denoteth sin even secundùm materiale except this one that the sin is inseparable from the Act. In like manner Mr. Hobbs though he saith in * Of Lib. and Necess p. 23. one place that sins are actions and in †Quaest Num 12. p. 105. another place that God is the cause of all actions and in a * Ibid. p. 107. third place that he is a principal Agent in the causing of all actions yet he †Ibid. p. 105 106. denies him to be the Author of the actions which he causeth And his reason for it is more prodigious then all the rest for God saith he cannot be said to be the Author of sin because he doth but necessitate it not command or warrant it p. 105 106. yet even this last he contradicts too by saying that * Of Lib. and Necess p. 22. power irresistible doth justifie all actions Now that which necessitates is power irresistible and that which justifies doth warrant and he saith that that which warrants is the Author of sin Qu. p. 106. and that sin must needs derive a necessity from God p. 105. and the greatest men of his Principle do say that God commands men to sin which he confesseth is to call him the Author of sin p. 106. Nay he * Q. p. 11. l. 7 8 9 10. from the bottom elsewhere professeth that a man must not SAY God hath caused him to erre and it is through the Lord that he fell away but he may THINK so very well And wo had been to Ecclesiasticus had he denied it Nor is there any thing more common with these men then to say that sin is necessary as decreed by God although contingent as freely willed by man Now necessary being that which cannot chuse but be and contingent that which either may or may not be what is this but to say it is necessary as decreed but not necessary as not decreed It cannot but be and yet it might possibly not have been it is contingent and not contingent which is as if they should say we cannot deny our Adversaries Premisses and therefore we must hold the one part of the contradiction but we will not quit our own conclusion and therefore we must hold the other part of the contradiction Thus by their own way of arguing they are men and they are not they are men as being indued with Reason and they are not as being indued with none Sure that sort of men is no longer to be disputed with who have drank so deeply and digested and reduced also to practice the * Quamcunque duarum viarum primò diversarum homines inicrint recta tendunt ad superos