things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned No Sir it is the peculiar work of the Spirit to regenerate and convert Lydia's heart was opened Acts 16. Mat. 13.3 Rom. 1.16 before she so diligently attended to Pauls words The word of God that brought forth fruit did not make the ground good but it was so before by the special working of that Spirit The word which is the power of God to salvation doth not make believers but God first makes them so by sanctifying of their natures and giving them to believe Phil. 1.29 The word of God in Regeneration hath no greater force or power then the word of the Prophets and Apostles had in raising of the dead which had no other operation then to be tanquam signum as a sign of the thing done or as a moral instrument for there is no lesser power requirable in the recovery of a poor soul from a spiritual death to a spiritual life then there is from a natural death to a natural life And therefore as it is Gods peculiar to raise from death to life natural so it is his alone prerogative to raise from a spiritual death to a spiritual life The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live Ioh. 5.25 Yea the same power is exerted in the work of Regeneration or the new creation as was at first in the work of the old creation 1 Cor. 4.6 no less then an hand of omnipotency in them both and therefore not communicable to any creature From all of which I shall hence infer that if it be Gods peculiar work to regenerate and not the word in the hearing of it and that Regeneration is principally necessary to give us ingress into heaven Joh. 3.3 Mat. 5.8 God may then as well regenerate infants by his secret power unsearchable to us though they neither hear nor understand as he doth those that are of riper years by so weak an instrument as the word and Gospel is which hath no such inherent power in and of it self Secondly this your assertion labours of another sickness viz. a false supposition that nothing but actual sins expose men to the danger of being cast into the lake of fire whereas the truth is That original sin or that hereditary pravity we brought with us into the world deriving it from our parents Psal 51.5 who conceived us in sin hath so much of filthiness and uncleanness in it that God may justly cast a new-born infant into the lake of fire for it unless it be washed clean by the blood of Jesus who is the alone way the truth the life Joh. 14.6 and through whose alone merits we have an access into the Holy of Holies into which place are admitted onely these whose names are written in the Lambs book of life Rev. 21.27 Luke 10.20 Rev. 20.15 whose names are written in heaven registred there in the eternal immutable decree of Gods election unto life all the rest whose names are not there recorded infants as well as others are cast into the lake of fire which is the second death But enough of this at present I shall be sure to meet you again more about this when you lay out your strength against original sinne Another thing which you give out in the nature of a reason why infants cannot be damned is viz. for that their not having of faith will never be charged upon them as sin Sir suppose I grant so much and so likewise what you produce out of Rom. 4.15 as a confirmation or rather as a reason of your reason for where no law is there is no transgression both may be very true as set disjunctively but as you have woven them both into one sentence they may not be true nor applicable to your purpose for herein you vary your terms that which you write takes notice of sin the text speaks of transgression wherein I conceive sin and transgression are not terms convertible for though every transgression of the law be a sin yet every sin is not a transgression of the law as in the case now before us for original sin though it be a sin properly and really yet it is not a transgression of the law as personally acted in and by the infants but as imputatively and as a defect of original righteousness So what you further say by way of illustration that there can be no law to infants as such and sin is not imputed where there is no law I grant you as to infants now in existence which law might require the exerting or putting out of any act or duty which their minority is uncapable to receive or to perform But I must withall tell you that as Adam as a publick person as a root and stock received Grace righteousness and holiness for him and his even for those in his loins so he received a law to him and his even the Covenant of works do this and live which law was incumbent not onely on Adam himself but likewise on all those that were in his loins So that infants now are born under a law and their want of original righteousness and that for the defect thereof their being conceived and born in sin and uncleanness shall be a deserving cause of their just condemnation What you bring forth in evidence to what you here aim at viz. Rom. 5.13 sin is not imputed where there is no law is so far from answering your desire that it cuts the throat of your assertion For the clearing whereof its expedient to search into the mind of the Spirit by the scope of the place The Apostle in this Chapter is prosecuting that grand point of Justification by faith in Christ and ver 11. laies down this that we have received attonement by him whence he makes this corollary ver 12. that as by the first Adam sin and death entred into the world so by Iesus Christ righteousness and life are restored to us But ver 13. he meets with an objection that sin is not imputed where there is no law where he argues after this manner If all have sinned in the loins of Adam then those likewise have sinned who lived before the law was given by Moses but before the law was given there could be no sin because where there is no law there is no transgression as Chap. 4.15 and therefore all have not sinned in Adam Now here the Apostle denies the assumption or minor proposition affirming the contrary that sin was before the law given by Moses constantly affirming that howsoever it was not imputed i. e. reckoned or accounted or reputed to be sin yet indeed and in truth sin was then in the world and this being of sin in the world before the law ver 14. he proves by the effect viz. death was then in the world and that all had sinned because that
we shall for the baptizing of infants And one caution more I desire to adde viz. that in the reading there be not sometimes a mistaking of that which is Tazwells for mine which yet I hope the sense will direct the understanding Reader to for else it is in many places not distinguishable either by difference of Characters nor by any other eminent mark These things thus premised Consider what I say 2 Tim. 2.7 and the Lord give thee understanding in all things J. R. The ERRATA PAge 1 Line 15. for ingenious read ingenuous p. 5. l. 36. for grave r. grand impostor p. 12. l. 16. for r. and. p. 15. l. 20. me r. we p. 17. l. 31 for delivered r. continued p. 18. l. 12. their 's r. yours p. 24. l. 22. equipend r. equipond p. 25. l. 6. after difficulty in your r. proof for the baptizing of women then we shall for p. 27 l. would r. wave p. 27. l. 15. Islington r. Osmington p. 31. l. 9. peribis nunquam r. redibis nunquam p. 41. l. 11. Faswell r. Tazwell p. 41. l. 29. objecto r. adjecto p. 44. l. 5. fumbles r. jumbles p. 45. l. 24. eternol r. external p. 57. l. 32. metti r. memento p. 59. l. 6. learners r. hearers p. 61. l. 29. seâ—t r. Close p. 62. l. 4. me r. one p. 63. l. 5. to wit r. to which p. 65. l. 29. certifie r. rectifie p. 67. l. 19. I curtail r. I shall curtail p. 67. l. 25. back r. bare p. 84. l. 11. for which r. but hath been p. 87. l. â— for a heavenly writ r. oh heavenly wide p. 92. l. 3. for refused r. refuted p. 94. l. 15. for much r. may p. 109. 11. Comma at understood and at consequently and for yet r. not p. 110. l. 27. for that r. the p. 115. l. 20. for affectati r. affectation p. 121. l. 40. then thus sin r. than thus to sin p. 133. l. 40. for rate r. rank p. 139. l. 18. for first r. force p. 139. l. 34. for child in infancy r. child dying in infancy p. 150. l. 17. for understanding r. undertaking p. 150. l. 24. for the word r. your words p. 251. l. 35. for to r. the p. 152. l. 14. for had preached r. had not preached p. 153. l. 38. for the r. that p. 156. l. 25. for those r. these p. 156. 36. for for r. from p. 162. l. 30. for infective r. infective quality p. 169. l. 5. for rom r. from p. 169. l. 15. for proposition r. position p. 197. antiquestion 12. to relate to Tazwels 6 Querie p. 203. l. 31. for indiscriminate r. indiscriminable p. 205. l. 8. for sin r. him p. 206. l. 44. for most r. mostly p. 208. l. 10. for truly r. onely Thomas Tazwells POSITIONS GOd did in all eternity before any thing was brought forth in order behold all things that should or would be as perfect as if they had then been in being God saw man created and man fallen Christ crucified and fallen man redeemed and also the means of salvation tendred God also saw some men embracing this means and some rejecting it as God saw some men embracing this means those he elected in Christ from the foundation of the world through sanctification of the Spirit to everlasting life So God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief yet haply not without the exact form of Godliness but denying the power those he reprobated to everlasting destruction from the foundation of the world Those whom God hath elected unto life and salvation shall never finally fall or come to condemnation the subtilty of Sathan the policie of man nor the corruption of nature shall never prevail against them Those whom God hath reprobated to condemnation shall never be saved Christs mercy and means shall never save them yet God is not the cause of mans condemnation neither Reprobation the cause of unbelief but mans destruction is of himself and unbelief of the devil All men are sometimes convinced of sin and the state of nature and are made alive by the work of the Spirit of grace to every man in the world God also giveth a Talent to every man and power to improve it but mans not improving it when receiving it with a power is the cause of mans destruction Christ hath redeemed all men from the first transgression and crossed the score of Adams sin yet the pollution of that sin is upon all men but not the condemnation also Adam did not fall for want of power but for consenting to Sathan not improving the power Christ hath laid his life and shed his bloud for every man in the world yet not intending thereby to save every man for Christ came to fulfill not to cross his Fathers Will and this is his Fathers Will never to save those whom he hath reprobated from eternity for disobedience and rebellion The first answer to Tho. Tazwells POSITIONS VVE cannot but wonder that the Grandees of this Nation have seemed as Acts 17.30 to wink at the spronting Errors of these times and not rather to have Cant. 12.16 killed the foxes while little and Esa 14.29 crusht the serpent in the root for doubtless they in their grave wisdoms do prudently foresee that such Meteors or Ignes fatui are more easily supprest by slightings and contempt then by strength of opposition neither will they honour the broachers or fomenters with any condigne punishment lest they should unjustly glory in a pretended persecution and so their rabble might the more increase under affectation of singularity for surely it is very visible to all exact observers that those who were the prime promoters incendiaries and blew the coals first of these strange opinions they have many of them either withdrawn from the heat of the contest and deserted the cause or else have changed their judgements or otherwise are so divided amongst themselves that many of them know not whom to follow whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas but leave their Conventicles to be gulled and deluded by the dregs of men such as wisemen would disdain Iob 30.1 to have set with the dogs of their slock an evident symptome that their kingdom is of no long time for standing for Matth. 12.25 If a kingdom c. and if Satan cast out Satan c. What particular opinions these fanatick spirits do maintain besides rebaptization I have been hitherto blest from entring into their secrets Gen. 49.6 until this week a friend of mine presented me with a dish of their crude and unsavoury Positions no better then Coloquintida That I may well say of them mors in olla 2 Kings 4.40 death is in the pot but I conceive it well bespeaks what qualified persons they are from whence they come Similes habent labra lactucas like lips like lettices They dropt I believe from the pen of a younger brother in profession so that I resolve to wink at small faults and
but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous Will who will do with his creature what he will do neither can any expostulate why hast thou done thus Esa 45.9 It is true that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but yet not the causes of their reprobation that is solely and singly in the good pleasure of his Will Ephes 1.5 which I prove by these Arguments 1. Arg. That which the holy Ghost in the Scripture ascribes unto the sole will and good pleasure of God that we are not to assign other causes to But the Scripture assigns reprobation solely to Gods will Therefore For proof of the minor proposition see these texts Rom. 7.18 whom he will he hardeneth ver 20 21. Nay but O man who art thou that replyest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour ver 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and make his power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted or made up for destruction Matth. 11.26 Even so O Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Matth. 10.15 Is it not lawful to do what I will with mine own ver 16. Many called few chosen Prov. 16.4 The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Rom. 9.11 12 13. for the children being not yet born ver 17. for this same purpose have I raised thee 2. Arg. That which is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation cannot be the cause of it But sin unbelief and rejecting the means is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation Therefore The major is as clear as the sun The minor proposition is proved from these texts Math. 11.25 26. I thank thee father c. for so it seemed good in thy sight He hid those things not outwardly but inwardly Ioh. 6.36 37. Christ to the Capernaites I said unto you that ye also have seen me believed not all that the father giveth me shall come to me signifying that they are not given to him of the father and therefore reprobated Ioh. 8.46 47. Christ to the Pharisees If I say the truth why do ye not believe me he that is of God heareth Gods word ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God i.e. ye are reprobates Ioh. 10.26 Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep i. e. not of the number of my elect Ioh. 12.39 40. Of the whole company of the Jews Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts viz. God according to his decree Rom. 9.18 whom he will he hardens and ver 33. Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence Rom. 11.7 8. the election hath obtained it the rest are hardened for God hath given them the spirit of slumber c. 1 Pet. 2.8 which stumble at the word being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed 3. Arg. If sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means of salvation are the onely causes why God reprobates any then there is no such mystery in the decree of reprobation neither are Gods waies herein so unsearchable and past finding out but that the true and undoubted cause may be assigned But yet they are mysterious and unsearchable See Rom. 9.14 What shall we say then is there unrighteousness with God God forbid Rom. 1.33 34. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellour 4. Arg. If the foresight of sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation then these absurdities will unavoidably follow 1. That no child dying in infancy can possibly be reprobated 2. Neither such Gentiles or Turks Indians or Salvages that never heard of Christ who never enjoyed the Gospel nor ever had the means tendred to them for how can they believe in him on whom they have not heard Rom. 10. and how can they reject that which was never tendred unto them as many nations in the world who are strangers from the life of God Ephe. 1.12 3. If the foresight of sin should be the cause of Reprobation then the elect should be equally lyable to the decree of reprobation as the Reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams transgression Rom. 9.21 22 23 24. Iohn 15.19 20. If ye were of the world c. Ephes 2.1 2 3. children of wrath as well as others Rom. 3.10 and there is none righteous no not one 4. Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.11 in not assigning sin to be the cause of Reprobation 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to those objections Rom. 9.13 14. The first is if God reprobated Esau because he hated him then he was unjust The second ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will For he might in one word have answered to both the objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both of Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. When they had done neither good nor evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Mal. 1.2 6. Hereby we confine Gods infinite soveraignty over his creatures to the narrow scantling of our subordinate power as though he might not do with his own what he lists without our controll and not make a vessel either of honour or of dishonour unless he were accountable to us for the reason of his so doing For the fourth and fifth Positions These may pass with a grain of Salt bating some impropriety in the expressions and I am not so at leisure to teach such men to express themselves after a Theological manner either in their teaching or writing For the sixth Thesis I must ingenuously confess it is such a Mystery or Paradox and so involved with seeming contradictions that I want an Oedipus to unriddle the meaning of it I have been a little acquainted with the opinions of the Pelagians Semipelagians Papists Arminians Socinians and Anabaptists and amongst them all can observe none of them jumping in with this mans judgement for thus he writes All men are sometimes convinced of sin and the state of nature What his meaning is by the state of nature I cannot divine If his sense be that every man is at one time or other convinced that by nature he is a child of wrath and disobedience and dead in trespasses and sins and so t is false for most men have not such convictions Next And are made alive by the works of the spirit by this all men should be
every man in the world In this likewise the novice leads me in a mist for if his meaning be that the death of Christ and the shedding of his bloud is sufficient for every man in the world but effectuall onely to those to whom it is intended then I joyn with him but if he be otherwise minded then the close of that Position trips up the heels of the former part But I could have heartily wisht that this Seraphical Doctor had not so magisterially dogmatized and after an Apostolical manner sat in his Cathedral Chair by delivering his dictates like an ipse dixit I say unto you but rathet that he had endeavoured to have proved out of the sacred Scriptures what he hath so crudely ventilated so might we better have tryed the spirits whether they be of God or no 1 Ioh. 4.1 Truly I do profess by what I find in these positions I cannot discern of what sect he is for by what he writes he is neither pure Pelagian Papist Arminian Socinian nor Anabaptist but a hotch-porch of them all jumbled together And that as it is written of Mahomet at the first he framed his Alchoran by the advice of Sergius the Monk a renagado partly of the Jews partly of the Christians and partly of the Gentiles opinions so hath this Evangelist composed his doctrinals So that in this we may see what fruits may be expected at Cockolds-pit and all such places of such illiterate and confused assemblies ex ungue leonâ—m ex pede Herculem If the blind lead the blind both must fall together into the ditch Matth. 15.14 But so it was in the Apostles time there arose such amongst them who desiring to be teachers 1 Tim. 1.7 understood not what they said themselves nor wherof they affirmed yea this was foreprophesied 2 Pet 2.1 that false teachers should arise up amongst them who should bring in damnable heresies but never so fully accomplisht as in these our dayes wherein many unheard of formerly and blasphemous opinions are daily ventituted under some specious appearances of truth and holiness The God of love and truth lead us into all truth So prayeth he that is the less then the least of all Saints James Rawson Short heads of the subsequent discourse THe title of the Pamphlet examined Page 1 2 The Preface examined 4 Toleration rightly stated 5 Magistrates power to interpose in matters of Religion 6 Bishops vindicated 7 Matth. 23.29 30. interpreted 8 Whether the doctrine of the Anabaptists be tolerable 9 Who are inconstant in their profession 11 2 Cor. 10.4 5. Examined 12 Eph. 6.11 12. Examined 13 Universal redemption offered to consideration 14 Isa 53.4 5 6. Interpreted 15 16 Psal 145.8 9. Cleared 17 Joh. 3.16 17. Opened 18 Rom. 5.18 19 2 Cor. 5.14 15. Interpreted 20 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Discussed 21 Tit. 2.11 Examined 22 Heb. 2.9 and 1 Pet. 3.9 Opened 23 Baptisme of Infants confirmed 24 c. Whether the Anabaptists be fixt to their principles page 27 Or at unity among themselves 28 Thom. Tazwells first position questioned 29 Whether the second position be not Pelagianisme 30 Ambiguity in the stating of the position 31 Psal 4.3 Explained 31 Who they be that are elected 32 Psal 37.9 c. Opened 34 Pro. 3.33 and Mar. 16.16 Discussed 34 Of the decrees of God 35 Of Gods foreknowledge and predestination 36 Of election 38 Of reprobation 39 My first Argument confirmed 40 Gods foreknowledge Independent 41 The pamphleter plowes with another mans heyfer page 42. As God decrees the end so likewise he decrees the means 43 Election to be distinguished from justification 44 Arminians make faith a foreseen cause of election page 45 c. Deut. 7.7 8. Expounded 48 Faith no foreseen cause of election 50 What place faith hath in justification 52 Rom. 9.1 c. ad ver 19. Analysed and interpreted page 53 c. The laws impotency to satisfie 57 What efficacy faith hath in justification 58 How God a respecter of persons to be understood 59 Absolute justification flows from Absolute election 60 Faith as much as works excluded from election 61 Gods alone will the cause of cause of election 62 Grace flows from the decree of election 63 Acts 13.48 Vindicated 64 c. Absurdities following foreseen faith in election 68 Other absurdities following that doctrine 69 What God did foresee in election 71 Marks of election no causes of election 72 Instrumental causes of salvation no causes of election 73 As God decreed the end so he decreed the means 74 Joh. 16.27 Explained 75 Of reprobation 76 Eph. 1.5 Discussed 77 Of the decree of election 78 Isa 45.9 Opened 79 No contradiction in what I do assert 80 What place Gods foresight in election and reprobation 81 God as he decrees the end so he decrees the means 82 The pamphleter begs the question 83 A twofold reprobation one before all time another in time 84 The pamphleter interferes with his own positions 85 Could Reprobates truly believe they might be saved 86 Reprobation includes both a denyal of the end and means of salvation 86 God the immediate worker of all spiritual graces 87 Sin foreseen not the cause of Reprobation 89 Sin the efflux not the effect of reprobation 90 Sin the consequent of reprobation 91 Our doctrine intrenches not on the divine attributes 92 Reprobation inforceth not to sin 93 A threefold necessity 94 Reprobation as by us stated not against the mercy of God 95 Nor against the truth of God 96 Ezek. 18.23 32. and 33.11 Explained 97 Absolute reprobation and exhortation to repentance argue no Hypocrisie in God 99 Absolute non election not against the wisdome of God 100 Isa 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Interpreted 101 God may expect the performance of our duty though we cannot do it 103 Matth. 11.25 26. Vindicated 104 What God doth in time he decreed to do before all time 105 What power we have to do good we have from God the redeemer 106 Those whom God decrees to save he decrees to save them by faith 108 Sin the cause of positive reprobation viz. of damnation 109 1 Pet. 2.8 Vindicated 111 c. Rom. 9.19 c. Analysed and interpreted 116 c. Thom. Tazwells uses upon the doctrine of reprobation 124 What use the Saints may make thereof 125 Though there be no external yet there is an internal cause of reprobation viz. the will of God 128 Arminian positions very aequivocal 129 Rom. 11.33 44. Vindicated 139 Mille narianism not inconsistent with the Articles of faith 132 Absurdities cleaving to Tho. Tazwells positions 132 Whether sin foreseen be the cause of reprobation 133 c. Whether Infants may have faith though not the use of faith 135 c. Whether any Infant can be damned 137 Infants elected or reprobated as well as others 138 c. Hope onely of such Infants as are within the covenant 140 The Spirit of God and not the word that doth regenerate 141 Rom. 4.15 and 5.13 Opened
142 Luk. 18.16 Explained 144 2 Cor. 5.10 and 1 Cor. 15.22 Opened 145 Ezek. 18.20 Discussed 146 Infants may have some faith 148 Mat. 18.6 Perverted 148 Rom. 10.18 and 16 25 26. Discussed 149 Christ not preachable to all but to whom he is sent 151 Many that never enjoyed any saving means 153 Gentiles judged by the covenant of works 154 No salvation to them without Christ 155 Nor have they any desires after Christ 157 Of original sin 158 c. Eph. 2.1 2 3. Discussed 162 Rom. 2.14 Explained 164 Rom. 1.31 Interpreted 165 What it is to be a child of wrath 167 The pamphleter confounds reprobation before time with that in time 169 How God is said to have hated Esau 170 How God may be said to hate without a cause 172 Sin may be a cause of temporal reprobation 173 Vain repetitions 174 The pamphleter toucheth not the matter in charge 175 According to the Arminians all may be saved or all may be damned 177 The decree as published may have a tendency to salvation 178 Means of grace not sufficiently extended to all 179 Whether a liberty to choose good 180 Deut. 39.19 Opened 181 Heb. 11.24 Luk. 10.42 Explained 182 Of personal election 183 2 Tim. 2.21 Discussed 184 God may punish though he be not provoked 185 No satisfactoriness in the teachings of the Anabaptists 186 Exotick expressions 188 The pamphleters Absurdities cannot be removed 189 The Conclusion 190 Gerizim and Ebal OR The absolute good pleasure of Gods most holy will to all the Sons of Adam Sir HAd you first consulted with that divine Oracle Pro. 3.5 Rom. 12.16 Prov. 3.5 Rom. 12.16 Pro. 26.12 Be not wise in your own conceit for there is more hope of a fool than of such a one you might perhaps have desisted from soaring above the clouds and thus to pry into Arcana imperii and to intrude your self as one of Gods Cabinet-Councel whereas your parts and gifts too well known considered you had need of milk your self Heb. 5.12 and not to give such strong meat unto your seduced Proselytes At least more corresponding would it have been to your present condition to have kept within your own sphear and if you had met with any temptation to more sublime speculations to have drawn back the reins with that ingenious acknowledgment I am no Prophet neither am I a Prophets son Amos 7.14 but I am an heard-man and a gatherer of wild figs. But probable it is you were tainted with that Epidemical disease a wanton itch of being a in print And whereas for the giving vent to that exuberant humour you could pitch upon no other object but my self to make your Antagonist I do though with much reluctancy as conscious to my own wants and imperfections undertake the defence of that truth which in this Pamphlet of yours you have much depraved and eclipsed by your false glosses and perverted interpretations and therein before I undertake the battering of your Castles in the air it will not be unseasonable to blow down your out-works Sir the Frontispice of your book is worded thus The free Grace of God to all the Sons of Adam vindicated Gen. 27.22 Sure your voice sounds like the voice of Jacob but I doubt your hands will prove like the hands of Esau you give a specious title which promiseth much howsoever you come off in matter of performance look you to that Grandia loquuntur inanes the emptiest barrels make the greatest sound parturiunt montes nascitur ridiculus mus But I pray Sir what mean you by the word Grace If you mean those natural outward and common Graces and so I joyn with you that they are Catholick and Universal Ps 145.9 Eccl 9.2 Mat. 5.45 Act. 17.28 for God is good to all and those outward things come alike to all He makes the same Sun to rise on the evill and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust for in him we live and move and have our being we see many Heathens to excell even Christians themselves in many morall vertues Even the wild Barbarians enjoy more plenty of gold have a fruitfuller soil than the choicest Christian Cain Judas Achitophel Simon Magus or cull out any other of the worst of Reprobats and tell me whether he doth not participate in some degree and measure of Gods free Grace and general love to mankind All that a man is hath or can do proceeding from free Grace and generall love and then I pray tell me whom have you in this to be your adversary you can find none in me But if you intend it of inward proper spiritual and special graces such as are Redemption effectual Vocation Justification of mens persons by faith in Christ and Sanctification of their natures by the renewing of the Holy Ghost and perseverance unto the end then I affirm that there is no such love of complacency in God unto the universality of mankind that any of these are communicated but to a peculiar people foreknown according to his eternall purpose But what is this to the dispute before us The controversie is about those glorious eternall immanent acts of Gods Election and Reprobation therein discriminating the universality of the world as your own positions do distinguish by parting them into two ranks or stations some elected some reprobated But your title page speaks it Gods free Grace to all the Sons of Adam I pray Sir the next volume you commit to the Press provide your self of a more Homogeneous title which may suit more adequately with the business in debate Your Title farther brags And the Arguments written by Mr James Rawson a national Minister for personal election confuted c. Virus crescit eundo what cannot this man do But ante victoriam noli cantare triumphum 1 King 20.11 Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off Confident I am that all those arguments by me produced will prove impregnable and cannon proof notwithstanding all those pot-guns of yours shot against them Next In your endeavours to answer my Papers your first adventure is upon the Proem whose language is thus I cannot much wonder that the Grandees of this nation c. Your answer speaks thus I must tell you that I do as little wonder as you that the Grandees of this Nation are not persecuting of people for their conscience in matters of Religion but I am perswaded the reason is because that doubtless they in their grave wisdomes have seen that such a practice in them that were before them being not a little deluded by your fathers the Bishops and their Adherents did thereby beat down the truth under the name of Heresie and doubtless they have learned that it is the Prerogative Royal of Jesus Christ to rule in the Consciences of men in the things which concern his own kingdom and that the wheat and the tares should grow together in the world
to election or Reprobation which are eternal acts before all time and these are transient acts being wrought in time For that of Mar. 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned I do readily acknowledge it a point declaratory of the Gospel for the way and means that God himself hath designed for the saving of souls but mark the manner of the discovery it saith He that believeth shall be saved but it saith not he that believeth shall be elected which is the business you are about It shewes that faith or believing is an ingredient and enters into the decree of the means conducing to the end which is salvation but it is not the decree it self of election which all along you shamefully confound jumbling together the decree and the means so that for want either of wit or will you do not at all distinguish between the Decree of election it self of saving a certain company which is the end and the decree of the execution of the means tending to that end And thus any one may see what a fair copy you have drawn of Gods decree of Election and Reprobation by such impertinent proofs which give no light at all to the point controverted Which doth much amaze me that a man that arrogates to himself to be a teacher of a selected company that shall make his brags as I have heard you have done that with his own hands he hath dipt so many should yet feed his over-credulous auditors with such extravagancies as these are Truly Sir if your luck be not better in your popular teachings then you are in this you will neither reap credit nor the people profit And unless you can bring more apposite texts of Scripture to prove your Doctrinals then you do here for the proof of your Polemicals you will make but blew work of it And whereas you say shew us a true copy of it if you can Sir for the satisfying you in this and that my procedure may be the more regular in what shal follow I conceive it will be no digression to give you a preliminary in brief Characters of the Decrees of God of Prescience of Predestination of Election and Reprobation 1. The decree of God is an action of God out of the counsell and purpose of his own will determining all things and all the circumstances and order of all things from eternity in himself certainly and unchangeably and yet freely Acts 2.23 and 4.28 and 11.18 For whatsoever either the creature doth or God about the creature that from eternity was decreed that it should be so done This decree of God we find it under several appellations in the Scripture sometimes styled the Counsel of God Acts 4.28 sometimes the determinate Counsel Acts 2.23 sometimes Good pleasure Ephes 1.9 sometimes Good pleasure of his will Ephes 1.5 sometimes the counsel of his will Ephes 1.11 sometimes the purpose of God Rom. 9.11 2 Tim. 1.9 sometimes foreknowledge of God Rom. 8.29 and 11.2 sometimes the will of God Rom. 9.18 Wherein yet we use that one and accustomed word of Decree to help our weak capacities as being the Judgement Counsel and Will of God which is indeed God himself willing and decreeing Not that we do conceive any ratiocination deliberation and collection from premises to conclusion proceeding from one thing to another which are usually incident to antecede the edicts and decrees of men no we dare not reduce God to such straits for what God herein doth it is by one single simple and eternal act of the will determining and decreeing what himself will do or permit to be done And for those decrees of God such is the freedom and liberty of that will of his which is himself willing that there can be assigned no cause at all either efficient meritorious or final without himself he being the primum movens which moveth all things and is moved of none But if we have a respect to the effects of those Decrees in the creature and so there may be assigned causes both efficient meritorious and final for so hath God decreed to confer salvation and glory on the elect by for and through the merit of Jesus Christ and so likewise eternally to punish the reprobate for their sin both of these to be manifested to the praise of his free grace and justice Having spoken thus of the decrees in general I proceed next to the foreknowledge of God as the effect following its cause I mean not that which is indefinitely called in the Schools simplicis intelligentiae which is the essential knowledge of God and which is extended to all things knowable both possible and impossible but that which is definite and intuitive called Scientia visionis and that is A certain and infallible knowledge of things which are to come to pass of this you may see Acts 15.18 Iob 28.24 Heb. 4.13 Psal 139.2 12. 2 Tim. 2.19 For whereas no forgetfulness can befall the Deity which by his decree he hath determined so is his foreknowledge certain Yet this foreknowledge is so to be understood not that it is dependent on the things that are to come to pass but meerly on the decree of God determining of the futurity of things and this is called practical foreknowledge But whereas all the decrees of God are as himself Immutable as Numb 23.23 1 Sam. 15.29 Psal 33.11 Gen. 14.24 27. Mal. 3.16 Heb. 6.17 as being acted by him that is most wise and Almighty and that this foreknowledge resting on this immutable decree is infallible Hence doth arise a double necessity of the futurition of things but both Hypothetical and conditional the one is a necessity of Immutability as in reference to the decree the other a necessity of infallibility as in reference to the foreknowledge this is clearly gathered out of Luke 24.26 27 44 46. and 1 Cor. 11.15 But this they have in respect of the first agent but in themselves and as by reason of secundary agents or causes they may still continue contingent and free The third in order is Predestination which I define to be an eternal immutable most wise and efficacious decree wherein God according to his meer good pleasure out of the whole lump of mankind fallen and lost in Adam hath decreed to save some by Jesus Christ the mediator to the praise of his most glorious Grace and the rest to leave in that miserable state and at the last for their sins to reward them with eternal punishment for the manifestation of his liberty and justice That this is dependent on the meer good pleasure of God see Matth. 11.26 Even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Luke 12.32 It is your fathers good pleasure to give you a kingdom 1 Thes 5.9 the Apostle there comprehends both Election and Reprobation in a few words He hath not appointed us unto wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Iesus Christ All which shall
tend to the glory of God for to that end was man created Prov. 16.4 Ephes 1.15 And therefore neither have the elect cause for which they should boast because what they do receive is of undeserved grace 1 Cor. 4.7 neither are those who are pretermitted cause to complain whiles they have but their deserved reward Rom. 9. the Potter having power over his lump of clay to make one vessel to honour another to dishonour That which hath the fourth place is Election which is not to be understood of an election to a civil or sacred place or office as 1 Sam. 10.24 Iohn 6.70 Nor of a people separated to a special Covenant as Deut. 4.37 Nor onely of such as were called to the outward profession of the Gospel whereof a Church may consist as 1 Cor. 1.27 But it is A personal definite and immutable separation of certain singular men from the rest of mankind and preordaining them to salvation by such means as it hath pleased him to appoint in his most wise decre Matth. 20.16 and 24.24 Mar. 13.20 Rom. 11.7 And means for the execution of this decree of election are Redemption by Jesus Christ effectual vocation justification by faith and sanctification joyned with perseverance Rom. 8.29 30. Eph. 1.4 1 Thess 5.9 1 Pet. 1.2 Act. 13.48 Tit. 1. 1. Phil. 1.6 In election Christ is the basis and head thereof Eph. 1.4 5. both in that he was designed by the Father as a Redeemer of the elect 2 Cor. 5.18 Esa 12.2 As also because that such so elected were given to Christ to be redeemed by him and to be brought unto glory Ioh. 17.6 and 10.16 So that Christ is inrolled in the decree of election not as a meritorious cause of it nor as the foundation thereof but as executing that decree and the meritorious cause of grace and glory to be conferred upon the elect according to the decree of God Faith likewise sanctification good works and perseverance are ingredients in the decree consequently as means ordained to the end by that decree but not antecedently as the foundation or causes upon foresight whereof our election doth depend For if upon the foresight of our faith or foreseeing who would believe or embracing of the means or continuance therein our election should depend then were it necessary that the same should be foreseen in us either as those graces or works wrought in us by our selves and of our own innate strength or else wrought in us onely by God and of his grace and gift alone If you l ' say they proceed as from our selves as from the innate activity and choice of our own free-will then have we whereof to boast and then have we made our selves to differ from others contrary to that of 1 Cor. 4.7 for what maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou didst not receive now if thou didst receive it what dost thou glory is if thou hadst not received it But if we have received that grace from God and that it be onely of his working in us to give us faith and repentance from dead works c. Then God hath decreed to give us those graces which since they are infallible means unto salvation therefore they are to be drawn and derived from infallible election wherin salvation is decreed unto us for the further clearing wherof consult these places Matth. 11.25 26. Luke 12.32 1 Tim. 1.9 Rom. 9.11 12. and 11.5 Eph. 1.4 Rom. 8.29 Ioh. 15.16 Acts 13.48 1 Cor. 7.25 Ioh. 6.37 and 8.47 2 Tim. 2.19 Matth. 24.24 1 Ioh. 2.19 The last proposed is Reprobation which is the eternal Immutable and most free decree of God wherein a certain company of men considered in an alike lump and mass of corruption and guilt with all others he hath decreed to pass them by and not to have mercy upon them neither to confer on them the means tending to salvation but leaving them in their sin whereinto they had cast themselves for the same sin to condemn them for the manifestation of his liberty and justice and power This reprobation by a metonymy is styled in Scripture Hatred Rom. 9.13 So the purpose of God Rom. 9.11 that determined counsel of God Acts 2.23 the good pleasure of God Mat. 12.25 26. And the Reprobates are called vessels of wrath fitted to destruction Rom. 9.22 men of old ordained to condemnation disobedient whereunto they were appointed 1 Pet. 2.8 Appointed unto wrath 1 Thess 5.9 wicked made for the day of evil Pro. 16.4 All which do argue that God is the efficient cause of Reprobation and that hell fire is prepared for such Goats as well as for the Devil and his Angels Matth. 25.41 that God must be the efficient cause of Reprobation as well as of election appears in this that as he elects i. e. decrees to save some so likewise he decrees to Reprobate i. e. to pass by and leave others and not elect them as Matth. 24.40 41. For else had not he fore-determined what to do with a great part of mankind but to have left them to an uncertain event which is unsuitable to his wisdome Now the act of God in Reprobating may be distinguished into a negative and privative act i.e. of not granting salvation nor conferring means of salvation and into an affirmative or positive act i. e. of inflicting damnation and of blinding and hardening After both these waies the Scripture sets forth Reprobation 1 Negatively Mat. 7.23 and 25.12 I know you not Ioh. 10.26 you are not of my sheep Ioh. 17.19 I pray not for the world Matth. 13.11 to them it is not given to know the mysteries of the kingdome of heaven 2 Affirmatively Rom. 9.13 Esau have I hated Rom. 9.22 vessels of wrath sitted to destruction Rom. 9.18 whom he will he hardens Ioh. 12.39 40. They could not believe because he had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts So that if it be demanded wherefore God when he saw all men in an alike condition sinners and children of wrath Reprobated some i. e. did not elect them or suffered not his face to shine on them as he did on others viz. those which he did elect no reason can be assigned for this but the absolute good pleasure of his will But if it be demanded why he doth not confer salvation on them or glorifie their persons in heaven but contrarily inflicts upon them eternal torments in hell here the cause is assigned to be their own sinnes Matth. 25.41 42. Go ye cursed into everlasting fire for I was hungry c. and Rom. 6.23 the wages of sin is death And therefore in the matter of Reprobation God is to be lookt upon partly as a sovereign who hath the sole power and dominion over his creature Psal 145.17 Gen. 18.25 and partly as a Judge who is righteous in all his waies and doth right to every man As a sovereigne and so according to his absolute power and liberty dependent on
his own will and accountable to none it is lawful for him to do what he will with his own c. Mat. 29.15 Rom. 11.35 As a just Judge and so he punisheth none but for sinne Rom. 1 32. 2 Thess 1.6 And thus having drawn you a fair copy of election and Predestination I am now at leisure to see what you will say to my first Argument which in forme is this If the rise of our election be sounded on the meer mercy and free grace of God then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing the means of salvation But it is founded in the meer mercy and free grace of God therefore not upon the foresight of the embracing the means To which you frame this answer The first proposition or Major he saith is unquestionable and that is all the proof that we have from him for it saying there is but one cause to produce the effect The Minor he bringeth Scripture for the proof of it the truth of which I do not question the Scriptures are Deut. 7.7 8. and 10.15 Matth. 20.15 Luk. 12.32 Rom. 9.11 18 21. Eph. 1.5 11. 2 Tim. 1.9 The Minor it appears you give fair quarter to and let it pass upon its paroll T is the major you quarrel at as having nothing to second it but this saying that there is but one cause to produce the effect and truly Sir I believe that might have been unquestionable to any but you and your comrades who do nodum in scirpo quaerere I had thought it might have past for unquestionable divinity that God is so jealous a God that he will not communicate his glory to any other and that if any act of Grace pass singly and solely from himself that then no other creature could have been a copartner with him and that if of grace then not of works which is nothing else but the embracing of the means And to that foundation which was laid before all time other foundation can no man lay then that is laid especially in time And that as to the foreknowledge of God or his foresight God doth not foresee any thing which he hath not decreed either efficaciously to do or permit to be done So that his foreknowledge should rest upon the decree and at no hand to depend on the things to be done but that all things depend upon that and that God did see nothing in their causes which he did not before see in his decree these I thought had been unquestionable truths till Thomas Faswel calls them into question pretending that though grace may be of free and meer mercy yet there may be a concurrence of mans actings in the embracing of the means And whence doth all this arise but from an embasing of the Majesty of God by measuring his corn by your bushel Isa 55.8 9. making his waies like our waies and his thoughts like our thoughts No Sir I would have you go to school and learn the vast difference between humane and divine knowledge humane knowledge doth depend upon the existence of things and things are the measure thereof but for divine knowledge that is the measure of things and things depend upon that not that on them And certainly unless this be granted the foundation of divine providence must needs come to wrack God could not hold his prerogative royal of being the first cause of all things yea second causes would be made independent in many acts yea consequently in all for how the second cause could work or be appointed to work without the concourse of the first cause it looks like contradictio in objecto Or how else could God certainly foresee such things to come to pass which are supposed onely to be foreseen and not withal to be provided for and preordained For as the things are so is the knowledge of the things and that which hath not certain causes of futurition cannot certainly be foreknown for certainly to foreknow what is not certainly to come to pass is to have a knowledge of a thing not as what it is but as what it is not and what will then become of Gods foreknowledge But whereto tends the designe of the adversary surely that an in let may be made and beds of roses troden out to introduce that great Diana the liberty of the will to choose or refuse what shall be presented to it notwithstanding all prescience or decree and to make that a â—oynt-share with God nay if not to have the greatest predominan y in the whole work of mans salvation so placing nature in the stead and room of grace but let God bâ— true and all men lyars For mine own sake yea even for mine own sake will I do it and I will not give my glory unto another Isa 48.12 You double your alarm against my Major thus But notwithstanding he setteth such a strong guard upon his Major saying it is unquestionable yet I must needs question the the mans meaning in the sequel or consequence of it Then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing the means of salvation Non veniunt e pharetris istae sagittae tuis Answ These notions were not darted out of a weavers shuttle Sir you are too well known then that any man can believe you that you can spit out Greek and speak in a dream of propositions Categorical Hypothetical antecedent consequent Major Minor sequel c. It was not the Serpent that spoke but the Devil in the Serpent Judg. 14.18 Doubtless you plough with another mans heifer Not that I atttribute any such excellency to the piece for as it will appear it is full gorged with abundance of falsities incongruities inconsistencies that no profest Scholler might own it and therefore what Davus soever it was that was your confederate he thought it best to lie coucht under the shadow of your wing and so make you his Bellerophon his packhorse to bear all his absurdities shame and scorn and so you must for I know none else that will proceed as you do Now if his meaning be that God doth not at all respect the embracing of the means of salvation then it is by me denyed for although mans believing and obeying the Gospel or embracing the means of salvation be not to be accounted of as a motive incentive or a procuring ground or cause for which God elects men and women to eternal life yet it hath been the good will and pleasure of our God through his loving kindness and freeness of his grace even when he was at liberty and might have left mankind in that lost and perishing condition that mans sinne had brought him into and have been just in so doing but I say it hath been his pleasure when he was at liberty to engage himself by purpose and decree to elect justifie and save all those men and women that did or should in time embrace the means of salvation which from before the foundation of the world he did intend
the purpose and therefore to clear the point between us I shall give you a brief Analysis of this part of that chapter From the 1. ver to the 20. of it is comprised a prophesie of deliverance to the people of Israel from the captivity of Babylon In the 6 first verses this is declared that God will do it That which was the main obstruction which hindered the work was the murmuring of the people that they were so long in captivity as though that God had dealt unjustly with them in suffering the Babylonians to oppress them so long Against this God asserts his own justice partly from the baseness and vileness of them that did so murmur partly from the Majesty of him against whom they did murmur both of which he illustrates by two examples one was feigned where is brought in the potsheard contending with his maker ver 9. woe unto him that striveth with his maker let the potsheard strive with the potsheards of the earth shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it what makest thou or thy work he hath no hands Wherein expostulating with the murmuring Israelites because he suffered their captivity so long he vindicates his own power and sovereignty over all his creatures the work of his hands and therefore that he hath a free disposing power over them to do with them what shall seeme good in his own eyes They were but as clay in the hands of the potter base vile contemptible compared with God their maker fram'd of a lump of earth and therefore if the potter have so much power when he hath made a vessel to dash it in pieces hath not God much more power to dispose of his own fabricke without a dispute had with sinful flesh and to be made obnoxious to render an acount for his so doing And I pray wise Sir revise my writing again and see whether this text of Isa is not most apposite to prove so much as I intended it for which howsoever it was not specifically to Reprobation in terminis yet it clearly proves the absolute sovereignty and power that God hath over all his creatures that he hath made to put them into what condition he shall please without any replication to be made by the creature he is Lord Paramount of our lives estates and fortunes and hath the Keyes both of Hell and death Rev. 1.18 and as he is Lord of his creatures may dash in pieces and send to hell the greatest majesty on earth without the control of any Job 9.12 who can hinder him or who shall say unto him what dost thou And did I cite that text to any other purpose then to prove this absolute sovereignty as most expresly it doth notwithstanding your put blind eyes could not discern it That which follows is a chip of the same block and hath as little marrow in it as this which is before where you write And how this which he hath here set down will agree together I shall leave to reasonable men to judge viz. That there is no other ground or reason assigned for Reprobation either of Sin unbelief or rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy will and yet say it is true that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments Answ Sir I shall with as much confidence expose my self to the censure of any reasonable men whether there be any inconsistency or not rather a sweet harmony between those two assertions viz. That there is no other ground or reason assignable for Reprobation but the meer good pleasure of Gods will and that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments If these two positions be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why had not your wisdome assigned where the irreconâ—ileable discord did lye Judg. 7.22 1. If they are like those forelorn Midianites that sheathed their swords in each others bowels and like Iacob and Esau trip up the heels one of another why had not you like another Solomon determined the controversie Hos 12. 1 King 4.16 but leave things thus as you found them and so to the judgement of reasonable men And surely Sir if you be a man of reason whereof your writings give me cause to doubt I must tel you that your supposed error either must be in the first assertion viz. That there is no other ground or reason assigned for Reprobation either of Sin or unbelief or the rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy will and this is but Idem per idem a trifling of words or barely without proof of contradiction to deny it is but petitio principii a bare and base begging of the question Or else it must be comprehended in this viz. That sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the proper and meritorious causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments which so far as I perceive by you neither of us do deny And yet I must put in some caution because you are so apt to misunderstand 1. That Gods foresight of sin unbelief and rejecting of the means which he is no waies bound to prevent is not affirmed to be a cause why this man rather then another is not elected it is only as a certain note and infallible consequent of men not elected Causa probationis non rei ipsius And whereas I do assert that negative Reprobation which is Gods absolute eternal and immutable decree of not electing depends only on Gods free pleasure as he is Lord and Soveraign over all his creatures and may annihilate all or do with them else whatsoever he pleaseth Yet damning or decreeing such persons to hell and eternal torments being an act of Judiciary power and proceeding according to the tenor of the revealed Gospel that never proceeds according to the forementioned good pleasure but is suited according to mens several actions and demerits 2. I do not affirm that this decree doth impose any necessity upon the non-elect or reprobated that they should unavoydably sin or that it excludes all such persons from all possible means of salvation that so they may justly and immutably be damned Onely I assert that together with this free good pleasure of non election or reprobation God foreknoweth that such persons not elected or reprobated wil out of the freedom of their own wills neglect and abuse such means of their salvation and thereby commit such sins as for which so foreseen of God is unto him a just cause of their damnation whereby he will glorifie himself in the manifestation of his justice upon them In short I do readily acknowledge that God as he adjudicates none to eternal torments but sinners unbelievers and rejecters of the means so hath he not decreed to adjudge any but such unto hell and eternal
torments from both of which it follows that sin and unbelief is the cause of the adjudication to hell and eternal torments and that by the decree of God but is by no means the cause of the decree it self that singly proceeds from his good pleasure And as it is an undoubted truth that God as he never saves any adult person but such as are penitent and studious of good works so he hath not decreed to save any but such so qualified with repentance and good works whence we argue that repentance and good works are truly the causes of salvation 2 Thess 2.13 and that by the decree of God who hath from the beginning chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth but it doth not thence follow that repentance and good works are causes of the decree for upon that account election should be dependent not onely upon faith foreseen as you would have it but likewise upon good works as antecedent to it which hitherto for ought I see you have not that impudence to affirme The like must be said of reprobation That as he never damns or decrees to torment and adult person but such as are impenitent unbelievers and rejecters of the means so he hath not decreed to damn any but such so qualified and whence the like Argument may likewise be taken up that impenitent unbelief and rejecting of the means are truly the causes of damnation Heb. 11.6 Heb. 12.14 and that by the decree of God who hath declared that without faith it is impossible to please him and that without holiness no man shall see the Lord But it doth not thence follow that impenitence unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the causes of the decree reprobates were not sinners at least in existence when the decree of non election or reprobation first pâ—â— upon them which was from all eternity as the elect were not penitents at the first instant of their election in the mean time God hath not decreed to adjudge any but sinners and unbelievers unto eternal torments as he hath not decreed to reward any with eternal life but penitents For what God doth or permitteth to be done in time the same and no otherwise hath God decreed to be done or permitted to be done before all time so that the prevision of sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means did no more antecede negative reprobation then the prevision of repentance and good works did antecede the decree of election So that I hope reasonable men will or may now judge that I have reconciled the enmity that your dim deluded sight had imagined and broken down that partition-wall which your Panick fears raised between these two positions and by the good hand of God have so reconciled your supposed difference between them that they go neer like Hippocrates twinnes hard â—n hand together though that the one ordine naturae not temporis have a priority before the other to which the last is subservient So that now I am at liberty to attend to what you will say to my first Argument which is this That which the holy Ghost in Scripture ascribes to the sole will and good pleasure of God that we are not to assigne to other causes But the Scripture assignes reprobation soley to Gods will Therefore To which you answer His Major proposition he bringeth nothing at all to prove for proof of his Minor he alledgeth these Texts Rom. 9.18 20 21 22. Mat. 11.25 Matth. 20.15 16. Rom. 9.11 12 13 17. Answ to which I answer The Scriptures which he quoteth and all that he can find in all the book of God cannot prove his argument for it is false in the Minor proposition therfore the Scripture cannot prove it for 1 Ioh. 2.21 no lye is of the truth although the Scripture doth speake of the will of God as a cause concerned in mans reprobation in having his eyes blinded and his heart hardned and the like yet the Scripture doth not assign it solely and singly to the will of God without assigning it to any other cause but on the contrary it doth assign the continuance in sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means of salvation as a cause thereof Answ I pray learned Sir what need I prove the Major that is unquestionable even to you i. e. would you have me beat the ayre and fight against mine own shadow No Sir t is the Minor that sticks in your sides so that you cannot breath out any one thing in a probable way of contradiction to any one of those texts by me alledged Yet with a face as full of impudence as ignorance you adventure to say but do not to which I answer c. This passage of this Doctor-like undertaker calls to my mind a Doctor of Oxford whom I well did know and to this day he is well remembred for it by some who in an University sermon of his falling upon a point of controversie wherein he found Bellarmine his adversary uttered words to this effect I will saith he confute him in two words mentiris Bellarmine and marke I pray whether this Gentleman tread not in the same steps he begs the question by saying it is false therfore the Scripture cannot prove it And what doth he do less than give the lye to the Spirit of truth when by his own confession the Scripture ascribes reprobation to the will of God which though afterwards he palliates by saying that it doth not assigne it solely to the will of God but that sin unbelief are concomitant causes yet he might have shewed some ingenuity in alledging of such places of Scripture which had done as he did say that so there might have been some appearance of an answer and not that Pythagoras-like his ipse dixit should be taken for currant coyne when as I am certaine it is but counterfeit but to give the lye and that to his betters as I am informed is as ordinary a dish with him as his dayly bread Well Sir but to attend your procedure which is thus But whereas he saith that sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but not the causes of Reprobation I do understand that the decree of God which was before time resteth for the ground thereof more peculiarly in the will of God without assigning other causes to it than reprobation it self which is the execution of the same purpose and decree of God in time â—â—en and where the continuance in sin and unbeleif and the rejecting of the means of salvation is found in men Answ Here like a Sorbon Doctor speaking ex cathedra you tender your simple sense of the decrees of God wherein your mistake is supposing that we confound the decrees of God with the execution of those decrees which is not ours which hath been your errour all along For this reprobation which I
phrasifie it in order to their everlasting good that then it is in the power of that mans freewill to accept or refuse of that means so tendered whereas this is a heavenly writ from the truth of Gods revealed will in the Scriptures God in his eternal purpose hath denyed decreed not to give to such the use of that freedom to good which was lost in Adam 2 Cor. 3.5 Phil. 2.13 so that now we are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God who worketh in us both to will and to do according to his good pleasure Joh. 6.44 Phil. 1.29 1 Pet. 1.21 Tit. 1.3 and no man can come unto Christ except God the Father draw him So that when a man believes it is given him to believe and faith is the gift of God Eph. 2.8 and peculiar to the elect And so likewise it is God that gives repentance unto Israel Act. 5.31 and so he grants it to the Gentiles Act. 11.18 2 Tim. 2.25 Now tell me in sober sadness how it is in right reason imaginable that God will give these things which in his eternal purpose he hath decreed not to give but to leave them in their own lost and ruined condition for the manifestation of his glory when he shall render justice upon them according to their demerits They are held as captives to the devil fast coopt up in his prison 2. Tim. 2.26 Isa 45.13 so that unless the Lord by his almighty power shall let go those captives and open the prison door and proclaim liberty unto them they have not so much as a will to help themselves Isa 61.1 1 Cor. 2.14 for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned And in vain it is to talk of a day of grace Deut. 3.6 Act. 16.14 Ezek. 36.26 Ezek. 11.19 Psal 110.3 and means of salvation for except the Lord circumcise the heart and open it and pour in his spirit and cause them to walk in his statutes and take away their stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh and of an unwilling people make them to become a willing people in the day of his power all the outward means in the world though never so powerful and effectual elsewhere when God is pleased to adde a blessing to it yet without this particular operation of the Spirit of God inwardly enlightning inclining perswading new molding and new creating and sanctifying the inner man all the outward actings do become like water spilt on the ground 2 Sam. 14.14 2 Cor. 3.6 It is but a dead letter it cannot work that which it hath not in it and of it self It is onely the finger and almighty power of God that must effect it And now you seem to make a retreat or be at a stand for thus you write But I shall forbear to proceed any further in this place by way of proof because it will fall in to be spoken to more at large in answer to his following arguments in which I shall have occasion to shew the plain sense of those Scriptures in Rom. 9. and others that have the same sound with them which are mustered up for the proof of every Argument Answ In good sooth Sir if you like a chieftain maintain your cause no better then already you have begun and if you acquit not your self with more dexterity in the routing or discharging of my mustered forces now in the rere otherwise then you have done in the van surely the Infantry of the Anabaptists will coâ— you little thanks I am confident they will never inforce that honour upon you as to make you the Defender of their faith You conclude this paragraph thus In which I shall by the help of the most high God make it appear that Gods act of Reprobation in time in hardening the hearts of men giving unto them the Spirit of slumber eies that they should not see and ears that they should not hear breaking them off from their olive tree hiding the things which did belong unto their peace from their eyes that they could not attain unto the law of righteousness giving them up to their own hearts lust and to all uncleanness and vile affections and to a reprobate mind and the like cometh not upon men meerly solely singly and alone by the will of God as the onely and alone cause without assigning any other thing as a cause thereof but that these things come upon men as the just and righteous judgement of God upon them for their continuing in sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means as aforesaid Answ Noble Sir take it not amiss that here again I pull you by the sleeve and tell you that you are like a stragling sheep making a frivolous digression from the matter in contest keep your wits about you and mind this that our dispute is about reprobation before all time and your deviation here is by a discourse of Reprobation in time wherein we little differ Onely I must informe you of a mistake in you in this likewise in conceiving that there can be no decree of God of leaving men to the liberty of their own wills in committing of sin that can be antecedent to the guilt of actual sin I pray kind Sir be pleased out of your vast knowledge to inform me what foregoing or foreseen sin was there in our first Parents Adam and Eve for which God out of his vindictive Justice did give them over to the liberty of their own wills and so suffered them to eat of the forbidden fruit thereby breaking the most holy and righteous law of God Or those non-elect Angels who are now reserved in everlasting chains under darkness Jud. 6. what antecedent sin can there be imaginable to that their first sin for which they were forced to leave their own habitation and were delivered unto chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgement 2 Pet. 2.4 And what I say of these the like may be spoken of all the non-elected there is not any one sin that the heard of Reprobates ever did or shall commit but that Gods decree of suffering them to fall into those very same sins is antedated infinitely before any such sin is acted Though I shall withall confess that in the very Reprobates God often in a judiciary way punisheth sin with sin turning malum culpae into malum poenae and so Vons avez to my first Argument Your next motion of course is to my second Argument which is thus That which is the efflux and consequence of Reprobation cannot be the cause of it but sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the efflux and consequence of Reprobation Therefore The Major is as clear as the Sun The Minor is proved by these Texts Matth. 11.25 26. Ioh. 6.36 37. Ioh. 8.36 37.
Ioh. 10.26 Ioh. 12.39 40. Rom. 9.18 33. Rom. 11.7 8. 1 Pet. 2.8 Whereunto you say To which I answer first by distingushing upon his Major proposition and to enquire into his meaning therein now if he mean by Reprobation the decree of God before time distinct from Reprobation in time or Rom. 1.28 Gods giving them over to a reprobate mind which is the execution of the decree then I deny that sin and unbelief is the effect of it for God is so far from decreeing and appointing men to commit sin or that sin is an effect that cometh to pass by his decree and appointment that he doth not so much as tempt any man to sin as we may see Iam. 1.13 yea the Apostle Iames is so far from laying sin upon Gods decree as if that should be the cause that should produce such an effect as sin and unbelief that he saith v. 14. that every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and inticed and then v. 15. he saith when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death By which we may see that the Apostle doth not make Gods decree the cause of sin but that indeed which is the cause which bringeth it forth is even lust Quem recitas meus est Sed male dum recitas incipit esse tuus Answ Here were matter for you to work upon indeed if I would own the Argument as it is by you thus mistated and truly I do not well know how this error crept in as you have thus translated my second Argument whether you lookt upon it with a squint eye or a wry neck and so had a mind to pervert both the words and sense of it but I am sure in mine own written paper which one alone and no more I ever had which is now in my custody where as your pamphlet hath it That which is the effect and consequent of Reprobation is and so should be That which is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation which one word of effect for efflux doth much vary the case and overthrows at least silenceth a great part if not all what you have said against it for I utterly disown the word effect I know sin followes negative Reprobation or non-election not as an effect the cause but as the consequent flowing from and following its antecedent and therefore I protest against the word as spurious and illegitimate and no brood of my brain But yet if cause may be lookt upon in the latitude it is many times used and taken for I see not but that in a large sense Reprobation may be said to be a cause of sin viz. causa sine qua non for had there not been such a negative reprobation or non-election as the mother sin at least actual sin had never been born nor brought into the world as the daughter Had God elected all at least had not God decreed to permit the sin of Adam and of his posterity he had not permitted it at all for whatsoever he purposed to do or permitted to be done in time the same he did decree before all time so to do or to permit to be done and if he had not permitted sin at all and so decreed to permit it sin would never have been but it must have been hindred But I insist not upon this but apply my self to that member of your distinction of Reprobation viz. that which is before all time Wherein for so much as is contended for by you in this paragraph if I may gratifie you in it I will sâ—bscribe unto it abating me but this that whereas you say lust is the cause of sin I say the devil combining with the corruption of mans nature which is originally and totally depraved and hath little of other proper and innate quality but to sin and so I come to the other member of your distinction which is worded thus Secondly if by Reprobation he meaneth the act or execution of Gods decree in time which is Gods giving up of people to their own hearts lust and to a Reprobate mind as aforesaid then also we find that Gods act in the first place is not the cause of mans sin but mans disobedience in the first place is the cause why God doth execute the same as his just and righteous judgement upon them for their continuance in sin c. as it is expressed in this Position as appeareth Psal 81.11 12. Rom. 1.22 23 24 25 26 27 28. and yet I do not deny but sin and unbelief may be the effect and consequence of Reprobation in this sense as mens delaying and not coming in while the door is open is the cause of the door being shut against them and the door being shut against them is the cause of their abiding still without Wherefore strive to enter in at the straite gate before the good man of the house be risen up and hath shut to the door Luke 13.24 25. While it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Answ I wonder why you should think I meant it of Reprobation in time which is not in the decree about which our controversie is but onely the execution of the decree though this be your practise yet I use no such extravagancies as to run from the question which is onely about Reprobation before all time and therefore this requiring no other answer I proceed to that where you hit the nail on the head for thus you write But I do partly believe that his meaning by reprobation in his argument is that which is generally held amongst them That Gods will and decree before any thing was brought forth in order or before man had any being is the onely and alone cause of Reprobation and so consequently of sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation and that no other fruits at any time can be brought forth by them notwithstanding all that they can do but that these things must unavoydably follow they being bound up thereunto by the decree of God and that which doth make me inclinable to believe that his meaning is so is because I find his Arguments tend much to the maintaining of such a thing Answ All this I stedfastly believe saving an ill-favoured expression that is interwoven viz. That being bound up thereunto by the decree of God which in my subsequent discourse shall be clearly refused But as though that in thus affirming I had maintained some formidable doctrine abhorrent to the Churches of the Saints he seems to bless himself from it thus But as I tender the honour and glory of God in the exaltation of his Psal 145.8 9. tender mercies over all his works and the purity of that truth and sincerity that is in himself together with his faithfulness in his upright and sincere dealings towards the sons of men and also when I think upon the excellency of
his wisdome I cannot but stand up in detestation of such a doctrine which striketh at the very being of these attributes in God Answ Alas Reverend Sir have I incurred crimen laesae majestatis that you seem so passionate or is it onely an affected garbe of one of your Hypocritical raptures No Sir I doubt not evidently to make it so appear that our doctrine dorh not in the least degree intrench upon any of the Divine attributes but that it gives to the most High God the honour due unto his name by exalting him infinitely beyond all the creation shewing their necessary dependance on him in all they have do or hope to enjoy Whereas your Doctrine whatsoever offers and fair pretences it makes yet t is no better then Iaels bottle of milk to Sisera Judg. 4.19 when ready to perish with thirst she administers withal a nayle and with a hammer beats it into his temples for howsoever you make a fair flourish of vindicating the free grace of God yet the issue of all tends to this namely to usher in that mincing minion free-wil so to set her cheek by jowle by God himself neither are you contented with this alone but that in those grand determinations of mans salvation or damnation you plainly give the casting voyce to her so that the result of all must be as she will please to accept or refuse grace offered so that all the while you will make God as an Idle spectator till she hath been pleased to interpose her umpirage and yet all of which must be suspended untill the moment of death for according unto your principles which unto me is a paradox Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet dici beatus What prejudices you muster up as in defiance and detestation of our Doctrine you do reduce unto three heads as striking at as you vainly imagine first the mercy secondly the truth thirdly the wisdome of God but all of these are built on one and the same false and rotten foundation and therfore the labour is not so great as to lay it all even with the ground and for the original of it to return it to hell where it was first forged I shall then in your own order wait upon you in your march and so examine what you have to say for your self and cause which begins thus First if God hath by an absolute decree brought forth such an effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means of salvation so as the greatest part of men must be cast into the lake of fire which is the second death for doing nothing but what they must do by the decree of God and cannot do otherwise then where is the tender mercy of our God which is over all his works Answ My good friend I must tell you that we utterly abjure that which you infer as a sequel of our doctrine and for answer unto yours say that this which his companions the other two seeming gravamens are all alike grounded on a false hypothesis wherein you discover a gross mistake conceiving that non-election or negative Reprobation draws along with it an invincible necessity of committing of sin or that it doth determine mans will to sin either by compulsion or necessity for which such so reprobated are afterwards condemned but no such inferences can be drawn from our opinions We say the negative will of God is no cause at all of mans sin or misery but his own positive will is the cause both of his wickedness and of his wretchedness He is the true and principal cause of any effect or event who imployeth his faculties and endeavours to bring it into being and not he who onely resolveth not to hinder such evill effects though he foresee they will come into being if he prevent them not The infallible prevision of God seeth from all eternity the actions of men and their ends and yet this maketh not the modus agendi to be necessary or compulsory but leaveth the agent most free as if he had never foreseen it so that the absolute decree of not giving faith final perseverance and eternal life unto the non-elect which he is no waies bound to do howsoever it deny them that grace which would effectually and infallibly make them bring forth fruits meet for repentance Mat. 3.8 yet it depriveth them not of their own natural freedome and liberty neither doth it necessitate compel or constrain them unto any their unbelief or committing or continuing in sin T is he and he alone or chiefly may well be said to be invincibly drawn into sin and plunged into and cast into the like of fire who fights against sin with all his strength and striveth to avoid damnation And yet by the overmastring power of another is thrust into the one and hurld into the other which the consciences of the most wicked in the world can tell them that there is no such forcing power in non-election or reprobation Yea the non-elect Angels which are now Devils in hell cannot upon their non-election charge God that either their transgression or damnation was invincibly inforced upon them they indeavouring to escape it Take a view of any of the men of the world whom you much conceive may be ranked among the number of such castawaies and therein see whether the decree of reprobation had any such influence upon their outward wiâ—ked actions that they might say for excuse they were necessitated thereunto The decree of reprobation did not compel or necessitate Cain to the murtherous act of the killing of his brother neither was there any obligation upon Absalom incestuously to defile his fathers Concubines Neither did it unavoydably inforce Iudas to the selling and betraying of his Master all these sinful actions and all the like committed by other the like reprobates proceed meerly out of their own election having a power whereby they might have abstained from the committing of them And therefore my kind neighbour to help you one of this mire that you sink not into grosser absurdities as it is too incident to those of your Tribe who open every casement to entertain all your new lights though many of them prove but ignes fatui It will be expedient to take notice of a threefold necessity which may have a dependency upon a subject person and by means whereof a man may be said that he must do so and that he cannot do otherwise There is a necessity of immutability a necessity of infallibility and a necessity of coaction or compulsion I shall explain the terms I call that a necessity of immutability which doth befal all such things as are appointed by the eternal and immutable decree of God for God cannot change his counsel but it must of necessity come to pass Psal 33.11 The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever and the thoughts of his heart to all generations Mal. 3.6 I am the Lord I change not Secondly necessity of
infallibility is that whereby God doth certainly and infallibly foresee the futurition of all things for whereas the foreknowledge of God cannot be deceived as resting on an immutable decree therefore whatsoever he necessarily foreknoweth the same must necessarily come to pass Act. 15.18 known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world Thirdly necessity of coaction or compulsion is that wherein any patient by violence is compelled by an external agent to do this or that which otherwise he is unwilling to do so Matth. 27.32 they compelled Simon to bear the cross of Christ so Luk. 14.23 at the great supper the guests are compelled to go in that the house might be filled so Acts 26.11 Paul compelled some to blaspheme These things thus premised I do hence infer that if the decree of God did produce such an effect as from a proper cause thereof as the continuance in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation by way of coaction or compulsion so that though they would they could not do otherwise then well might you fall into that admiration Where is the tender mercy of our God! But the decree of God leaves not men under such necessity of continuance in sin c. as though it either compelled men or sollicited any unto sinning but those that sin sin as voluntarily and sin is acted as freely by them according to their own perverse wills and desires as though there were no such decree or foresight of God at all And yet it is very true that sins do come to pass according to the decree of God by a necessity first of immutability in as much as they are permitted determined directed and limited by the eternal decree of God which is as himself immutable Secondly by a necessity of infallibility in as much as the foreknowledge of God concerning such future things cannot be deceived But they do by no means come to pass by any decree of God necessarily inforcing infusing perswading or soliciting to sin But Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum all of your complexion are not equally capacitated to digest such notions and therefore Qui potest capere capiat he that is able to receive it let him receive it If these speculations be too sublime for your thick noddle blame not me for it And for that portion of Scripture by you cited it hath come under consideration already and hath received a full answer pag. 17. to which I must refer the Reader onely I shall adde this That non-election or negative Reprobation doth not contract the mercy of God into such strait terms but that every man in the world hath some share in it though not an equal share And if Gods mercy and love may be understood secundum effectum and not secundum affectum I would have you find out any creature in the world which hath conferred so many and so great effects of mercy and love upon his young ones as God did upon Cain Iudas or any other Reprobate and then I le give you leave to say that our Doctrine of Reprobation is destructive to the tender mercies of God No Sir the decree of Reprobation as it relates to the permission of sin in those non-elected argues no want at all of mercy in God though it import a denegation of some mercies even the top and height and bowels of his tender mercies which God had he been so pleased might have bestowed on them but Ratinabiliter negatur quod nulla ratione debetur and with this I shall relax my shoulders from the burden of this gravamen and so proceed to the next which is but the second part to the same tune For thus you write Secondly If God hath brought forth such an effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. by his decree before man had any being so as that the greatest part of men must be eternally damned for doing but what they must do and cannot neither ever could do otherwise Then where is the truth of God who hath said Ezek. 18.23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die and not that he should turn from his waies and live Now if this man should undertake to resolve this question and be true to his own principles he must say there can be no other reason assigned for it either of sin or unbelief and the rejecting of the means but meerly the good will and pleasure of God But God himself whose word I shall believe before this mans arguments hath said Ezek. 18.32 I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth And if this be not sufficient yet lest men should distrust him he confirmeth it in Ezek. 33.11 say unto them As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure at all in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye why will ye dye Oh house of Israel Answ Let there be a transposition of the words mercy for truth in these two gravamens and then see whether the subject matter be not the very same I must therefore desire the Reader to receive satisfaction unto this from that before written which howsoever calculated for the meridian of mercy yet may generally serve as an Antidote against all his Gravamens There remains therefore little else to be done as to this onely to examine his texts of Scripture wherein he insists much upon such expressions that the Lord hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth or in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live c. Now the mind of the Prophet in this place is to stir up such as had declined from God to returne unto him by true repentance and because their iniquities were so many and their offences so great that justly they might have despaired of remission mercy and grace therefore doth the Prophet for the better assuring of those that should repent affirm that God delighteth not in nor willeth the death of the wicked but of what wicked doth the Prophet speak this Doubtless of such wicked that truly should repent and in the death of such wicked God doth not nor never will delight But he delighteth to be known a God that sheweth mercy grace and favour to such as unfeignedly call for and desire the same how grievous soever their former offences have been But such as continue obstinate in their impiety have no part nor portion in these precious promises for them will God destroy and them will he thrust by the power of his word into that fire that never shall be quenched Secondly suppose I say that the death spoken of here is to be extended no further then a temporal death and I am sure it is more then you are ever able to prove that properly and directly it can be applied to eternal death and what will that avail you then as to matter of damnation Thirdly t is true
God wills not the death of the wicked with a desire of destroying or that he delights in the destruction vexation or perdition of such creatures neither would he it or would effect or cause it if it were nothing else but a naked destruction or perdition But he wills it and works it if they do not repent and delights in it as it is the punishment of sin and a vindictive act of divine Justice and work of God for God hath pleasure in all his works The destruction and ruine of Babylon is called his pleasure Isa 48.14 he will do his pleasure on Babylon and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans and Prov. 1.26 I will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh and Ezek. 5.13 thus shall mine anger be accomplished and I will cause my fury to rest upon them and I will be comforted But to this you make some additions saying But now if God have so disposed of those that live and die in sin and unbelief as that they never could do otherwise because of that decree of God which was before they had any being then I say what truth were there in all those showes of love that come from God in saying as he liveth he delighteth not in the death of the wicked c. were it not dissembling false dealing and hypocrisie as bad as can be found in the worst of men But I have better thoughts of God and so I trust hath every sincere soul that truly feareth God Rom. 3.4 Yea let God be true and every man a liar as it is written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and mightest overcome when thou art judged Answ I shall onely take notice in this Paragraph of what this learned man writes that if there should be such a decree of God which did so necessitate men that they must do so and could not do otherwise and yet to say that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked were not this dissembling and false dealing and hypocritical as bad as can be found in the worst of men Horresâ—o referens Sir in this you shoot much besides the mark we suppose no such decree of God so necessitating any man by way of coaction or compulsion but that every man that lives and dies in sin and unbelief might have lived and died in a better condition if their own corrupt wills had not freely carried them on to such exorbitancies Reprobatio aeterna nihil ponit in reprobato The eternal act of Gods non-election insists infuses no sinful acts or qualifications and therefore every aberrancy or deficiency that is found in man as in reference to his obedience unto the most holy and righteous law of God cannot in the least degree be put upon the account of the decree of non-election but must be reduced onely to the malignant will of man totally depraved and deprived of the glory of God And to what you say as to matter of dissembling and Hypocrisie this is that which I say that if God should as his ultimate end by an immutable decree determine and appoint a man to sin or by an irresistible power plunge a man into a course of sinning and in the mean time make a protestation that he delights not in the death of the wicked here you may say were dissembling indeed But when God hath decreed to create a man in righteousness and true holiness and then to leave him to the liberty of his own will though in the mean time he know that being so left to himself he must unavoidably fall and that he hath decreed to permit him to fall for the manifestation of his justice which fall will draw after it many other gross sins and for which at the last to give him the full wages of all his unrighteousness here is no false dealing nor hypocrisie though when he is so fallen God do require the exerting of those graces wherewith he had at first endowed him and which he wilfully deprived himself of The confiding creditor is not to be blamed nor charged for want of pity who having lent some money to his neighbour who spends it all and squanders it away in prodigality and lasciviousness if when his time of payment comes he expects a return of his money and for want thereof casts and debtor into prison He that hath wilfully made himself either blind or lame who can bemoan such a mans condition For those expressions so obvious in the Scripture setting forth Gods not delighting in the death of the wicked it may be inferred thence that their death and damnation are not things primarily well pleasing to God but it were ill concluded that God must become a hypocrite and a dissembler if he have eternally decreed to permit them to incurre death and damnation by their own default Gods ultimate and primary end in the non-election or Reprobation of some is mainly to raise glory to his great name by making his power and justice to be known and not that he creates a man on purpose to destroy him But enough if not too much hath been spoken about this already I shall now proceed to the examination of his last gravamen which is of the same import with the former onely it hath pleased this Merchant-venturer to clothe it in a distinct livery diffeâ—ing little in substance from his fellowes but onely in language whi h is this Again thirdly If Gods decree of Reprobation before man had any being doth produce or bring forth such an effect or consequence as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. so as that men cannot neither ever could repent or believe the Gospel to the saving of their souls nor do that which God hath required to be done in order to the obtaining of the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life then where is the wisdom of God Is it not below the wisdom that is in the men of the world which do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles they do not wait in expectation of grapes where they plant nothing but brambles neither do they look for a harvest of Wheat in the field in the which they sow nothing but Tares for if they should so do and also complain against the brambles because they brought not forth grapes and against the field because it brought not forth Wheat would it not be folly in them judge ye that have understanding Answ In answer to which to prevent the nauseousness of a vain repetition I am inforced to crave the Readers patience to revile the answer to the first Gravamen which will supply the place of a Catholicon or universal antidote against all the grievances he can muster up in prejudice of our Doctrine of non-election or Reprobation where he shall be abundantly satisfied that the decree of God is no cause producing any such effect as sin and unbelief neither doth the decree obicem ponere so that by reason thereof men cannot repent it onely denies
the supply of those graces without which they cannot expect such graces necessary to salvation But I wonder much what vertigo possessed this mans brains when he writes thus of the wisdome of God Is it not below the wisdome that is in men of the world c. do they expect grapes when they plant nothing but brambles do they look for an harvest of wheat in that field in which they sow nothing but tares c. Reverend Sir be serious and tell me who own such a doctrine as teacheth that God plants brambles and soweth tares No Sir for the brambles and tares they were never of Gods planting and sowing but the envious man i. e. the Devil did it and mans nature freely contributed assent unto it we say with Solomon Eccles 7.29 God made man righteous but they have found out many inventions The decree of reprobation implants no evil what it finds not but it doth onely deny to remove that evil that it doth find God in that decree sows no tares but as a righteous Judge he appoints the tares to be bound in bundles and cast into the fire and now let those that have understanding judge what nerves or sinews there are in this your crimination Neither is there much more in that of yours which follows thus But God that excelleth in wisdome doth not so read and consider Isa 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. and see what the Lord himself saith ver 4. what could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes See also vers 7. and he looked for judgment but behold oppression for righteousness but behold a cry See also Ier. 2.21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine wholly a right seed how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me Answ But I pray kind Sir what would you infer from these places by you alledged for you have drawn no conclusion thence but suspend it wholly upon the readers good liking and therefore by your good licence I will take the boldness to thrust my sickle into your harvest and thence glean these not inforced consectaries 1. That here hence the doctrine of absolute non-election or negative reprobation is strongly confirmed in that those who are so reprobated notwithstanding all the outward means used towards them yet they will not cannot believe or repent but continue in their sins 2. That nothing more on Gods part could be expected either of desert or of right then what he had done to his vineyard onely this that God did do more to that part of the vineyard which he did make fruitful then towards that part which remained barren and that in order to and that antecedently to its fruitfulness 3. That something more was necessary to the conversion of them that were not converted it manifestly appears from hence because that God beyond that which was common to all made a reservation of some according to the election of grace Rom. 9.19 and 11.4 5. viz. by taking away the vail from off their hearts 2 Cor. 3.45 Isa 25.7 and by giving of them a new heart and a new Spirit and writing his laws in their heart Ier. 31.33 Ezek. 11.19 and 36.26 27. 4. That howsoever it be taken yet might God well demand of those unprofitable and disobedient people what could he do more then he had done that he might make them fruitful 1. Because he owed them no more nor so much in exact justice though he might have done more of meer grace and favour 2. Because those means already used were the chiefest in respect of outward means 3. Because they had not done so much as by reason of the means they both ought and might have done 4. Because that none of them herein appealing to their own consciences had askt any thing more of God which he had not granted to them And this I hope will be satisfactory to the ingenuous and from hence I could willingly proceed to his exceptions against my third argument and pass a slur upon some of his frivolous objections and answers wherein he doth onely verba dare wasts time and spoils clean paper with nothing but vapour and smoke But because it may be pretended 1 Cor. 3.12 that there was something substantial in it what wood hay stubble I can find in it I will bring it to the fire that it may be burnt The first objection is thus languaged But it may be objected that God knew that such effects would follow notwithstanding and therefore he could not wait in expectation of better things Answ I deny not but that God in his foreknowledge did know what would come to pass and doth know what men will do before they come to act and yet nothing as from God in respect of his foreknowledge or decree before man had any being doth necessitate or is the cause that doth produce any such effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. and therefore I say that the oppression and unrighteousness that was committed by the house of Israel and men of Iudah was not unknown unto God before it was â—ommitted or that it came to pass without or contrary to his knowledge but it was brought forth directly contrary to the mean that God used towards them or afforded unto them which was of such a nature and tendency had it not been abused to b ing foâ—th those good things that God said he looked so but the contrary was b oâ—ght forth by them and upon this aâ—co m iâ— is th t the Lord hath said to Israel Isa 65. 2. I have stâ—eâ—câ—ed forth mâ— hands all the day unto a rebellious people which wâ—â—â—â— in away that was not good after their own thoughts Yea so â—â— w â—th â—â—ouâ—in â—â—â—ce in â—n from being the effect of Gods de râ—â— of reprobation from before the foundation of the world that he plainly saith Ier. 19.5 that he commanded it not nor spake it neither came it into his mind Answ My very good friend what you say as that nothing in the decree of Reprobation did necessitate or was the cause that doth produce any such effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. I yield you as to cause and likewise to necessity so far as to co-action and compulsion But as before I have affirmed as it was a decree of the immutable wil of God which changeth not and proceeding likewise from his prescience resting on that decree and so I say again that it was necessary necessitate immutabilitatis et infallibilitatis that such things would follow notwithstanding expectation of better things which word expectation is used by the Prophet but by an anthropopathy after the manner of men for our better apprehension which signifies nothing else but that God expects and requires from us what our debt and duty is which yet nevertheless is done without any frustration of
his end though that be not done which he requireth of us What you write of the means that they were of such a nature and tendency had they not been abused to bring forth those good things that God said he looked for c. I grant it true in respect of the outward means viz. soyle fruitful place fenced stones gathered choycest vine planted tower built and a wine-press in it But all these were but outward graces common to all the Israelites alike for there was that unum necessarium wanting viz. the inward working of his holy spirit in their hearts by changing of their natures and making of them new creatures taking away their stony hearts and instead thereof giving of them hearts of flesh Ezek. 11.19 and 26.26 without which all the other outward means though elevated to the top of Pisgah will prove altogether ineffectual Your progress holds yet further after this manner But that it doth sometimes seem good in the sight of God to hide the things concerning the kingdome of God and the name of Jesus from the wise and prudent men of this world according to the Scripture by him quoted out of Matth. 11.25 26. I freely grant as he did hide these things from the men of Corazin Bethsaida and Capernaum as a great woe unto them or as the just and righteous judgement of God upon them because they repented not for proof thereof read ver 20. and so downwards Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done Because they repented not and it doth appear that as mighty works were done amongst them and great means given forth of God by Jesus Christ unto them the greater is their condemnation because they embraced it not Answ I wonder Sir what your meaning is to take cognisance of a text of Scripttre by me quoted and yet not to give the least colour of answer to it but onely to pervert the scope of the place and the truth of the thing 1. The scope of that portion of Scripture is an expression of a consolation wherein Christ supports himself as in reference to the Incredulity of the Jews The consolation is raised from the good pleasure of Gods will which had so appointed it It seemed so good unto thee which you altogether obscure without taking notice of it 2. The truth of the thing is by you concealed which rests principally in the distinguishing of persons into two ranks and that arising meerly from the will of God it so seemed good unto him 1. Because to some it is said that it is revealad to others not and that not so much by the preaching of the Gospel for that was common to them both alike but by the inward illumination of their minds by the spirit of God 2. Because the discrimination that is made in the rendring of it to some and hiding of it from others is attributed to Gods separating those parties in the decree of election and reprobation 3. The prime and chief cause of that separation is placed in the good pleasure of Gods will which is the alone foundation and cause of election and non-election Eph. 1.4 5. Rom. 2.11 c. And upon this account was it that the place was by me quoted and so by you slubbered over And the like fair dealing I find in that which followes in your English thus And thus I do confess that God giveth to men the spirit of slumber darkeneth and blindeth their eyes not outwardly but inwardly as this man hath said and also hardeneth and maketh fat their heart but not from before the foundation of the world or from eternity as some do vainly imagine but as the just and righteous judgement of God upon them in time when they come to shut their own eyes and harden their own hearts against the truth in their day of grace see the words of Christ Luk. 19.42 saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Also read and consider well for the better clearing of this truth Ps 81.11 to the end Luk. 13.34 35. Rom. 1.24 to the end and mind well the 26. ver for this cause God also gave them them up to vile affections and also ver 28. and even as they did not like to believe God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind And in this sense I do not deny but that sin unbelief may be an effect and consequence of reprobation but this reprobation or being given over of God to a rep obate mind is not solely and singly to be ascribed to the will or decree of God from before the foâ—ndation of the world without any other ground or cause being assigned thereunto by the holy Spirit in the Scripture for there we may see that mans default in not improving what he hath received oâ— may obtain if he be not wanting to himself in good eaâ—nest to seek the grace that God doth so freely tender to the sons of men by Jesus Christ in the Gospel is a cause of it Answ Sir you that have such rare notions who ere did imagine that God from eternity should give men up to a spirit of slumber darkness and blindness of mind that he should harden and make fat hearts T is but one of your slanders which your dull-sighted proselytes will to easily swallow Yet this I do affirm that what you say that God doth all these things in time as a just and righteous judgement So I say all these things did God decree that he would do or permit to be done before all time for there is no new Immanent act in God but all whatsoever he in time doth or that he doth permit others to do those very samethings are so decreed by God to be done and likewise so decreed to be permitted to be done by others Ruminate on this and for the rest I may dismiss without contradiction having not much to say to reprobation in time Your next objection that you make to your self is this Obj. But this tendeth to the exaltation of the creature Ans That indeed is that false report that is cast upon us in these dayes and upon the truth that we profess but I know not what gâ—ound they have for it except it be this because we sometime use the word self in our speaking or writing but upon that acâ—ount they may as well say that Peter was a Free-willer or one that exalted the creature because he said Acts 2.40 save your selves from this untoward generation and also they may as well charge the same upon Paul because he said 1 Tim. 4.16 Take heed unto thy self and to thy doctrine continue in them for in so doing thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee But we are so far from setting up any wisdome strength or power of our own that we do aâ—knowledge that we 1 Cor. 4.7 have
upright but he hath sought out many inventions Eccles 7.29 Answ Grave Seignior to what you say that I deduce from the Scripture that God doth elect men in Jesus Christ to eternal life without any respect had to faith or the use of means I pray point out the place where either I or any man else have vented such stuffe if you cannot blame me not to charge you for bearing of false witness against your neighbour yet this both my self and others constantly do affirm that in the decree of election God hath no respect at all to faith or use of means as a motive incentive or cause why he should elect one rather then another but yet in that decree those whom he sets his love upon to appoint them to salvation those he doth decree that they shall be saved by faith in his Son and by exercising of such means as he hath or will appoint in his word To what you do insert by way of concession although they do exclude the works of the law wholly in that thing Sir this is your mistake as I have told you of it before For I would have you to learn this from me if your pride be not too great that where works of the law are excluded and faith required that is onely meant in the business of Justification and not to be meant about the matter of election for in the cause of election both faith and use of means are as much excluded from having any casting voice at all as well as the works of the law yet this to be understood excluded as antecedently to election but not as consequently excluded as from being a means cause or motive of the decree but yet excluded as from being of a consequent means for the execution of the decree for as so works are as necessary to salvation as faith it self for Heb. 12.14 without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Nor is there any more truth in that which follows that we should collect from that portion of Scripture that the Reprobation of persons to everlasting destruction proceeds solely and singly from the will of God but this is that we do affirm that God did not elect some but past by them and left them in their lost condition and this was simply and singly from the same will whereby he elected the rest and that for the sin whereinto they had irrecoverably cast themselves which would unavoydably fetter them and make them obnoxious to all other sort of sins for those same sins I say at the last to condeme them and who can in this expostulate against the justice of God For Ismael Esau Pharaoh whom the Spirit of God makes instances of non-election or reprobation they were by the decree of God which is his will or good pleasure left in or past by in that corrupt mass of perdition out of which the Lord determined not to deliver them nor to supply them with grace sufficient for their salvation and this was from all eternity before they were in existence concerning which our dispute is which as yet you do not meddle withal but onely about reprobation in time concerning which I have no cause to contend but shall readily acknowledge that when these men came to be in being they in their several generations were led away by their own lusts which as they did flow from that principle of their non-election so one sin in Gods justice might be the cause of another sin You make your progress thus But it is found in Scripture that Gods way in making vessels of dishonour is in respect of what he doth by men in time when they come to have a being and so it appeareth from that similitude of the potter Ier. 18.3 4. Then went I down to the potters house and behold he wrought a work on the wheels and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter so he made it again another vessel as seemed good to the potter to make it and we do find that God doth not apply the parable or similitude to any work that he did in the first creation or before man had a being but he doth apply it to his dealing with men in time when they have a being for saith the Lord by the Prophet ver 5 6. O house of Israel note the house of Israel was a people then in being and yet were not at that time made vessels of dishonour or given over of God to their own destruction but God pleadeth from that similitude that he had power and also wo ld do it if they did walk stubbornly against him which accordingly came to pass for saith the Lord by the Prophet ver 11. Behold I frame evil against you and devise a device against you return ye now every one from his evil way and make your wayes and your doings good and they say there is no hope but we will walk after our own devices c. ver 12. and more for the clearing of this you may find if you read chap. 19. and especially mind the 15. ver the words are these Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel Behold I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it because they hardened their necks that they might not hear my words Answ My friend why this of the Apostle Rom. 9. must necessarily be relative to any other place but immediately from that inspiration of the Holy Ghost I am assured you can bring no cogent reason for it T is true the margin of the Bible gives a hint of some such parallel places of the like import but it doth nor thence follow that the interpretation of the one must be concluded to be the sense of the other But if any man in this list to be contentions to make it relative then surely it must rather be to that in Isa 45.9 as I could evidently make it to appear if it were necessary and then all what this Gentleman hath said to that of Ier. 18.3 4. must needs fall to the ground where I have nothing to say either to him or it the strength of my Argument being nothing at all concerned in it What is in this paragraph spoken as to vessels of dishonour I shal by and by meet with that in the Analysing of this 9. to the Rom. and in the mean time proceed to attend to what you farther say And this is that which is pleaded for in Rom. 9. that God hath power and also it is his will to harden the hearts and blind the eyes or darken the understandings of those that will not obey the truth in their day of grace when light is held forth unto them as it came to pass upon the Jews as the just and righteous judgement of God upon them Luk. 19.44 Because they knew not the time of their visitation Rom. 9.32 Because they sought it not by saith and Rom. 11.20 Because of
counsel hath decreed appointed to permit in the manner to come to pass But you have another bout with this text and say But secondly I do therefore affirme that the disobedience o◠unbelievers is in not doing of that which they should do by the appointment of God and as some of the former translations 〈◊〉 read being disobedient to that whereon they were set and if this man do but look on his Greek Testament and say no otherwise o◠this text then in his own conscience he judgeth to be the clea◠sense of it as he is freely willing to answer the same before the great and righteous Iudge the Lord Iesus at his appearing when he shall sit upon the throne of his glory Then I am perswaded that he will say no otherwise of it Answ Sir in answer to this your conclusive cathedral gloss viz. that the disobedience of unbelievers is in not doing of that which they should do by the appointment of God I must tell you it is very luxuriant and corrupts the text and perverts the whole scope of the Holy Ghost and sense of the words both of which according to the mind of the Spirit and given in before I need not to repeat it The word which the Translators here render disobedient is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies an unperswaded person an incredulous unbelieving and refractory person that wil give no assent unto that which he hears And now I pray learn me one lesson In what Grammatical construction can these words whereunto they were appointed have any manner of relation but onely unto their antecedent disobedient or unbelieving and not to any implicit command or injunction of God as it is by you feigned And then it must necessarily carry this Interpretation being disobedient unperswaded or incredulous unto which their disobedience misperswasion or incredulity they were before hand even from all eternity predetermined predestinated or appointed of God But that which followes of yours puts me into a wonder as it was to the Jews concerning Christ Ioh. 7.15 How knoweth this man Letters or Learning as it is in the Margin having never learned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I suppose you are not a pretender to any Enthusiastical raptures as if you could speak any exotick languages as by an immediate divine inspiration which you never learned as one in London once did in my hearing pretending a miraculous gift in his speaking of Hebrew and Greek he being no scholar but let that pass and him too that set you on this buz which onely makes a noise but comes to nothing For those former translations you mention which render the words being disobedient to that whereon they were set I have not met with any such and therefore leave them to their own sense But upon your proposal and heavy charge thereon I have surveyed the original the words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it properly signifies as I said before a person unperswaded not believing and for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereon you lay the stress of your interpretation if we shall follow the usual sense of the holy Ghost in divers other such like places it cannot in any other fair construction be rendred then Appointed ordained viz. by the decree of God and so is the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usually taken as Ioh. 15.16 I have chosen you and ordained you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 1 Thes 5.9 God hath not appointed us to wrath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now why you should tread in a path by your self and wave the best received Interpretation I know no cogent reason for it but that you have a vain affectati-of singularity Nor indeed much would it conduce to your purpose had you your desire in this sense of the word but such men as you are when they can no wayes evade the power of the Spirit speaking in any Scripture then they fall to their wrenches and turnings and doubles as the Hate doth when she is hard hunted and in danger to be taken and can find no other way to escape and therefore I will leave you to your vain subterfuges and attend to what you further say Object But the objection that usually is made against this is grounded upon Rom. 9.19 20. Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will Nay but O man who art thou that repliest against God c. Now that which some do infer from it is That God doth Reprobate men to eternal destruction without assigning or ascribing any other thing to be the cause of it but the will of God as this man doth in his argument Answ To which I answer that there is no need at all for men to dispute with God so as to demand of him a ground or cause of mans Reprobation for he hath shewed them the things of himself by the things that are made even his eternal power and God-head so that they are without excuse Rom. 1.20 and hath shewed sufficiently in the Scripture that the rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief is the cause of it as hath been already proved and yet I shall by the help and assistance of God endeavour to make it more plain for consider that the people that Paul speaks to in these words Thou wilt say unto me why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will c. were the Iews which notwithstanding all that God did publish and declare unto them by Jesus Christ and by his Apostles first tendring unto them the choice and precious mercies of himself in his Son Christ that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Ierusalem and so it was declared unto them Acts 4.10 11 12. that there was no other name under heaven given among men whereby they must be saved but onely by the name of Iesus of Nazareth whom they had crucified whom God hath raised from the dead Which is the stone that was set at nought by the builders the Iews yea this truth was plainly declared by Paul also in Acts 13. from ver 16. to ver 46. and he applying his speech to the men of Israel and children of the seed of Abraham in the conclusion thereof ver 38 39. saith these words Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses Beware therefore saith he ver 40 41. Lest that come upon you whsch is spoken of in the Prophets Behold ye despisers and wonder and perish for I work a work in your dayes which ye shall or see Hab. 1.5 will in no wise believe though a man declare it unto you and by this it may solely be concluded that Paul was not of
that mind that those people or any other people whatsoever were appointed or designed of God by his purpose and decree from before the foundation of the world that unavoidably they must and can do no other but despise Jesus Christ and the means of salvation by him for if he had been of that mind then certainly he would not have bad them beware or take heed of that which they could not help But notwithstanding this ver 45. they speak against those things which were spoken by Paul contradicting and blaspheming and although through Jesus Christ was preached unto them the forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses yet as they had said before that they were Moses disciples Ioh. 9.28 29. and they knew that God spoke by Moses but as for this fellow we know not whence he is so yet they were resolved to dwell upon the law of Moses together with being children of the stock and seed of Abraham according to the flesh for justification in the sight of God and to the very same people Paul speaketh Rom. 2.17 18 c. saying Behold thou art called a Iew and restest in the law and makest thy boast of God and knowest his will and approvest the things that are more excellent being instructed out of the law and art confident that thou thy self art a guide of the blind a light of them which are in darkness and to those people he speaketh also Rom. 9. at the beginning and so forward saying in ver 7 8. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called that is saith he they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of God but the children of the Promise are counted for the seed And this he proveth in shewing that Ismael the son of the bond-woman Gal. 4.22 23. verses and Esau also that was born of Rebecca which together with Iacob was conceived in the womb of her to wit Rebecca by one even by their father Isaac all descending from Abraham according to the flesh and yet Ishmael and Esau must be cast out of Abrahams house or family And that which he saith ver 13. Iacob have I loved but Esau have I hated was written by the Prophet Malachy many years after they were born brought forth and became two nations as it was said to Rebecca Gen. 25.23 and the ground or reason shewed by Obadiah ver 10. and this is to shew that God hath not bound himself by any purpose decree or promise to elect justifie or eternally to save them by their keeping the law of Moses and in being the seed of Abraham according to the flesh and therefore there could be no unrighteousness with God in casting them out or breaking them off from their own Olive-tree notwithstanding all that they could plead for themselves in these things But it was that vain confidence that Paul knew they had in these things before mentioned in Chap. 2. Behold thou art called a Iew and restest in the law and art confident c. and therefore Paul might well say thou Iew that restest in the law and art confident wilt say unto me Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for being so confident in these things they would be apt to say Why should God find fault with us Is it not the will of God that the seed of Abraham being circumcised and keeping the law of Moses should be his people and hath not God himself commanded these things and annexed promises thereunto who hath resisted his will in all this But Paul having before fully proved that God had not bound himself either by purpose decree or promise to elect justifie or eternally to save them upon that account might well say thou must not reply against God for he having made no such promises unto thee upon those terms he is at liberty to break thee off as an unfruitful branch and to make of thee a vessel of dishonour For notwithstanding all the means that God had used towards them in order to their conversion they having all heard Rom. 10.18 and God having stretched forth his hands unto them all the day long and yet notwithstanding all that God had done for them in tendring unto them such precious promises in Jesus Christ yet they were a disobedient and gain-saying people and thus walking stubbornly against God all the day of Grace they are now in the hands of God as the clay was in the hand of the porter to make of them vessels of dishonour for the Potter did not take a piece of clay into his hand on purpose to make such a vessel at the first as it was made by him afterwards but Ier. 18.4 the vessel which he made of clay was marred in the hand of the Potter and so he made it again another vessel as it seemed good unto the Potter to make it and so in like manner those people the Jews that Paul speaketh of in the Epistle to the Romans being stubborn in the hands of God and disobedient unto his righteousness even when his hand was stretched forth unto them all the day long it was now just with God to make of them vessells of wrath fitted or made up for destruction and thus it is plain to any rational man that will but look on these things with a single eye and with an upright mind judge of the same that the good will and pleasure of God is not solely and singly the cause of Reprobation without having any other ground or reason assigned thereunto in Scripture but that the rejecting the means of salvation to wit the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel continuing in sin and unbelief and denying the power of godliness is assigned by the holy Spirit in the Scripture as a cause thereof And as God thus dealt with the Jews because they sought not righteousness by faith in Christ so doth God in like manner deal with all the world for the like cause He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the onely begotten Son of God and this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light because their deeds are evil and 2 Thes 2.10 11 12. Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness Answ I have here presumed much upon the Readers patience and therefore must crave his pardon in obtruding upon him so much of nothingness vanity and incongruity as to the Apostles scope as is contained in this answer of my adversary being not ad idem but a rambling discourse not any whit
of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his wayes past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his counsellour To which I answer first that had I not been acquainted with the blindness of these men that love to be called of men Rabbi or Master I should have been taken up with admiration that one boasting so much of schollarship should make a parcel of Arguments directly against the truth and yet should appear no better the one with the other In this first Argument in answer to this Position he giveth out as if the will of God were solely and singly the cause of reprobation and that no other cause can be assigned for it either of sin unbelief or rejecting the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous will as in the preamble to his Argument and in the minor proposition of the Argument it self he saith the Scripture assignes Reprobation solely to Gods will and yet in this third Argument he strongly calleth in question the truth of all this in giving out as if the true and undoubted cause cannot be assigned or as if that which solely singly was the cause of Reprobation were not the true and undoubted cause of it what a piece of confused stuff is this let them that have understanding judge Answ Truly I do not malice but rather pity this simple sophister who doth Nodum in scripo querere peeps about for contradictions in my Arguments whereas if a man be not blinded through prejudice he shall find a most harmonious concord Sir I willingly pass by your scandalous Ironies of blindness Rabbi Master boasting of scholarship as unworthy of a return but I now tell you t is very true that in my first Argument and so indeed al along I do ascribe non-election or Reprobation solely and singly to the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous will But I pray Sir make it to appear how in this third Argument I do trip up the heels of my former Argument calling into question the truth of all this as though the true and undoubted cause could not be assigned or that the will of God were not solely and singly the cause of Reprobation Curious Sir learn this from me that he that doth exclude all outward causes as to Reprobation which are transient and in time are acted in and by the creature doth not thereby exclude all inward causes which are immanent immutable and eternal resting in the bosome and breast of God himself which we call his will and good pleasure now the first we deny this later we affirm to be the alone cause of Reprobation That which makes the decree of non-election or Reprobation to be mysterious and unsearchable is not because there is no cause of it at all for I have affirmed the will of God to be the inward and eternal cause thereof but this is that for which the Apostle calls it mysterious because that no external cause can be assigned but that the further that men out of curiosity or rather desperate boldness have attempted to find out an external cause the more they have entangled themselves and the more have they intrencht upon the holy majesty of God And therefo e where in all the holy Scripture the Spirit of God hath not a tongue to speak of any such external cause or causes of eternal reprobation there must not Gods people have an ear to hear but in defect of an external cause to ascribe all to the internal viz. the good will and pleasure of God himself 2 Thes 1.7 1 Cor. 13.12 Phil. 3.15 who hath no otherwise been pleased in his revealed word to give any other account unto us of such his actings besides his own will But when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed and that we do behold him face to face this which now is unto us a mystery and unsearchable by reason of humane frailty God shall then reveal even this unto us and in the mean time let us lay our hands upon our mouthes Rom. 11.33 and with admiration say O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out And now my good friend let those that have understanding judge whether this of mine be a piece of confused stuff or that it rather be not simplicity in grain in you to suppose a contradiction in that which doth most strongly confirm what is most destructive to your Position but such crude stuff as you have here vented is as ordinary with you as your meat and drink But you proceed further 3. Again why doth he say If sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the onely causes why God reprobates any what need he put in that expression onely since the position doth not say expresly that it is any cause at all but that God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation c. and these he reprobated and if that sort or kind of people that continue in sin and unbelief and reject the means of salvation be not those that God doth reprobate then let him shew us by plain Scripture-proof who or what sort of people they be that so they may be known But the truth of it is that he can find no expression in the position that he can except against and therefore he putteth expressions into his Arguments which be of his own making and them he quarrels at and shews what great absurdities follow when there is no such thing in the position But I have followed him a litle in owning his expressions as far as they will stand with the truth viz. that rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief are in some measure the cause of Reprobation and through the good hand of my God upon me have proved it by Scripture And notwithstanding this man hath so strongly opposed it in his two first Arguments in answer to this position yet one would think by what he saith in this third Argument that he were a little inclinable to be of my mind or otherwise why doth he use those words the onely cause if he do not in some measure grant these things to be a cause of Reprobation Answ Sir if the word onely disgust your palate let it be expunged and yet the Argument will hold well enough without it and when so I will never stand quarrelling upon the punctilio of a word And whereas you say that the position doth not say expresly that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are causes of Reprobation I yield you for surely every one of your positions are as so many gins and snares and that generation of men that are of your judgement ordinarily your positions are so intricate and involved so full of Amphibologies equivocations and mental reservations that you onely stand at the catch
9.21 22 23. Ioh. 15.19 Ephes 2.1 23. Children of wrath as well as others Rom. 3.10 and ver 20. None righteous no not one 4. Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.11 in not assigning sin to be the cause of Reprobation 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to those objections Rom. 9.13 19. The first is If God Reprobated Esau because he hated him he was unjust The second ver 9. Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for he might in one word have answered to both objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. When they had done neither good no evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated 6. Thereby we confine Gods infinite soveraignty over the creatures to the narrow scantling of our subordinate power as though he might not do with his own what he list without our controll and not make a vessel either to honour or dishonour unless he were accountable to us for a reason of his so doing Answ 1. I cannot but take notice of his evil dealing in the making of his Arguments that he should make no less then ten Arguments against two Positions and not one in all the ten that answers to either of them now as I have said before I must be constrained to say yet once more that the Position doth not say that foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejection of the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation but the Position saith God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation to wit free tenders of Christ in the Gospel continuing in sin and unbelief c. which word continuing is forgotten and not mentioned in all the Arguments but I must not abate him that expression Continuing lest I should be guilty of letting the truth suffer through my negligence for if he had put in that expression into his Argument and framed his Argument accordingly to have answered the Position as it lyeth there could not one absurdity have followed but yet I shall examine your absurdities particularly to see whether they follow from the Position or any thing that we hold or whether they will all prove to be absurdities yea or no. Answ There are a sort of beggers that give them what you will to yield to their craving natures yet they are never satisfied Some of our children are of such pettish and peevish dispositions that answer what you will to their wanton fancies yet they are never contented Sir take it not amiss that I must rate you with one of these two though I have given you ten to two the least of which might have been satisfactory to a rational man yet nothing will convince you but that you are stil grumbling that my answers and Arguments hit not your positions because I bring not every several word of your Positions into my Arguments severally therefore you say they are not framed against what you do hold Sir before this I did not conceive that the rules of arguing limited men to such punctilioes of words but if that any thing might be necessarily deduced from the Positions besides the bare letters and words of the Position it might have been a warrantable way of argumentation let the word continuing be put into any or every of the Arguments and you will get nothing by it nor will it abate any of those absurdities I have already marked out to flow from your doctrine If the subtilty of any of your party have drawn out and stated your Positions so as to lye at the catch for a starting-hole when you feel your selves pincht by an Argument it will prove but a jadish trick to shift your necks out of the collar by saying such expressions are not in the position or this contains not all that is in the position Howsoever it is these your concessions and owned by you as they are stated by me will convince you that though your position be God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation c. and those he reprobates c. yet your reserved meaning is that the foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejection of the means of salvation be the cause of Reprobation and indeed what can be less collected thence God saw some men rejecting of the means of salvation those he reprobates and why did he reprobate those that did reject the means rather then those that did embrace the means of salvation but onely for this because they did reject the means so that the rejecting of the means according to you must be the cause of their Reprobation and hence it is that p. 33. of your Pamphlet you set down these words in a great and distinct character because they receive not the love of the truth and for this cause God shall send them strong delusions But I will quarrel no more about words but see how you will shake off those absurdities laid at the door of your position But hereby the way let it be taken notice of that you have not swept the door of your former position clean from those absurdities which cleave fast unto it but you have skipt them all over because in deed they were too hot for your fingers onely you make an adventure to have a fling at the sixth absurdity flowing from that former position by comparing it with the first that flowes from this concerning which thus you write Absurdities answered And I shall compare the first absurdity as he calleth it with that sixth or last absurdity which he putteth to his sixth Argument in answer to the second position viz. God saw some men embracing the means of salvation those he elected in Christ c. and there he giveth out as if such an absurdity must needs follow that no children dying in infancy could be saved saying what then would become of children dying in infancy before they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of the means which never had being to act and to this he saith that such an absurdity as this must needs follow that no child dying in infancy can possibly be reprobated Now whether two such different things can follow these two positions I shall leave to the judgement of others that have understanding Answ Sir if any Lyncean eyes can spy out the least inconsistency or contradiction between those two absurdities laid to your charge to say they clash one against another according to your principles ce do quemvis arbitrum I appeal to any that hath understanding to judge And yet you have not so much confidence as to make out this your supposed enterfering you onely speak to the absurdities apart thus To the first of these he seemeth to make their election to eternal life very doubtful if at all possible and the ground or reason is because that children dying in infancy have not the use of faith or works Answ T is true Sir I do so according to
of a horse is a horse c. and therefore by the name of the Son of man is understood him not which is simply a man as Adam was but him that is born of a man Adam was a man made not born and therefore he is called a man but not the Son of man It is observed therefore that the Hebrews in this their manner of speaking when they say thou art a son or child of disobedience a son of perdition c. that they assign as it were disobedience and perdition to be as the father and that thou art born of that and therefore that such expressions do not barely signifie that thou art disobedient but that thou wert born disobedient not that thou art in a perishing condition but that thou wert born a son of perdition not that thou art a sinner but that thou wast born a sinner So likewise in those words a child of wrath not that thou art obnoxious to wrath and condemnation because of thy sins but that thou art born a child of wrath guilty of eternal condemnation so much of the first The second thing considerable is how they were by nature the children of wrath The word nature hath several acceptations First sometimes it is taken for the substance and essence of a thing but thus acording to his essence and substance man is not a child of wrath because the substance is not sin though it be infected with sin Secondly for the first principle of motion and rest in every thing whether that principle be in the substance or that it be the natural quality and propriety of the thing And after this manner the first nature of man was good yea very good for in that the Lord did imprint a power of motion to that which was good to know love and worship God and thereby to have life everlasting but this nature was lost by the sin of Adam and instead thereof there succeeded a naughty quality whereby it comes to pass that there is no natural motion in us but unto that which is evil viz. against God and against his son Jesus Christ and no rest but in that which is not good This evil quality came by the temptation of the Devil and it is as a pestilence that hath infected both the soul and body of man man I say remaining the same in his essence and substance is infected with the venome of this evil quality so that he can effect or work nothing but that which is like himself because from this he is moved unto all actions Hence it is that there arise all the evil thougths in the mind all the perverse and distempered affections in the heart and all wicked motions and desires in the will And this corruption of the whole nature which is otherwise called concupiscence the Apostle cals in this place nature viz. the first principle or beginning of all evil actions and motions whether external or internal and therefore whereas this is sin it doth deservedly make such the children of wrath Thirdly nature is oftentimes taken for nativity or birth natura a nascendo because that every one being conceived in sins and born in iniquities Psalm 51.5 and that we are born ungodly and enemies to God and therefore most worthy that God should be angry with us and inflict eternal punishments on us and therefore in this sense likewise are we said to be the children of wrath i. e. rom our first conception and nativity and because we are descended from Adam and sinned in him and all are born children of wrath even infants likewise though they have not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression i. e. actually Rom. 5.14 yet because they are born of sinful parents the infection becomes hereditary to them and they likewise children of wrath as well as others After this manner of speech is that of the Apostle Gal. 2. We which are Iews by nature i. e. Jews by birth and nativity And by this I hope the judicious Reader will find that I have both confuted your reasons and confounded your gloss so that the third absurdity will stick as close to your proposition as the spots do to the Leopard and now I shall have leisure to attend your motion in the removal of your quarters to the fourth absurdity which is this Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.21 in not assigning sin to be the cause of reprobation Answ Paul was not mistaken for he hath assigned continuing in sin and unbelief to be the cause of reprobation Rom. 9.32 and 11.20 and 1.2 6 28. Answ Sir this hath been your dealing in all this tract of reprobation wherein you make no distinction between non-election or negative reprobation which is before all time whereon your position is built and against which my undertakings are as you deliver it and whereof there is no cause assignable besides the good pleasure of Gods most holy will and that reprobation which is in time and whereof sin is the cause and whereunto those Scriptures by you quoted do answer which no man contradicts But yet this last reprobation or that in time is not immutable as is the other Jer. 6.30 Isa 1.25 Zac. 13.9 Ro. 11.23 for a man or a nation may be as reprobated silver today and yet refined from the dross to morrow they may be broken off to day and grafted in again to morrow for God is able to graft them in again But for that reprobation whereabout our dispute is as it is immanent in God and eternal so it is also immutable and unchangeable as is God himself And so I pass to the fifth absurdity which is this Absurd 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to these objections Rom. 9.13 19. The first is If God reprobated Esau because he hated him he was unjust The second ver 19. why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for he might in one word have answered to both objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. when they had done neither good nor evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Answ To the first when I shall hear any say that God reprobated Esau because he hated him without assigning any other cause and prove it I shall say more to it and in the mean time I shall desire to have this question resolved Whether those that shal preach such doctrine As that God reprobated Esau because he hated him and for no other cause do not make God much like the envious Jews Ioh. 15.25 who hated the man Christ Jesus without cause Answ Sir for the resolving of your question and satisfying of the scruple I must tell you first that God is said to have hated Esau before he was born or that he had done either good or evil that is called hatred comparatively in respect of that love he shewed unto Iacob he may be said to hate him
because he loved him less than he did Iacob Gen. 29.31 Thus Leah was said to be hated by Iacob comparatively with the love shewed to Rachel because she was less beloved then Rachel so he that serves two masters will hate the one and love the other i. e. will love him less then the other And thus God loves the reprobates less than he doth the elect but it cannot hence be concluded that the Lord doth absolutely hate any creature of his own making â—en 1.31 for they were all good yea very good and Wisd 11.24 thou lovest all things that are and abhorrest nothing that thou hast made T is true God hates sin because he made it not and this hatred hath an influx upon the sinner as he is a sinner because God made him not so But God hates not a non-elected person or a reprobate as he is a reprobate neither doth he condemne him or decree to condemne him for his negative reprobation which is Gods act Isa 55.8 but for his sin which is mans act Secondly I say that this hatred in God his wayes not being like our waies is not to be considered as to hold proportion with the passions and affections of men in their hatred For this confusion or indistinct consideration or comparison of divine things with humane is that great witchcraft that puts such a stumbling-bloâ—k in the way to the knowledge of things that we cannot discover the truth thereof with so discerning an eye as otherwise we might And therefore though I do attribute hatred to God yet that hatred in God anteceding reprobation or which is assigned as a cause of reprobation is nothing else but Gods absolute will of denying that special benefit of effectual grace and infallible direction unto eternal life and permitting some men by their own defective freewill deservedly to fall under the misery of eternal death And therefore in some sort I may say that the hatred of God is as much visible and doth as sensibly discover it self in the denyal of effectual grace as in the inflicting of the torments of hell For God the Father wounded bruised tormented the soul of his dear Son for our sins without any diminution of his love unto him But he never denied him effectual grace whereby he had an immunity from sin And therefore say some It is more desirable to have the benefit of effectual grace whereby we are preserved safe in the love of God than to obtain an immunity from the torments of hell Christ was not exempted from this last though he was never excluded from the former Thirdly I would here distinguish of the hatred of God as it signifies in him first his affection or secondly his effection if I may use such a word or otherwise the effects of his affection though I do confess that these affections as of love hatred anger c. are not properly in God but are attributable to him ex anthropopathia by similitude and resemblance First for the hatred of God as it is an affection so it doth precede Reprobation it being the will and purpose of God to deny grace to such whom he will not elect which is that whith we call reprobation Secondly the hatred of God as it signifies an effect to wit the execution of that hatred anger wrath inflicted on sinners and so it follows reprobation To summe up all in a few words that God bare less love to his creature Esau then to Iacob is manifest That that lesser degree of love which he bare to Esau may comparatively to that manifested to Iacob be called hatred That God may deny some grace to one that he bestowes upon another without injustice that equall grace is not given to Esau as to Iacob That those who from the love of God are not elected by a necessary consequence must be reprobated or not elected Ephes 1.4 5 6 7. 2.4 5. or loved with a lesser love The love of God was the cause of our election and therefore the lesser love or hatred the cause of our reprobation And now Sir if you peruse this what I have here said you may easily answer your own frivolous question And yet I must withal tell you that though I do affirm that God reprobated Esau or did not elect him onely because he would not it was not the good pleasure of his will so to do or it was his wil absolute not to do it that he denied that favour to him that he shewed to Iacob and so may be said to hate him without any external cause lookt upon as in Esau why he should be reprobated rather than Iacob neither of them having done either good or evil yet there was an internal cause of the hatred or reprobation namely the good pleasure of Gods most holy will for the manifestation of his own glory in his power and justice And therefore God cannot without blasphemy be compared to the envious Jews who howsoever they hated the man Christ Jesus without a cause yet God had a cause motive or incentive from within himself even the manifestation of his own glory in shewing his power and justice on those so reprobated which glory of his is more precious and to be prefered before the saving and preserving from the torments of hell the persons of all both men and Angels and yet withal I say that the vindictive punishment of God or positive reprobation which is Gods appointing to torments and hatred of God as it is an effect of the former is never inflicted without a just and meritorious cause viz. the sin of man And thus much to what you answer to the first objection to the second you write thus To the second I have already shewed that Paul directed his words to the Jew who rested in the law and made his boast of God and was confident that he was in the way of God and thence it was that he said thou wilt say unto me who hath resisted his will But Paul had more than the single term sin to assigne as a cause of their being reprobated blinded or broken off from their own olive-tree to wit a continuance in sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation when the hands of the Lord were stretched forth unto them all the day long and yet they were a disobedient and gainsaying people Answ To this I have already answered pag. 115. that the words were directed to the Gentiles to which I refer the Reader And whereas afterwards you say that Paul had more then that single term to assigne as a cause of their being reprobated blinded broken off c. to wit a continuance in sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation Sir this is but gratis dictum you onely say but cannot prove it shew me any such expression in this whole chapter wherein this text alledged lies yea or any where else in all the Scripture It is true those words of yours of the Lords hands stretched
when I meet it in its due place I shall then encounter it In the mean time for what is comprehended in this Section If I should yield you all I should receive no loss by it not your cause any advantage and therefore I shall dismiss it with the appendant question and answers without further trouble to my self or the Reader Onely let me tell you that so far as I perceive by your discourse you have not dived into the bottom of the absurdity contracted to your self by your Position which doth assert that the rejection of that means of salvation viz. the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel and continuing in sin and unbelief are the causes of reprobation as conceiving it inconsistent with the justice mercy and wisdom of God to reprobate without these causes whereas our constant affirmation is that the sole good will and pleasure of God is the alone and single cause of non election or negative reprobation from eternity God having that absolute power over his creature as that it rests solely in his will not to elect him but to suffer him to sin and so to run himself into eternal perdition and that therefore those who are contrary minded that do imagine that this absolute non election cannot well consist with the divine attributes as his justice mercy wisdom c. as you do in your strange acclamation p. 16. Then you do confine the infinite soveraignty of God that he hath over his creature as though he might not do with his own what he list without our controll but as I have shewed he may either annihilate or cast into hell whom he pleaseth as Lord Paramount But to this you have spoken nothing at all as to this reprobation all that you have said is to a Gospel declaratory way that no man gainsayes neither is it the subject of this our present discourse But you further write And so it cometh to pass that those two different events which do or shall befall the sons of men which is salvation to all that sort or kind of people that do imbrace the means and believe in Jesus Christ and reprobation and everlasting destruction to the other sort or kind of people that do continue in sin and unbelief rejecting the means of salvation and these two different events come to pass according to that purpose and decree of God which was from before the foundation of the world but the decree of God which was before time doth not necessitate thse different actings of men that came forth in their generations in time which is the penitency faithfulness and obedience of those that thereby come to be under the decree of election to everlasting life nor the impenitency unbelief and disobedience of those that for that cause fall under the decree of reprobation to everlasting destruction no more then the law and decree that was made by the Governours of this Nation many ages and generations past concerning the protection of honest men and the punishment of them that do evil But as the decree that was made as aforesaid many ages and generations past since it was made is yet a tendency and conducement if it be considered of to lead all men to live honestly So the decree of God that was before time and published or made known to the sons of men in time is so far from the necessitating men to do wickedly viz. to continue in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation that it is of such tendency and conducement upon the right consideration thereof in respect of the great benefit on the one hand to be the portion of penitent and obedient persons believing in Jesus Christ and the great woe and misery on the other hand that doth and will befal all those that continue in sin and unbelief and reject the means of salvation that it doth I say being considered of as aforesaid tend strongly to the perswading of all ungodly persons speedily to break of their sins by righteousness and their iniquities by cleaving unto Jesus Christ in believing and walking in that truth undoubtedly they shall be saved Answ T is right Sir what you say that there is salvation for one sort of people and destruction for another sort of people and that according to the decree of God from all eternity But when you are put to it notwithstanding the decree all may be saved and none damned or all may be damned and none saved for you do not affirm that God hath purposed any thing as to persons but meerly as to qualifications T is likewise true we say as you that he that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and this is according to decree but this is not all that is decreed for some particulars he hath elected others he hath not elected but reprobated those whom he hath elected he hath likewise decreed to give them faith and therefore it is called the faith of Gods elect Tit. 1.1 The rest he hath decreed not to give them he hath denied them that grace he did not bear so much of love unto them as to those he did elect It is likewise true what you say that the decrees of God do not necessitate the different actings of men if you mean such a necessity as of compulsion or coaction but if we have a respect unto a necessity either of infallibility or immutability and so Quicquid fit necessario fit in respect of these all things that are are necessarily so as they are for Gods foresight cannot be deceived and his decrees cannot be changed But of this sufficiently hath been spoken before pag. 95. and 96. To what you say that the published decrees of God are of such a tendency and conducement to the perswading of men to forsake their sins and believe in Jesus Christ I deny not but that those decrees which are so published in the Scriptures may be of the like import as some other portions of Scripture are viz. of tendency to perswade men to forsake their sins and believe in Jesus Christ But I must tell you that they are onely morally and instrumentally so and not physically they work onely on the outward man they cannot change the heart that is Gods chamber of presence Prov. 21.1 there is his throne alone t is he alone that changeth that and turnes it as the rivers of water Phil. 1.29 2 Tim. 3.25 Ezek. 11.19 Rom. 8.15 2 Co. 5.14 Joh. 1.12 Cant. 8.6 Were those decrees published unto men every houre yet they can never work faith until that God shall give them to believe and repent and take away their stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh Somewhat they may do by setting forth the danger and horror of a reprobate estate and so to bring a man under the Spirit of bondage to fear but surely it is the alone love of Jesus Christ that hath a constraining power to put a man into a capacity
run out as leaking vessels and 2 Tim. 2.21 purge themselves from error sin and uncleanness shall be vessels unto honour sanctified and meet for the Masters use and prepared unto every good work And we do find in the Scripture that all those actings of God in a way of mercy in order to the everlasting good of his creature come from him with abundance of willingness freeness and delight for he is a God that delighteth in mercy Mich. 7.18 Answ Sir you onely speak here of Gods not consining himself to any subordinate power but you prosecute not the point as it is laid to your charge We with the Sctiptures do affirm Gods absolute purpose or the good pleasure of his most holy will is the alone cause of non-election or Reprobation and not the rejecting of the means to wit the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel and the continuing in sin and unbelief are not the causes as you assert pretending that if these be not assigned causes then God would be unjust or unmerciful to the creature hereupon we say that if God may not do with his creature what seems best to him in his own eyes without rendring a reason of his actings but that his attributes must be called into question this is to limit and confine the infinite soveraignty that God hath over all the creation and to suffer worms and dust to controll majesty But to this Sir hitherto you have said nothing To what you say of that place 2 Tim. 2.21 that it is the good will and pleasure of our God whosoever they be that delight to embrace the means of salvation and purge themselves from error sin and uncleaneness shall be vessels unto honour is very true and good in that sense it was intended by the Spirit of God but neither true nor good in that sense it is by you applied and made use of For first of all you suppose that it is in their own power to purge themselves from error sin and uncleanness whereas this is Gods peculiar work to purge us from our sins and purely to purge away our dross and to wash us with clean water and to turn us to himself and then we shall be sure to be turned all our strength to performe such a taske is else altogether insufficient Your second couchant error here is that you conceive this purging of themselves will hereby make them vessels of honour but I say this their purging was no cause at all of their being vessels of honour but it was onely a means of the discovery of it wherein they might have comfort and consolation Before even from all eternity by that decree of election they were out of that lump of perdition made vessels unto honour or vessels of mercy which God had afore prepared unto glory but when the times of refreshing come Rom. 9.21.23 Gal. 1.16 Heb. 9.14 and that the Lord is pleased to reveal his son in them and that such his secret decree comes to be put in execution in time by God his giving of faith and repentance and purging their consciences from dead dead works to serve the living God then they shall be vessels unto honour unto their own comfort and to the good example of others Such a manner of speech there is Ioh. 5.8 Herein is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my Disciples Now they were his Disciples before but the meaning is that by bearing of fruit they should approve themselves both to their own consciences and to the world besides that they were the Disciples of Christ Neither is that which follows altogether so sound where you write But on the other hand in respect of what he doth in the making forth of his justice in the punishment of his creature for sin and impenitency he doth it not until he is provoked thereunto even 2 Chron. 36.16 untill there is no remedy for the Lord is Psal 19.1 and 145.8 slow to anger and of great mercy and hath Ezek. 33.11 no pleasure in the death of the wicked And therefore although that the embracing of the means repenting and believing in Jesus Christ be no procuring ground or cause of any the least mercies we do enjoy yet the continuing in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation is a procuring of punishment see Ier. 2.17 Hast thou not procured this unto thy self in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God when he led thee by the way also ch 4.18 thy way and thy doings hath procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness because it reacheth unto thine heart Answ Sir though it be very true that the continuing in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation be the procuring cause of punishment in time but not the cause of the decree of negative reprobation before time Yet where you say that God doth not make forth his justice in punishing until he be provoked Sir I cannot allow you so much to take this universally For tell me if you can how those infants had provoked God in the general deluge Gen. 7. when they were swept away with the rest of the wicked world or those infants in the combustion of Sodom Gen. 19. how had they communicated in pride fulness of bread and idleness with the rest of the citizens or what confederacy was there in those infants in the rebellion of Corah Numb 16. that they descended likewise with their fathers into the pit or how had those women been a provocation whose wombes were shut in the case of Abimelech Gen. 20. 2 Sam. 24.17 or those sheep the people of Israel what had they done when they suffered that havock by the pestilence when seventy thousand men were destroyed No Sir in many cases there is no visible provocation besides the original depravation of corrupt nature which through the want of original righteousness doth justly deserve wrath and punishment In some it is not for any sin either in them or their Parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in them Joh. 9.3 But for other cases take the rest and make the most of them And now to fill up your pamphlet and for want of better stuffe you obtrude upon us a leathern tale of your own observation and this it is And I can yet remember when I have been a hearer of these men which have taken unto themselves the title of Clergy as if they onely were the heritage of the Lord and none besides them speak much to this purpose that God was abundantly more prone to shew mercy than to execute wrath and have earnestly prest their hearers to the use of means calling upon them to be careful to come to Church as they call it and to heare sermons saying thou dost not know when Gods time is therefore give attendance to the means If thou art careless in coming and wilt come but now and then thou mayest be
he pleaseth and it shall prosper in the thing whereto it is sent Amen so be it Thomas Tazwels QUERIES Counter-questioned SIR when at first I surveyed over your bundle of Queries I was divided in my thoughts whether it was fittest for me to undertake an answer to them yea or no T is true I did not conceive that they were proposed by such a one that breathed after satisfaction for then I had been bound in conscience because directed to me to have given a direct account for the resolution of a troubled spirit but I was better acquainted with the temper of such Scepticks Seekers Queristers the top of whose Religion consists most what in abstruse Questions But that which caused this distraction in me was the calling to mind Solomons advice Prov. 26.4 5. Answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou also be like unto him And Answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit So that which way soever I did address my self I was sure to be gored by one of the hornes of that Dilemma Therefore I did the rather make choice of a middle way neither directly to answer to any of your queries nor yet to leave any of them unresolved but when I apprehended them as captious Questions more to try abilities then to expect satisfaction I thought it best to follow our Saviours example Mark 12.13 Who when the primates of the Pharisees had sent unto him certain of that sect with the Herodians to catch him and intangle him in his words they began first by insinuation Master we know that thou art true and carest for no man for thou regardest not the persons of men but teachest the way of God in truth Secondly by question Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not shall we give or shall we not give But Christ who was privy to the secret guil of their hearts desiring a penny to be brought him askes them this question Whose is this Image and superscription they say Caesars then saith he give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods so that he makes no direct answer but by a Question The like may you see Mark 11.28 29. when the chief Priests and Scribes askt of Christ by what authority dost thou these things Iesus answered I will also ask you one question and answer me and I will tell you by what authority I do these things c. The like course I shall take with you I have not positively delivered my judgement to any of your queries but for the resolution of them have set down antiquestions to which if you give a direct answer according to the Scripture you must then needs answer your self to all those of your own queries So that making Christ his practise a president to my self I shall both follow his example and withall observe the wise mans direction both to answer a fool in his folly and yet not to answer a fool in his folly viz. implicitly and consequentially to answer by a question but positively and directly not to answer to the words 1. Whether it can be proved from the word of God that the fall which we had in the first Adam were any further than to the dust from whence we were taken 2. Whether it be not improper to say that we died in the first Adam a spiritual death when the Scripture doth say that that was not first which was spiritual but that which was natural and afterwards that which is spiritual 1 Cor. 15. 3. Whether there need to be any talk at all of any wisdome power or strength of our own when it is by all granted that we have our life and being in Iesus Christ and have nothing that we have not received 4. Whether God the Father have any other end or designe in giving of or sending his Son into the world but onely that the world through him might be saved 5. Whether the elect are at all in the Scripture demonstrated under any such term as that word world 6. Whether the Lord Iesus Christ doth use or exercise any other power in bringing of men and women to believe to the saving of their souls but that which may be resisted or rejected 7. Whether Gods decree before the foundation of the world be any other thing but that believers should be saved and unbelievers should be damned 8. Whether God can be said to judge the world in Righteousness and yet condemn those for unbelief which never had power to believe 9. How can the Saints be said to judge the world righteously if they are carried on to believe by a power that they cannot resist and those that are to be judged by them cannot believe for want of the same power 10. Whether if the salvation of some and the condemnation of others be necessitated by the decree of God without any respect at all to obedience or disobedience then to what end is it said in the Scripture of truth that men did or might choose or refuse 11. Whether is unbeliefe the cause of Reprobation or Reprobation the cause of unbelief 12. Whether it be not sin to say that the secret will of God is not according to his revealed will 13. Whether that opinion which some men hold concerning God be not damnable namely to say that God declareth in his word that he would have all men to be saved by his Son and yet never intendeth that they should be saved 14. Whether there be any Gospel to be preached to that man or woman for whom God never intended salvation in the death of his Son and if there be any then I would know what Gospel it is and who they are that should preach it 15. Whether condemnation to the second death or lake of fire was ever threatned but for personal rejection of the means afforded 16. Whether those that perish to eternity might not have been saved had they in their day improved the means afforded 17. Whether any can believe that Christ dyed for him upon a Scripture-account except he believe that Christ dyed for all 18. Whether Gods opening a door of salvation to all the Sons of men will not make his righteousness appear glorious in judgement 19. Can man be said to refuse that which he never was in a possibility to receive 20. Doth Christs bemoaning persons in the state of unbelief plainly argue they might believe 1. Whether we did not all sin in Adam as Rom. 5.18 19. 2. Whether the desert and reward of that sin be not death eternal as well as temporal as Rom. 6.23 where eternal death from Adam is placed in opposition to eternal life by Jesus Christ 3. Whether there was not in Adam immediately upon the eating of the forbidden fruit inward terrors and feelings of Gods wrath and thoughts that he was cast off and forsaken of God as Gen. 3.10 wherein the truth of that threatning was really accomplished Gen. 2.17 these
being kinds of spiritual death and a degree of eternal death and so Adam was spiritually dead whiles he lived as the damned are said to live in death 1. Whether the scope of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 15. from v. 35. to ver 51. be not onely to shew with what manner of bodies we shall arise viz. incorruptible glorious powerful and spiritual but no mention at all either of natural or spiritual death 2. Whether that in that treatise of the resurrection he doth not prove by an Antithesis that as we have our animal or natural life from the first Adam by a natural generation so we have our spiritual life from the second Adam Jesus Christ by a spiritual regeneration but that the order and manner thereof is this we have and enjoy first our natural life by propagation but our spiritual life afterwards by infusion of the spirit 1. Whether the Almighty power of God is not as much exerted in raising of a sinner from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness as it was either in the bringing of Christ from the dead as Eph. 1.20 or in the raising of the body of dead Lazarus from the grave 2. Whether that in both those resurrections viz. either to a spiritual life or to a natural life such who are so raised are not alike passive in their resurection contributing nothing of themselves as to their resurrection 3. Whether that such as do ascribe a liberty to the will for the choosing of good when it is tendered in the outward proposalls of the Gospel do not attribute too much of power and strength and sufficiency to themselves contrary to these places 2 Cor. 3.5 Phil. 2.13 1. Whether God the Father had any other end or designe in giving of or sending his son into the world but onely that he should give eternal life to as many as were given to him of the Father Ioh. 17.2 who were not every mothers son in the world but a peculiar people Tit. 2.14 and to those he shewed his love being his own Ioh. 13.1 and for those he laid down his life Ioh. 15.13 and unto those did he manifest his fathers name Ioh. 17.6 and for those he prayed Ioh. 17.9 and for their sakes was he stricken Isa 53.1 and for their sakes did he sanctifie himself Ioh. 17.19 1. Whether any other than the elect can in any warrantable construction be understood under the term of this word world in these places following viz. Rom. 11.12 2 Cor. 5.19 1 Ioh. 4.14 Ioh. 1.29 Ioh. 3.16 17. Ioh. 4.42 Ioh. 6.33 51. 2. Whether can be understood any other than the reprobate of the world in these places following viz. Ioh. 14.17 22. Ioh. 15.18 19. and 16.20 23. and 17.9 14 25. 1 Cor. 11.32 2 Pet. 2.2 5. 1 Ioh. 3.11 13. 3. Whether the flesh of Christ when dead or Lazarus in the grave were able to resist the omnipotent power of God when either Christ was quickened by the spirit 1 Pet. 3.11 or when the word of command was spoken Lazarus come forth Ioh. 11.43 1. Whether the Scriptures by way of allusion do not make an alike proportion between the necessity of the putting forth an omnipotent power which cannot be resisted Rom. 9.19 in the converting of a sinner unto God or giving them to believe Phil. 1.29 and the raising of one from a natural death to a natural life See Eph. 1.19 20. Rom. 6.4 13. and 8.11 and 11.15 1. Pet. 1.21 2. Whether cannot Omnipotency which said at first let there be light and there was light and gave a creature being out of nothing say as well let there be a will unto conversion and there shall be such a will and by an invincible perswasion remove all reluctancies and oppositions in the will 3. Whether whatsoever God doth or permitteth to be done in time he did not decree to do or permit to be done in the same manner measure and circumstances of time place and persons as they are done before all time 4. Whether that upon a supposition that Peter Paul Iames Iohn c. are absolutely and actually justified and saved in time did not God decree absolutely and actually to justifie and save them before all time 1. Whether those words in the Gospel He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned was not a secret kept hid from the Angels themselves especially for the clear manifestation of it untill that Christ was manifested in the flesh 2. Whether those words are not held forth onely as a Gospel-declaration how a man may know himself capacitated for salvation viz. by believing and that it is no wayes mentioned as to be the substance of the decrees of God though whatsoever therein comes to pass was in reality decreed by God 3. Whether the foreappointing or determining of men to a certain end be not the substance of Predestination 4. Whether all men be not foreappointed or predestinated to a certain end 5. Whether there be any such decrees to be found in the whole Scripture he that believeth shall be elected or he that believeth not shall be reprobated 6. Whether believing be not the effect or part of the execution of the decree of election from eternity and not a cause or a condition drawing after it the decree of election 7. Whether not believing rejecting of the means of salvation and continuing in sin and unbelief be not faults voluntarily proceeding out of the wicked hearts of men who are reprobated from eternity not foreseen as causes of their negative reprobation but onely as causes of their positive reprobation or judicial condemnation 8. Whether that upon a supposition that there were no other decrees of election and non-election then this He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned might it not so come to pass there intervening no irresistible power of God but man left to the supposed liberty of his own will that either no man might be saved or else that no man might be damned 1. Whether God may not in righteousness judge such to blindness who have put out their own eyes 2. Whether God may not in righteousness expect a return of that talent to him which he at first committed to man and if man hath misimployed it or squandred it away may not God in righteousness judge and condemn man for it 3. Whether man in the state of innocency had not a power to do whatsoever God did require of him 4. Whether that power was not onely given to Adam himself but likewise in him to all his posterity had they continued in obedience to the command of God 5. Whether Adam lost not that power both to himself and all his posterity by eating of the forbidden fruit and therefore it is said that in him we have all sinned Rom. 5.18 19. 6. Whether are not the Saints carried on to believe by the Fathers drawing of them to Jesus Christ Iohn 6.44 yet such a
to say such a thing was not exprest in the position those who are acquainted not onely with the Anabaptists but likewise with the Arminians and Socinians of both which you have a tange know so much You say it is not expresly which doth admit that it is comprehended in it implicitly which is as much as I look for if it may be deduced thence Howsoever the best of it is that I have reum confitentem that rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief are in some measure the cause of Reprobation but where you have proved these to be the causes he that hath eyes to see let him see I am sure I cannot find it You conclude what you have to say against this Argument thus 3. To the Scripture which he quoteth out of Rom. 9.14 I have spoken to it already and to that in Rom. 11.33 34. it speaketh not at all to that particular business of Reprobation but of that great love and tender respect that God yet hath to Israel for their fathers sake as doth appear from ver 25. and so forward and of the great things which shall be done for them in the latter dayes when their deliverer shall come out of Sion and shall turn away ungodliness from Iacob which great work of God in respect of the manner of it is much mysterious inasmuch as there is so much of the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God that his judgements to us are unsearchable and his waies therein past finding out until the fulness of time shall come that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea Isa 11.9 the Lord shal set again his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shiner and from Hamath and from the Islands of the sea c. ver 11. to the end But here I must break off from saying any more of these things at present for my leisure will not serve and it is likely this man will call this Millenarianism as he calleth the other Pelagianism Answ T is very right Sir you have spoken to that place of Rom. 9.14 but at so pitiful a rate and to so little purpose that the Reader will find it would have stood more with your credit if you had holden your peace And for that place of Rom. 11.33 34. howsoever it mentioneth not Reprobation yet it is a solemn conclusion of the things before delivered in the ninth tenth and eleventh Chapter For the Apostle having spoken of many difficult points as Election Reprobation rejection of the Jews calling of the Gentiles recalling of the Jews and having answered many questions prevented many cavils satisfied many doubts he now sets a period to this discourse with a sad exclamation O the depth c. whereby he signifies that he was driven into a wonderful admiration of the wisdom and knowledge of God in the administration of his love to the elect and displeasure to the Reprobate As a man wading into a deep river that is not fordable when he comes up to the neck and feels the water begins to heave him up and his feet to fail him cries out O the depth c. and goes back so the Apostle having waded so far as he could by the leading of the Spirit in those unfordable mysteries and being almost swallowed up with admiration at Gods administrations unable to pass any further into that bottomless gulf he silenceth himself because the Spirit ceaseth to give him further discoveries and resolves to enter upon no more questions but to admire the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God whose mind i. e. his will and pleasure is no waies to be known of us but by the effects and consequents And I pray learned Sir did I alledge this place to any other purpose then that whereas you and other bold baiards will desperately undertake to assign reasons and external causes for those immanent actings of God we do with fear and reverence ascribe all to the good will and pleasure of God because by that and no way else hath he discovered himself in his word We do plainly see by the effect of it that it was his will so to be else had it not been and therefore we say it was appointed and ordained to be so by his good will and pleasure as for other reasons or causes we see and know none and surely Sir you limit this too narrowly straitning it to the recalling of the Jews which would the scope and purpose of the Apostle beare it yet would it serve sufficiently for my purpose neither should I make any scruple thereby of your turning Millenary for to that and a hundred more of other unstable doctrines are such men of your temper inclined unto being constant onely in inconstancy persisting in nothing but change But whereas you seem to put Millenarianism into the scales as to poise against Pelagianism Sir herein thâ—s far I shall discover my judgement upon them both that a man may be a Millenary I mean in so much as the reign of Christ upon the earth for a thousand years and yet with a charitable interpretation hold all the Articles of the Christian faith and so be eternally saved I know many learned good and gracious men have been of that judgement but for Pelagianism their doctrine is so gross in the whole lump yea so destructive to and inconsistent with the fundamentals of Christian Religion that to be a Pelagian in all their known profest tenets and to live and die so I do much doubt whether any one of them can be saved But what have I to do to judge another mans servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth Rom. 14.4 I have enough to do to attend my own calling but in the mean time to wait what great matters will flow from your wisdom in the rear of all I mean what you have to say to my fourth and last Argument which is as followeth Arg. 4. If the foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation then these absurdities will follow 1. That no child dying in infancy can possibly be Reprobated 2. Neither such Gentiles or Turks Indians and Savages that never head of Christ who never enjoyed the Gospel nor ever had the means tendred unto them for how can they believe in him of whom they never heard Rom. 10. and how can they reject that which was never tendred unto them as many nations in the world who are strangers from the life of God Ephes 2.12 3. If the foresight of sin should be the cause of Reprobation then the Elect should be equally lyable to the decree of Reprobation as the Reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams Transgression Rom.