till he hath evinced a specialty in our case which will be somewhat an uneasie task though we should grant him his own option that God predetermines to sinful actions in concreto i.e. to the actions and sinfulness of them too for upon that supposition there is less necessity to imagine that God cannot determine the will in a way agreeable enough to mans corrupt nature because he does but determine it to what it hath an innate propension to of it self and so Gods determination is but as the wind in a mans back which puts him on a little faster in the way he was going before 3. We are at a great loss as to Mr. H's meaning whether it be that it is a detraction from Gods perfection to affirm God was not able to make a Creature that could not act universally without determination or particularly as to forbidden actions the generality of the terms calls for the former sense the conclusion he was to prove for the latter 1. If the former sense be that he will own I seem to my self fairly allowed to infer that then man in his primitive state had not nor have the good Angels at present any Divine determination to good actions because to both unnecessary and unnecessary it must be presumed because it is a detraction from Gods Perfection to conceive he could not make them of such a nature as that they should not need it and because they had no disinclination to be overcome by an efficaciously determinative influence which is the reason Mr. H. gives of the necessity of Predetermination to holy actions in the lapsed state Post p. 35. Which if it be of any force makes it unnecessary to a state of Integrity And if this inference be natural I wonder not that Man fell but that he fell not as soon as he was set upon his legs nor that some of the good Angels turned Rebels so soon to their Soveraign Lord but how the rest persevere in their Loyalty I have hitherto swom with the stream of Protestant Divines not because it was easie but in my apprehension safe who have conceived the good Angels security an effect of a greater degree of determinative influence to borrow Mr. H's Phrase or corroborating grace that is in the terms of the Question now agitated Predetermination than was afforded to the now bad Angels or to speak more strictly of the continuance of that Predetermination to the one which was suspended as to the other which conception of Divines to note that in passage may be easily freed from the imputation of reflecting either upon Gods Holiness Justice or Truth upon the first because God by the suspension of Predetermination was no more the Efficient of the Angels sin than the Sun of the darkness that overspreads the air when it hath withdrawn its rays upon the second for it is a ruled case in the Schools Non datur justitia proprie dicta inter Deum Creaturas i. e. God cannot be properly said to be a debtor to his Creatures no not when he hath passed a promise to them for even then if we will speak strictly he is a debtor to himself namely to his own truth and fidelity not to them and if he should to suppose an impossibility for illustration-sake break his word he would be but Mendax non injurius a Lyar not unjust Not upon his Truth for he was not under the bond of a promise as he is to the part of repaired Mankind whom we denominate Saints to preserve the Angels from Apostacy As for those who take this Doctrine for a blemish upon Gods goodness I turn them over to God himself for a reconciliation of these two seemingly contradictory Propositions contained in his Word and within the verge of our own experience that God is good and yet that he hath permitted a passage for sin which he could have impeded If the latter sense be avowed as a genuine interpretation of Mr. H's mind I know not how it will be able to save its credit if I should charge it with being guilty of this gross absurdity viz. a supposal that God made Man with an ability to do sinful actions in concreto i. e. the natural actions and sin that adheres to them 'T is true God made Man mutable and how could he do otherwise unless he should have made him a God which very terms involve an insufferable contradiction and so in a remote capacity of sinning But Mr. H's words import a next or immediate capacity of acting which the Creature is capable of as soon as it starts out of nothing into something without the intervenient aid of Predetermination I am very averse from thinking this to be Mr. H's meaning and I would offer him a friendly hand if he would accept of it to help him out of the pit he is fallen into by minding him of our distinction between the materiale and formale of sin the natural action that is the subject and the sin that is the inseparable adjunct in our temporary estate which distinction supposed in conjâ—nction with Mr. H's Hypothesis Mr. H's meaning will be freed from the encumbrance now inferred upon it and it will amount to no more than that the power of acting God gave to man suffices to the natural actions since sin adhered to them as well as before without the help of Predetermination But then this friendly hand will prove unfriendly in the issue for though it may clear him of one yet it will entangle him in many absurdities or at least self-contradictions For then 1. How shall he quit himself from the blame of being a Favourer of Durandus Hypothesis for the sense is the same and the words not much different And yet why should he once attempt it seeing that Hypothesis serves his professed design of quitting God of the blame of being the Author of Sin with much officiousness and that he may accept this suggestion the more kindly a most Learned hand shall tender it to him Some are of opinion that God hath no immediate influence but mediate only in respect of voluntary agents And according to this opinion it is easie to clear God from the imputation of being the Author of Sin and yet to acknowledg his concurrence with second Causes in producing their defective effects If the will of the Creature saith Scotus C. 2. Dist 37. Q. 1. were the total and immediate cause of her action and that God had no immediate efficiency but mediate only in respect thereof as some think It were easie according to that opinion to shew how God may be freed from the imputation of being the Author of Sin and yet to acknowledg his concurrence with second Causes for the producing of their effects for whether we speak of that which is material or formal in sin the will only should be the total cause of it and God should no way be a cause of it but mediately in that he caused and produced such a will
are so neerly conjoined in sinful creatures we shall be less solicitous at least with respect to Mr. Howe 's satisfaction who has professed that he can more easily be satisfied to be ignorant of the modus i. e. manner or medium i. e. the mean of Gods knowledg whilest he is sure of the thing and he knows not why any sober minded man might not be so too while we must all be content to be ignorant of the manner yea of the nature too of a thousand things besides when that such things there are we have no doubt And when there are few things about which we can with less disadvantage suffer our being ignorant or with less disreputation profess to be so Let. p. 49 50. And if this Argumentation be true in reference to Divine acts in general as there is no reason why it should be limited to Gods knowledg only and himself extends it beyond that I conceive Mr. Howe has against his will given us the cause for that God is not the Author of sin our last proposition he every where affirms as well as we That God is the Author of all the actions of rational creatures he grants too or else his words are unintelligible and we have cause to quarrel with him as he did with Persius a crabbed Poet si non vult intelligi cur vult legi i. e. If he would not be understood why would he be read an end that every man is presumed to intend that writes these words I mean This active providence of God about all the actions of men consists not meerly in giving them the natural powers whereby they can work of themselves but in a real influence upon those powers Postsc p. 39. By which last clause if he intends reducing them to act as his phrase is ibid. we are perfectly agreed so far and the remaining disagreement will be but about the modus or manner how God affords a real influence upon the powers defiled with sin and yet none upon the sin it self And of â—his he and I being both I hope sober minded men may well be content to be ignorant as long as we are sure of the thing But I fear I reckon without my Host and so must reckon again I mean that Mr. Howe will not stand to my comprimize of the difference between us though I see not why he should not if he will be but a man of his word stand that is to his own Assertions 2. Our Doctrine cannot be accused of a confederacy to raze out the impressions of Gods Holiness upon humane nature but upon this supposition also That God does irresistibly determine the wills of men to that which he punishes men for viz. to sin which is a brat we are not bound to father For we neither own irresistible nor resistible determination of mans will to sin as such nor do we acknowledg any determination of the will at all to be irresistible if he takes that term for equivalent to compulsory which if he do not it will be neither a friend to him nor foe to us We might also observe upon his Rhetorical amplifications of his Argument that he seems to be no ill-willer to Transubstantiation For if the natural notions of Gods goodness should be infinitely dearer to us than our senses I see not why the notion of Gods sincerity that he means as he speaks should not challenge a share in our indearments and so why Hoc est corpus meum should not assure us that the bread is transubstantiated though our senses sight taste feeling join in a common testimony that it remains bread after consecration as well as before not that I charge him with that Popish ridicule but I would have him take notice how dangerous sometimes an affectation of embellishments of speech may prove by leaving him that is guilty of it at the mercy of his Antagonist in deducing such inferences from them as can neither be safely admitted nor creditably turned off Answ Mr. Howe complains of the feebleness and impotency of our defence against the forenamed charge that God makes a Law and necessitates the violation of it when it is no more than That man is under the Law and God above it Let. p. 40 41. and he affirms that a tender spirit c. will not be relieved or eased by the thin Sophistry of only a collusive ambiguity in the word Law c. ibid. Reply If Mr. Howe 's candour did but bear any tolerable proportion to his Eloquence he would never have thus represented our Answer For the truth is this Answer is not given by the Predeterminants to that objection to which he applies it as is plain enough because we always esteem our selves unconcerned in the charge of representing God as necessitating the violation of his own Law but to another viz. that God sins when he produces that action with man which to man is sin which Mr. Howe who in words at least owns immediate concurrence to all actions as well we is therefore equally concerned to answer For the proof of this I shall alledg Bellarmine who after he had told us it was only Zuinglius's Answer to the same Objection that Mr. H. fits it to adds with the peril of his reputation Sententiam tamen aliorum quorundam c. i. e. That it was the opinion of others also who though they agreed not with Zuinglius in teaching that God impels men to sin yet they use no other medium to evince how God does not sin when he produces that action with man which to man is sin than that God is bound by no Law and nothing is sin but a transgression of a Law Bell de Amiss Gr. l. 2. c. 18. Yet withal I deny not but 't is also applied to that Objection that God sins if he does determine to that action to which sin inseparably cleaves But yet the necessitation of the violation of the Law is no way concerned in the objection What now is become of Mr. Howe 's charge of thin Sophistry and collusive ambiguity when we deny God to be under a Law in the same signification of the word wherein we affirm it of man viz. as Mr. Howe expresses it For the declared pleasure of a Ruler to a Subject p. 41. This charge disproved we yet grant what Mr. Howe objects that the term Law as noting an habitual principle and rule of acting after one steady tenour in which sense the perfect rectitude of Gods nature is an eternal Law to him c. Let. p. 41 42 is yet an Argument against our opinion upon Mr. Howe 's Hypothesis that thereby the creature is necessitated to sin but that he hath neither attempted nor ever will be able to prove If proof could be made that the consequence were natural we should not know how to decline the force of Bellarmine's grave Argumentation upon Mr. Howe 's ground Licet deo non sit posita Lex ab aliquo superiore Legislatore tamen sua
ends as Hospitality out of vain-glory of acts and undue circumstances as walking in the Fields when we should be at Church as of acts and undue objects whereof this is an instance And so all sinful actions are evil as to their substance which Mr. Howe hath not affirmed That hatred of God is not evil in it self because the act invaried the object but changed that act which was evil is become morally good So our Learned Bishop of Lincoln again Exerc. met p. 41. which he illustrates and proves by the instance of Adultery where the act being the same for the substance is altered in its moral respect by making the woman with whom I committed Adultery my wife Id. ibid. Which instance of our Learned Bishop is plain in the case of David and Bathsheba whose society together was unlawful before but lawful after their marriage They that desire further satisfaction in this point may do well to have recourse to a learned Discourse in our native Language of Mr. H. Hickman of the positivity of sin Obj. 2. One sin is the cause of another as original sin inherent as that stands opposed to original sin imputed is the cause of actual sins therefore sin is not meerly privative Sol. The privation which is in the natural propension of the will to sin in which natural propension original sin consiste is not the real efficient of evil actions but the will in regard of that propension is the real and true cause of evil actions So Baron wet § 5. n. 30. 33. Obj. 3. Our Divines do make a positive part in original sin Sol. Yet they hold sin to be only Privative But then it will be demanded how their assertions will agree together I Answer In inherent sin there is said to be a positive and a negative Quality This latter Divines call a want of original righteousness or not to be able to do good The former they call a pravity of nature or to be able to do evil only which is called Positive Legice because 't is expressed affirmatively whereas the latter is expressed negatively so Maccov op Post p. 83. r. fuse de hac re disserentem Gisb Voet. Disp Theol. p. 1. p. 1084 Arg. 2. If God hath a prede erminative concurrence to the most wicked actions it is then no way explicable how the influence and concurrence the holy God hath to the worst of actions is to be distinguished from that which he affords to the best wherein such inherently evil actions are less to be imputed to him who forbids them than to the malicious Tempter who prompts to them or to the actor that doth them or wherein not a great deal more Let. p. 32 33. which Argument Mr. Howe gives us more concisely afterward That God hath as much influence and concurrence to the worst actions as to the best as much or more than the sinner or the Tempter Postsc p. 25. viz. according to our Doctrine Answ 1. If our learned Adversary understands the antecedent as we do whom he opposes of the materiale of wicked actions we grant his consequence for we cannot yet see the inconvenience of owning that there is an universal or indifferent influence upon the actions of free Agents as such abstracted from their morality The actions of the understanding and will Physically considered are neither holy nor sinful those denominations being taken from the relation of the actions to the Law prescribed as a compliance with or deviation from it and therefore in linea Physica Gods influence and concurrence is the same when they are the substrate matter of moral evil and moral good 2. If he intends the formale or rather the most wicked actions in concreto we disown the antecedent as none of ours and complain of his disingenuity in pinning such an assertion upon our sleeve 3. Yet however for his satisfaction I shall let him know That besides the influence upon good and bad actions in what degree soever which we acknowledg common to both there are divers differences of the influence we own for distinguishing of good actions from bad 1. That as to good actions God does in genere physico re create those internal habits which he did concreate in the state of innocency with the several faculties in which they were respectively seated as knowledg in the understanding a rectitude of the will consisting in a compliance with the last dictates of the practical understanding that they might be actus primi or principles of the actus secundi or operations of the faculties in vertue of those habits which faculties he influences to reduce them to act by that influence which we call Predetermination But as to evil actions God insuses no evil neither indeed can he besides the repugnancy such an action would carry to his holiness because though sin be sometimes conceived by us per modum habitus positivi under the notion of a positive habit yet it is not properly so and so is not capable of production by that immediate efficiency which we call infusion as hath been in part demonstrated before 2. As to good actions God does in the Predetermination to them so excite to the action as that withal he adds new strength to the habits given whence those acts immediately proceed which he does not neither as to evil actions 3. We have a third difference from Mr. H's own concession The ordinary appointed way for the communication of this determinative influence is by our intervening consideration of the inducements which God represents to us in his Word viz. The Precepts Promises and Comminations which are th moral instruments of his Government Postsc p. 40. The meaning of which words is that God is not only a Physical but also a moral cause of good actions whereas 't is our sentiment that God is only a Physical cause of the actions to which sin inheres but not a moral cause of the sin adhering to them And if I do not too much trust my own judgment this observation is not contemptible for the evincing of it that the indifferency of the will to chuse or refuse the Object proposed by the understanding is not so natural to the will but that it may be inclined by an inherent quality to chuse or refuse one object rather than another As for the comparison which he makes between God the sinner and the Tempter upon our grounds and gives God the precedency of them both in his influence upon wicked actions 't is an odious and horrible calumny not backed with any proof as he intends it of such actions in the concrete i. e. as including with the action the sinfulness of it too Reply To it I reply That a short Horse is soon curried This slight objection is easily answered 1. Either Mr. Howe means as much physical influence or moral If the former we say God and the sinner have both a physical influence upon the action that is evil but the Tempter none at all and
the terms when they labour under any ambiguity or however fall not under the apprehension of those who are to be instructed for want of skill in that art or science to which they belong or language from which they are borrowed In neither of these respects will it be needless in the Controversie now to be agitated not as to the first because Mr. Howe gives us his sense in various terms and such as seem repugnant to each other one while that which he denies is a Predeterminative concurrence to all actions of the Creatures Let. p. 32. and Postsc p. 3. and Predeterminative concourse Post p. 19. another while 't is Predetermining Influence Post p. 19. and a Determinative influence Let. p. 36. and Efficacious influence Post p. 52. As for the two former phrases which are of the same import they are in effect contradictio in adjecto in their conjunction I appeal to Strangius Mr. H.'s friend but my Adversary in the main Question under consideration Hujusmodi Predeterminationem nonnulli confundunt cum concursu Dei generali quem concursum praevium appellant c. i.e. Some confound this kind of Predetermination with the general concourse of God But they speak very improperly who call Predetermination a previous or Predeterminative concourse or say that God does by concourse determine second causes and he quotes Twisse with approbation saying Concurrere cum agente aliquo modo c. i.e. To concur with an agent some way to the production of an effect is not to determine that agent For the Creature also concurs with God to the production of an effect and yet it does not determine God therefore nor does God concurring with the Creature determine it to act Strang. de Vol. Dei Lib. 2. Cap. 4. p. 161. Strangius does not call the terms a contradiction I confess but the reason out of Twisse gave him as just ground as it does me so to call them As for the latter phrase influence which he makes equipollent with the former concourse in these words I here affect not the curiosity to distinguish these two terms as some do Post p. 29. I had rather he should hear Strangius again than me blaming his not affecting that curiosity of distinction Caeterum nobis operaepretium videtur distinguere inter ista duo vocabula concursum influxum c. i.e. But it seems worth our labour to distinguish between those two words Concourse and Influence which in this matter are often conjoined and confounded For first Influence is of a larger extent than Concourse For the causality of every Cause especially the Efficient is called Influence And therefore in many instances there may be observed an Influence of God when yet there is no concourse as when he acts not making use of any second cause Again although in the concourse of two Causes each of them are considered as having their Influence yet the word Influence is absolute and noting a respect to another cause but the word Concourse is relative to another cause Strang. de Vol. Deil. 1. c. 11. p. 59. As for the term Efficacious it suits us well enough if Mr. H. intends by it an Infallibility of the event or the certain production of those actions which God hath an Influence upon The ambiguity of Mr. H. phrases removed and the sense of them brought to a certainty I assert the contradictory to his Proposition That God doth not by an Efficacious influence universally move and determine men to all their actions even those that are most wicked Post p. 52. Which if we might be allowed the liberty of our own terms we would thus lay down That God does determine or predetermine or move all Creatures to all and each of their actions Strangius fairly enough cites our Thesis lib. 2. cap. 4. pag. 155. The Question then to be discussed is Whether God does determine or predetermine all Creatures to all and each of their actions So Strang. fairly l. 2 c. 4. p. 155. Unless it may seem meet to add that reduplicative particle as such because of Mr. Howe 's addition even those that are most wicked Post p. 52. As to which it is to be noted that we who assert Predetermination of all actions of the Creatures do limit it to the actions considered abstractly from the moral good or evil adhering to them as for instance we hold Gods Predetermination of the natural act whereby David begat a child in Adultery as well as of those whereby he begat children in lawful Matrimony and of the use of his tongue in telling a lie to Abimelech the Priest as well as in praising God Whereas Mr. Howe limits Gods Predetermination only to morally or spiritually good actions as such Posts p. 39. n. 6. Which Predeter nation special we grant but withal assert a general which extends to evil actions In which we consider 1. The subject and as to this we say that sin is in that which is good the nature of man and his faculties and actions and these God excites and guides efficaciously And this subject is called the materiale or substrate matter of sin 2. The end and thus though not the nature yet the existence of sin is good or it is good that sin should be because God draws good out of it and hence God predetermines to the natural actions though he knows sin will adhere to them The grand term then to be explained is Predetermination or as some Divines and Metaphysicians sometimes call it Praecurse and Praemotion of which terms the former which signifies a fore appointment is either from eternity or in time The latter two only in time The former viz. Predetermination is either from eternity and so is an immanent act of Gods that is of his will to produce in time all the actions of his Creatures or in time which is the actual production of all those actions which he had decreed to produce And of this latter only is the Question to be discussed understood and this act of Gods is called Predetermination because it limits the creature to this action rather than to that and 't is called a Precourse or Premotion i.e. a running before or fore motion as I may so speak because in order of nature it is before the action of the creature Again Predetermination or Precourse or Premotion is distinguished into Physical or Moral The latter I grant may be ascribed to God with reference to good actions as such but not with respect to evil actions unless the proposing objects and occasions of sin may as some learned men judg be reduced to the actions of a moral cause But whether the moral acts of God in commanding threatning promising c. may be justly denominated Predetermination will remain dubitable till another doubt be resolved viz. Whether the will do always follow the last practical dictate of the understanding Against the affirmative of which Question to note that obiter the most acute and learned Wallis seems to oppose an
irrefragable Argument viz. that the Will then is not disabled by the fall more than the will of the confirmed Angels and Saints in Heaven Wallis Truth tried against the Lord Brook p. 55. But let Predetermination Moral fall or stand our Question is not of that but of Physical Predetermination as appears in that we make it common to all creatures some whereof are not capable of a Moral Predetermination supposing that to be which yet is not intended to be agitated at present but only that which is exercised about free agents that is rational creatures Which that it may be done with more clearness and may in part obviate some of our learned Antagonist's objections we shall endeavour with as much accuracy as is needful to a discourse that will fall into other than learned mens hands to consider Predetermination as contradistinguished or opposed rather to two things which are acknowledged by him as Gods Acts respecting the actions of free agents not excluding natural viz. Conservation and immediate Concourse or Concurrence the concession of the former of which two will not be sound sufficient to entitle God to the honour of the first cause of his creatures actions and of the latter will unless we take our measures amiss inforce him to grant that Predetermination which now he denies First as to Conservation we must observe that as Creation stands opposed to nothing so Conservatition to Annihilation i. e. making that cease to be something which was so and it differs from Creation only in this that it notes a continuation of that being and its powers and faculties which were given by creation as being a continuation of that action by which it was produced and therefore is commonly stiled continua creatio and not unfitly termed by the School-men manutenentia Dei i. e. Gods hand-hold because by it God holds up all things as it were with an hand from falling into nothing by the withdrawing of which Divines generally think the world would be annihilated Secondly As to concourse or concurrence it may be thus defined It is an extrinsickaction of God by which he does with second causes or the creatures immediately produce all their natural actions and effects 1. It is an action of God to distinguish it from the power communicated and conserved to second causes by which they perform their several operations by creation and conservation 2. Extrinsick to distinguish it from his Decree of this action called concourse which decree is an intrinsick action 3. With second causes or the creatures because it is such an action as joins with the creature as when the Writing-Master and the Scholar shape the same letter by the Masters guiding the Scholars hand 4. I add all their actions and what is produced by action or the effects as when the Master and Scholar write not only is the action the same but the effect the letters are the same which are done by both together 5. Natural actions and effects to exclude what by accident adheres to the actions and effects which seeing they are defects cannot be produced by a proper efficiency and so nor God concur to the production of them by such efficiency 6. Immediately produce to note the intimacy of the conjunction of God with the creature in the production of natural actions which is such that one and the same action is the action of God and of the creature 3. As to Predetermination it is thus defined It is a transient action of God which excites every creature to act It is called a transient action of God in opposition to Immanent or the Will and Decree of God that the creature should act That is distinguished from Concourse or Concurrence thus 1. The very difference of the particles Prae and Con i. e. Before and with notes that the former is in order of nature though not of time before the creatures action the latter with it 2. That the former notes the reduction of the creatures powers into act the latter notes Gods acting with the creature 3. The former is to be conceived of per modum principii under the notion of a principle or cause of the creatures acting the latter only per modum actionis i. e. as importing Gods acting with the creature 4. The Terminus or object of that action of Gods which we call Predetermination is the second cause it self the reasonable creature but the Terminus or object of that action of Gods called concourse or concurrence is the action of the second cause and effect produced by that action So that the Question in plain words is Whether God does move men to all their natural actions and so to one rather than another The Protestants generally maintain the affirmative and how forcibly Mr. Howe opposes it remains now to be considered The terms explained we shall endeavour a defence of our Arguments which Mr. Howe hath thought meet to single out The first of the two Arguments of ours which seeming most importunate and enforcing he hath attempted to enervate is Arg. 1. That it necessarily belongs to the Original and Fountain-Being to be the first Causc of whatsoever Being and consequently that what there is of positive Being in any the most wicked action must principally owe it self to the determinative productive influence of this first and Soveraign Cause Otherwise it would seem that there were some Being that were neither primum nor a primo i. e. neither the first Being nor from the first Being Let. p. 35. Answ To which he Answers It may well be thought sufficiently to salve the rights and priviledges of the first Cause to assert that no action can be done but by a power derived from it which in reference to forbidden actions intelligent Creatures may use or not use as they please without over-asserting that they must be irresistibly determined also even to the worst of actions done by them Let. p. 36. Reply For the better understanding of our Argument and the proof thereto annexed together with Mr Howes Answer thereunto it will not be unneedful to reduce them to Syllogisms the Argument thus All positive Being are effects of the first Cause All sinful actions as actions for that is our limitation are positive Beings Ergo All sinful actions as actions are effects of the first Cause viz. God The Major or first proposition is proved by an Hypothetical Syllogism thus If all positive Beings are not effects of the first Cause then there is some positive Being which is neither primum ens nor a primo i. e. neither the first Being nor from the first Being or which is neither God nor a Creature But there is no positive Being which is neither the first Being nor from the first Being Ergo All positive Beings are effects of the first Cause To the Argument it self Mr. Howe replies nothing nor yet to the proof in form as by the Laws of Argumentation he was obliged But seems to distinguish in the Major between a double
concurred This may be illustrated by the example of a Writing-Master and his Scholar wherein there is a concurrence to the action of writing and its effect the letter written and also a Predetermination a putting the Scholar upon the action of writing not morally for that influence is discerned in commanding a Scholar to write by himself but Physically by putting his hand on the Scholars to write and to write one letter rather than another An account how the particular action of any rational creatures will comes to be determined upon the exclusion of Predetermination I know none can be given Not by chance upon the occasional sudden presentation of an object because the action is Gods who is not liable to any such impressions as well as the creatures not by the creatures self-determining power for that as such is indeterminate as to the acts to which we conceive it must be some way or other determined And these two Propositions are so evident that concurrence immediate does not determine the will and that yet it must be determined that Baronius himself who is an Antipredeterminant does acknowledg both Met. 7 8. Disp 3. n. 66. and he does suggest a reason against any necessity laid upon a thing by Divine Prescience which we will accept of for a necessity of Divine Predetermination to the acts of the will Illud solum imponit necessitatem alicui rei quod est prima ratio cur illa res non potuit non evenire i. e. That alone imposes necessity upon any thing which is the first reason or cause why that thing could not but fall out Baron Met. 7 12. D. 2. n. 59. which necessity that it excludes not the liberty of mans will shall be cleared in due time 2. Again from the necessity conceded by Mr. Howe of immediate concourse and Predetermination to the production of good actions we shall infer the necessity of both to all actions This necessity must take its rise either from something common to all actions or peculiar to good actions The removing the latter will be the fixing the former in its due place In order hereunto we must consider that grace is an habit seated in the natural faculties and fitting them for good actions which as it was concreated with them in innocency so in the lapsed estate it is re-created or created again by infusion which infusion is not Predetermination for this latter still presupposes the former There must be grace in habit before it can be acted Now then the Query is whether the terminus of Predetermination be the habit or the faculties not the habit for that is a Quality that meliorates the faculties and so the actions in genere morali and cannot be put upon action or one rather than another but mediante potentia by the intervention of the power or faculty in which the gracious habit resides It must then be the faculties the will for instance for of that is the grand inquiry for otherwise supposing what has been owned that holy habits fit the will for holy volitions and nolitions in what degree the habits are confirmed in that the will may act without Predetermination and produce sincerely good actions as it please as long as these good actions are done by a power derived originally from it which is Mr. Howe 's Hypothesis and judged by him sufficient to salve the rights and priviledge of the first cause with reference to forbidden actions Let. p. 36. and I see not why not as well with reference to commanded actions The result of this ratiocination will be that if it be the indetermination of the powers to individual actions that makes an excitation of them to one rather than another necessary and the possibility of action contained in the powers that makes the reducing of that possibility to action no less necessary to good actions then the consequence seems immovable that Predetermination in its two Branches is alike necessary to all actions even when they flow from a will tainted with vicious habits and inclinations Quod erat demonstrandum And to me this Argument seems to carry along with it triumphant evidence to borrow one of Mr. Howe 's lofty Epithetes Let. p. 62. my fancy labours under so despicable poverty as to be unable to supply me with any evasion As for Mr. Howe 's phrase of impelling by which he intends compelling we shall refer the word and thing to the Head where it will most properly fall under examination In the interim let us attend to what he subjoins Answ I confess a disposition to wonder that a matter whereupon all moral Government depends both humane and divine should not have been determined at the first sight Let. p. 38. Reply These words imply that all moral Government c. is rendred ludicrous and a meer Pageantry by the Doctrine of Predetermination but upon what Mr. Howe magisterially enough takes for granted but does not once make an offer of proving that the will is hindered by Gods own irresistible counter-action p. 37. from yielding obedience to such Government But if I live till that be proved my age will certainly exceed Methuselahs Answ But Mr. Howe adds The notion of the goodness and righteousness of God methinks should stick so close to our minds and create such a sense in our souls as should be infinitely dearer to us than all our senses and powers And that we should rather chuse to have our sight hearing and motive power and what not besides disputed or even torn from us than ever suffer our selves to be disputed into a belief that the Holy and Good God should irresistibly determine the wills of men to and punish the same thing Let. p. 19. Reply The sum of the Argument though accompanied with a long train of fine words is that Predetermination to sinful actions crosses the natural notions of mankind concerning Gods Goodness and Holiness To which we return 1. That there is not the least colour for any such consequence from our Doctrine but upon supposition of two things which Mr. Howe would fasten upon us but we disown 1. That God predetermines to sinful actions in concreto i e. to the natural action and the sinfulness of it which we constantly deny for though we own it a hâ—rd province to answer all objections that may be started against this partition made between the one and the other as to Gods influence which we affirm as to the former the action and deny as to the latter the sinfulness of it yet ' we doubt not in its season to evince these two things that God is the Author and consequently the Predeterminer of all the actions of rational creatures for as to irrational though we include them yet the Question not being of them we shall not intermeddle with them and that God is not the Author of the sinfulness and so not the Predeterminer thereof And then as to the modus or manner of Gods influence so as to separate these that
that as to the evil of it their physical influence is alike i. e. they have none at all for sin not being a physical effect cannot have a physical cause If the latter besides that that influence is not in the Question the Sinner and the Tempter have influence and concurrence to wicked actions and God not at all for neither by Commands Counsels Threats nor Promises does he induce men to sin 2. Were it so yet the immediate concurrence which he acknowledges to all actions and so to sinful actions in conjunction with the notion he entertains with self-applause of the inseparableness of the evil of some actions from the actions themselves makes himself obnoxious to the same charge of making Gods concurrence with sinful actions to be as much or more than the Sinners or the Tempters Arg. 3. Lastly he charges the Predetermination of sinful actions with irreconcilableness with Gods wisdom and sincerity c. Postsc p. 25. by which c. I presume he intends in his Counsels Exhortations and what-ever means he uses to prevent them which are the expressions he uses in the Title-Page of his Letter in reference to Prescience Reply As to both of these perfections of God I am not aware of any thing well said by Mr. Howe for the reconcileableness of Gods Prescience with them which may not by a just proportion be applied to Gods Predetermination For the evincing whereof we will cast his Discourse into Paragraphs 1. To speak particularly of Gods wisdom 1. That there should be a direct and explicit contradiction between fore-knowing and dehorting we may at first sight perceive the terms cannot admit Let. p. 51. Reply The same may be said of Predetermining and dehorting though not simply as to the terms yet as to the things signified by them for the elicite acts of the will being the Object of Predetermination contested for we may at first sight perceive it cannot be compell'd and so as to the event infers but a necessity of infallibility as to the sinners doing what he is dehorted from which also Prescience does 2. Mr. Howe goes on Let it be supposed only that the blessed God hath belonging to his nature universal Prescience we will surely upon that supposition acknowledg it to belong to him as a perfection And were it reasonable to affirm that by a perfection he is disabled for Government or wer it a good consequence he foreknows all things he is therefore unfit to govern the world Let. p. 54. Reply And why may not we as well argue thus Let it be but supposed only that universal Predetermination belongs to Gods nature we will upon that supposition acknowledg it a perfection And were it reasonable to affirm that by a perfection that he not only conserves the powers of his creatures but reduces them to act he is disabled for government or were it a good consequence He is the first cause not only of all beings but of all actions as such therefore he is unfit to govern the world And I will add nay surely but the more fit in the present state of mankind not to intermeddle now with Angels because all the actions of men being either in whole or in part sinful he would have nothing to govern if he had not the government of all their actions and govern them he could not nor limit them nor turn them to good if he did not Predetermine them as hath been I trust clearly evinced 3. Would the supposition of such foreknowledg in God make that cease to be mans duty which had otherwise been so Let. p. 54. for what influence can foreknowledg have to alter or affect any way either the nature of the thing foreknown or the Temper of the person that shall do it any more than the present knowledg of the same thing now in doing p. 55. Reply And can Predetermination make that cease to be mans duty which otherwise had been so seeing that it alters not the nature of the thing the will of man nor the Temper of the person Predetermin'd but as it finds the will free so it leaves it and as it finds the person disposed by habitual inclinations so works upon him which is confirmed by that grave observation of his which we embrace as our cordial friend and confederate It were very unreasonable to imagine that God cannot in any case extraordinarily oversway the inclinations and determine the will of such a creture as over whom Gods general course of Government is by moral instruments viz. Man in a way agreeable enough to its nature Let. p. 141. Only we extend it further That supposing what hath been before proved that Predetermination includes a Perfection God can in all cases determine the will without forcing it to actions to which it hath a renitency for that were to alter the nature of the will and the temper of the person whose will it is And I add what influence can fore-determining have to alter the nature of the thing or person fore-determined more than immediate concurrence to the same action of the same person now in doing 4. But if what was otherwise mans duty be still his duty what can make it unfit that it be made known and declared to him to be so and how is that otherwise to be done than by these disputed means yea for this is the case what can make it less fit than that God should quit the right of his Government to his revolted creatures upon no other reason than only that he foresees they have a mind to invade it Let. p. 56. Reply All this Argumentation fits our Predetermination as well as Prescience wherein Mr. Howe and we agree what can make it unfit that God should acquaint man with his duty by proper means seeing Predetermination supposes such a foreknowledg as Mr. Howe supposes antecedent to Gods decree of the creatures having a mind to invade Gods right of Government if put under such and such circumstances or rather because we understand not any foreknowledg but of Possibilium things possible not Futurorum of things future antecedent to Gods decree seeing Gods determination of the Creatures will to invade his right without which he could not will so to do leaves the Creatures will as truly free from Co-action as if it exerted all its elicite acts only by a power derived from God and preserved apt and habile for action 4. But it may now be said All this reasoning says Mr. Howe tends but to establish this assertion that notwithstanding God did foreknow mans sin it is however necessary he forewarn him of it but it answers not the objected difficulty viz. How reasonably any such means are used for an unattainable end as it manifests the end mans obedience cannot be attained when it is foreknown he will not obey Let. p. 57. To this difficulty Mr. Howe answers That there is this noble and important end which Gods Edicts aim at viz. the Dignity and Decorum of his Government it self
Ib. n. 6. you come over to our Camp and we will give good entertainment to so serviceable a Deserter 4. Predetermination forces the will Nothing is more apparently a simple and most strictly natural impossibility than not to do an action whereto the Agent is determined by an infinite power Let. p. 33. 4. Predetermination forces not the Will It is unreasonable to imagine that God cannot in any case determine the will of a rational creature in a way agreeable enough to its nature Let. p. 141. Men are inabled by an internal infusion of power and vital influence to do much good to which they are not impelled by it p. 145. non est ingenii mei hosce nodos dissolvere i.e. I have not wit enough to untie these knots The consideration of these repugnancies fills me with wonder at your exclamation against Mr. Gale for finding no fault with your Pamphlet but what he makes Postsc p. 11. and particularly for suggesting that your opinion falls in with the sentiments of Durandus which many think not well of Postsc p. 9. For I must needs profess that as far as I can judg he hath but slandered you with a word of truth For in your Letter by which Mr. Gale did and only could take his measures of your sense there 's not the most implicite intimation of any other intendment than to close with Durandus And though you do explicitely disown it in your Postsc yet you instruct not you Reader how the Grammatical construction of these words above cited p. 36. of your Let. will yield any other meaning than what Mr. Gale pitches upon And the foresight of the probability of being cried out upon for want of candour in the same respects did not a little deter me from the undertakement A third the necessity of making a Parallel between your and the Papists Arguments against Predetermination which I foresaw would give you occasion to fault me as you do Mr. Gale for parallelling your conceptions with theirs the reason whereof must needs be because I take a Papist for an ill-favoured name Postsc p. 27. yet here they are 1. Some actions are intrinsecally evil and in themselves wicked Let. p. 33 32. 2. God hath as much influence and concurrence to the worst actions as the best Post p. 25. viz. by the Doctrine of Predetermination of sinful actions 3. For God to determine men to the worst of actions can mean no less thing than to impel them to do them Let. p. 37. which impelling you call an ineluctable fate p. 33. and so intend compelling 4. God hath more influence and concurrence to the worst actions than the sinner or tempter Post pag. 25. and in more words Let. pag. 32. viz. by our Doctrine 1. There are many actions so intrinsecally and in themselves evil that they always are repugnant to the eternal Law and Right Reason Bell. de Am. c. 18. 2. Calvin was blasphemous against God in affirming That God works evil works in us so as he works good Alvarez de Aux Gr. l. 4. 3. God according to our Adversaries opinion viz. the Protestants impells men and so compells them to sin Bell. c. 5. 4. God according to the opinion of Calvin and Beza is the primary Author of all sins Bell. c. 4. de Amiss Gr. But pass upon this parallel what judgment you please I am at a point I have proposed to my self a good end in the exhibition of it viz. to mind my Readers that the point under debate between you and me is a stated controversie between the Papists and Protestants and therefore the affirmative not lightly to be receded from and in drawing it up I gave my self a little pleasure mixed with disdain that because there was no Smith found throughout all the land of Israel you were sain to go down to the Philistines to sharpen your axe and your mattock 1 Sam. 13.19 20. And I admired that you could not excogitate one new Argument but present us with all old and strangely unfortunate which have been bafled as often as urged I have iâ—titled my Answer De Causa Dei rather than De causa Deo which latter might be proper enough for the subject a Defence of Gods interest as the first cause in all the actions of his Creatures But herein I have imitated Bradwardine's Piety who would signifie thereby that it was the Cause of God he designed to secure from the impetuous assaults of its Adversaries among whom I am heartily sorry you should be numbred as to this instance I know you will not own the charge but pretend that you are on Gods side but if so you have neglected an opportunity of shewing your self by not reconciling Gods preventive methods of sin with immediate concourse which is at least as hard as with Predeterminative concourse and to be sure any one may see it was very idle and ludicrous trifling to offer at reconciling those methods with God's Prescience and to wave that manifestly greater difficulty of reconciling them with his immediate concourse if you think there is such a thing to use your own words with but the variation that a disserent instance requires Postsc pag. 3 4. I have been as brief as I could in my Answer without prejudice to our cause and have come as Caesar Borgia said of the French in their Expedition into Italy rather with Chalk in my hands to mark out the Inns than with Arms to break through and take possession It will be time enough to arm when your Preparations shall rise out of that dust and silence in which they are buried Post p. 51. In the mean time I have but pointed out the Fontes solutionum the general grounds upon which our Answers depend to all Arguments that can be produced To conclude I could heartily wish you would serionsly reflect upon your Letter and Postscript and consider how many passages you are obliged to repent of and retract Shall I â—ind you of that notable saying of Austin Illius scripta summa authoritate dignissima c. i.e. his writings deserve to be of the greatest authority who hath let slip never a word not that he would but that he ought to recall He that hath not attained so much wisdom as to be able to say nothing not to be repented of may yet attain so much modesty as to repent of what he knows he has said amiss Aug. Ep. 17. And for your encouragement it may not be unseasonable to mind you of what you cannot but know that Austin who gave this good counsel did take it himself and left upon record retractation of his Errors wherein he was a singular instance of humility and was rewarded by God with a greater esteem in the Church than any one man since his time Which is all besides that I am Octob. 31. 1677. Your true Friend and Brother T. D. De Causa Dei IT has been always judged very needful in Polemicks to state the Question and explain
dependance which positive Beings have upon God as the first Cause one that they have no power but from God the other that the exercise or use of that power is from God The former he grants the latter he denies but with a limitation as to forbidden actions To which we Reply 1. That this Answer is fatal to his own Concession of Gods immediate concurrence to all the actions of his Creatures Postsc p. 28. For it amounts to as much as if in terminis he had asserted a mediate concurrence only to some actions viz. forbidden actions and this was the passage I presume that gave Mr. Gale occasion to charge Mr. Howe with Durandus his Opinion which was That God concurs remotely and mediately with second Causes viz. no otherwise than as he confers and conserves their Essence and Power of action by which they themselves act nextly and immediately And for ought I can yet understand a very just occasion for though Mr. Howe in the place above-cited acknowledges immediate concurrence yet in the Letter it self by which Mr. Gale was to make an estimate of his judgment there was ne gru quidem not a Syllable of any such thing 2. It is hard to conceive the reason of Mr. Howe 's limitation why forbidden actions should be only by power derived from God and good actions or indifferent require also an irresistible determination when the material of the actions morally diversified is often the very same For instance In the motion of my hand to kill another out of spleen and private revenge or to kill my enemy in a lawful self-defence or to strike my friend in merriment I am aware that he attempts to wipe off the aspersion of symbolizing with Durandus because he denies immediate concourse universally whereas himself denies only determinative concourse to wicked actions Postsc p. 28 29. And be it so that his attempt hath been successful yet I must give Durandus the precedence of Mr. Howe for sagacity in this point and do judg that he spake more consonantly to himself and the truth when he affirmed that the indetermination of the power given to the creature was so universal as to extend equally to evil actions and to good For it seems evident enough that all natural actions as such the Subjects of moral good and evil must either have or want immediate concurrence 3. This Answer runs counter to Mr. Howe 's assertion elsewhere That in reference to sinful actions by this influence determinative God doth not only sustain men who do them and continue to them their natural faculties and powers whereby they are done which is all Mr. Howe hath granted us hitherto in his Answer to our Argument from the dependance of the second Cause upon the first but also as the first mover so far excite and actuate those powers as that they are apt and habile for any congenerous action c. Postsc p. 41. For if by exciting and actuating the powers he means that God reduces them to act he hath taken a large jump from Durandus to Twisse for the latter nor we who follow him neither says nor means any more by Predetermination And we cannot tell what other meaning to affix to his words without upbraiding him with strange inadvertency in his choice of them For else he consounds Concurrence either with Conservation which latter keeps the powers apt and habile as they are made or with Predetermination whereas this goes before that goes along with the Creatures act But now I attend to the proof of his strange Assertion for a proof I understand it to be though he introduces it with a Besides a particle which commonly is a sign of an additional Argument which thus presents it self Ans It seems infinitely to detract from the perfection of the ever blessed God to affirm he was not able to make a creature of such a nature as being continually sustained by him and supplied with power every moment suitable to its nature should be capable of acting unless whatsoever he thus enables he determine thâ—â— is for it can mean no less thing impel it to do it also Let. p. 36 37. Rep. 1. If we should take liberty of judging things by their appearance at first sight without giving our selves the trouble of a strict disquisition we might easily be seduced into an imagination that it does no less infinitely detract from the Divine Perfection to affirm That God was not able to make a Creature of such a nature as that it might continually sustain it self without a supply of power every moment from God for that opinion seems to tye God to a shorter tedder than an ingenuous Artificer who can raise an Edifice that shall last many years without any need of his help for reparations And this I the rather take notice of because I find it the sentiment of the most acute Suarez That they who deny Gods immediate Operation in every action of the Creature which Mr. H. seems to do in his Answer now under discussion will doubtless be compelled to deny that the Creature does depend immediately upon the actual influence of God For which is his reason that which depends not upon God in acting nor does it depend upon him in its being Met. Disp 20. 2. This confirmation of Mr. H. Assertion is guilty of two unpardonable faults in a man of Learning and Ingenuity viz. a too early anticipation and immodest begging of the main Question An anticipation in alledging the impelling i. e. compelling for that is his sense of the term as will appear e're long men to act as the import of Predetermining whereas there is no necessity of hooking in such an import of it for suppose it no way to abridg the liberty of the Will yet by Mr. H's Argumentation it is eo nomine to be rejected because the sustaining the Creature and supplying it with power every moment suitable to its nature that is in Durandus stile mediate concurrence is to be judged sufficient to enable the Creature to act without determining it to action upon no less peril to them that shall dare to judg it insufficient than to be reputed detracters from the Perfection of the ever-blessed God And a begging of the Question 't is which I may well call immodest because he knows we neither can nor will grant it without ruining our Hypothesis nor need we do it because he elsewhere owns it unreasonable to imagine that God cannot in any case determine the will of a rational Creature in a way agreeable enough to its nature Let. p. 141. I confess he gives us here but an inch but we will venture to take an ell I mean to extend his concession of some cases to every case and particularly to our case of sinful actions For let our sentiment be burdened with what other load Mr. H. shall please as the truth is he is not over merciful to the Predeterminants I think he hath discharged it of forcing the will
that might at her pleasure do what she would Durandus seemeth to incline to this opinion supposing that second Causes do bring forth their actions and operations by and of themselves and that God no otherwise concurreth actually to the production of the same but in that he preserveth the second Causes in that being and power of working which first he gave them Thus far the most Learned Dr. Field of the Church B. 3. Ch. 23. pag. 121 122. And yet he adds his dislike of Durandus opinion in these words But they that are of sounder judgment resolve that as the light enlightneth the air and with the air all other inferiour things so God not only giveth being and power of working to the second Causes and preserveth them in the same but together with them hath an immediate influence into the things that are to be effected by them c. Ibid. p. 122. 3. What account can be given of his exploding our distinction between the material and formal part of sin approved of above by Dr. Field Most of his way viz. Mr. Gales mince the business and say the concurrence is only to the action which is sinful not as sinful so Mr. Howe 's Postsc p. 33. Answ Except it were affirmed that it implied a contradiction for God to make such a creature there is no imaginable pretence why it should not be admitted he hath done it Let. p. 37. and subjoins soon after I must confess a greater disposition to wonder that ever such a thing should be disputed than dispute so plain a case p. 38. Reply That it is affirmed Mr. Howe cannot surely be ignorant nay he frees himself from that blame I am not altogether ignorant what attempts have been made to prove it impossible p. 38. but in the interim he incurs another of contradicting himself This Argument ab absurdo from the implication of Gods making a creature independent upon himself is urged against those that deny immediate concurrence and so by just consequence conservation and Predetermination 1. As to mediate concurrence 't is urged for it by Durandus That there is no repugnuncy nor contradiction for God to make a creature that should be able to act without his help otherwise that is than by conserving its being and powers To this is Answered Involvere repugnantiam quod creaturae sit potens c. That it involves a repugnancy and contradiction that the creature should be able to act independently upon the Creator as well in respect of the created cause it self which hath necessarily a power of acting commensurate and proportionable to its own being as in respect of the action or effect flowing from it for seeing they are Beings by participation they essentially depend upon the first Being Wherefore as the Divine power cannot produce a Being independent upon him in its Being so nor produce an Agent independent upon him in acting Suarez Met. T. 1. D. 22. n. 16. One egg is not more like another than Durandus Argument to Mr. Howe 's nor can a more solid Answer be given thereto no though Mr. Howe should acknowledg immediate concurrence as in his Postsc he does of which in his whole Letter there is altum silentium and deny only Predetermination for this Answer is a shoo that will fit either foot as will appear in its place 2. As to conservation the no necessity of Gods continual influx to that end seems colourably affirmed upon this ground too That it is not repugnant to Omnipotency to produce such creatures as when once made may continue their Being though the operation of the Agent cease by which they were produced To this Argument Suarez also fits a rational reply Ad amplitudinem divinae potentiae spectat c. It belongs to the amplitude of the Divine Power that nothing is nor can be a moment after its production without its influence and also that it have full dominion over all his creatures and an intrinsick power of annihilating them by the suspension or withholding of his influence Suarez Met. T. 1. D. 21. n. 2 17. 3. Which is directly to our case upon Mr. Howe 's explication of his mind that he does really believe Gods immediate concourse to all actions of his creatures both immediatione virtutis suppositi yet not determinative to wicked actions Postsc p. 28. we shall adventure a demonstration that it implies a contradiction for God to make a creature that can act without Predetermination i. e. applying it to action and to one rather than another action and 't is this that such a creature would be but ens secundarium a second being not causa secunda a second cause or which is all one God should be but ens primum not causa prima the first Being not the first Cause which I prove thus Arg. 1. If God does concur only by simultaneous concourse and not by Predetermination or previous motion then God cannot be the cause of the actions of the creatures as they proceed from them But the consequent is absurd and Mr. Howe I presume will not own it Therefore so is the Antecedent The Consequence is proved thus God is not by concourse the cause of the actions of the creatures as those actions proceed from them because then concourse must be before the action of the creature for every Physical cause is before the effect but the very name concourse imports a joyning together in the same action as the Master and Scholar whose hand is guided in shaping the same letter And all consent in concourse neither does God act before the creature nor the creature before God but both together and at once Arg. 2. To make good the English Proverb He is twice killed that is killed with his own weapon I shall retort Mr. Howe 's two concessions upon him 1. If there be an immediate concourse then there is a Predetermination or putting the creature upon action before it acts or else the creature is the first mover of it self to action The consequence is plausible enough as depending on this ground that by concourse alone we have no account given us how God and the creature join in one individual action rather than another As for instance in the state of innocency when man was incircled with a variety of trees of the Garden all good and fit for food whence was it that he will'd to eat of one rather than another The concourse of God with Adam's will in the election of one suppose that in the midst of the Garden before the prohibition passed upon it could not determine it to that rather than to any of the rest as is plain in external actions Two men lanching a wherry-boat concur to the same effect but the one does not determine the other by lending common assistance to that act There must be therefore a Predetermination in order of nature though not of time to that act of Adam's will supposed of eating that tree instanced in to which God
sapientia est ipsi Lex c. i. e. Though God be not under a Law given him by a superiour Legislatour yet his own wisdom is a Law to him and as Zuinglius himself teaches us That what a Law is to us that is Gods own nature to him God is therefore no less bound not to act repugnantly to his own wisdom and nature than men are bound not to act repugnantly to the Law of God Wherefore if God should impel Mr. Howe 's phrase men to these things which are contrary to the Eternal Law and to his own nature and wisdom as to Adultery his will were evil because repugnant to the right rule of divine wisdom and God should deny himself which cannot be as the Apostle says Thus far Bellarmine ubi supra Answ Mr. Howe concludes What relief is there in that dream of the supposed possibility of Gods making a reasonable creature with an innocent aversion to himself For what can be supposed more repugnant or what more impertinent If innocent how were it punishable A Law already made in the case how can it be innocent Let. p. 42. Reply Mr. Howe leaves us wholly at a loss who it is that with this dream hath attempted to relieve a pious and sober mind closely urged with the horrour of so black a conception of God that he does first irresistibly determine mens will to and then punish them for the hatred of his blessed self as he tragically but falsely represents our opinion p. 40. I say falsely for God does not punish that natural passion we call hatred which himself as first Cause applies the second to the production of nor does God determine the will to that natural passion its elicite act irresistibly in his sense forcibly But as Austin long ago of Gods influence upon good actions so say we of bad God acts Omnipotenter pro te suaviter pro me Omnipotently according to his own nature but sweetly according to ours as shall be fully cleared in its place If any particular person of our judgment in the main shall propose an argument liable to exception I see not that we are obliged to defend it But as Mr. Howe introduces it it seems to be represented as a common extravagancy of the Predeterminants which I am sure it is not nor does Mr. Howe labour under a surguedry of candour in a bare presentation of this supposition without its application to the Question Both which because Mr. Howe hath neglected I think not my self obliged to give the Reader an account of but shall dismiss it without any adoe Arg. 2. The second pressing and importunate Argument of ours which Mr. H. repeats That God does predetermine sinful actions as actions otherwise it were impossible for God to foreknow the sinful actions of men many whereof he hath foretold if their futurition were a meer contingency and depended on the uncertain will of the subordinate agent not determined by the supream agent God Let. p. 35 36. Ans To which Argument this is the sum of his Answer That this supposed indetermination of the Will in reference to wickâ—d actions is far from being capable of inferring any thing more than that we are left ignorant of the way how he foreknows them which is a small inconvenience and manifest absurdity not to acâ—nowledg the like in many cases seeing God does many things whereof the manner how he does them we can neither explicate nor understand Let. p. 47 48. Rep. 1. To which I reply That the way how God foreknows future contingencies is in his own Decree at least as to such which he hath decreed For I cannot divine what can be opposed to this Proposition That what God hath decreed he foreknows in his own Decree though it should be granted that he foreknows them also antecedently to his own Decree in some manner which we can neither explicate nor understand Taking that then for granted till it be denied I think Mr. H. hath much overshot himself in denying universally our knowledg of the way how God foreknows future contingencies For either he must exclude the good actions which he grants God predetermines men to Postsc p. 39. yea and all actions of free agents to which he acknowledges God affords immediate concourse p. 28. from being Contingencies which himself as well as we suppose in the whole controversie now agitated Or deny that they fall under Gods Decree which is too absurd because there 's nothing more evident than that what God does in time he decreed to do from Eternity Or if he grants both then it roundly follows that God foreknew those acts of the Creatures which in time he did either predetermine to or concur with and such are all the actions of men disjunctively Rep. 2. We shall prove that God foreknows all future contingencies in his own Decree and consequently the sinful actions of men 1. By Scripture Isa 46.9 10 I am God and there is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure Upon which Scripture the Incomparable Calvin so I call him in compliance with the very Learned Andrews sometime Bishop of Winchester's admonition that he was a man never to be named without the addition of some title of Honour thus glosses Neque solum ejus praescientiam hic commendat c. i.e. Neither does God only here commend his own Prescience but he affirms that he had testified by the Prophets what he had decreed For there were no certainty nor firmness in the Predictions or Prophesies unless the same God who foretells this or that thing would come to pass had the event of things in his own hand As to which words we may further observe 1. The form of the expression two Attributes are here applied by God to himself Wisdom and Soveraignty or liberty of Will and a common adjunct of both Immutability or we may call it a common effect the certainty of the event that what God does wisely and freely determine or decree within himself shall certainly come to pass 2. The extent of it that it refers to all those things which it was Gods peculiar certainly to foreknow viz. all that should certainly come to pass For as Judicious Calvin observes upon vers 11. Posteaquam Propheta c. After that the Prophet had spoken of the Prescience of God he accommodates the general expression he had used to his present purpose to comfort the Jews in hopes of the return of their Captivity by Cyrus c. 3. The argument which is couched in them to evince the certainty of Gods foreknowledg of what he did predict viz. because the events predicted were the result of his Wisdom and Pleasure or of his own wise Decrees And now to draw down this General to the particular in question Whether God foreknows sinful actions in his own Decree And for the proof of the
to it inseparably Ergo future contingents must needs be future from some cause 6. The Major of the same fourth Syllogism proved If there be any cause why any thing passeth from Eternity out of the condition of a possible thing into the condition of a future that cause must be either something without God or in God and if in God either that cause shall be the essence of God or the knowledg of God or the will and decree of God But the cause of any thing becoming of possible future is neither any thing without God nor the essence or the knowledg of God Ergo it is only the will or decree of God 7. The Minor of the last Syllogism proved by parts For first nothing out of God could be the cause because that passage which they call futurition was made from eternity and therefore the cause thereof must be from eternity But nothing is eternal besides God Nor can the knowledg of God be the cause for that severed from his will doth rather suppose than make things future Moreover if the Essence of God were the cause of this passage of things from possibility to futurity it must either be said to be the cause as acting necessarily or freely Not the former for then all future things would fall out necessarily and none would fall out contingently and freely But God in things to be created or created hath done nor doth any thing by necessity of nature but freely If the Essence of God be said to be the cause of the passage of things from possibility into futurity as acting freely this is to grant that the will of God and the determination thereof is the cause why any contingent from eternity passeth out of the condition of an indifferent thing to be or not to be into the condition of a thing future or to determine the futurition of it It remains therefore that the Decree of God or the Decreeing will of God be alone the cause of futurition if you will admit the phrase and of its effect Thus far Dr. Twisse I desire the Reader to take notice That though I have a great reverence for Dr. Twisse and do judg the process of the above-cited Argument invincible as to the main yet I am not clear in my apprehension that the third Syllogism is in sense different from the second as Strangius objects against it with some probability Nor yet do I wholly dislike Strangius his alteration of the terms of both the Majors of the second and third Syllogism thus That which from eternity was possible so as that it also had the condition of a thing future its futurition is from the Decree of God But every future contingent was from eternity possible so as that it also had the condition of a thing future Ergo the futurition of every future contingent is from the Decree of God And then the fourth Syllogism will be the proof of the Major of the second leaving out the third and the words must be the same and so the argument runs on without any further rub unless perhaps the reason given in the fifth Syllogism Why contingent things are not future in their own nature because then it would follow that they should be always future and never become present For I confess ingenuously that I cannot answer Strangius contrary consequent from that antecedent That if future contingents were necessarily future whether in their own nature or in respect of any other cause as the 〈◊〉 of God they must necessarily be present some time or other For to be future is nothing else than that a thing should sometime be present Strang. p. 630. And these alterations though I will not positively assert to be needful as not having had time to examine Strangius throughly since he came to my hands which was long after Mr. H's Letter and Postscript came out yet I am the more willing to admit that I may in part wipe off the aspersion Mr. H. casts upon many of us who hold Predetermination That whatsoever strength there may be in arguments and replys to and fro in this matter that which hath too apparently had greatest actual efficacy with many hath been the authority and name of this and that man of reputation Let. p. 42. As to all the rest of the Doctor 's Arguments if I be not a partial judg of my own abilities an infirmity of lapsed humane nature which I cannot challenge an exemption from I seem to my self able to answer Strangius's subtil evasions and should willingly have done it but that I doubt not but I shall meet with them in Mr. H's threatened Rejoinder in which I expect Mr. H. should answer distinctly by denial or distinction to some Proposition in these Syllogisms and then let him rhetoricate as he pleases in the amplification We have now dispatched the two Arguments in the Letter there remain three in the Postscript cited out of Mr. Gale's Animadversions upon the Letter which though modestly proposed by way of Question will constringe our Learned Adversary Arg. 3. Whether there be any action of man on earth so good which hath not some mixture of sin in it And if God concur to the substrate matter of it as good must he not necessarily concur to the substrate matter as sinful for is not the substrate matter of the act both as good and sinful the same Postscr p. 32. Mr. H's Answ 1. It seems then that God doth concur to the matter of an action as sinful which is honestly acknowledged since by his principles it cannot be denied though most of his way mince the business and say the concurrence is only to the action which is sinful not as sinful Ibid. pag. 33. So Mr. H. Reply Mr. H. misrepresents Mr. Gale's meaning for it is not that God concurs to the sinfulness of the action but to the action which though physically one individual action yet is morally diversified in respect of its conformity and difformity to the Law of God so that considering the natural action in concreto with the good or evil adhering to it it is no less true that God concurs to the action that hath evil adhering to it than that he concurs to the action that hath good adhering to it This premised to the fault he finds with the distinction I answer that I doubt he must recur to it himself when he is pressed to know how Gods concurrence immediate to actions sinful will free him from the imputation of being the Author of Sin yea worse than so I cannot imagine but that as to those actions which he calls in themselves sinful he must own what he would fasten upon Mr. Gale that God doth immediately concur to the matter of an action as sinful for 't is impossible to separate the malignity thereof from an intrinsecally evil action as he tells us Let. p. 33. of which hereafter Mr. H's Answ 2. This I am to consider as an argument for Gods Predeterminative
concurrence to wicked actions And thus it must be conceived that if God concur by determinative influence to the imperfectly good actions of faith love c. therefore to the acts of enmity against himself cursing idolatry c. To which besides an unseemly scoff is it not a mighty consequence Mr. H. answers divers things as reasons for the denial of the consequence 1. That it is infirm because the actions in the antecedent are good quoad substantiam but these in the consequent are in the substance of them evil Post p. 33. Reply 1. Mr. Gale doth not limit wicked actions to those that are in the substance of them evil but ampliates the term to all whatsoever so that supposing the consequence were not good to such actions as Mr. H. instanceth in yet it may be good to those actions that are evil quoad finem circumstantias as to the end and circumstances For instance to be hospitable or charitable out of vain-glory to be reading the Scriptures at home when we should attend upon publick worship c. and Mr. H. seems to yield it 2. I am not yet convinced that there are any actions evil quoad substantiam And it is a wonder to me that our Learned Antagonist should exact of us an implicite faith of that Position It ill becomes his generosity so basely to beg the question Let him prove that and I will be his Proselyte as to antipredetermination of such actions But because he neglecteth the duty he owes to his Hypothesis I will perform mine to my own anon 2. Mr. H. denies the consequence by an argument a pari That we our selves can in a remoter kind concur to the actions of others yet it doth not follow that because we may assord our leading concurrence to actions imperfectly good that therefore we may afford it to those that are down right evil because to prayer therefore to cursing and swearing and then ruin men for the actions we have induced them unto Iâ—â—d p. 34. Repl. 1. In general 't is unsafe arguing a pari from the creature to God that what the former may not do neither may the latter The creature is bound to hinder all the sin that he can but if God were under such an obligation there would not only have been so much sin as the world affords but indeed none at all And you your self discourse at large of the incongruity of an universal determinative influence to good actions which yet would have made an admirable Metamorphosis of all the Sinners in the world into Saints at least if in those expressions you include infusion of grace which divine Predetermination of good actions presupposes as I have proved before 2. If your arguing be forcible as to this instance I see not but you reflect as highly upon God by the immediate concurrence you grant to all actions of the Creatures Post p. 28. For will it not follow that God affords men a leading concurrence to actions down-right evil and then ruins them for those actions which were as much his as theirs I am too dull to imagine how you can extricate your self but by eating your words and distinguishing of concurrence as you do of Predetermination that God concurs to actions that are imperfectly good but not to those that are down-right evil 3. Mr. H's answer touches not the intendment of Mr. Gale's argument which is to evince upon Mr. H's own assertion that as God predetermines to actions imperfectly good so by the like reason he may predetermine to actions that are perfectly evil And the ground of the consequence is this that if in actions imperfectly good the evil and the good of the actions are so divided between the creature and God that only the former is the Creatures and the latter Gods whilst yet the natural actions themselves are common to both to God as the first to the Creature as the second cause why may not we infer that in actions perfectly evil the action is common to God and the Creature but the evil of it the Creatures peculiar and no more chargeable upon God than in the other instance And this I take for an irrefragable Argument ad hominem which if Mr. H. can satisfie I am silenced 4. It is an unaccountable inadvertency for to salve his honour so I will call it rather than a slip of Judgment to produce cursing and swearing for instances of actions down-right or for the substance of them evil I thought that Davids frequent cursing of wicked men in the Psalms and Pauls swearing Before God I lye not Gal. 1.20 had not passed under so bad a character but did rest assured that as the actions in themselves are capable so in them they were hallowed by their manner and end 5. To what end Mr. Howe closes with this clause And then ruine men for the actions we have induced them to is not hard to conjecture viz. to insinuate that our Doctrine represents God under the same character with the Devil who induces men to sin and then torments them for it But what is said untruly as well as Prophanely of the Devil is verified of our Doctrine That it is not so black as it is painted Mr. Howe indeed tells Mr. Gale you 'l say God may rather and adds as his own sense But sure he can do so much less than you p. 34. This suggestion deserves a severer animadversion than I shall make upon it In general I say 't is an odious slander For we in no sense assert that God induces men to wicked actions not morally for we constantly affirm that his commands threats are all against it not Physically for so he determines men to actions not to the wickedness of them nor does he ruine men for what he contributes by Predetermination or immediate concurrence to the Production of viz. the natural actions he moves to and joins in Answ 3. Mr. Howe denies the consequence from the evidence of two Scriptures compared Luk. 6.9 Hos 13.6 p. 35. but which is strange hath not directed us how he infers from them the denial of Mr. Gale's consequence or how they shew a difference between the warrantableness of Gods concurring to the substrate matter of an action as good which tends to mans salvation and blessedness and to the substrate matter of all their evil actions which tend to their ruine and misery we must therefore guess at it as well as we can Reply The former Scripture hath these words Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil to save life or to destroy The latter these O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thine help From the former Scripture I presume thus he argues If it be unlawful to man to destroy life then it is unlawful to God But the antecedent is true therefore the consequent And he proves the consequence by the latter Scripture by this Enthymeme Gods word is to help man Ergo it is unlawful
for him to destroy And this viz. that man destroys himself Ergo 't is unlawful for God to destroy him To which I return 1. That the antecedent or minor of the first Syllogism is not true universally for for it is not unlawful for man to destroy life se defendendo i.e. in self-defence but it must be limited to Homicide or murther which notes not barely the act of destroying life but involves with it a vitiosity or that act done in cases prohibited by the divine Law 2. Suppose it were yet I deny the consequence and you cannot be any whit-ased or relieved by the thin Sophistry of only a collusive ambiguity in the word Lawful which you must have recourse to For suppose you take it in the antecedent strictly and in the consequent analogically in the former for the declared pleasure of a ruler to his Subject in the latter for an habitual fixed principle and rule of acting after one steady tenour which are both your own distinctions and explications of the word Law Let. p. 41. yet the consequence is utterly false because depending upon this false ground that whatever man may not do in regard of Gods Law God himself may not do because of his own nature or habitual fixed Principle and Rule of acting after one steady nature as you something odly describe it In this sense the subtil Twisse rejects Zuinglius maxim Quod nobis est Lex Deo est ingenium is Gods nature to himself Though in another sense he admits it That such obligation as the divine Law lays upon us to do nothing repugnant to it that Gods nature lays upon him to do nothing repugnant to it Now then though it be unlawful to man to kill in such cases as the Law exempts yet it is not contrary to Gods nature to kill and so not unlawful to him 3. To the Enthymeme we deny the connexion that because in or from God is mans help that therefore it is unlawful for him to destroy for how then does God own himself the author of all evils of suffering Amos 3.6 Shall there be evil in a City and the Lord hath not done it And besides we see not such is the dimness of our sight how the consequence would be proved thereby were the connexion granted The proofs subjoined hang together so loosly that I cannot make sense of them and therefore will dismiss them Your general drift I am aware of that you deny Predestination to evil actions though you concede it to good because it seems more congruous to the divine goodness to concur a term that you will still use though improper enough to signifie that divine action we call Predetermination as hath been shewn once and again to actions that have good in them rather than to these that have evil in them because the one tends to the salvation the other to the destruction of man To which I answer This Argument if it hath any weight will bear as hard upon immediate concurrence which you grant to all actions and so to sinful as upon Predetermination and whatever answer will relieve you will with the same hand ease us I will pause a little with the Readers leave and try my skill what answer I can excogitate for Mr. Howe which will not be a common friend to us both as we have been hitherto one to another and I hope shall remain notwithstanding this publick contest I have thought out my thoughts and they afford me but three Answers 1. That immediate concurrence as to sinful actions divides between the action and the sinfulness so that 't is only the action as such which is Gods and mans at once the sinfulness of it is to be attributed to man only And this distinction is an open friend to us and to which therefore upon all fit occasions we pay our respects 2. That if it be granted divine concurrence is as immediate to evil as to good actions so as hath been explained yet that does not necessitate or compel the will to any elicite act i. e. inward acts of willing or nilling neither does Predetermination judg it self guilty as to any such crime for that does but put the creature upon that action which is produced by Gods immediate concurrence with it And but that it waits a fitter time to speak out her mind she could say That she conceives not how she can compel the will to any act without compelling God himself seeing one and the same act thereof is as truly Gods as the creatures 3. If immediate concurrence thinks her self disobliged to satisfie an inquisitive curiosity as to the modus or manner how she joines with the creature in an action to which sin does necessarily adhere seeing the thing it self is plain that so strict is the dependance of the creature upon the Creator that it cannot act without Gods immediate concurrence Predetermination claims the same priviledg upon the like ground that the creature cannot exert its natural powers till they be applied to action nor determine it self to action till it be determined which determination cannot include a compulsion of the will which is the main if not the only controversie for if the will act spontaneously and from precedent deliberation how is it forced if it do not how is it a will i. e. a rational appetite Arg. 4. which is Mr. Gale's second is There is no action so sinful that it hath not some natural good as the substrate of it Postsc p. 36. Answ 1. To which Argument proposed by way of Question Mr. Howe answers True Reply But then if that be true your former position that some actions are evil in the substance of them p. 33. must needs be false Let us but formalize the Opposition thus some actions are so sinful that they have no natural good as the substrate matter of them which is the sense of the words just now quoted no actions are so sinful that they have not some natural good as the substrate matter of them and it will appear that they are propositions contradictory and consequently that they cannot both be true They are two known Rules in Logick contradictio est oppositio inter universalem particularem Enunciationem aut propositionem And Harum alterutra semper vera altera semper falsa Answ 2. Mr. Howe presently flinches and Sophister-like puts more into the conclusion than was in the premises And what must be inferr'd says he viz. from his own concession That therefore God must by a determinative influence produce every such action what-ever reason there be against it Reply Those words included in the semiquadrates are injuriously foisted in For Mr. Gale's Argument entirely is thus If there be no action so sinful that it hath not some natural good as the substrate of it then God is the cause viz. by Predetermination of that natural good that is in every action sed verum prius Ergo Posterius And indeed the Argument it self excludes any
of a sensitive appetite for to this last spontaneity is essential and intellectual too and so it is for it proceeds from and is guided by a precedent though mistaken judgment of the understanding which represents God to him as a Tyrant that abuses his authority by needless restraints upon mans natural inclinations Suppose to unchastity with any woman whose skin and features attract his liking Joseph's Brethrens hatred of him was determined by God to the selling rather than killing of him yet as they acted spontaneously so upon precedent consideration Two Reasons determined their choice of the milder course of the two they had in view He is our Brother and our Flesh and what profit is it if we slay him and conceal his blood Gen. 37.26 3. If there be any reason to infer Coaction from Predetermination it must be the inconsistency of necessity on Gods part and contingency on mans Which if it be universally affirmed 1. Then I know not how Mr. Howe will salve the objection against immediate concurrence which he seems to grant that thereby the liberty of the will seems to be lost both as to the exercise and specification of the act Unless as Burgesdicius does whose solution offers it service he being the first Metaphysick Author that ever I read That the concourse of God takes not away the contingency of voluntary actions because it does not precede the action of the second cause Burg. Met. l. 2. c. 11. n. 9. But then that reason if assented to will give a mortal wound to the Predestination which certainly precedes them of good actions which Mr. H. acknowledges or if he will loose the knot artificially he must say that the concourse of God is so accommodated to the nature and manner of the creatures acting that notwithstanding it natural causes act necessarily and voluntary causes contingently or freely and then the same answer will fit Predetermination of free agents to all their actions 2. The denial of the consistency between liberty and necessity in general will bear as hard upon what we grant and Mr. H. cannot deny actions in themselves good as Amor Dei the love of God as it can do upon what we deny and you assert actions in themselves evil as odium Dei the hatred of God And harder for the Will is but in part free to good actions when as 't is wholly free I mean disposed and inclined to evil actions We are now the better prepared by way thus made to answer Mr. H's proofs of his consequence Which are 1. Not to do an action whereto the agent is determined by an infinite power is impossible Let. p. 33. Ergo not to do wicked actions for that 's the sum of his consequent in his Hyp. Syll. whereof this Enthymeme is a proof to which the creature is determined is impossible Rep. 1. In general that supposing his Antecedent true as 't is in the sense before given yet the impossibility he speaks of is not a simple and most strictly natural impossibility which he before asserted but an impossibility respective to the determination of an infinite power as hath been proved R. 2. That if he intends a respective or conditional impossibility I grant his Enthymeme for it hurts our Hypothesis no more than his viz. of determination to good actions For all determination does infer a necessity that the thing determined should be as it is determined to be or an impossibility that the thing determined should not be as it is determined to be Rep. 3. If we must supply from the Hypoth major the term irresistibly to modifie the determination he opposes and we must understand by it compulsion or force we again concede the whole without any disadvantage to us And so we may rid our hands of it as an ignoble begging of the Question for that was incumbent on him to prove not to take for granted that our Predetermination imports a Coaction Mr. H's second Enthymeme is this To separate the malignity of an action intrinsecally evil is impossible p. 33. Ergo not to do such wicked actions to which the creature is determined is impossible Rep. 1. Granting his Antecedent for Arguments sake I cannot imagine how he will defend the immediate concurrence of God to all the actions of his creatures and so to sinful actions and so to those if there be any such as are in themselves evil against the charge of involving God in the production of sinful actions as such seeing by Divine immediate concurrence the intrinsecally evil action is as much Gods as mans action Baronius and Strangius who are as Heterodox as Mr. H. do both confess that it is very hard to shew how God may be freed from that charge when-as he co-operates with the creature to every sinful action Bar. Met. 98. D. 3. n. 72. Strang. de Vol. Dei p. 344 372. Though Mr. H. would lay the great difficulty and encumbrance infer'd upon our Religion only upon Predeterminative concourse to wicked actions Yet the Learned Amesius a Predeterminant tells us not without reason Deformitas moralis magis annexa videtur actui in exercito quam in applicatione ad agendum Cont. Grev. p. 189. i.e. Moral deformity seems more closely joined to action than to application unto action For an object may be innocently presented to the eye which may put a man upon action viz. unchast desires Rep. 2. We will grant the Antecedent ex animo because it does implicate that there should be any such action 'T is a received maxim Malum est in bono tanquam in subjecto i.e. Evil is in good as in its subject And Augustine's saying is well known and as well approved Ipsum quantulum-cunque esse bonum est quia summum esse bonum est De vera Rel. c. 34. i.e. Being it self how inconsiderable soever is good because the chiefest Being is good R. 3. We deny that there cannot be a separation of an action from the evil of it Of this separation there are many instances supposing Usury lawful which I will not now dispute I may lawfully take up money at use at Ten pounds per Cent. if my necessity require it when the Interest allowed by Law which to break in matters of publick benefit is sinful is but 6 l. A Christian Prince may urge the great Turk to swear to Articles of Peace though the former knows the latter will swear by his Mahomet These are instances of our concurrence to the actions of others in a remoter kind than God does concur to the actions of his creature as Mr. H. speaks in another case Post p. 33. And by the like reason may God Predeterminatively concur as Mr. H. delights to speak though not accurately to an action that is evil and yet not to the evil of it which the Learned Twisse illustrates by divers pretty similitudes An Horseman that puts on a lame horse to go is the cause of his motion not of his halting that proceeds from some hurt in
And that he may be found in every thing to have done as became him and most worthy of himself And what could be more so than to testifie his aversion to whatsoever is unholy his love of righteousness and complacency to be imitated herein together with his propension to make them happy who do imitate him p. 61. I take here but the sum of Mr. Howe 's words because they contain nothing controversal Reply Whether this Discourse affords us any new consideration or no yet we can claim the benefit of it in the fullest extent of it to Prescience as to Predetermination also 2. As to Gods sincerity the difficulty may still urge how it can stand with sincerity whereas that end also which fails viz. mans obedient compliance with Gods Declarations of his will p. 60. seems to have been most directly intended c. p. 65. To which Mr. Howe answers 1. That the publick Declarations of the Divine will do attain that very end in great part and as to many and are the successful means of obtaining it p. 66. Reply And so they do upon our Hypothesis who acknowledg God first infuses gracious habits into some and then determines the powers in which these habits reside to congenerous actions which yet excludes not the use of Gods Edicts as means of educing those actions which because they are vital and free passing from the Will upon a comparison made in the Vnderstanding between the Goodness of the Objects proposed to it do require a moral cause whereby the Agent may both understand the Object and by Arguments be induced to imbrace it as the Learned Parker observes Thes de Trad. Pecc ad vitam Th. 27. 2. Nor was it necessary that those who would obey should be sever'd from the rest and be dealt withal apart c. p. 67. Rep. This we also assent heartily unto 3. Nor was it necessary that effectual care should be taken that they should actually reach all and be applied to every individual person p. 67. Rep. Here is a strange loss we are put to for an Antecedent to the Relative They. The only one that I can meet with is publick declarations of the Divine will touching mans duty p. 66. and Divine Edicts p. 67. and I cannot fathom the reason of the denial of their necessity to their two ends by himself assigned Mans Obedience and the Decorum of the Divine Government at least if he means by them the Gospel as I gather from his after-discourse If he intends by his Relative They determinative influences to holy actions to which the nature of man is now viciously inclined as he elsewhere speaks Post p. 40 35 compar'd I cannot find that Antecedent in his whole Discourse foregoing yet the following passages might give a suspicious person some ground to pitch upon this latter for Mr. H's meaning And thus by messengers running from Nation to Nation some to communicate others to inquire after the tydings of the Gospel how easily and even naturally would the Gospel soon have spread it self through the world Let. p. 69. I confess that term naturally will not down with me for I have always seen cause to own Dr. Sibs's weighty observation in his Souls Conflict That though there are seeds of the Law yet there are none of the Gospel in man by nature But upon second thoughts to do Mr. H. all the right I can out of love to his person and the truth I find That the They refers to the Divine Edicts of the Gospel which he supposes not needful to be immediately by the Ministry but the transmission of it from those that have heard it published by them may suffice to others But to what end he expatiates upon this I do not know though I do what ill use Mr. John Goodwin in his Pagans debt and dowry makes of this very notion Sed meliora spero 4. Nor was it incongruous that God should provide by some extraordinary means that his gracious tenders might not finally be rejected by all Let. p. 74. Rep. Yet it seems not of such absolute necessity as I always conceived it to be if by the dispensations of God towards the whole community of mankind whereof he reckons instances and addes they might understand God to have favourable propensions towards them and that though they have offended him he is not their implacable enemy and might by his goodness be led to repentance Let. p. 75 77 compar'd For thus Mr. John Goodwin argues against the absolute necessity of the Gospel strictly taken And in Phrases so near that my fancy is ready to abuse me with a mistake that not J. H. but J. G. is now discoursing Rom. 2.4 The long-suffering of God and goodness of God are said to lead men to Repentance because they testifie according to a rational and clear interpretation a willingness and readiness in God to receive all such into grace and favour with himself who shall unfeignedly repent of their sins So Mr. Goodwin Pagans debt and dowry pag. 13. And he adds There is no other consideration but this at least none without this in respect whereof the patience and bountifulness of God can be said to lead i.e. to perswade or invite to repentance There is no motive or perswasive whereof sinners are capable unto repentance without hope of pardon upon repentance Id. Ib. And concludes you see it clear from the Scripture that even Heathen men and those that want the History of the Gospel have yet a sufficiency of means whereby to believe and so to prevent the wrath and indignation which is to come Mr. Goodwin Ib. p. 14. I must profess I am none of Mr. J. G's Proselytes who ever be nor was Mr. Obadiah Howe a most worthy person and kinsman of our Learned Antagonist who hath learnedly and largely confuted him in a Tract intituled significantly The Pagan Preacher silenced out of whom I shall transcribe his Answer to Mr. J. G's Explication of Rom. 2.4 of Heathens This second Chapter relates to the Jews whom he reprehends because by their Law they would condemn the Gentiles as sinners when they committed the same things But that the patience and goodness of God afforded to the Jews was without the word I think Mr. G. will not affirm which is the cause why the Apostle concludes the Jews under a great inexcusability because the ministry of the word superadded to the light of nature became not efficacious to restrain them from sin and from this very Argument he argues against the Jews v. 17 18. still supposing that these persons enjoying the patience of God v. 4. had the letter of the Gospel So far Mr. Ob. Howe p. 52. 5. As to those with whom Gods Methods succeed not well it is to be considered that he doth not apply himself to every or to any person immediately and severally after some such tenour of speech as this I know thee to be a profligate hopeless wretch and that thou wilt finally disregard
whatsoever I say to thee and consequently perish and become miserable But however though I foresee most certainly thou wilt not yet I entreat thee to hear and obey and live Let. p. 79. And afterwards What is endeavoured for the reducement of such is by substituted Ministers that know no more of the event than they do themselves p. 81. Rep. Nor doth God apply himself to sinners in such a tenour of speech with reference to Predetermination of those natural actions which because such need a cause acting efficiently for the production of them though he knows without special grace which to them he affords not a moral obliquity will adhere to them And it is as true that what God does for the reducement of them is by Ministers who know as little who are Predetermined to good and who to sinful actions as the Saints or Sinners so Predetermined Having discoursed thus more laxely Mr. H. proceeds to a more strict disquisition of two things 1. What may be alledged out of Gods word in reference to them that finally perish in their wickedness which can be thought not consistent with sincerity to have inserted upon the supposed foresight of so dismal an issue Let. p. 82. And he instances in Gods professing to will the salvation of all 1 Tim. 2.4 Not to desire the death of him that dieth Ezek. 18.32 Yea and professeth himself grieved that any perish Psalm 81.12 13. Ib. In answer to which Scripture in general besides many things said well he says That which Gods declarations do amount unto is c. That if they neglect to attend to these external discoveries of the word c. they are not to expect he should over-power them by a strong hand and save them against the continual disinclination of their own wills p. 89 90. Reply I am not able to make sense of the last words For I understand not what overcoming by a strong hand in a sinners case God can make use of that leaves the will under disinclination to salvation And they seem to be repugnant to another Clause referring to the same persons that they cannot promise themselves such power shall be used with them as shall finally overcome their averse disaffected hearts p. 90. 2. Mr. H. adds Whatsover extraordinary Acts God may do upon some to make them willing p. 90. Reply I am not well satisfied because I am not ignorant of the Arminians apprehension about Pauls Conversion that Mr. H. calls those Acts by which God makes some men willing extraordinary for though they are supernatural yet they are ordinary to all that are willing It seems to imply that some are made willing by ordinary acts and others by extraordinary And so it is an ill-sounding word 3. Mr. H. at last gives us the import of the above-cited Scripture That they really signifie the obedience and blessedness of those his Creatures that are capable thereof to be more pleasing and agreeable to his nature and will than that they should disobey and perish which is the utmost can be meant particularly by those words God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledg of the truth p. 93 94. Reply As these words sound they do not gratify my ear For I cannot understand that the Connexion of Disobedience and Destruction should not be as agreeable to Gods Will and Nature as the Connexion of Obedience and Salvation I take the import of 2 Cor. 2.15 We Apostles are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish that God takes pleasure in the perishing of unbelievers as well as in the saving of believers 2. Yet in sano sensu I admit them as the most learned and pious Davenant sometime Bishop of Salisbury explains the matter When God commandeth any thing which is good he unfeignedly liketh and loveth such actions and can do no other his own natural goodness and holiness terminating Voluntatem divinae complacentiae i. e. the will of divine Complacence unto all holy actions by whomsoever performed Animadv on Hoard p. 350. And Gods meaning when he offereth any grace to men is that they should perform such actions whereunto such grace conduceth and his meaning when he promiseth glory to any man if he believeth and perseveres is truly to perform it if he do so Id. pag. 353. And not to sever the learned Bishops sentiments To Mr. Hoards notion the same with Mr. Howes that mercy is more natural and pleasing to God than Vindicative Justice which is his strange work He doth not willingly afflict c. for which are quoted Mich. 7.18 Isa 28.21 Lam. 3.33 The Bishop replyes That is said to be natural and pleasing to God which comes originally from himself and is not an act depending upon the misdeserts of the Creature p. 206. As for Vindicative Justice it may be called a strange work because it is opus occasionatum i. e. a work occasioned by mans transgression p. 287. And once more to cite this eminent Divine The absolute liberty and supreme dominion which God hath in the preparing or not preparing of effectual grace wherein the absolute decrees of Election and non-Election do shew themselves is a thing as natural and pleasing to God as his mercy p. 287. 4. Mr. H. asserts That God doth so far really will the salvation of all as not to omit the doing that which may effect it if they be not neglectful of themselves but not so as to effect it by that extraordinary exertion of power which he thinks fit to employ upon some others Let. p. 105. Reply This must be mixed with a grain of salt If this omission of Gods refer only to the use of means for effecting mens salvation we grant that in genere mediorum God is not wanting to them that live under the Gospel-dispensations And in this sense God representing himself under the similitude of an Husbandman truly says of Israel What could have been done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it Isa 5.4 But if Mr. H. intends as the words seem to sound that salvation may be obtained by the use of means without that exertion of power which he calls extraordinary whereby that end is obtained in some I cannot take such an assertion upon his bare word I have been taught from my Childhood and see no cause to suspect the credulity of that age abused to draw me into a misbelief that such an exertion of power as whereby God raised Christ from the dead is universally necessary to make the means of salvation effectual to their end 5. Mr. H. professes his dislike of the common distinction of Voluntas beneplaciti signi in this present case viz. to explain how God wills the salvation of all and yet only of some under which such as coyned and those that have much used it have only rather I doubt not conceal'd a good meaning than expressed by it a bad one p. 106. Reply