the love of God and his glory I shall be willingly bound up from ever speaking or writing or injoying any place in the Church of God if my Superiours can but imagine how that maytend to the publick good rather than lay the least Block in the way of unity which now is attempting a return to such a Babel as ours hath been But besides my contention will be believed to have been such as mine Adversary in time will applaud me for when he shall find my Rudest twitches were but to snatch him from a Praecipice As soon as Mr. Hickman shall be convinced that though for a sinner to hate God and to murder men are as positive entities as any actions to be imagin'd yet they cannot but be reckon'd among the worst sorts of sins and therefore cannot without impiety be said to be any of God's creatures or God himself which yet Mr. Hickman hath often taught I say as soon as he shall discern not onely how dangerous and sinfull but how irrational and sensless his errour is he will as heartily thank me even for this very Book as I would thank that man who should pluck a thorn out of my eye Besides that my aime in what I have written hath been the same with that of the most moderate Doctor Sanderson For to express it in his words I have not written against the moderate but onely the Rigid-Scotized-thorow-paced Presbyterians Of them Mr. Hickman can be but one And even with him I am as ready to be upon just as good Termes as with my neighbour Mr. Barlee I long have been Let him onely forbeare to wound me in the Apple of my eye nay in the tenderest part of my very soul by dishonouring God and his Anointed long before whose restauration which is but hoped whilst â— am writing I had sent my Vindication of his Supremacy to the Press and which had certainly been as publick as now it is though the Republicans had prosper'd in their Cariere Let him I say but do that and my work is done If I shall ever again appear in the behalf of any one of the five controverted points it will be likelyest to be in Latine as being the Scholars Mother-tongue and onely in order to reconcilement Now that the God of peace and unity will make us at unity and peace within our selves enlightning our heads with that knowledge which is the mother of humility and inflaming our hearts with that zeal which is according to such a knowledge and thereby making up our breaches as well of judgement as of charity or at least of charity if not of judgement that we may all be held together by the bond of unity in the truth shall be as heartily the endeavour as it is the frequent and fervent prayer of Your meanest Brother and Servant in our Lord and Master Iesus Christ. THOMAS PIERCE Brington May 2. 1660. A PARAENETICAL PREFACE Shewing the purpose of the Author with the Necessity of the Work Representing its usefulness in all Times but more especially in these with some Praeparatory Advertisements making the whole the more manageable to the less Intelligent of the people Christian Reader IF thou shalt ask in curiosity why I happen to come so late to this Discharge of my Engagement to which I stood by my Promise so long obliged Know that my several Praeengagements with severall Books of Mr. Baxter together with several interventions both of sickness and journies and other Impediments unavoidable do conspire to give thee the Reason of it For these did keep me from the thought of what I have brought to a conclusion till somewhat after the beginning of this last Winter Besides that at the end of my Autocatacrisis which I conceive more useful then all my Controversies besides and upon which I bestowed the greatest labour that it might put a full end to the whole Dispute I made a promise to my Readers of what I had purpos'd within my self that if I return'd to any Dispute in any kind whatsoever as it would fall out Cross to my Inclinations so I resolved to do it onely at times of Leisure That whilst my howers could be spent in my chief employment I might not lose too many of them in my least necessary Defences For though I remember I am a Shepherd and bound as well to defend as to feed the Sheep yet it cannot but be to me an unpleasant Game to tyre my self in the hunting of Wolves and Foxes But after the Reason of my lateness I am to render another Reason why I betook my self at last to the present service I saw the flock was indanger'd by several Vermin and partly driven out of the Fold too Nay the great Master-shepherd was himself assaulted by their Inventions by whom he was slanderously reported to be the principal cause of their going astray Some I found teaching and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in broadest Terms That God is the Author of Injustice the Author of Adultery the Author of the evil of sin not onely the Author of the sinfull work it self but of the evil intention too In a word The Author of all thâ—se things which we affirm to come to pass by his mere permission and not at all by his appointment Others I caught in the Act of teaching That God doth incite or stirr men up to wicked actions that He seduceth commandeth doth make obdurate draws sends in deceipts and effects those things which are grievous sins Of which I now give an Instance from Peter Martyr in my Margin because he was the most famous and learned Calvinist of Florence In so much that Doctor Whitaker did most ingenuously confess when he answer'd Campian that if Calvin or Peter Martyr or any other of that Party affirms God to be the Author and cause of sin they are all of them guilâ—y of the most horrid Blasphemy and wickedness And yet when the Florentine I spake of had put the Question in the page preceeding his above cited words An Deus causa sit peccati whether God be the cause of sin he presently call'd it Quaestionem non dissimulandam and professedly held it in the affirmative A third sort I found there were who taught That God is the Author not of those actions alone in and with which Sin is but of the very pravity Ataxie Anomie Irregularitie and sinfulness it self which is in them yea that God hath more hand in mens sinfulness then they themselves These were publickly and in Print the very words of Master Archâ—r a Presbyterian Minister of London in Lombard street who went over into Holland with Thomas Goodwin Oliver Cromwel's Ghostly Father and the present usurper of the Presidentship in Magdalen Colledge by which Goodwin he was commended for as pretious a man as this earth bears any In Holland he was Pastor of the Church of Arnheim as we are told by Mr. Edwards his loving Friend too His book he was pleased
to Intitle Comfort for Believers in their Sins and Suffrings for fear Believers should be afflicted with the sinfulness of their sins which God himself is the Author of and more the Author in his opinion than they can be Yet his Book with this Doctrine was even printed by Authority cum Privilegio when Presbyterianism was up with the License and approbation of old Mr. Downham who was impowred to such things by the-world-knows-whom It was the Doctrine of Mr. Knox the great Introducer of Presbyterianism in Scotland That the wicked are not onely left by Gods suffring but compelled to sin by his power p. 317. And again he saith we do not onely behold and know God to be the Principal cause of all things but also the Author appointing all things p. 22. It is also taught in another Treatise at first written in French but after published in English That by vertue of Gods will all things were made yea even those things which are evil and execrable p. 15. Another takes upon him to prove That all evil springeth out of God's Ordinance And his Book is Intitled Against a Privy Papist as 't were on purpose to betray the Protestant Name into Disgrace But now at last Mr. Hickman outgoes them All if they all are but capable to be outgon For the most execrable and hainous of all the sins to be imagin'd is the Divel 's hating Almighty God Which though Mr. Hickman doth confess to be the worst of all actions and again essentially and intrinsecally evil p. 94. lin 2. evil ex genere obâ—ecto ibid. lin 9. and such as no kind of Circumstance can ever make lawful ib. lin 17. yet he grosly calls it The work of God as all other positive things are p. 96. lin 8. wilt thou know good Reader what may lead him to such a Blasphemy Thou must know his principle is this Verbatim It belongs to the universality of the FIRST CAUSE to PRODUCE not onely EVERY REAL BEING but also the positive MODIFICATIONS of Beings 95. l. ult p. 96. lin 1. And this he gives for the very Reason why The Action of hating God spoken of just now is the work of God Now that this is a Principle or a Doctrine whose every consequence is a crime I cannot better convince the Calvinists than by the confession of Mr. Calvin For when the very same Doctrine which I suspect to have been brew'd by the Carpocratians was freshly broached by the Libertines breaking in with Presbytery to help disgrace our Reformation just as the Gnosticks to the discredit of Christianity it self Master Calvin called it An Execrable Blasphemy not onely once but again and again too And what was that which he declaimed so much against in that stile was it that God was said plainly to be the Author of sin no such matter It was onely for saying it in aequivalence It was for saying another thing from whence God might be inferred to be the Author of sin It was onely for saying God worketh all things This was called by Mr. Calvin An Execrable Blasphemy And his Reason for it is very observable For saith he from this Article God worketh all things Three things do follow extremely frightfull First that there will not be any Difference between God and the Divel Next thâ—t God must deny himself Thirdly that God must be transmuted into the Divel A greater Authority than Calvins no man living can produce against his followers of the Presbytery some few Episcopal Anti-remonstrants being unjustly called Calvinists there being a wide gulf fixt between them and Calvin And I have cited him so exactly as few or no Writers are wont to do that if an enemie will not believe me he may consult Mr. Calvin with expedition and make his own eyes bear witness for me Next considering with my self how that a lesser Blasphemy than This is called Railing against the Lord 2. Chron. 32.17 and that a Doctrine less divelish is broadly said by the Apostle to be the doctrine of Divels 1 Tim. 4 1â— That it is God blessed for ever against whom the children of transgression do open a wide mouth and draw out the Tongue Isa. 57.4 the tongue which reacheth unto the heavens Psalm 73.9 and whose talking is against the most high v. 8. That our common enemies of Rome do object these things to the Reformation as if forsooth they were our Protestant and common sins Nay that the Lutherans themselves will rather return unto the Papists from whom they rationally parted than live in communion with the Calvinians for this one Reason becausâ— the Calvinians seem to worship another God to wit a God who is the Author and cause of sin I say considering all this both with the causes and the effâ—cts I confess my heart waxt hot within me and though for a Time I kept silence yea even from good words yet as the Psalmist goes on it was pain and grief to me I often call'd to mind that pertinent saying of Saint Peter 1 Epist. c. 4. v. 14. and then concluded within my self If God on their part is evil spoken of 't is the fitter that on ours he should be glorified If all his works are commanded to speak well of him in all placâ—s of his Dominion Psal. 103.22 I could not have answer'd it to my self should I still have been guilty of keeping silence much less to Him could I have had what to say under whom I am entrusted and that with souls Since he describes a good Shepherd by his readiness to lay down his life for the sheep I durst not be such a Lasche and unfaithful servant as not to offer up my oyle or shed a little of my Ink where I should think my dearest blood were too cheap a sacrifice Finding therefore that Doctrine which is so execrable and hainous as hath been shew'd suck'd in greedily by the Ranters in these our dayes breaking in upon the Church which is Gods Inclosure as well as Spouse even at that very gap which some had purposely made to cast out Bishops and obedience and whatsoever was Christian besides the name I also considered who they were who took upon them the Tapsters office and drawing out the very dreggs of this deadly wine boldly gave it instead of drink to the giddy people Mr. Hickman seemed to be the boldest and the busiest officer of them all and the more popular he was thought I thought him the fitter to be encounter'd For if his Favourers come to think That God is the cause and the producer of every reall being not excepting the cursing or hating God They have nothing to defend them from being Libertines Or if they come to be persuaded that sin hath no reall being but is a non-entity that is a nothing they must needs be Carneadists for ought I am able to apprehend And when they perfectly are either to wit Carneadists or Libertines I know not what can secure them
for all action and a positive entity for a privation unless he purposely writes against his own enterprize in calling a proud desire a sin but onely pluck him by the ear as Cynthius did Tityrus and admonish him for the future not to act the ultracrepidâ—st by taking upon him to be a Scholar and a School-Divine when he was mimically ordained to be no more then a Lay-preacher Could any man but Mr. Hickman have intitled his Book against a truthâ— which he was forced to acknowledge whilest he meant to deny and disown it onely 3. He doth not onely acknowledge that the act or habit of any sin hath a positive being but further adds beyond all example That the privation it self is an evil Quality p. 56. even that privation which is called by some the formall part of sin and is said by himself to denominate the act or the habit evil Nor will a quasi superadded serve to do him a good turn For let him call it an action or any thing else to which an Epithet may be added he will still imply it to have a positive being And whilst he saith an evil quality he implyes the privation which he so calleth to be a concrete Not remembring his famous saying that he cannot so much as conceive of siâ— unless as perfectly an abstract p. 54. and that sin is synonymous with sinfulness it self p. 53. Again he seems here to speak of an external denomination as if he were not aware of what he was afterwards to say concerning the action of hating God That it is intrinsecally and essentially evil not meerly through the want of some Circumstance p. 94. Again he saith 4. That in hating God the terminating of that act to that object is the sinfulness of the action p. 95. Now we know it is an action for the will to determine or fix an act upon an object and so according to Mr. Hickman sinfulness it self hath a positive being even whilest he saith it is but privative 5. He goes but one line farther when he saith in plainest terms that moral goodness and evil are rather modi entium than entia p. 95. whereby he yields me as much advantage as I can wish to my whole cause For when sin or moral evil is allow'd as much entity as moral goodness and moral goodness as little entity as sin It must either be his Tenet that sin hath also a positive being or that goodness hath none at all If the first he at once betray 's his whole cause and withall makes God to be the Author of sin for he saith He is the Author of all positive beings if the second he must needs deny God to be the author of goodness or lose the benefit of the shift by which he would seem not to make him the Author of sin 6. Again If the evil works themselves be positive which he confesseth p. 96. there needs no more to be added by him For that there is also some privation none is concerned to deny whilst what is positive in sin is so fully yielded 7. He grants as much as a man can wish p. 102. viz. That man is the efficient cause of the evil of the Action And the youngsters Argument against it holds as much against good as evil actions See his Confession p. 103. 8. That the deficient cause is reducible to the efficient the cause of the action per se of the vitiosity per concomitantiam he confesseth p. 103. 9. Farther yet he confesseth that sin in Scripture doth not signifie abstractly but that it signifies our faculties which do lust against the working of the spirit p. 100. much less will he deny the very lusting it self to be a sin which is as positive as the faculties to which the lusting is ascribed Nay 10. he confesseth that a sin is an action if he is not unpardonably impertinent p. 102. for an account of which see forward chap. 8. § 24. CHAP. IV. § 1. BUt Mr. H. being convicted of what himself doth acknowledge the greatest Blasphemy to wit of making God to be the Author of sin by bluntly affirming he is the Author of whatsoever is found to have a positive being by name of that very action of hating God p. 95.96 hope 's to lessen the odium which cannot but lye on so foul a Doctrine by putting his Trust in the common shift I mean by making such a distinction betwixt the Act and the obliquity as to entitle God unto the first and the sinner only unto the second That action of David his lying with Vriah's wife which in Scripture is called Adultery He saith is positive and from God and therefore one of Gods Creatures And thus he saith over and over p. 79.82.95.96 But the pravity or obliquity which he call's the evil quality that doth denominâ—te the Action he is content to fasten upon MAN TOO ibid. Now it remaines that I endeavour to make him ashamed of so lewd a Refuge as doth but serve to incourage by giving shelter and protection not at all to extenuate his great Impiety § 2. For first to condemn him out of his mouth he speakes a while after without the Vizor of this Distinction whilest he saith it doth belong to the universaliâ—y of the first Cause to PRODUCE not onely EVERY REAL BEING but also the real positive MODIFICATIONS OF BEINGS p. 95. Now that the very repugnance of the Act to the obâ—ect hath at least a Reall if not a positive Being Mr. Hickman doth many times acknowledge as when he ranks it with Moral Goodness in affirming both to be Modos entium p. 95. That profound Divine and subtil Disputant Dr. Field allows nothing to be in the sin of hating God but what is positive The very Deformity that is found in it is precisely saith he a positive Repugnance to the Law of God And his reasons for it are such as Mr. Hickmans Teachers are puzled at But letting that passe Mr. Hick is convicted of the crime alleaged in the Indictment if the Repugnance hath nothing more then a reall Being nor dares he say it hath no being at all for that were to cast the whole Adultery upon God by affirming Him to be the producer of all that is positive or Reall in it they are every one Mr Hickmans words and to acquit the Adulterer from having any share in it whereby he also doth infer him to be but Titularly such § 3. But secondly let us suppose the man had never charged God in so gross a manner as to intitle him to the production of all things Reall Yet his shift will not save him from being found to make God the Author of sin For when he saith that Action of hating God is from God he means it is from him as the mediate or the immediate cause If as the mediate so as to move the second cause to be immediatly the cause of such an action it follows then that the 2. Cause
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sanct. THEOPHILVS ad Autolychum lib. 3. p. 125. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 TERTULLIAN de Poenit. p. 375. Porrò peccatum nisi MALVM FACTVM dici non meretur Nec quisquam benefaciendo delinquit Cùm Deum grande quid Boni constet esse utique Bono nisi Malum non displiceret quòd inter CONTRARIA sibi nulla Amicitia est MACARIVS in Hom. 15. p. 100. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having spoken before of Adam's disobedience Hom. 24. p. 137. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. 38. p. 204. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And long before Hom. 3. p. 15. A. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LACTANTIVS in Instit. l. 2. c. 7. p. 102. Dupliciratione peccatur ab insipientibus primum quod Dei opera Deo praeferunt deinde quod elementorum ipsorum figuras humana specie comprehensas colunt Haec facere peccatum est Nesciunt quantum sit nefas adorare aliud praeter Deum Si libido appetit thorum alienum licet sit mediocris vitium tamen maximum est Cupiditas inter vitia numeratur si haec quae terrena sunt concupiscat c. Recens natos oblidere maxima Impietas exponere necare duplex scelus See much more l. 5. c. 9. p. 299. especially c. 20. p. 319. So whilst the Blasphemy of Marcus the Magician and his Followers or their positive speaking against the honour of Gods essence is called an Impiety by IRENAEVS and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all Impiety he unavoidably imply's the positive being of Impiety which I hope M. Hickman will not affirm to be good or say impiety is one thing and sin another AMBROS de Cain Abel lib. 2. cap. 9. fol. 260. Quanto gravius pecâ—ato ipso ad Deum referre Quod fâ—ceris There the positive fact is said to be a sin though the ascribing it to God which is done by Mr. Hickman is said to be worse then the sin it self that is to say â— greater sin CYPRIAN de Eleemosynâ 1. Serm. p. 179. Coarctati eramus c. nisi iterum pietaâ— Divina subveniens viam quandam tuendae salutis aperuisset ut Sordes postmodum quascunque contrahimus Eleemosynis abluamus compare this with Daniel 4.27 Quia voluntas non erat in culpâ providit Deus generali Damnationi remedium suae sententiam Justitiae temperavit haereditarium ONVS à sobole removens misericorditer ablutione unctione medicinali corruptionis primitivae Fermentum expurgans ORIGEN ad Ioan. 2. in Cat. pat Gr. p. 77. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 AUGUSTINVS Confess c. 11. Talis motus nimirum voluntatis Delictum atque peccatum est Metus ille Aversionis quod fatemur esse peccatum vide quò pertineat c. SALVIAN l. 4. p. 128. Furtum in omni quidem est homine malum Facinus sed damnabilius ab que dubio si Senator furatur aliquando Cunctis Fornicatio interdicitur sed Gravius multò est si de Clero aliquis quà m si de populo fornicetur Ita nos qui Christiani Catholici esse dicimur si simile aliquid Barbarorum Impuritatibus facimus Gravius erramus Atrocius enim sub sancti nominis professione peccamus quanto minori peccato illi per Daemonia pejerant quà m nos per Christum Quanto minoris Res Criminis est Jovis nomen quà m Christi c. The force of this last testimony may be learnt by Mr. H. from Dr. Field It must not be said that God is the original cause that man hath any such action of will as is evil ex objecto for if he should Originally and out of himself will any such act he must be the author of sin seeing such an aâ—t is intrinsecally evil so that it cannot be separated from deformity p. 125 126. after this let Salvian speak Nil ad Deum pertinens Leve ducendum est quia etiam quod videtur exiguum esse Culpa Grande hoc faciebat Divinitatis Inâ—uria EPIPHANIVS adv Haer. l. 1. Tom. 3. p. 265. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 More instances may be seen p. 281.548 549. And to sin is expressed at every turn by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All importing the positivity of sin BERNARDUS de modo bene vivend Serm 37 p. 1281. Superbia est Râ—â—ix omnium malorum Superbia Cupiditas in tantum est unum malum ut nec superbia sine cupiditaâ—e nec cupiditas sine superbiâ esse possit Quid est omne peccatum nisi Dei Contemptus quo ejus praecepta contemnimus Luxuria flagitium est Avaritia spiritualis nequitiâ— unde illud vitium corporis istud Animae viz. quia nullum est peccatum quod ita inquinet corpus sicut Luxuria similiter super omne peccatum avaritia inquinat Animam unde Idolorum servitus dicitur Nor do I see how those Fathers who say that an habit of sin is gotten by the custom of such acts as are avoidable of themselves can be imaginable not to hold the positivity of sin or to hold that such acts can be impuâ—able to God which they affirm the Creature might have avoided Evitabilium Actuum consuetudine censent generari in homine habitum vitiosum so Ger. VOSSIVS in Hist. Pelag p. 215. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so he calls Idolatry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 38. p. 620. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Initium omnis peccati superbia non solùm peccatum est ipsa sed nullum peccatum fieri potuit potest aut poterit fine ipsâ siquidem nihil aliud omne peccatum nisi Dei contemptus est quo ejus praecepta calcantur which compare with Ecclus. 10.13 FULGENTIUS ad Monim l. 1. p. 275. so also p. 302 Si initium peccati requiritur nihil aliud nisi superbia invenitur quae tùm initium sumpsit cum Angelus adversus Deum elatus per concupiscentiam quae est radix omnium malorum volens usurpare c. mala opera hoc est Peccata praescisse tantum non etiam praedestinasse quia ibi non opus Dei esse dicitur sed judicium Ideo in peccato opus Dei non est sine operante Deo malus operatur LOMBARDUS l. 2. d. 2. Dist. 40. c. Opera ipsa peccata sunt ut furta stupra Blasphemiae sunt nonnulli actus qui peccata sunt mala per se quaerimus quis Actus peccatum sit dignosces quis Actus sit Peccatum In lieu of producing more Antiquity in words at length which would increase my Readers trouble I shall insert the
whereby he owns Mr. Calvin in the worst of those things I cited from him and gives me reason to believe that he never read the Bookes of Grotius but takes up his anger upon trust as he hath done the materials which fill his volume § 67. He next resolves to spend some pages in another way of Impertinence and Tergiversation It seemes not caring what course he takes whereby to patch up a little volumn and yet to stave off his Readers from what he took upon him to prove to wit that sin hath no positive being His little project is briefly this first to say how much he hath read in Dr. Taylor and Dr. Hammond and secondly to adde upon that occasion so dexterous he is at the contriving of a transition that if Presbytery be a crime he must needs say he hath learnt it from Episcopal men p. 23. c. will you know his Reasons The first is this The Primate and Dr. Holland were of opinion that a Presbyter and a Bp. differ in degree only not in order But neither doth he attempt a proof that this could make him a Presbyterian Or that the Primate and the Dr. did ever think any such thing much less that they said it either in earnest or in â—est I am sure the L. Primate thought our Presbyters unexcusable for taking upon them the Bishops office to ordain But he had mercy for the French Protestants because he thought it necesâ—ity not choice which kept them from Episcopal order see the Letter of Peter du Moulin the son sent to a Scotchman of the Covenant who proves his Father to be clearly for the order of Bishops Chamier affirmes them to be of right elected Princes Their Church would have Bps. but are not suffâ—red The second reason is that Bp. Andrews ordained a Scotchman Bishop never made Priest but by Presbyters which he would not have done had ordination by Presbyters been unto him a Nullity p. 23.24 But 1. he brings not any proof that there was ever any such fact 2. From Fact to Right no good Argument can be drawn 3. Bp. Andrewâ— might be ignorant that the Scotchman had received any such mock-Ordination 4. Or he might think the man had invincible Necessity to help excuse him which yet I take to be most improbable much lesse that he could fancy the common Rule had place here Quod fieri non debet factum valet And therefore 5 my chiefest answer to it is this that the story proves nothing supposing truth to have been in it but what is against Mr. Hickmans interest for it only proves that such a man who had been sinfully dub'd into a Titular Priesthâ—od and was therefore no real Priest in the opinion of Bp. Andrews might yet per saltum be made a Bishop Because in his being made a Bp. he is ipso facto made a Priest And so t is granted as well of Timothy and Titus and the rest in their time that they were consecrated Bishops without the receiving of previous orders Others having first been Dâ—aconâ— were immediately assumed into the order of Bishops So Linus who was St. Pauls Deacon as Anacletus and Clemens who were St Peters succeeded both those Apostles in the Bishoprick of Rome Having thus satisfied Mr. H as to the case of his Scotchâ—an ordained per saltum by Bp. Andrews I shall tell him that there are Diverse who having been dub'd by Presbyterians for without an abusive way of speaking they durst not say they had been ordained were so sensible of the crimes of Schisme and sacrilege in the thing that they made their Recantations to several Bishops within my knowledge and solemnly renounced such Ordinations and after that have been ordained by the Bishops themselves I am unwilling to name the men that I may not occasion their persecution But Bishop Morton is out of their Reach and so I am free to make it known what he hath done in this kinde The reader may judge by this Tast whether Episcopal men could ever teach Mr. H. his Presbyterianisme 68. He produceth a passage from one of the first Printed Sermons of the learned and Reverend Dr. SANDERSON concerning Gods concurrence with subordinate Agents p. 29. which he hoped some shallow Readers would think conducing to his end of making the people to believe that God himself is the Cause of the wickedest actions in the world because the wickedest actions have not onely a reall but a positive being But besides that that passage of Gods concurrence to the sustentation of the Creature is nothing at all in it self to Mr. Hickmans purpose I have the leave and consent of that most learned and pious person to communicate as much of his Letters to me on this occasion as I conceive may tend to his vindication and with all to the advantage of peace and truth Doctor Sanderson's Letters c. 1. As to the passage in the fifth Sermon ad Populum p. 278 9. the Doctor saith That as he did as well at the time when that Sermon was preached as at all other times before and since utterly detest so the thing principally intended and purposely insisted upon in that whole passage was to root out of mens minds the seeds of that horrid Blasphemous opinion that God was the Author or efficient cause of sin 2. He saith That the occasion which led him to that discourse being the handling of that 1 Tim. iv 4. Every Creature of God is good the Iâ—ference thence was naturall and obvious That therefore whatsoever was evil couâ—d be no creature of God was none of his making nor could he in any tolerable sense be said to be the Author or cause thereof 3. He saith That if in the Explication or prosecution of that Inference he should perhaps have let fall some such improper incommodious or ambiguous phrase or expression as a caviller might wrest to a worse construction then was meant a thing not alwayes to be avoyded in popular discourses especially where the matter treaâ—ed of is of greaâ— nicety or of a mixt consideration between Metaphysical and Moral it had yet been the part of an ingenuous Reader to have made the main scope of the discourse the measure whereby to interpret such phrases and expressions rather then by a malign interpretation to extract such a sence out of the words as it is certain the Author unless he would contradict himself could not mean 4. He saith That upon as district a review of every period and clause in that whole passage as seemed requisite for his concernment in the present debate he hath not observed any phrase or expression which is not consonant to his main scope therein or whereof Master Hickman without injury and violence to his true meaning could serve himself in any of those three points wherein as far as he can judge having never seen Mr. Hickmans Book he conceiveth the difference betwixt Master Pierce and his adversaries to lye viz. 1. Gods
extremity and nonsense in the worst degree because it implyes a contradiction to say the sin is the mere repugnance of the act to the law without the act which is repugnant Or that the sin of hating God is a deflection from the Precept without that hating which is the sin XIII 'T is so far from being false to call it a sin to blaspheme which is a positive entity that it is blasphemy to deny it This is a proof from plain experience XIV A part of nothing can be the thing of which it is but a part for then the part would be the whole which does imply a contradiction And so the formal part of sin cannot possibly be the sin but the sin must include the material also This doth prompt me Gentle Reader to prepare thee also for those evasions with which the Adversaries of Truth will pretend to answer what thou shalt urge 1. If therefore when thou provest a sin is positive they shall onely answer concerning sin quatenus sin Remember to tell them of their Fallacie à Thesi ad Hypothesin or à dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid 2. If again when thou sayst some sins are actions such as those which God forbids us to put in being they shall answer that sins of omission are not put them in mind of that other fallacie A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter 3. If when thou arguest by an Induction of such particulars as in the Instance of hating God they shall answer that hating is not evil in it self and good as fasten'd upon sin Tell them straight of their Fallacies A rectè conjunctis ad malè divisa and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the Argument is of hating as having God for its object And so to answer of hating without an object is an Intolerable impeâ—tinence dividing the Act from the Object which were onely considered in conjunction much more is it impertinent to talk of hating as 't is objected upon sin for that iâ— a traâ—sition à genere ad genus God is not sin nor is it a sin to hate sin but the sin of hating God is that to which they must speak in a compound sense Hold them punctually to this and they are undone 4 If they take upon them to prove acting the part of the opponent that the formal part of sin is a mere privation therefore the sin is a mere privation tell them first of their fallacie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the Antecedent might be true and yet the sequel extremely false Tell them next there is a Fallacie of Ignoratio Elenchì For the question is of sin not of a portion or part of sin They are past all Remedy who when the Question is whether it râ—ines do onely answer that the staff does not stand in the corner Tell them over and above that the formal part of some sins as of the Divels hating God is a positive Repugnance to the Law of God and so again there is the Fallacie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 barely to say and not to prove the universality of the thing can amount to no more then onely the begging of the question Mr. Hickman must confess he is the worst of Blasphemers if there is but one sin that is a positive entity because he saith that All such must be either God's creatures or God himself This also prompts me to reflect upon the Mischievous effects of his sad Dilemma For if God is said to be the cause of that positive entity or action Adam's eating forbidden fruit And the cause of that Law Thou shalt not eat it he is said to be the Author or cause of that sin which was his very eating forbidden fruit I have therefore taken the greater pains in my following Treatise both in vindicating God from being the Author of such effects and in charging them wholly upon the Free-will of man shewing how the sinful agent is alone the cause of the sinful act to the end I might convince and convert my Adversary even in spight of his own perversness and disabuse his followers or abeâ—tors notwithstanding their partiality and praepossession That when they exert any such reall and positive actions as the hating of God the ravishing of virgins the killing of Kings the committing of sacriledge the coveting and seizing their neighbour's goods they may be forced to declare with Coppinger and Hacket in the Star-Chamber the works are evil and from themselves unless they will take in the Divel too not good and from God as Mr. Hickman no less irrationally than blasphemously saith That there are haters of God who is Love it self God hath told us by Moses and by Saint Paul And according to the importance of the original word they are hated by God who are haters of him How we ought to be affected towards them that hate God the Psalmist tells us by his example Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee yea I hate them with a perfect hatred Who they are that hate God by way of eminence our Learned Doctor Stearn hath taken the Liberty to say I shall content my self at present to shew the place in my Margin and to observe Mr. Hickman is therein intimately concern'd I do not hate Mr. Hickman but do love him so well as to wish him better Yet of the Doctrine which he delivers and pleadeth for with so much vehemence That every positive thing is good and either God or his creature I have industriously discovered my perfect hatred For the Hellish murder of Gods Anointed of ever Blessed and glorious Memory was as positive a something as any action to be produced And all the plea of those Deicides who sought to justifie the Fact was the use they made of this Fatal Doctrine They ever imputed unto God irresistibly willing or unconditionally decreeing and effectually over-acting his peoples spirits whatsoever unclean thing they were suffer'd in What was really but the patience they call'd the pleasure of the Almighty His passive permission they stil'd appointment What he had every where forbidden they gave him out to have predetermin'd What was a sin not to be expiated They calld an expiatory sacrifice They gave out God to be the Author of all that he sufferd them to commit the favourable approver of whatsoever he condemned them to prosper in In a word they told the people that God was delighted in those impieties which with much long suffering he but endur'd And then I think I was excusable for being impatient of such a Doctrine as to the Ruin of three Kingdomes I saw reduced into practice for diverse years How impartial I have been in the maintaining of the Truth I shall evince in the following papers by my Reply to Mr. BARLOW the Reverend Provost of Queens Colledge in Oxford my very learned and loving Friend To certain Reasonings of his in his second Metaphysical
being subordinate and determined by the first to that Numerical and particular Action which hath its specification from the influx of God either the action of hating God cannot possibly be a sin or not imputed as a sin to the second Cause thus acted by the first as hath been said But whatsoever it is must rest upon God as its Cause and Author If Mr Hick for an escape from this impiety shall rather say it is from God as the Immediate Cause his case will then be so much worse as it is worse by some odds to make God a sinner then only the cause of his Creatures sin Now besides that God is said to make the action which he forbids and at the Instant that he forbids it we know the obliquity to the action is so inseparably annexed that the Author of the One must needs be the Author of the other the inseparability is granted by Baronius § 5. p. 50.52 and not denied I think by any But I am truely so much in pain whilst Mr. Hick makes it my duty to expose him thus to publick view that I will onely refer him to the several parts of my ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the applying of this to his Distinction and choose to shew him the Danger of it out of other mens writings partly that Reason may not be slighted for want of Authority to commend it and partly to shew him I am no sharper then the necessity of the Case doth make it needful Because no sharper then other men who yet are famous for moderation I will begin with Dr. Field and the great Divines by him alledged and then proceeding to Dr. Goad one of the Synodists at Dort to Dr. Iackson and Diotallevius and other valuable Writers I will conclude with Dr. Hammond whom nothing but love to the truth of God and perfect zeal to his Honour could make to utter the least word that looks like sharpness to a Dissenter § 4. This distinction saith Dr. Field will not clear the doubt they move touching Gods efficiency and working in the sinful Actions of men Whensoever saith Durand two thins are inseparably joyned together whosoever knowing them both and that they are so inseparably joyned together chooseth the one chooseth the other also Because though haply he would not choose it absolutely as being evil and by the way no sinner doth so choose sin yet in as much as it is joyned to that which he doth will neither can be separated from it it is of necessity that he must will both The case appeareth in those actions which are voluntary and mixt As when a man casteth into the Sea those rich commodities to save his life which he would not do but in such a case Hence it followeth that the act of hating God and sinful deformity being so inseparably joyned together that the one cannot be divided from the other for a man cannot hate God but he must sinne damnably if God doth will the one he doth will the other also § 5. This of Durand is confirmed by Suarez who saith He shall never satisfie any man that doubteth how God may be cleared from being author of sin if he have an efficiency in the sinful actions of men that shall answer that all thâ—t is said touching Gods efficiency and concurrence is true in respect of the evil motions of mens wills materially considered and not formally in that they are evil and sinful For the one of these is consequent upon the other For a free and Deliberate act of a created will about such an act and such circumstances cannot be produced but it must have deformity annexed to it § 6. There are some operations or Actions saith Cumel that are intrinsecally evil so that in them we cannot separate that which is material from that which is formal as it appeareth in the hate of God and in this act ☞ when a man shall say and Resolve I will do evil so that it implyes a contradiction that God should effectually work our will to bring forth such actions in respect of that which is material in them and not in respect of that which is formal § 7. And this seemeth yet more impossible saith Dr. Field if we admit their opinion who think that the formal nature and being of the Sin of commission consisteth in some thing that is positive and in the manner of working freely so as to repugne to the rule of Reason and Lâ—w of God so that it is clear in the judgement of those great Divines that if God hath a true reall efficiency in respect of the substance of these sinful actions he must in a sort produce the deformity or that which is formal in them And again the Dr. saith If God doth determine the will of man to work repugnantly to the Law he must needs move and determine it to sin seeing to sin is nothing else but to repugne unto the Law p. 125. § 8. It s a hard case saith Dr. GOAD when they have but one frivolous distinction to keep God from Sinning And then he confutes the evasion thus That which is a principall â—â—use of any action is a cause of those concomitants which accompany that action necessarily This Rule is most certainly true Therefore if God by his Decrees do force us to do those actions which cannot be done without sin God himself I am afraid to rehearse it must needs be guilty of sin He gives an Instance in Adam's eating the forbidden fruit And I will gratifie my Reader with a Transcript of it because the Doctors Disputatioâ— is not commonly to be had If God decreed that Adam should unavoidably eat the forbidden fruit seeing the eating of that fruit which he had forbidden must needs be with a grâ—ss obliquity I do not see saith the Doctor how this Distinction will justifie God For Adam sinned because he ate that fruit that was forbidden But they say God decreed that he should eat that fruit which was forbidden necessarily unavoidably The Conclusion is too blasphemous to be so often repeated The Reader may see as the Dr. goes on by which t is plain he intended his Disputation for the Press how wel that common distinction holds water Yea if this nicety were sound man himself might prove that he committed no murder although he stabbed the dead party into the heart For at his arraignment he might tell the Judge that he did indeed thrust a dagger into his heart but it was not that which took away his life but the extinction of his natural heat and vital spirits Who seeth not the wilde phrenzie of him that should make this Apologie yet this is all our Adversaries say for God They say his Decree was the cause that Adam took the forbidden fruit and put it into his mouth and eat that which he had commanded he should not eat yet they say he was not the cause of the transgression of the Commandment
c. But let us hear Dr. Iackson also § 9. The Hypothesis for whose clearer Discussion these last Theses have been praemised is this Whether it being once granted or supposed that the Almighty Creator was the cause either of our mother Eves desire or of her actual eating of the forbidden fruit or of her delivery of it to her husband or of his taking and eating it though unawares the same Almighty God must not upon like necessity be acknowledged to be the Author of all the obliquiâ—ies which did accompany the positive acts or did necessarily result from them This is a case or Species Facti which we cannot determine by the Rule of Faith It must be tryed by the undoubted Rules of Logick or better Arts. These be the onely perspective Glasses which can help the eye of Reason to discover the truth or necessity of the consequence to wit whether the Almighty Creator being granted to be the cause of our mother Eves first longing after the forbidden Fruit were not the cause or Author of her sin Now unto any Rational man that can use the help of the forementioned Rules of Art which serve as prospective Glasses unto the eye of Reason that usual Distinction between the Cause or Author of the Act and the Cause or Author of the Obliquity which necessarily ensues upon the Act will appear at the first sight to be False or Frivolous yea to imply a manifest contradiction For Obliquity or whatsoever other Relation can have no cause at all besides that which is the Cause of the Habit of the Act or Quality whence it necessarily results And in particular that conformity or similitude which the first man did bear to his Almighty Creator did necessarily result from his substance or manhood as it was the work of God undefaced Nor can we search after any other true Cause of the First mans conformity to God or his integrity besides him who was the cause of his manhood or of his existence with such qualifications as by his creation he was endowed with In like manner whosoever was the cause whether of his coveting or eating of the Tree in the middle of the Garden was the true cause of that obliquity or crooked deviation from Gods Law or of that deformity or dissimilitude unto God himself which did necessarily result from the forbidden Act or Desire It was impossible there should be one Cause of the Act and another Cause of the Obliquity or Deformity whether unto Gods Laws or unto God himself For no Relation or Entity merely relative such are obliquitie and deformity can have any other Cause beside that which is the cause of the Fundamentum or Foundation whence they immediately result It remains then that we acknowledge the old Serpent to have been the first Author and Man whom God created male and female to have been the true positive Cause of that obliquity or deformity which did result by inevitable Nâ—câ—ssity from the forbidden Act or desire which could have no Necessary cause at all and more to this purpose p. 3013. c. § 10. Diotallevius doth also prove that they who make God the Author of the positive act of hatiâ—g God do make him the Author of the obliquity Because saith he God himself cannot effect what doth imply a contradiction that the moral obliquity of an Act which is intrinsecally evil and freely exerted by the creature shall not follow or rather attend the positive entity of the act which is such as hath been said and so exerted For it implies a contradiction that an act intrinsecally evil to wit the act hating God should be freely exerted and yet not evil or that it should not have a moral pravity conjoyned with it 2. They who hold all positive entities to be effected by God himself must needs believe him to be the cause as much of the worst as of the best actions in the world both because hating is as positive when it is fixed upon God as it can possibly be when it is fixed upon the Divel And because an obliquity is as vnavoidable to the one as rectitâ—de or conformity can be possibly to the other 3. If an immediate working of the formal obliquity be required to make an Author of anothers sin then neither Man nor Divel in perswading another to do wickedly can possibly be the Author of it because they are not any otherwise the causes of the obliquity then by tempting to that act to which the obliquity is annexed And for the very same reason no creature could be the cause of any such sin within himself because he doth not produce the moral obliquity of the act but by producing the act to which the obliquity is annext 4. When we do absolutely and simply inquire after the cause of another mans sin we do not inquire after the cause which immediately reacheth to the obliquity of the act but after the inducing or moving cause by which he is led to such a voluntary act whose object is repugnant to the rule of Reason That is the method of Aquinas De malo quaest 3. art 1. 3. 1.2 q. 75. per totam from whence it follows that if God doth induce us efficaciously to an aversion from himself and so to a hatred of his Divinity it is every whit as true that he is the Author of our sin as that he induceth us efficaciously to that aversion and hatred which is intrinsecally evil And therefore Mr. Hickman must recant the first or contentedly smart for the Impiety of the second § 11. Doctor STEARN is very severe and upon very just ground to the use that is made of the same Distinction For he doth not content himself to say that to be the cause of the action from which the obliquity cannot be separate is to be the very cause of the obliquity it self because the obliquity is annexed to the entity of the Action and thâ—t in a manner unavoidable Nor doth he onely add this That man himself is no otherwise the author of his sin then as he is author of that action to which the obliquity is annexed But he saith yet farther That if God well-knowing the absolute inseparability of the obliquity from the action doth wâ—llingly produce that very action he is so far from being free from the obliquity of the action that he is môre guilty of it then the man himself in whom that action is â—o produced as who does seldome or never think of the obliquity annext quam Deus nunquam non cognoscit animadvertit Nay he chargeth the Adversaries with a higher blasphemy then that even with making God more guilty then the divel which how they can answer let them consider whom it concern's I shall onely for the present subjoyn his words Immo Daemones hominem ad peccandum tentantes minori jure Authores peccati sunt censendi quam Causa Libera Actionis illam producens non tantùm sciens malitiam esse
unlesse he thinks our very nature may be said to be sinfulnesse it self or that our nature and our faculties are meer privations which yet he cannot say soberly because he absolutely denyes that sin doth signifie abstractly 4. Dr Hammond who knew best the true importance of the Text thought fit to paraphrase it to us by customary sins not by nature and faculties as Mr. Hickman 5. By this he justifies Dr. Iackson and Flaccius Illyricus whom before at adventure he did so liberally condemn 6. In saying that the faculties by reason of privations do lâ—st against the working of the spirit ibid he implyes that lusting to be a sin without a figure and yet implyes it as much to be something positive 7. If he quarrels with me and others for expressing the hatred of God by sin which is positive but not good how hath he railed in effect at the blessed Apostle for expressing that by sin which he confesseth to be good as well as positive and therefore good because positive 8. Let sin be taken for nature and its faculties as he desires yet concupiscence is not which sin is said to bring forth And that concupiscence as it is positive so our selfe-contradictor will hardly deny it to be a sin Sect. 24. To prove the efficient cause of sin I argued thus in the first place If man is the cause of sin and not efficient he is the material formal or final cause if the deficient is none of these as none will say it is it is no cause at all If sin hath no cause it hath no real being much lesse can it be the cause of punishment and so God is inferred to punish men without cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 145. Now comes the Answer of Mr. H. as much for my interest as I could wish Rather then we will seem to be too much frighted we will say that man is the material or subjective cause of the Action such a material or subjective cause as evil can have p. 102. To which I reply 1. That Mr H. did either intend to speak to the purpose or else for fear of that he speaks industriously beside it if the first he fully grants that sin is an action and so a positive being if the second he is convinced of sinning against his own Light and effectually confesseth he cannot answer when the Question is of the cause of sin why does he answer touching the cause of the Action if he does not believe it to be a sin and if he believes it to be a sin why undertook he in his Titlepage to prove that sin is a mere privation Here I leave him to be hist by the Colledge-boyes for having written as if he had written on purpose to make himself the object of scorn and laughter Nor is it fit it should go better with such as write against God as the cause of all sins because of all actions acts and habits 2. That here by action he means sin one would believe by what he saith in his second clause as an explication of his first cause of the Action such a material cause as evil can have if he means it can have none why did he yield a material causâ— if he means it can have any mâ—terial cause ex quâ or in quâ then he confesseth it hath a cause which is not meerly deficient if ex quâ it is a concrete if in quâ an accident if either positive It hath besides materiam circa quam and so a threefold subject constituens recipiens occupans subjectum As for his confession which next ensues of the efficient cause of sin which must needs be meant by the evil of the action and how again he falls into the youngsters hands I have long since shew'd Chap. 3. Sect. 28. num 7. so ill he prospers with stollen goods out of Robert Baronius which he would certainly have cited Baronius for had he so well understood it as I hope he now doth For how he builds up my cause upon the Ruins of his own by what he saith of the first sin a proud desire to be equal with God p. 103. I have largely shewed ch 3. Sect. 28. Num. 1. 25. To my 2. Argument that where there is no efficient there is no effect that is there is nothing and so according to mine Antagonist men are either not damned or damned for nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 145. He is so far from the courage to frame an answer that he dares not be so honest as to repeat my words fairly but tells his Readers of my inference without a syllable of of my premâ—ses from whence my inference was drawn for fear his Readers should discern how conscious he is of his disability and how resolutely bent on Tergiversation which he had nothing to keep from being seen but an easie boast so that still I am to ask 1. How that is an effect which hath no efficient and 2. How that can be something which is effected by nothing and 3. How nothing can be the cause of a mans damnation To these 3. things he should have answered had he been able but nemo tenetur ad impossibile and so he thinks he hath a priviledge to be impertinent what is meant by nihil applyed to sin in one case and to substance it self in another I have abundantly inform'd him throughout my fifth Chapter especially § 1.3 and § 5. num 6. c. But since he shews himself a seâ—ker he shall not fail to find my meaning My meaning is that p. 104. God will punish impenitent sinners with damnation both for not having in their faculties Habits and Actions what should be in them And also for having that which should not be in them He will not therefore damn infants for their meerly not-having original righteousness in the root for he accepteth according to what a man hath not according to what he hath not but he will damn those adulti who work unrighteousness and continue such working unto the end To this I add 2. things 1. That no willfull sinner who is liable to wrath can so omit that which is good as not to commit that which is evil 2. That God will punish such sinners not onely for having something in their actions and habits which they should not have but for having such habits and for exerting such actions or for putting those things in being which God would not have and forbidâ— to be 3. There is a positive abnegation of God Tit. 1.16 and so Mr. Hickman doth deny him So did they also who forsook God and followed Baalim 1 King 18.18 And therefore that passage which Mr. Hickman took from Dr. Robert Baron without so much as saying by your leave Sir as an Anonymous writer is known to say cannot stand him in any stead For a man cannot not pay the money which he owe's without detaining or keeping back the money which he should pay And however
we befriend them in giving the people occasion to think that they onely are the men who would contend for the Faith once delivered to the Saints p. 5. See how little he understands that easie Text in St. Iude. If Calvin's Doctrine in point of Decrees is the faith delivered to the Saints of which Saint Iude spake then it must not onely be truth but the whole divine Truth delivered to us as we are Christians And so farewell by this Logick to the four Evangelists who have nothing of the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints But welcome Iohn Calvin who hath it all For the whole Doctrine of the Gospel is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jude 2. And unless Mr. Hickman did take it too in that sense how does the affixing the assertions upon Calvin and his following Presbyterians p. 3. and 4. give any occasion to the people to think that they are the ONELY MEN It is no wonder if Bishop Hooper one of the first of our holy Martyrs who suffered from the Papists for our Religion as others have done from the Presbyterians did express these men by the name of Gospellers as having found out another Gospel then what had been written by the four Evangelists to use the words of Sir Edwin Sandys Our Gospellers said Bishop Hooper are better learned then the holy Ghost over every mischief that is done they say it is Gods will And what prodigious stuff it is which Mr. Hickman cals the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints I leave to be judged by the words and lines and pages which I hâ—ve shewed from Mr Calvin and other Writers Had an Angel from heaven taught such a Gospel Saint Paul had set him packing with an Anathema Maranatha § 12. Bishop Carleton saying some take it for a sign of such as are looking towards Popery c. p. 5. gives leave to others to take it otherwise When a thing has two handles one may take it by the right as well as another by the left As I and my Betters are wont to take it Our disclaiming the Doctrines of Presbyterians is the way to stop a Papist's mouth who hath nothing to accuse the Protestants of but what the Presbyterians have introduced and that in a perfect opposition to the true Protestant religion § 13. In the eighth page of his Epistle for the sixth and the seventh are fill'd with one large Transcript verbatim taken from Mr. Prin without acknowledging the Author from whence he took it he appears to be conscious of his scurrility by which he supposeth he hath departed from that meekness of spirit which is required in a Minister But he desires his Brethren to think it as lawfull as they may as if he were acting zeal of the land in his Address to Rabbi Buisy to put some vineger into his ink and so to continue in his departure from Châ—istian meekness supposing he cannot fall totally much less finally from Grace or else in meekness of spirit to call me Bolsec and Fevardentius and what he pleaâ—eth But here I arrest him with one mild Question whilst he is furious Was my saying that their speeches could be no less then Blasphemous who said that God was the Author and cause of sin A making their Graves amongst Blasphemers or a proving by their pages lines and words where they had made their own Graves Perhaps they thought their speeches innocent And thence I censuâ—'d thâ—ir speeches not the thoughts they had of them Suppose the Author of a Dispensatory shaâ—l put a Receipt into his Book which I know hath poyson'd somâ— and is as likely to poyson others will my giving a timely warning to beware of that medicine be censured as the making that Author 's Grave among murderers It will it seems by Mr. Hickman but who can help it I plainly proved to Doctor Reynolds That for all I said of Blasphemous Doctrines I had not onely Doctor Whitakers but Mr. Câ—lvins good leave And so Mr. Hickman unawares hath rail'd it out against both But if Bolsec is reformed I hope he will do the less hurt And that he is so in earnest Bathyllus tells us § 14. He falls again to confession p. 9. that 't is hard for him not to exceede his bounds whereupon he prayes his Brethren to give him a call unto repentance And compares them to the old Puritanes as to the exercise of their patience But who were the old Puritanes were they such as took upon them to ordain Ministers at Brackley or such as took joyfully their neighbours goods if so he said ill That the world was not worthy of such inhabitants The Apostle applying the words to them who suffer'd the spoiling of their own § 15. The malignity which he concludes with against Episcopal Government which yet he holds to be better than none at all and none at all hath been the Government which they have hitherto set up doth onely serve to put us in mind in how many respects they have been perjur'd as well in swearing as forswearing their Scotish Covenant They may be said to be Reformers of Episcopal Government and if they please of Regal too as the Heretick Marcus was said by many women and few men The Reformer of all that had gone before him But what kind of Ministers he ordained and after what an enormous manner and how he Reformed the womens Purses to fill his own would be tedious to tell upon this occasion They that will may consult Epiphanius Haeres 34. And especially Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 9. My observation is chiefly this That he was reckon'd a great Reformer An Appendix for Master Hickman touching his Preface to the READER § 16. Having gon over the main of Mr. Hickmans Dedicatory Epistle I now proceed to his Praeface his tedious Praeface to the Reader On which I shall make the shortest strictures that I am able untill I meet with such things as do call for length And because Doctor Heylin hath unanswerably spoken to the Historical part both in his Certamen Epistolare wherein he Refutes it ex professo and in his Quinquarticular History wherein he vertually Refutes it though not by name I shall not therefore say more to that than is omitted by Doctor Heylin or at least omitted for ought I am able to remember § 17. He tells his Reader in the beginning 1. how much he had been taken with I know not what rich vein of Rhetorick which he saith he saw running through all my writings which he had seen 2. That he hath not mentioned my name without those prefaces of Respect which are due to a Scholar 3. That notwithstanding his being debased to the Dunghil of Doltisme he is not so much as tempted to detract from my Credit and Reputation c. p. 1. If this hath any Truth in it then there is no truth at all in the far greatest part of his whole performance For Mr. Baxter
from turning Atheists It was observed by Peucerus in his Epistle before his Chronicon that there are three sins especially which have a tendency to the changing of States and Empires 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Impiety Injustice unbridled Lust. The Church is ruin'd by the first the secular policy by the second and private families by the third Each of these must needs reign when thought to have nothing of Reality or if it hath to be God's own offspring The late Cromwellians and the Phanaticks were clearly transported by the latter For having called their strength the Law of Iustice they constantly ascribed to God's decree and appointment and All working providence whatsoever vile practice they found they were able to bring about Their Dâ—clarations and Petitions their Remonstrances and news Books their Congratulations and Addresses both to the old and young Tyrant did ever run in Mr. Hickman's and Hobbs his strain Regicide and Sacrilege and all manner of Vsurpations being not onely Real but positive entities were still ascribed to the working and will of Goâ— But Mr. Hickman's true opinion must not be judged of by his wordâ— unless his opinion like his words doth often varie and shift it self to the two extream parts of his contradictions Whether 't is really his opinion that that is no sin which is intrinsecally evil because he saith it is good and the work of good or else that that is a sin which is God's own work because he saith it is an action and hath a positive being whâ—ther 't is really his opinion That for Ammon to ravish his sister Tamar could not possibly be a sin because an action or that a hatred of God himself cannot possibly be a sin because a Quality we can but guess by his plainest words though the Searcher of hearts doth know his meaning For one while he seeks to perswade his Readers that sin is nothing but a privation And he doth it by producing such figurative expressions from certain Authors as by which it is said that sin is nothing As 't were on purpose to let us know what he means by a privation Another while he saith that all things positive are good and from God and yet that the action of hating God is intrinâ—ecally evil which notwithstanding he confesseth to be a positive thing Another while he saith That the first sin of the Angels was a proud desire to be equal with God Where sin is praedicated in recto of proud desire which proud desire he will not deny to be a Quality and so to have both a Real and a positive Being And yet another while he saith That whatsoever hath a real he doth not say onely a positive being God himself doth produce as the first cause of it So that one of these two must needs be really his opinion but which of the two I leave him to say either that sin is Gods work and that God produced in the Angels their proud desire Or else that sin hath no real being but that conscience and sin are Ecclesiasticall words By the first he is a Libertine by the second a Carneadist And whether he who is either will not laugh at the Psalmist in his heart at least or in his sleeve for believing such a thing as a Reward for the Righteous I shall leave it to be judged by the considering Reader What should move him to assert the most contradictory things as that sin is something and nothing an action and no action Not a quality yet a quality That the hating of God is a sin and no sin That God is the cause and the Creator yet not the Author of every act And yet the Author of every act which is but positive or real I am not able to imagine unless he writes as he is moved by the present necessity of his affairs or is carried away with the Iesuits Doctrine of probability concerning which I shall speak in my consideration of Mr. Baxter Now to fit the plainest Reader for the perusal of my Book and to make the positivity of the very worst sins become visible to the blind very easie to the unlearned and to the obstinate undeniable I will supply him in Antecessum with severall Hints and Memâ—nto's of several forms and ways of arguing upon which he may enlarge as occasion serves I. It is the property of Qualities Quarto modo and so of nothing but qualities to denominate their subjects either like or unlike And so those sins must needs be qualities which will be granted to give such a denomination II. The positive belief in sensu composito that there is no God must needs be granted even by all to be a positive entity or being But 't is so wholly a sin as that 't is nothing but a sin to have a positive belief that there is no God Therefore that which is so a sin as to be nothing but a sin must needs be granted even by all to be a positive entity or being III. Sin properly so called is a transgression of the Lâ—w. And so is the act of the hating of God which yet is granted to have a positive being IV. A simple conversion is to be made betwixt sin and any action against a negative precept for every such action must be a sin and every such sin must be an action V. If something positive may be a sin then may a sin be something positive but something positive may be a sin witness envy pride lust malice VI. To hate God is an Action and therefore poâ—sitively something But 't is a sin to hate God Ergo. VII God forbid's in the Decalogue those positive acts coveting stealing bearing false witness and those are sins which God forbids in the Decalogue therefore those positive acts are sins VIII In this true proposition It is a sin to hate God sin is predicated directly of a positive action therefore that action is a species of sin IX There is a numerical identity or sameness betwixt a demonstrative and a determinate Individual as betwixt this man and Mr. Hickman when pointed out with a finger Such an Identity there is betwixt this sin and the Divels hating of God when 't is the thing so pointed out X. That very phrase an act of sin implyeth sin to be a compound which hath an act as well as an obliquiâ—y So that if sin is sinfulness which is the pleasure of Mr. Hickman then sinfulness is a compound and hath an act XI The very word peccare to sin imports an action so does malefacere to do wickedly as much as benefacere to do well And therefore this is the stile of the holy Scriptures They that have done evil shal have a resurrection to damnation and God will render to every man according to his Deeds Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil XII 'T is false in
recovery The true state of Sin specified as it differs from either part of Sin and from Sinfulness it self Mr. Hick gets nothing though we should grant him his Reduplication but rather looseth all he gapes at Nay proves himself a Carneadist or Libertine That Sin is positive and concrete may be concluded from Bonaventure CHAP. III. MR. Hick's chief strength from Mr. Barlow's youngest writings Why first encountred An accompt of Dr. Fields Reasons for the positive Entity of sin The first Reason the second Reason The first Reason was never answer'd The second answer'd by Mr. Barlow in his younger years The Answer shew'd to be invalid in 5 Respects 1. by its granting what it pretendeth to deny 2. by implying a contradiction 3. by being offensive to pious mindes 4. by offending against the Rules of sense 5. by the twofold unfitness of the Simile alledg'd Gulielmus de Rubione vindicated by way of Reply to Mr. Barlows Answer Mr. H's answer proved vitious in 3 respects 1. by such a gross Fallacy as by which he is proved no man but either a beast or somewhat worse 2. by such a shifting from the Question as proves him convinced of maintaining a gross error 3. by Blasphemy expressed and Contradiction implyed A third Reason taken from H. Grotius amounting to the same with Iacobus Almain Mr. Barlows Answer proved faulty in 7 respects The words of Capreolus make for me Mr. Barlows plea out of Hurtadus proved faulty in 6 Respects The Act of Hating God now and of sin hereafter unduly taken to be the same Act. A Denyal of Positivity betrayes its Owners to deny a Reality in Sin A fourth Reason out of Ioannes de Rada Mr. Barlows answer proved invalid in 4 Respects A 5 Reason out of Aquinas A Reply to the Answer of Mr. Barlow proving it faulty in 3 Respects Mr. Hick contradicted by his Masters and himself too A sixt Reason is taken out of Franciscus de Mayron and divers others Not answer'd by Mr. Barlow A Seventh Reason alledged by several Authors partly cited by Dr. Field Mr. Barlows answer proved faulty in 5 Respects An eighth Reason gathered out of Fran. Diotallevius confirmed by a ninth Argument leading the Adversary Mr. Hick to the most horrid Absurdities to be imagined A tenth Argument or Reason out of Cardinal Cajetan A 11th Argument collected from Episcopius A 12th and 13th Argument urged by Dr. Stern in his Animi Medela A 14 Argument out of D.R. Baron his Metaph. The arguments backt by the Authority of the most discerning by the explicit and implicit Confâ—ssions of the Adversaries By ten several Confessions of Mr. Hick himself CHAP. IV. MR. Hicks Distinction of the positive Act of Hating God and its obliquity frees him not from making God the Author of sin Proved first out of his mouth Secondly by Reason Thirdly by Authority in conjunction with Reason CHAP. V. THe Positive Entity of Sin made undeniable from Scripture God is the fittest to be Judge of what is properly called Sin Confirmed by the Concurrence of Antient Fathers The confession of Vossius for the greatest part of them Apollinarius by name and the greatest part of the Orientals as Ierome witnesseth Augustin held the propagation of the soul and Original sin to be a positive Quality The several wayes of reconciling such Writers unto themselves who plainly holding the positivity of sin do sometimes seem to speak against it An Accident opposed to Res simpliciter The Manichaean Haeresie occasioned some figurative expressions Substantia expressed by Natura Aliquid and Res. Substance called hoc aliquid by all the Followers of Aristotle All the Fathers grant sin to be an Act and the work of our Will How unhappily some men confuâ—e the Manichees How the Sinner is able to give the whole being unto his sin How they that deny it must submit to the Manichees or worse The Concurrence of the Learned both Antient and Modern for the Affirmative That the sinful Agent is the sole Cause of the sinful Act. The power to Act is from God but the vitious Action is not Melancthon's distinction of the first Cause susteining but not assisting the second in evill Actions CHAP. VI AN Accompt of those things which Mr. Hick calls his Artificial Arguments Of twelve things answered but 4 replyed to A Rejoynder to the First to the Second to the Third to the Fourth His second Argument Artificial How largely answered His remarkable Tergiversation without the shadow of a Reply His offers of Reason Why all things positive are from God or God himself and primarily none from Men or Devils The Infirmities of the First Of the Second by which he is proved out of his mouth to be the worst of Blasphemers Of the Third wherein he makes God the Fountain of the Essence of sin Of the Fourth wherein he ascribeth unto God what God ascribeth unto the Devil His third Argument Artificial The positive Importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not considered by Mr. Barlow The like Importance of Peccatum proved by Reason and Experience His Fourth and last Argument A short accompt of those Shifts which pretend to be Answers to some few Arguments Of Sins being called the works of the Devil His Concessions and Contradictions about the Habit of Drunkenâ—sse His Concessions and Contradictions about the positive filth of Sin His Concession and Tergiversation concerning Blasphemy and Atheisme c. His Remarkable Forgery of an Argument in his Adversaries name His stupendious Impertinence and supposal of Grace in Hell or Some privation besides All. Of Sins working Concupiscence Mr. Hicks Answer absurd in 8 Respects Of the efficient Cause of Sin Mr Hicks Conviction and Confession in despite of his whole Enterprise Of Sins being Nothing if no Effect Mr. H's vain attempt to prove Knavery to be Nothing The Cause of punishment Mr. H's Denyal of any positive Damnation unlesse he thinks it no punishment to be Damn'd The Contents of the APPENDIX Touching his Epistle Dedicatory MR Hickman his Flattery and Condemnation of himself His Willfull falsehood His Self contradiction and Confession of having written against his Conscience Dr. Hammond vindicated from Mr. H. His several falsifications His confounding the things which he once distinguisht The sad Effects of the Calvinian Schism Mr. H's sawciness and irreverence to Dr. Hammond added to all his willfull Forgeries His scurrilous usage of Dr. Taylor and its occasion Originall sin The dissatisfaction of Episcopal Divines Dr. Taylors error on the right hand extreamly better then the heresie of Presbyterians on the left Mr. H's preferring Calvin to the 4. Evangelists The way to stop a Papists mouth Mr. H's sense of his Scurrility with his desire never to mend His new sense of his Carnality And malignity to the Episcopal Government Touching his Book-like Preface to the Reader THe first Page of his Preface proves all that follows to be but the fruites of his Revenge His frivolous exception to Heathen Learning The Heathenish nature of his
own A new Discovery of his stealths with their aggravation His mistake of Iustice for Drollery The Calvinian Tenet renders all study useless The Kings Declaration forbidding its being preached No good Arguing from evill custom The Lord Falklands judgment against Calvin's Mr. H's Inhumane and slanderous Insinuation How much worse in Himself then in any other It s odiousness shewn by a parallel case His Profession of Cordial Friendship with its effect His Sacrilegious Eulogie bestowed on them of his way The Doctrine of the Church of England Vindicated with BP Laud and BP Mountague Of Mr. H's Impertinence implying Presbyterians to be Idolaters The Archbishop cleared as to what he did against Sherfield An Impartial Narrative of the case The Doctrine of St. Iohn concerning Antichrist Original sin assented to as taught in the Article of our Church Loyalty a part of our Religion An accompt to the Reader of the Method observed in all that follows BP Tunstall and BP Hooper out weigh Tyndal c. The 17th Article 2 wayes for us So the Liturgy and Homilies and Nowells Catechism which Mr. H. produceth against himself It was not the Church of England that put the Calvinists into preferments ArchbP Bancroft an Anticalvinist Dr. Richardson and Dr. Overal both publick professors and most severe to the Calvinian Doctrines Dr. Sanderson no less since his change of judgment Persecution is not a mark of error in those that suffer it Mr. Simpson cleared from his censors as to falling from Grace and Rom. 7. Barrets Recanting an arrant Fable BP Mountagues vindication Mr. H's confession That men follow Calvin in their younger and Arminius in their riper years The causes of it given by D. Sanderson Of Dr. Iacksons Act Questions and Dr. Frewin's Of K. Iames and BP Mountague K. Iames his conversion from the Calvinian errors A change of judgment in some Divines who were sent to Dort Mr. H's sense of the University and his unpardonable scurrility of the late Archbishop Vniversal Redemption held as well by K. Iames the late Primate of Armagh and BP Davâ—nant as by Arminius Mr. H. grants the whole cause but does not know it His opposition to the Asse mbly mens Confession of faith Mr. H. proved to grant the whole causâ— at which he rails and so to be a Calvinistical-Arminian Confirmed by Du Moulin Paraeus and Dr. Reynolds Confirmed further by Dr. Twisse And by the Synod of Dort His scurrilous usage of Dr. Heylin shews the length of his own ears His concluding Question childishly fallacious Touching the Remnant of his Book HIs Self condemnation and Contradiction The Calvinists draw their own consequences from their Tenet of Decrees How Mr. H. is their Accuser and how his own How as an Hobbist and an Arminian How in striving to clear he condemns himself and confesseth his making God to be the Author of siâ— His own thick darkness touching the darkness in the Creation How he makes the most real thingâ— to be entia rationis How he obtrudes a new Article of Faith And makes it a point of omnipotence to be able to do evill He proves his own sins to be positive entities by ascribing his rage to his sobriety His slanderous charge against Mr. Tho. Barlow of Qâ—eens C. in Oxford His foul Defamation of Dr. Reynolds His self contradiction and blind zeal as to Dr. Martin The nullity of a Priesthood sinfully given by Presbyterians The Recantations of some who were so Ordained Mr. H's disappointment by Dr. Sandersons change of judgment A vindication of BP Hall BP Morton BP Brownrig from Mr. H's slanderous suggestion The perfect Amitie and Communion of all Episcopal Divines for all their difference in judgment as to some controverted Doctrines Mr. H's confession of his Ignorance an Incapacity to understand the points in controversie His confessed insufficiency to maintain the chief Articles of the Creed Yet his conceitedness of his parts is not the less His way to make a Rope of sand whereby to pull in the Puritanes His sinfull way of defending Robbery by adding a manifold aggravation His slanderoâ—s insinuation against the two houses of Parliament to save the credit of the visitors in sinning against their own commission His disparagement of the visitors in his eâ—deavours to assert them The work he makes with Hypocâ—ondriacal conceits Touching the supream authority of the Nation HE adds Rayling to his Robbery and treasonably misplaceth the Supreme power of the Nation The two Houses vindicated from his gross Insinuation an d the supreme power asserted by 19. Arguments and by very many more for which the Reader is enâ—reated to use the works of Iudge Ienkins Touching the Visitors of Oxford HOw Mr. H. became one of my uncommissioned Receivers In what sense he may be called my Receiver and Vsufructuary How the Assembly-Presbyterians became Abettors of Sacriledge and Praevaricators with the Bible Mr H's confounding possession and right and making no scruple of many Robberies at once His wilfull bitternesse sadly reflecting upon the Visitors And as much on the Lords and Commons worst of all upon the King in excludâ—ng whom he beheads the Parliament How he and his Visitors have acted against the two Houses and withall against the supreme power of the Nation Touching Mr. H's no skill in Logick A Transition to the discovery of his no skill in Logick His Insultation added to hide or bear up his Ignorance Concerning the subject of an Accident Of Subjectum ultimum ultimatum Of an Inseparable Accident Of the substantiall Faculties of the soul. By whom they are held to be its essence Of his granting what he denyes whilst he denyes it and giving up the whole cause A Postscipt touching some Dealings of Mr. Baxter THe Synagogue of the Libertines fitly applyed to Mr. Baxter Hiâ— Railing on K. Iames and BP Bancroft on BP Andrewes and Dr. Sanderson for their Iustice to the Puritans His confession of his own wickednesse again confessed by himself though but in part His prodigious falsifying the Common prayer His denyal of that confession which he confessed a little before His Perjury and Rebellion proved out of his own words His playing at Fast loose with his integrity His Time-serving and fawning upon his Soveraign Richard His rejoycing in our late miseries c. His charging upon God all the villanies of the times His Flâ—tteâ—ing mâ—ntions of Old Oliver as tenderly carefull of Christs cause His being Accessâ—ry to the most Parricidial Act the murder of Gâ—ds anointed The seven wayes of partaking in other mens sins His being an Incendiary in the war and Incouraging many thousand to rebell proved out of his confessions His denying the Supremacy of the King which yet he allowed the two Cromwells His confession that Rebellion is worse then Murder Adultery Drunkenness and the like and that he may be called a Perfidious Rebell by his consent if the supremacy was in the King HIs denying the Supremacy of the King which yet he allowed the two Cromwels How
lin 25. Satis apertè ostendi Deum vocari eorum OMNIVM AVTHOREM quae isti Censores volunt otioso tantùm ejus permissu contingere Voluntas Dei rerum omnium Cansa Repâ—obos in obsequium câ—git ib. § 2. fol. 69. p. 2. lin 23.26 Idem Facinus Deo Satanae homini assignaâ—i absurdum non est ib. l. 2. c. 4. fâ—l 95. p. 2. lin 20. frustâ—a de Praescientiâ lis movetur ubi constat Omnia ordinatione potius Nutu evenire Hic i. e· peccator justo Illius i. e. Dei impulsu agit quod sibi non licet l. 1. c. 18. § 4. fol 71. p. â— lin 24. Alâ—ter malorum satan quam Deus sive de malo quod in culpâ sive de co quod in poâ—na cernitur loquamur AVâ—OR judicatuâ— esse Fatemur Deum non modo ipsius operis peccaminosi sed Intenâ—â—onis malae AVâ—HOREM esse c. I can and will if râ—quiâ—ed produce a multitude of the like not onely out of the same but out of many other Writers as well Popish as Presbyterian who are Enemies â—o Vs of the â—hurch of England But this may suffice for my present puâ—pose and â—or hundreds of the same strain I râ—ferr to my Papers already publish'd wherein when all my ciâ—ations were to exâ—ct that evâ—n an Eneâ—y accusâ—d no more than on of which I proved him also a false Accuser certainly nothiâ—g but M Hickman nor M. Hicâ—man himself without a conscience sâ—â—red with an hot Iâ—on could haue reported them even in P â—nt as the meer chimaeâ—a's of my brain Which being considered and compared both with the candid Acknowledgements of M. Barlee whom I must therefore preferr by many degrees as well in this as in other points and with what I exhibited to the eyes of the most obstinate Antagonist who will but look concludes M. Hickman the worst of sinners if such a sinner is the worst who is the willfulâ—st 'T was from the naughtiness of the Heart not from the windiness of the Spleen that so unpaâ—allel'd a Boldnesâ— must needs have risen Had not the Dâ—ctrine which I condemned been worse then those which yet were Doctrines of Divels in the Apostle's language or had they not been written as with a Sun beam for clearness and for duration as with the point of a Diamond wherewith they were registreâ— by their Authors in an Indelible Record M. Hickman had been capable of some excuse But to deny matters of fact after the manner that he hath done is as if Absalom should have sworn that he never polluted his Fathers Concubines after his having lain with them upon the top of the house both in the sigâ—t of the Sun and in the sight of all Israel It were easie to write a volume and indeed it is hard to be so abstemious as not to write one in displaying the monstrous Nature of so Iâ—comparable a Slander as that with which M. Hickman bâ—gan his Book Hoping to season and to imbue his unwary Readers with such a prejuâ—ice of me and of all my writings in the fiâ—st fouâ—e pages of his Epistle as might make them mine enemies at all advenâ—ure But having heâ—d up this Lâ—ntern whereby his weaker-eyed Brethrâ—n may see the dimensions of his â—hreshold whâ—ch he had purposely erected to make them stumble into his house I forbâ—ar to say more till occasion serves And hoping he will be warned by this Discovâ—ry to betake himâ—elf to better courses in whatsoever he shall publish fâ—om this time forwards I immediately proceed to puâ—sue the â—enor of my Account § 3. M. Barlee not denying such indeed was his ingenuity but excusing those Doctrâ—ns which I had censur'd such was his favour to his own party alledged that Sin hâ—d not a poâ—â—tive Entity as having no â—fficient câ—â—se so that though God is affirmed to have decreed determiâ—ed and willed â—în yet he is not concluded the Author of it § 4 To this I returned a Conâ—utation in my Defence of thâ— Divine Philanthroâ—ie chap. 3 § 8 p. 110. to p 116. And again in the same Book chap. 4 § 21. p. 20 21 The former consiâ—ting oâ— seventeen Arguments drawn out at length I gave the Reader in Epâ—tome in the third chapter of my Au ocatachrisis § 15. p 145. to 147. The latter consisting of 7. particulaâ—s I shall content my self for the presâ—nt to refâ—r my Reader thereunto § 5. In stead of a reply wâ—â—â—h I expected from Mr. B. I found him assisted by Mr Hickman whom he was fitter to assist to hurt his cause with an assertion that eveâ—y positâ—â—e thiâ—g is good And that theâ—e is â—ot any medium betwixt God and his creature And so by consâ—quâ—nce that if sin is something poâ—itive or a positive entity 〈◊〉 must be â—ne of God's creatures or God himself § 6. Hence it was that I endeavoured to convince Mr. Hâ—ckman of his impiety to shew him the blasphemies and absurdities in which his friend and himself were at once involved and to amiâ—ote his Readers against the venome thus laid before them My way to do it was by evincing that sin is positively something which is the English of positive entity whereby 't is proved that there is something which though positive and reall cannot be attributed to God as the maker of it because he cannot be possibly the maker of sin And it was high time indeed to make this matter apparent to him when I had found a publick Preacher delivering this as the scope of the first Article of the Creed That God is the Mâ—kâ—r of All Things Reall p. 113. cited and confuted in my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 167. Insomuch that if sin is something Reall it is a part of his â—reed to believe that God is the Maker of it And if it is nothing but a word in his opinion then will he say when he hath sinned with Solomâ—ns Whoâ—e That he hath done just nothing And for nothing it is impossible that God should sentence his Creatures to Fire and Brimstone § 7. Now to the Arguments afoâ—esaid which were no fâ—wer than seventeen I also added some sixteen more whereby to illustrate as well as prove â—he positive Entity of sin As first from the words of S. Iames Lâ—st having conceived bringeth forth sin Iam. 1.15 which hâ—ving explained I thence inferr'd That Sin is the pâ—oduction of mans own will seduced by lust and consemâ—ng to it and rendred evil by so consenting Secondâ—y from the expressions of the eminentest Authors by him asserted who teach that God doth efficâ—re peccata and not onely Will but work Sin and that he hath a hand in effecting sin Those very Blasphemies implying a posiâ—ive entity of sin 3. From Cain's killing Abel and Davids lyâ—ng with Bathshebah which being actions are positive enâ—ities and yet are â—ins too as being a murder and an adultery 4 From experience and
lyes upon him to answer to my 17 Arguments of which he confesseth he took some notice p. 100. He talks a little to three of them for I cannot say truly he answers one and having hastily done that he escapes me thus As to the rest of his Arguments which were no fewer then 14. they are partly such as I have met with before and partly such as others upon whose expressions they are grounded are more concerned in than my self p. 105. This I call a Back door at which he makes an escape which I say is foul because he had boasted in his Title-page his having Answered so much as doth relate to the opinion of sin's positive entity And yet he sneaks from those Arguments by which that opinion was clearly proved alledging no reasons for it but what are pretended by every sneaker He thought it a shame for him to say I have not any thing like an answer to the 14. Arguments remaining And therefore worded the matter thus they are partly such as before I met with and they concern not me so much as others § 12. Next when it lyes upon him to answer the 16 Arguments besides of which I lately made mention § 7. he does not so much as make a shew of giving answer to more than seven of which anon I shall take due notice but sneaks without leave from the other Nine insomuch that his Readers might have believed there were no more then those seven if they had not now met with my Information This was therefore an evasion without a Postern § 13. But how doe's he justifie the Schoolmen of which his Title-page made a boast truly much after the rate of his other dealings For he passeth them all by with the common shift of a Paralipsis I might strengthen my opinion from the Schoolmen p. 59. without producing the words of so much as one And is not this a Back-door at which to make a most shamefull and foul escape There is not a Boy in the Grammar-school but may dispute at this rate without the looking into such Authors as M. Morice and M. Prinn from whom I thought Master Hickman had learnt more wit than to compile a whole Book in Tergiversation to his Title And yet the foulest of his dealings is that which follows in my account For § 14. When at last he undertakes to handle the Question under debate after his having been impertinent throughout one hundred and thirteen pages he affirms the Question to be this Whether moral evil as such be a privation p. 48. Then saith he we understand by the particle as sin considered abstractly from that either act habit or faculty in which it is and to which it gives denomination pag. 49. This is the widest Back-door of all at which he studiously shifts from the thing in Question in which because he makes use of as gross a falshood as can be nam'd I am sorry I cannot be less severe than to prove him a deliberate and willful sinner Had there been any such Question in all my Book to the least part of which he at least pretended to give an Answer he would gladly have cited my words and pages And so his fault had been sufficient if he had onely not known that I had said any such Thing But since I can prove that he knew the contrary his crime is infinitely greater and can argue no less than a seared conscience Here then it is that I must shew in mine own Defence how much he hath written against his own light and how much against his own Interest as having put it in my power by an argument ad hominem to prove M. Hickman an arrant brute Beast rather a Horsâ— or a Mule then either a Man or a Woman which I shall prove so convincingly meerly by using his own Logick as he shall not be able to deny it without renouncing his whole cause Again he hath written against his Interest as having granted implicitly what he explicitly denyeth and implicitly denying what he had several times granted in plainest Terms to wit that the Question to be discussed is Whether the thing which is called sin hath a positive Being or no positive Being Not how or by what means or in respect of what it hath such a Being Not reduplicativè whether The sin of hating God quatenus a sin hath a positive Being or whether quatenus an action for to hate God is confessed to be at once a sin and an action too But whether the sin of hating God which is an action as well as a sin hath a positive being yea or no. To demonstrate that this is the Thing in Question and ever was from the beginning of all our Difference And then to demonstrate the sad estate which M. Hickman hath put himself into by his Reduplication his foysting in the word as against all dictates of sense and reason and the whole procedure of our Debate will so open his Eyeâ— as to stop his mouth too And therefore this shall be the Theme oâ— a second Chapter CHAP. II. § 1. I Made it appear from the beginning of my Discourse on this subject that though according to the propriety of Logick speech a sin and a sinful act do sound as the Abstract and the Concrete yet so far do they differ from other Conjugates as to admit of diffeâ—ent Predications For though we cannot say a whited wall is whiteness or that whiteness is a whited wall yet we may say very truly that a sinful Act may be a sin and a sin mâ—y be a sinful act For Cains killing Abel was a sinfull act and therefore a sin because a murder Whether we say it is a sin or a sinfull act to hate God it matters not amongst men and all will say it comes to one in the account of God as well as in the stile of his holy Pen-men with whom there is nothing more common then for siâ—full Acts to be called sins Hence I affirmed that sin it self is a Concrete in respect of sinfulness which is its Abstraâ—t Of which opinion was D. Reynolds when he intitled one of his Books The sinfulness of Sin And he had great reason for it when he had found S. Paul speaking of sins being made exceeding sinful § 2. But M. Hick seeing clearly that if any sin were granted to bâ— a concrete and the same with the sinfull act it must be also granted to have a positive Entity or being and prove him guilty of that Blasphemy That it must needs be Gods creature or God himself was so scared out of his wits or at least out of his Conscience as to say that sinfulness is synonymous with sin and that sin is so perfectly an Abstract that if he conceive not of it as an Abstract he cannot coâ—ceive of it as sin p. 53 54. without regard to S. Paul Rom. 7.13 and then much less to D. Reynolds whom he inferreth to have written touching
himself as shall be shew'd his making a distinction without a difference As betwixt the act of hating God which is granted to be the sin and the sin of that act which is granted to be that very act of hating God For to hate God is 1 a sin 2 a whole sin and 3 nothing but a sin to which three clauses I challenge M. Hickman to make some Answer That if he thinks there is something in hating God which is not sin but very good as being one of God's Creatures which he sufficiently intimates by distinguishing the sin of the act from the sinful act as if the very act of hating God were not a sin the world may know him to be a Libertine without the protection of his disguise Had he forâ—seen that challenge to which I call'd for his Answer in my Letter to Doctor Heylin pag. 266. I had not met with an occasion for this last Section § 13. But because he seems in this place to use the word sin for sinfulness I will first intreat him to remember how sin is taken in holy Scripture by D. Twisse by M. Whitf by M. Barlee and by himself as I have shewd in this chapter § 1.6.7 Next I will help him to understand what is the sinfulness of sin and wherein it lyes It is granted I think by all that sin is that whole or complexum which doth consist of two parts material and formal so as neither part singly can either be or be conceived to be a sin And it is granted I think by all that the materiall Part of sin is positive it being an action or quality and when a quality an act or habit as hath been shew'd The onely privative Part of sin mark the emphasis which lyes on Part is the defection from the Rule which yet is founded in a positive act of which the other is onely a superadded relation unavoidably resulting by the positive acts application to the Rule Thus I think we are to speak if we may rightfully distinguish the two parts of sin which D. Field will not allow nor indeed is it possible so to distinguish the one from the other as to intitle God to the one without the other and that I suppose is the Doctors meaning But now for the abstract of this concretum it is that which resulteth from both united For after the manner that inequality doth arise from the Relation of a Bicubitum to a cubit so the sinfulness of a sin to wit of the action of hating God or of Cain's killing Abel doth arise by resultance from these two things God 's forbidding it to be done and its being done when thus forbidden so then The positive action of hating God as the materiall part which carries with it a defection from the rule of God's Law as the formal part is that complexum or whole sin which I have proved and shall prove to have a positive being The meer defection from the rule or repugnance to it without the action of hating God is not the sin but the formal part onely The meer action of hating God without its defection from the rule which for once I will suppose docendi gratiâ would not be the very sin but the material part onely But the sin as I said is both united viz. The action of hating God in a repugnance to or defection from the rule of God's law whereas the sinfulness of this sin that is the abstract of this concrete is not both parts united for then it would be concrete and so Identical with sin but that which resulteth from both united As the humanity is not the man made up of a body and a rational soul any more then the man is either of the two without the other but that which onely resulteth from both united whereas the man is both united § 14. But now for a while let us admit that the Question were of moral evil as such It would then be comprehensive of all moral evil For à quaâ—enus ad omne valet consequentia by his own confession p. 85. what then mean's he by a privation when he saith that sin or moral evil as such is a privation unless he means a meer privation and nothing else he speaks not against the posiâ—ivity of sin which even they who do assert do also hold there is a want of such a rectitude as is due but they say there is something besides that want As in walking to kill a neighbour there is something positive besides the want of a good end to which the walking should be directed And if any thing could be due to the hating of God to make it good as nothing can be there would be an action besides the want of that due as M. Hickman confesseth p 94. Nay in saying that that action is essentially evil ibid. he confesseth the very action to be the sin And taking sin in the right sense for complexum quid as he confesseth p. 95. we may allow him his own way of stating the Question to his undoing § 15. Again he is ruin'd by his preservative as may appear by this Dilemma Does he think that privation is a thing real or onely nominal something or nothing If nothing then for M. Hickman to filtâ—h and plunder is but a sin and therefore nothing in his opinion and so is a Carneadist If something then he thinks it Gods Creature or not his creature If his creature then he thinks that God is the Authour of sin and so he must think that sin is good or not good if he thinks it to be good he will scruple to commit it If not good he thinks that God can create what is peculiar to the Devil as Master Calvin inferreth against the Libertines If he thinks it not Gods Creature though something real then he must eate up his former saying viz. That it belongs to the universality of the first cause to produce every Real Being pag. 95. § 16. I shall conclude this Chapter with the Concession of Bonaventure that the sin of Concupiscence imports two things to wit an appetite and an excesse of that appetite In which excesse he confesseth there seemes to be a Position though he endeavours by a simile which doe's not run upon all its feet to make it seem a privation rather Which however it may infer yet it cannot wholy be without implying a contradiction And if either of the two is something positive the act of the appetite it self or the excesse in the act sure that which consisteth of both together I mean concupiscence cannot be lesse then either of them CHAP. III. § 1. HAving hitherto cleared and in the doing of that accidentally proved the thing in question I might immediately proceed to shew the littleness of the Tricks in which our Gamster is wont to deal but that I think it incumbent on me to effect that first which is most material and of which most Readers
do stand in the greatest expectation to wit the proving by such convincing and cogent Arguments that sin which is properly so called hath a positive Being as to put a conclusion to the whole Controversy and that by enabling the weakest Reader to stop the mouth of the strongest that shall oppose him And because I cannot but have observed what hath also been observed by many others that whatsoever is thought strong in Mr. H.'s Rhapsody by such as are partial to his Adventure he hath taken after his manner that is dishonestly without the citing his Author so much as once to whom he was beholding extreamly often from an Exercitation de naturâ mali which had been pen'd and printed more then 20. years agoe by my very good Friend Mr. THOMAS BARLOW who I conceive at that time could be but n wly Master of Arts though now the learned and Reverend Provost of Queens College I shall begin with that instance of which â— verily believed I had been the first urger ' â—â—ll since I found it in Dr. Field and in other writers of great Repute whom I have now consulted on this occaâ—â—on I mâ—an that which is drawn from the Sin of hating God and by consequence from all other sins of commission whereof this one is the fittest Instance to which Mr. Hickman pretends an answer though without the will and consent yet by the assistance of Mr. BARLOW The insufficiency of the Answer I intend to shew by my Reply Which being done I shall submit it to the consideration of Mr. Barlow That if he approves of my Reply he may may make me glad with the knowledge of it and that if he doth not he may shew me the reason of his dislike I suppose his judgement may now be altered from what it was in his younger years If not I shall desire to discuss the matter rather with Him who is able to tye me the hardest knoâ—s and to shew me my Error in case I erre then to contend with â—uch a Trifler as Mr. Hickman appears to be who is fitter to betray then maintain his Cause § 2. That the sin of hating God is nothing more then a sin and that it hath a posâ—â—ive being I have so often proved mine own way in my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides what I have done in my Letter to Dr. Heylin and in the sections of the foregoing Chapter that I suppose it high time to shew how others have proved it as well as I. Both that the greatness of their Authority may help prevail with some men to accept of reason and that I may take an opportunity to speak mine own sense in their Vindication I will the rather begin with Dr. Field because He if any other saith Mr. BARLOW himself who doth oppose him was a learned Writer of our own Church which he hath studiously defended against the Papisâ—s First t is his peremptory assertion That the sin of Commission which is the doing of that the creature is bound not to do is merely positive HIs first Reason for it is this As the affirmative part of Gods Law is broken by the not putting that in being which it requireth so the negative is violated prâ—cisely by putting that in being which it would not have to be Again he saith a little after That sin of commission is an evil act and that there are some evil Acts which are not evil ex fine Circumstantiis but ex genere objecto which are therefore denominated evill not by passive denomination as if they wanted some Circumstances that should make them good but by active denomination because no Circumstances can make them good and because by way of contrariety they deprive the sinner of that orderly disposition that should be found in him and some other of that good which pertaineth to him As it appeareth in the acts of injustice spoiling men of that which is their own which Mr. Hickman cannot endure to hear of and iâ— the acts of blasphemy against God or the hate of God in which the sinner as much as in him lieth by attributing to God what is contrary to his Nature or denying that which agreeth unto the same maketh him not to be that which he is and hating him wisheth he were not and endeavoureth to hinder what he would have done NOw saith the Doctor a little after That that sin of Commission which is an evil ex genere objecto is not denominated evil passively from the want of rectitude due unto it it is evident in that no rectitude is due to such an Act. For what rectitude is due to the specifical Act of hating God or what rectitude is it capable of This he urgeth against Those who affirm the act it self in the hating God to be very good and the deformity of the Act to be onely evil which deformity they fancie to be the want of a rectitude which was due to that act not at all considering that there cannot be possibly any such thing as a right hating of God or a rectified injustice these things implying a contradiction in adjecto Yet such absurdities they will swallow rather then confess what yet they find saith D. Field that some sins are positive Acts. pag. 119. Nay the Doctor advanceth farther and certainly farther then he needed if not farther then he ought I am sure much farther then I have done That in the siâ— of commission specifically considered there is nothing but meerly positive and the deformity that is found in it is precisely a positive Repugnance to the Law of God which he doth not say upon his own account onely but farther backeth it with the Authority and concurrent Judgements of many eminent Schoolmen and great Divines many more then M. Hickman so much as attempted to produce whose names and words shall be seen anon § 3. To the first Reason of the two which the most learned D. Field as the learned M. Barlow does once more call him p. 74. was pleas'd to give for his asserting the positive entity of sin M. Barlow doth not make any answer nor doth he take the least notice that there was any such thing though as it is his first reason so I conceive to be his best too which I shall probably shew when occasion serves especially if I chance to be put in mind To the second Reason his answer is That no rectitude is due to the hatred of God in as much as it is limited to such an object to wit God But as he saith a little before to which he here referrs his Reader The hatred of God being taken by it self may be good and so by consequence the being of the act shall not be evil per se. Iust as walking is good of it self though walking to kill or commit adultery cannot be made good by any Circumstance § 4. To this Answer I reply in the behalf of D. Field first That it
his eating swines flesh The latter which was evil because forbidden was after the Law for that very reason But the former which was forbidden because t was evil was such in order of Nature before the Law The want of heed to which thing I have the rather desired to remove by insisting on it a second time because I think it is the parent of many errours § 16 HAving thus done with my Reply to the several Answers of M. Barlow I now proceed to another Argument which I lately gathered out of FRANCISCUS DIOTALLEVIUS and which is the fitter to succeed the immediate Argument going before because it will make for its Confirmation Evil works saith this Author who for strength and accuteness gives place to none are synonymous with works which are forbidden by God Almighty who hath left it in our power to make our wayes evil which yet could not be if he did not onely permit but efficaciously make us to do the thing that he forbiddeth Now the thing that he forbiddeth will be confessed not to be this That when we act what he forbids us we do not suffer to come to pass that formal obliquity annexed to all such acts by the repugnance which they have to the Law forbidden them But the thing forbidden to us is this That we do not produce the positive being of that act with which the moral obliquity is inseparably annexed The former cannot be the thing because the law being given Thou shalt love the Lord thy God we cannot possibly hate him without a repugnance unto the law which by commanding our love forbids our hatred The latter therefore must be the thing which we are forbid to put in being And which is properly our work though a positive entity because it is absolutely impossible that God who forbids us the act of hating him should make that act which he thus forbids the making of or that by acting us with his power which is irresistible he should make us to do what he forbids us the doing of But to return to Diotallevius when it is said Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife the meaning of it cannot be this Beware that whilst thou proâ—ucest the free act of concupiscence the moral obliquity do not follow it for alas it cannot but follow The meaning therefore must needs be this see that thou abstain from that free act of concupiscence because of that obliquity which is inseparably annext Or determine not thy will to that object which makes the act become contrary to the rule of right Reason And so he concludes it to be the Judgement of the whole Council at Trent which in matters of this Nature must needs be of great consideration That God's concurrence is onely permissive to the free determination of the created will in producing the very being of the evil act And God's permission is so distinguished both by Fathers and Schoolmen from his effection or operation as to signifie no more then the negation of an impediment or cohibition Scotus calls it the negation of the divine positive act which by consequence is not a positive act And it is not an action saith Diotallevius but the negation of an impediment in respect of that operation which doth depend upon our free determination From whence it follows that he who hates God be he man or divel is the sole cause of that act which for that reason also is wholly sin § 17. THis is farther confirmed by an Argument leading ad absurdum For if God does concurr to the positive act of hating God not onely permissively by not hindering it but physically too by praedetermining the will of the Sinner to it then he absolutely wâ—â—leth the actuall hating of himself which of all absurdities is the greatest And again when man is forbid by God to hate him and when God does grievously complain and threaten to punish with Hell fire the man that doth not obey his prohibition It cannot choose but follow that if he absolutely willeth the positive act which he forbiddeth to wit the sinners hating of him he willeth and nilleth the same thing and after the very same manner which is a blasphemous contradiction And thus it is proved to Mr. Hickman to whom alone I am henceforth speaking that the sin of hating God hath a positive being because that quality or action which hath a positive being is clearly proved to be a sin And it is proved to be a sin by being proved to be a Thing which is not made or produced but onely suffered or permitted by God Almighty to come to pass And only made or produced by them that hate him § 18. CAIETAN proves the positive Entity of sin because saith he it consisteth as well of a conversion to an object contrary to the object of virtue as of an aversion from the law And hence saith the Cardinal there is in sin a double nature of evil the one arising from the object the other from the not observing of the law the first is positive the second privative The first inferreth the second for it cannot be that a man should hate God but that in so doing he must break the law because it is simply and intrinsecally evil so that to do it is a sin And as this is observed by D. Field in confirmation of his Doctrine l. 3. c. 23. p. 120. so I find the same Cardinal elsewhere saying that in moralibus pars subjectiva mali est malum and est in moralibus malum dupliciter Implying the whole sin to be a concrete not a repugnance to the law without an act which doth imply a contradiction § 19. THe most acute EPISCOPIVS doth implicitly thus argue although by way of paralipsis As an act commanded by the law is the virtue it self or ordination of the will unto the law so the act forbidden by the law is the vice it self or inordination of the will against the law And as the act of virtue doth not contain or connote any reall thing positive superadded to the act which may be called ordination so the act of vice doth connote nothing privative superadded to the act which may be called inordination § 20. DOctor STERN a very late but Learned Writer doth briefly urge six Arguments to prove that sin may have a positive being four of which I praetermit because I have already shewd them as long since urged by other men though otherwise urged by him than others and perhaps in some places to more advantage The other two I shall mention as not yet touched First saith he a Non-entity may be morally good and therefore an entity may be morally evill The Consequence is evident both by the Rule of opposites and because there is not more repugnance betwixt Obliquity and Entity as obliquity is taken or mistaken by the adverse party then betwixt goodness and Non-entity The Antecedent is proved because a mere omission of a forbidden
act although a Non-entity is morally good Again the Schoolmen do hold a twofold punishment the one of sense the other of loss whereof the latter is the wages of an aversion from God as is also the former of a conversion to the Creature so that if sin were nothing but mere privation the poena sensus would be inflicted without all justice under the notion of Revenge for a conversion to the creature § 21. AGain it may be thus argued and out of BARONIVS his Metaphysica Generalis That which hath not a positive entity cannot be the cause of any thing But sin many wayes is the cause of something For 1. it is the cause of punishment and 2 one sin is the cause of another A vitious act is the cause of a vitious habit A vitious habit is the cause of vitious actions And a natural propension to evil which Baronius calls original sin is said by him to be the cause of all the vitious actions oâ— our will T is true he answers this argument but his answer may be refuted by my Replyes to Mr. Barlow and by what Baronius grants of which anon as the Reader will finde if he makes a triall § 22. Now besides these Arguments thus largely urged and that from many more Authors then Mr. Hickman hath named for his opinion I shall exhibit a larger Catalogue but with a lesser expense of time and paper of such eminently learned and knowing men as have justified my judgement with the authority of their own and of whom unawares I have undertaken a justification I will begin with those Writers with the concurrence of whose opinions Dr. Field thought fit to credit his § 23. ALVAREZ saith the sin of commission is a Breach of a negative Law which is not broken but by a positive Act. Aquinas also saith that though in a sin of omission there is nothing but a privation yet in the sin of commission there is some positive thing Nay he saith more plainly what Dr. Field doth not observe that the ratio formalis of sin is two fold whereof the one is according to the intention of the sinner And that it consisteth essentially in the Act of the free-will He also infers it to be an accident whilst he saith that every sin is in the will as in its subject And very often that in every sin there are two things whereof the one is a quality or action and so the whole sin must have a positive being Farther yet it is consequent to the opinion of Cajetan saith Gregory de Valentiâ that sin formally as sin is a positive thing which he expresly also affirmeth in primam 2 dae q. 71. art 6. Some hold saith Cumel that the formal nature of sin consisteth in some positive thing to wit in the manner of working freely with a positive repugnance to the rule of Reason and the law of God Ockam saith further that the very deformity in an act of Commission is nothing else but the act it self viz. actus elicitus against the Divine Law And these are cited by Dr. Field l. 3. c. 23. p. 120. § 24. To these I add many more which partly were not and partly could not have been observed by Dr. Field LESSIVS saith that an evil act is in somâ— sort evil even according to its Physical Entity Nay upon this passage of C. VORSTIVS Omne ens quà ens bonum est Piscator himself hath this note and it is a note of exception At vitiosa illa qualitas in nobis unde oriuntur actuâ—lia peccata bona non est The learned Professor of Divinity in Academiâ Tubingensi affirmes Original sin to be an accident as the opposite member to substantia and calls it the accident of a substance and compares it to the image of God in man which he also saith was not a substance but an Accident And that will be yielded to have a positive being especially if he means as Piscator did that that accident is a Quality Another learned Professor in Academiâ Oxoniensi by saying Concupiscence is a sin inferreth that sin to be a positive entity which concupiscence will be granted by all to be And if it is with consent it is an actual sin if without consent it is an inbred Rebellion of the flesh against the law of God He also takes it to be an accident by ascribing to it subjectum quo subjectum quod because by entring at the flesh it did infect the spirit Dr. GOAD who was sent to the Synod at DORT whilest he was speaking in that Tract which some do call his Retractation against an ordinary Calvinian distinction which he conceived to make God the Author of sin expressly used these words Might I here without waâ—dring discourse the nature of sin I could prove sin it self to be an action and confute this groundless distinction that way The tract is a Manuscript but divers have Copyes as well as I. And sure the world must enjoy it if not by other men's care at least by mine That Great Divine Dr. IACKSON who was withall a great Philosopher and inferiour to none for skill in Metaphysicks doth not content himself to say of original sin that it is not a mere privation but also defineth it to be a positive Renitency of the flesh or corrupt nature of man against the spiritual law of God especially against the negative Precepts c. And as he highly commends Illyricus for an extraordinary writer so he vindicates his notion by explaining his true sense of Original sin which if the Dr. took by the right handle Mr. Barlow took it by the wrong in the latter part of his 2. excercitation It was the businesse of Illyricus saith Dr. IACKSON to banish all such nominal or grammatical definitions as have been mentioned out of the Precincts of Theology and to put in continual caveats against the Admission of abstracts or mere relations into the definition of Original sin or of that unrighteousness which is inherent in the man unregenerate The Judicious Doctor doth also tell us and who could tell better then he that St. Austine Aquinas and Melanchthon do say in effect as much as Illyricus if their meanings were rightly weighed and apprehended by their Followers Nay Calvin and Martyr and many other good writers consort so well with Illyricus in their definitions of sin in the unregenerate that they must all be either acquitted or condemned together Illyricus himself explains his meaning by producing the definitions of Original sin not onely given by Calvin and Martyr but explained by themselves into Illyricus his sense In so much that Dr. Iackson ranking Calvin and Martyr with Illyricus doth affirm them to make original sin to be the whole nature of man and all his faculties so far forth as they are corrupted Yet still their meaning was no more
of sin Three Reverend Bishops have praefixed their approbation of what is asserted by Doctor Stearn in his Animi Medela of which I have given an account § 20. And though I have not a convenience to examine the Truth of what is told me yet it is told me by a person of great repute for integrity That Ariaga Amicus and Cardinal de Lugo do ex prosesso assert the posiâ—ive entity of sin I am sure the Bishop of Damascus and Claudius Devillius appointed to censure Books by the Archbishop of Lyons Claudius de Bellieure and Emanuel Chalom his Vicar General An. Dom. 1611. did very highly approve of what was taught by Diotallâ—vius of Aâ—iminum concerning sins having a positive being from whence I groundedly conclude them to have been of that judgement Mr Hickman confesseth he cannot deny but that our Protestant Divines in their Disputes against the Papists do make a positive as well as privative part of original sin pag. 85. and though he labours to salve the matter with a distinction of positive out of Maccoviâ—s yet that appears to be a shift and a shamefull one too by what I have cited from Doctor Iackson and other Writers of greatest Note and by what I shall cite from the Fathers also Chap. 5. § 3. as well as from some of the learnedest Moderns Chap. 5. § 4. Last of all the REMONSTRANTS do say expresly Culpa est actus hominis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A very short but an important Instance § 26. The case in hand is so clear that I need no other proof then the confessions of those on the other side For sure that Truth is irresistibly praevalent which is submitted unto by such as do most endeavour to oppose it Doctor Robert BARON was one of the learnedst of those men who were ingaged by education to deny what they felt and had a daily experience of to wit the positive being of sin But yet he was forced to confâ—ss it to be a very great Truth That not onely the privation annexed to the vitious habit but even the habit of vice it self the very positive entity of the habit of luxury and the positive entity of a vitious action is not quid appetibile or good but fugible or evil An instance was given from the objection in the action of lying with a beast which very action he confesseth to be quid execrabile And though he saith that such an entity becomes a sin by reason of a Disconvenience which is inseparably annexed yet he doth not by that deny the positive entity of the sin but onely saith how it comes to be a sin which all men say as well as he who affirm the most professedly its positive being It being granted to be impossible for any action to be a sin without some kind of disconvenience as to the rule of right reason and to the perfect nature and wil of God He also ascribeth unto the will of man a real efficacy and production of the effect And farther saith that sin original is a natural propension of the will to evil Nay giving the definition of ens positivum he saith it is that which puts something in the thing to which it is attributed And whether sin doth not do that I leave the Reader to judge by his own experience In a word he joyns with Timpler in refuting the vulgar Errour which hath imposed so much on Mr. Hickman of sins having onely a deficient cause and smartly sheweth the absurdities to which it leads § 27. Mr. Barlow also doth seem to have implicitly confessed the positive entity of sin by acknowledging that God in the sin of hating God is meerly positive in terminating the act of hatred and does not actively excite the act 1. If his meaning is onely this that God is passive altogether and the sinner alone active in producing the act of hating God then he grants the very act to be the creature of the creature and not of God which he cannot grant possibly but by granting also that the act it self although positive is wholly evil Because he every where saith in terms aequivalent to these that God is active in the production of every thing that is good 2. If his meaning is precisely That God is onely passive so as merely not to hinder but to suffer or to permit whilst the sinner doth determin his will to hate God Then he grants that Act of determining the will to a thing forbidden to be the meer production of the Creature and by consequence a sin for the reason now mentioned And in granting that act which hath a positive beiâ—g to be a sin he must needs gâ—ant a sin to have a positive being One of these two things I suppose he must mean aâ—d which of the two it matters not because though he saith a little before That God may be the cause of the very pravity or obliquity in the act of hating God which he certainly doth wish he had never said yet he explains his meaning of the word cause to be nothing but a moral or objâ—â—tive occasion of that obliquity which proves his sense to be onely this That God is altogether passive the conditio sine-quâ—â—on in the creatures determining his will to sin which determining of the will is a sin also and in producing that act which is intrinsecally evil and so the sin of hating God If I have hit his right meaning I have my end But if I have not I shall be glad to be told another which may agree with the context as well as this which I have given besides he confesseth with Hurtado de Mendozâ— that in the exercisâ— of the will there is a positive act p. 63. such as is the act of willing sin And that to will sin is sin I know he will not deny § 28. But now Mr. Hickman out of all measure confesseth the thing that he denyes I mean the positive being of sin For 1. he confesseth it a sin to hate God which he also confesseth to be an action and so to have a positive being p. 93 94 95. Again 2. the first sin of Angels he supposeth to have been a proud desire to be equall unto God p. 103. Now that pride and desire are both in the praedicament of Quality and have as positive entities or beings as any qualities to be nam'd is so vulgarly known to every youngster that Mr. Hickman dares not sure deny it for fear the youngsters should fall aboard him which he professeth to fear in another place They might well fall aboard him for calling proud desire an action p. 103. lin 13. as a little before he call'd hatred p. 95. l. 17. but that it is likely they know him too well to think it much that a Thistle should bear no Grapes I shall not therefore insist upon his no skill in Logick whilst again and again he takes a quality
illi annexam Nam Daemones non producunt Actiones quibus malitia est annexa sed tantum solicitant c. multo itaque magis Malitiae reus est qui sciens volens non tentat aut solicitat sed actionem reipsa producit cujus malitia ut ab ea prorsus inseparabilis ipsi quà m clarissimè patet What kind of Adversaries they are whom the Doctor thus handles and how much Mr. Hickman becomes concern'd he gives us to know by his two instances in Twisse and Zuinglius § 12. A whole Colledge of Remonstrants men of renown for their piety and learning too thought fit to shame the common subterfuge by these two wayes of Argumentation 1. Whensoever a superiour and omnipotent cause doth so move and determine the inferiour and impotent that it being so moved cannot choose but sin Then must the guilt of that sin be wholly transferred on the superiour and omnipotent cause But according to those men who affirm the positive acts of all the very worst sins to be the creatures and works of God the inferiour cause is so moved by the omnipotent and superiour as that it cannot choose but sin Therefore according to those men the sin is wholly to be transferred on the superiour cause 2. When two causes do concurr to one action to wit the action of hating God whereof the one act 's freely and the other of necessity then must the cause which acts freely sustain the whole fault of its coming to pass But according to the men aforesaid God acts freely in the producing of such an action which M. Hickman reckons amongst Gods creatures and the inferiour cause of necessity Therefore according to those men God sustains the whole fault of its coming to passe And we know in the whole fault is included the obliquity as well as the act § 13. The Apologist for Tilenus doth make this Answer to the distinction 1. That man doth seldom or never entertain sin or consent to it with a designe to oppose himself to the divine Law but to enjoy his Pâ—easure and satisfie his appetites 2. He supposeth that a man should consent to sin with such a set purpose to oppose Gods Law And then infers that according to Mr. H.'s Doctrine that consent and that purpose being positive entities and acts of the soul are from God and of his production from whence it followes either that man doth not sin when he commits such an act or that the fault is imputable to God who is called by Mr. Hickman the first cause of that Act. I wonder when Mr. H. will give that Author a Reply § 14. But after all and above all I commend to consideration the words of the Reverend Dr. HAMMOND who having shewed how those Doctrines which are commonly called Calvinistical are so noxious to the practice and lives of men as to be able to evacuate all the force of the Fundamentals of Christianity those I mean by him forementioned And coming to speak of the Distinction betwixt the act and the obliquity which the Assertors of those Doctrins have commonly used as an Artifice for the avoiding of those consequences by which their Doctrines are rendred odious at last proceeds to make it appear That this is no way applicable to the freeing of God from being the Author of that sin of which he is said by those men to predetermine the act For 1. Though a free power of acting good or evil be perfectly distinct and separable from doing evil and therefore God that is the Author of one cannot thence be inferred to be the author of the other yet the act of sin is not separable from the obliquity of that act the act of blasphemy from the obliquity or irregularity of blasphemie the least evil thought or word against an infinite good God being as crooked as the rule is straight and consequently he that predetermines the act must needs predetermine the obliquity Nay 2. if there were any advantage to be made of this distinction in this matter it would more truely be affirmed on the contrary side that God is the author of the obliquity and man of the act for God that gives the rule in transgressing of which all obliquity consists doth contribute a great deal though not to the production of that Act which is freely committed against that rule yet to the denominating it oblique for if there were no Law there would be no obliquity God that gives the law that a Jew shall be circumcised thereby constitutes uncircumcision an obliquity which had he not given that law had never been such But for the act as that differs from the powers on one side and the obliquity on the other it is evident that the man is the cause of that To conclude this Chapter It is a thing so undeniable that the Author of the act of hating God must needs be the Author of the obliquity that as the men of the Church of England affirm man to be the Author and the sole author of both and God of neither so the rigid Presbyterians as well as Papists affirm God to be the Author not onely of the act but of the obliquity of the Act. Witness Mr. Archer so much commended by Thomas Godwin in his Comfort for believers p. 36.37 Mr. Whitfield also and Mr. Hobbs Occham in sent 3. q. 12 cited by Dr Field p. 128. and Mr. Hickman in effect when he saith that God is the Cause of all Beings p. 78. and p. 95. and Pet. Mart. in 1 Sam. c. 2. CHAP. V. § 1. THE positive entity of sin is so clear from Scripture and from the writings of all the Fathers both Greek and Latine that as Mr. Hickman hath not attempted to give us Scripture for his opinion so the FATHERS are very few whose very figurative speeches do look that way And their meaning is so conspicuous by what the same Fathers say before and after that if he drank out of the Foâ—ntaines as I see he hath done out of several Cisterns I admire the greatness of his delusion His performance being no better then mine or any mans would be who should prove that an Idol hath not a positive being although the work of mens hands and made of Massy Gold or silver because it is said by the Apostle an Idol is nothing in the world Or that the Planters of Christianity had not onely no positive but not so much as a Real Being because it is said by the same Apostle that God hath chosen the things that are not to bring to naught things that are Yet this ad hominem is a strong way of arguing very much stronger then Mr. Hickmans by how much that of the Scripture is the greatest Authority in the world Now though it is said by the Holy Ghost that Circumcision is nothing that the foreskin is nothing that wicked men are of nothing that every man is but vanity yea and
consider's as to its Genus which he saith is Action It s genus remâ—tum is actio hominis It s immediate genus is actio vitiosa privativa Mark good Reader he doth not say 't is a mere privation but a privative action Positive in one respect as 't is an action though privative in another as destroying the Agent from whence it is Take that excellent Logician in his own expressions of himself Vidimus nomen Genus secundo loco considerandum est quod vel remotum actio hominis Propinquum actio hominis vitiosa proximum Actio vitiosa destrâ—ens ipsum agens seu privativa upon this I lay the greater weight because the judgement and approbation of another great Methodist and Logician even KECKERMAN of Dantzick adds credit to that of this wise Silesian 5. A late professor of Philosophy in the University of Leyden and a great Aristotelian saith that evil includes ens and adds a reall relation to it after the manner that Good doth And this he affirmeth of every evil Malum ergo omne simili modo quo bonum includit Ens Enti addit Relationem realem quâ quod malum dicitur ita se habet ad aliud ut illi inconveniens atque adversum sit To which he adds that those relations are contrary and have contrary affections from whence it follow 's as he goes on that good and evil are opposed rather contrariè than privativè and that according to their proper forms too Convenientia inconvenientia being no less contrary than equality and inequality His reason is because a thing is not said to be evil to any one for being only not convenient but in as much as it is adverse or affirmatè inconveniens p. 123. To the objection which he foresees he answers thus This is the nature of immediate contrariety that one extream is inferred from the negation of the other And he means by Inconvenient whatsoever is positively adverse to that which is convenient licet inconveniens adversum sit positivè quicquid non est conveniens c. All which doth strengthen my Reply to Master BARLOW'S Answer to Aquinas for which look back on chap. 3. § 13. He concludes with a caterum actiones sunt malae per se Habitus quatenus ex hujusmodi actionibus orti sunt quae rationem culpae habent p. 126. If BETVLEIVS had not been of the same opinion he would not have used that proposition wherein sin is praedicated of that which will be granted by all to be a positive entity Racha fratri imprecari peccatum est Betuleius in Lactant. l. 6. c. 16. 6. I forgot till just now to note the Doctrine of Mr. CALVIN who saith that sin original doth bring forth in us those works of the flesh Gal 5.19 which he also cals sins though positive entities Nay he saith our whole natuâ—e is quoddam peccati semen that sin hath a force and an operation that the whole man of himself is nothing else but concupiscence 7. It is observ'd by ALSTED that as the Hebrews call original Jezer hara plasma malum so peccare to sin doth signifie nothing but an action not omission or absence or meer privation And as Cicero define's it by leaping over the hedge which the law doth set us so accordingly by Iunius it is derived from * pecucare because a sinner like a stray sheep doth leap over mounds And Bellarmine saith that evil surpasseth good in this respect that it aboundeth more in expressions for to signifie an Action we have peccatum crimen delictum scelus facinus flagitium culpa erratum And after all we have vitium which peculiarly signifies an habit whereas to signifie an action or an habit of vertue we onely use the word vertue 8. CHEMNITIVS speaking of the sin against the holy Ghost reckons up six Ingredients in it whereof the most if not all have a positive being And GERHARD does the like by the sin of Peter who abjur'd his Saviour no less by his works then by his words adding perjury to cursing and both to lying Whence he notes the fruitfullness of sin for which 't is called the Divels net Prov. 5.22 If I shall now add GROTIUS who is instar multorum although but one no knowing Reader will look for more He in setting forth the verity of Christian Religion to all the nations of the world which have a praejudice to the Gospel takes special care to let them know that when God is said to be the universal cause or the cause of all things it is onely meant of those things that are good or of all those things which are indued with a subsistence and are commonly known by the name of substance which substances are the causes of certain accidents such as are actions And therefore God is thus freed from being the originall cause of sin So that t is clearly his opinion that sins of commission at least are Accidents even because they are actions which will be granted by all to have a positive being § 9. And this doth prompt me to shew the way of reconciling the words unto the meaning and of proving undeniably what must be the true meaning of certain Writers whom some men's prejudices and praepossessions have unhappily tempted them to mistake 1. When they say that all entities are good they onely speak of all those which are the works of Gods creation or unavoidably produced by natural Agents so as the origin of their being is duly imputable unto God which all our voluntary actions cannot possibly be For 2. When it is said in the common Axiom That the cause of the cause is the cause of the â—ffect it is meant of causes which are physically and essentially subordinate as saith the Learned BISHOP OF DERRY in his Reply to Mr. Hobbs It is meant of such effects as do follow their cause by an antecedent necessitation But the case is quite otherwise when the effects do not follow by a necessity of nature but by the intervention of humane liberty for which I have the suffrage of Dr. Stearn Again 3. it is meant of such effects as proceed from such second causes as transgress not the order they ought to have upon the first and for this I have Aquinas 1.2 q. 79. art 3. When God is said to work all things Eph. 1.11 it is meant in the same restrained sense in which it is said by S. Iames that every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights Iam. 1.17 Implying the contrary to be from below as coming up from the Father of Lyes And therefore 4. When it is said That God is the Maker of all things visible and invisible in the Nicene Creed it is explained in the COLLECT for Evening Service O God from whom all holy desires all good counsels and all just works do proceed c. It is not
own Lusts. CHA P. VI. § 1. HAving bestowed so much paper on what is thought of most moment I shall need spend but little in the dispatching of those flyes to which Mr. H. gives the name of Arguments Artificial p. 69. The first he confesseth was Mr. Barlees If sin as sin be a positive entity then it is a thing in it self good For t was added by Mr. B. but now substracted by Mr. H. every positive thing is good Sect. 2. To this I answered many things of which Mr. H. replyeth onely to a few As 1. That if sin is a thing positive he seeks to prove by this Argument that sin is good 2. That I had proved sin a thing positive in my two last sections which continuing firm and not disproved evinceth the force of his Argument to serve for nothing but only to prove that sin is good 3. That a thing which is privative in one respect is also positive in another As that which is privative of life and sight must needs be positive of Death and blindnesse 4. That Mr. B. himself did grant as much in confessing the efficient cause of sin and saying there may be somthing of positive in a privation 5. That in saying sin is privative he confesseth it is not a meer privation because a privation is but the abstract of privative and what is most positive in one case may be privative in another 6. That sin is not conceivable unlesse as a concrete which hath something positive as well as privative there being no kinde of difference betwixt Davids lying with Bathshebah and hiâ— Adultery with Bâ—thshebah at the time of her being Vriahs wife 7. That bonum Metaphysicum hath quite another signification then bonum morale to which alone we oppose sin or malum morale 8. That a Libertine a Ranter or a Carneadist will be glad to introduce an opinion that sin is good by calling it bonum Metâ—physicum and confounding that with bonum morale 9. That the subject of Metaphysicks is ens quatenus ens reale illud not omnimodo positivum quatenus positivum and so in one sensâ— it comprehendeth Res aliquid 10. That bonum metaphysicum doth not signifie good in English as Canis astronomicus doth not signifie a dog in our english streets and apprehensions 11. That Dr. Twisse was betrayed into one of his worst errourâ— that it is better to be tortured to all eternity then not to have a real being by not considering this very thing 12. That a lye is verum as much as sin is bonum Metaphysicum because it hath a positive being which proved the Argument to be impertinent at the best § 3. Now Reader observe what an incomparable confuter I have to deal with There are but four things of twelve on which his courage would serve him to try his teeth which finding also to be too hard he does as lepidly nibble at them as the tame creature did at the Thistles which made Philemon so full of laughter For to the first he thus replyes The designe of the argument is to fright Mr. P. out of his sad opinion concerning the positivity of sin by bringing him to the grand Absurdity of saying sinne is good p. 70. But I rejoyn 1. That my answer was designed to fright Mr. Hick from his opinion concerning Gods being the Author of all things positive nay of all things real too neither Blasphemy nor Buggery nor hating God being excepted by bringing him to the grand Absurdities of saying God is the Author of the greatest wickednesse in the world and withal of saying the greatest wickednesse is good 2. He cannot bring me to saying that sin is good but onely he can say he designed to bring me which shews the folly of his designe too For. 3. as I said that Bonum amongst the Heathen Metaphysicians did not signify good in our English acception of the word any more then malum which is latine for an apple can signifie evil in a Translation though malum is latine for evil too so I shall make it undeniable by appealing even to them who are partial to him whether we can properly say in English That it is good to hate God or good for Mr. Hickman to lie with a beast because they are actions which have positive entities and therefore are Bona Metaphysica in Mr. Hickmans Dialect Nay in very broad English Mr. H. will tell us that they are Good and from God if he dares say twice what he hath said too often by saying once to wit in his pages 95 96 4. I told him Aristotlâ—'s phrase of every entity being good should rather have been rejected as unsound and unsafe and so returned to that Heathen from whence it came then have been used by a Christian to prove it good to hate God And accordingly Dr. Stearn doth somewhere deny that metaphysical Axiom to be of universal truth for when it was urged that the Act of hating God must be good because ens bonum convertuntur he called it the begging of the question as well he might 5. Mr. H. saith theMaxime is ens bonum convertuntur not quatenus positivum and so ascribes an equal goodnesse to the formal obliquity which is ens as to the Act it self to which the obliquity it annexed 6. T were easy to prove to Mr. H. that the greatest Lye is as true as the truth it self because it is Aristotle's Maxime and as generally received as that he urged ens and verum convertuntur 7. I had told him whilest it was time that if by good he means bonum morale as to be pertinent he must he must also prove parricide incest witchcraft or Rebellion a thing neither better nor worse then witchcraft either meer privations of being or moral good things For according to his dreaming they must be nothing or 2. no sins or 3. moral vertues or 4. sins and moral vertues too § 4. He replyes to the third by a full Concession p. 70.71 But conceiving it a disgrace to stick at nothing he wholy passeth by my answer and onely quarrells my Illustration which yet in one sense he doth approve too That sense was mine and as pertinent it was as whatsoever similitude he hath stoln from Mr. Morice what I said of darknesse he confesseth to be a truth and with a But it is very vulgar p. 71. As if the Sun were the worse for being an every day spectacle He thought his axiom the better for being vulgar and gave it this commendation that it is commonly received p. 70. when he impertinently saith that darkness cannot be felt p. 72. he should have excepted the Aegyptian and that of his own apprehension which is now so palpable to every Reader 2. I gave an instance in the transgression of the Law which I said was sin and yet a thing positive as well as privative to wit privative of virtue and positive of vice To this Mr.
that sin is nothing which is but non-ens in English why not figuratively spoken when they say that sin is a privation especially when there are testimonies out of the very same Writers not onely for the reality but positivity also of sin 2. The little Greek he produceth hath so very many faults in so very few lines not observed in his Errata that I conceive he did he knew not what with an implicit Faith in the skill of others from whom he borrow'd at second hand which I believe so much the rather because I find his own Authorities do overthrow the very errour for which he bâ—ings them Witness the words of Aâ—hanasius which prove that sin hath no substance in opposition to those Greeks who contended that sin had a subsistence of it self whereas to the having a positivity there is nothing more required then that it be some kind of Accident Witness also those other words affirming no evil thing positive or privative to proceed from God who being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gives occasion to the expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which evil things may be called as not derived from him who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So when it is said by St. Austin ex uno Deo esse omnia quae sunt he explains his meaning to be of all good things and of none besides because he presently adds tamen non esse peccatorum auctorem Deum And if when Austin doth elsewhere say Peccatum nihil est he means according to the letter that sin is nothing in very deed first 't is a gross contradiction to what he saith in other places and secondly 't is the worst of his many Errours 3. The meaning of Aquinas I have elsewhere shewed And yet if I say with Dr. Iackson that Aquinas and his followers have sometimâ—s spoken uâ—excusably concerning God I shall but speak to the dishonour of Popish Writers by whom the rigid Presbyterians have been unhappily corrupted in these affairs Lastly whereas he saith that heaâ—hâ—n Philosophers did see this giving an instance in Salustius and no one else a man that shall affirm the eternity of the world may urge Aristotle for it and say the Heathens themselves discernd this truth Thus I say a man may argue who can find in his heart to argue no better then Mr. Hickman But be it that a heathen is of the Presbyterian judgement the Christian Fathers and Schoolmen are still of mine unless when they speak in such a manner against me as to speak as much against themselves too § 11. His second Reason is because he knows no other way of defining what ens primum is but this that it is such a Being which is not from any other being and which is the cause of all the Beings that are p. 78. First I observe from these words that the Libertine advanceth more and more to a clear discovery of it self For if he thinks that any sin as hating cursing blaspheming God hath any being in the world he professeth to believe that God himself is the cause of it And the cause is the Author of any being And so he is caught in the act of that very crime which himself had confessed to be the worst of all blasphemies and which is the Quintessence of all blasphemy saith Theophilus Churchman which is thought to signifie three men of which number Master Hickman himself is one in the rationall conjectures of all I meet with If he thinks that sin hath no being and by consequence that it is nothing then his words are most impertinent and prove him besides a meer Carneadist Secondly In saying God is the cause of all beings meerly because he is the first he seems to think there is but one way of priority whereas a Freshman in Logick could have told him there are five Is it not enough that God is the first of all Beings and was from eternity without beginning whereas all things else began to be and so was before the being of sin and of all things else in four respects but he must also be before it as the â—ause of its being Thirdly It may suffice to the defining of ens primum to say it is that which alone did neveâ— begin to be or that than which there is nihil prius and which praecedeth all others as much as eternity praecedeth time Or if the word cause must needs be added let it be said he is the cause of all good things that have a being whether naturally and necessarily or voluntarily acting But not the cause of those acts or actions which cannot but argue in the causer either wickedness and guilt or imperfection § 12. His third Reason in effect is but the same with the second as the second is the same with what he call'd his second Argument p. 77. And so I referr it for its answer both to the Section before going and to what I have said in my whole fifth Chapter especially to § 5 anâ— 6. Onely I add my observation that whilst God is by him affirmed to be the fountain of all essences p 79. who yet ascribeth one essence unto sin whilst he saith the action of hating God is essentially evil p. 94. he affirms God to be the fountain of all the sins in the world and that not only of the act but of the very essence of sin it self And because he seems to stumble most at the common axiom in Philosophy which is found urged by Mr. Barlow severall times upon one account to wit that the cause of the cause is the cause of the effect I will first send him back to what I have said in Answer to it chap. 5. § 5. num 2. Next I will set him down at large Aquinas his Answer unto the same effectus causae secundae procedens ab eâ secundum quod subditur causae primae reducitur etiam in causam primam Sed si procedat à causâ media secundum quod exit ordinem causae primae non reducitur in causam primam Sicut si minister faciat aliquid contra mandatum Domini hoc non reducitur in dominum sicut in causam Et similiter peccatum quod liberum arbitrium committit contra praeceptum Dei non reducitur in Deum sicut in causam § 12. His fourth pretended reason is most ridiculously pretended He believes no medium because forsooth Mr. P. hath not been able to find any for whereas I told him the works of the Divel are a medium he saith I could not sure but think he would distinguish in blasphemy lying c betwixt the vital act and its deficiency c. p. 79. The folly of this being discovered throughout my whole fourth chapter and in the beginning of this sixth and I may say throughout my fifth too but most expresly in my third chapter § 6. which is too long to be here repeated I shall onely
objecto and antecedently to the Law I say in this I have enough wherâ—by to prove him most clearly his own Refuter And yet I add that if the undue referring of hatred to God be not positive but privative as he unskilfully saith p. 95. then hatred being positive doth cease to be posiâ—ive by being fastened upon God as Mr. Hickman must needs inferr unless he denyes the hatred of God to be a sin and yet the fastening it on God is as positive as the fastening it on the Divel § 21. After this having itch to steal a discourse from Mr. Barlow concerning several grounds of Difference betwixt the sins of omission and commission And knowing not how to bring it in either by head or by shoulders by way of answer to any argument which he had seen in my writings thought fit to forge such a syllogism as might be suitable to his purpose and setting a bold face upon it to tell the Reader that it was mine pag 97. I stood amaz'd for some time at his resolution especially when I saw him making as good as a profession of such impiety For although he had directly laid his child at my doore and pronounced me the father without Reserve yet few lines after he confesseth in effect that it is his own For he confesseth he does but suppose that if my words were reduced to mood and figure they would appear in such a Form as he hath now represented p. 97. But least his Readers should see my words concerning sins of omission and commission by being directed to the page where I had spoken of that subject he straight creates an ignis fatuus whereby to lead them out of their way For he saith my words are p. 167. wherâ—as in all that page there are not onely no such words but no occasion or hint for so leud a Fiction The onely place for ought I know wherein I used any such terms as sins of omission and commisâ—ion but without any likeness to what he forgeth was pag. 146 And there my words were precisely these If sins of omission as not praying and not giving alms c. had but a deficient cause yet sins of commission as cursing and Sacriledge c. have a cause efficient with a witness It s true I said in another place p. 162. that whilst M. Hickman denyes sin to be something positive he seems to make no difference betwixt a simple negative and a privative properly so called And again confounds a privation properly so call'd with a thing call'd privative secundum quid He makes no difference betwixt not blessing and cursing God c where first I say not he makes no difference but that he seems to make none meaning none as to the point of its positivity And as to the force of my Accusation he hath not uttered one word in his own defence Nay he hath proved his gross mistake of a simple negative for a privative properly so called And so he proves I had used him with two much candor § 22. Of all the Texts which I had brought for the proving of sins being something positive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 163. He wilfully passeth by the rest and shews his impertinence upon one in which the force of my Argument did least consist unless as it relates to the next text after of which M. Hickman would take no notice My Aâ—gument was that as we reade of great and litle sins in comparison so we reade in proportion of greater and lâ—ssâ—r damnation Mat. 23.14 Luk. 12.48 Now 't is so evident in it self and so acknowledged a thing amongst the men of all parties that all the Damned souls in hell are wholly destitute of Grace and that of those who have a totall privation of it some shall have fewâ—r and sâ—me more stripes some a lesser and some a greater damnation that I thought Mr. Hickman could not choose but understand me but being convinced of the truth which yet he resolved to abjure sought to hide his conviction by this incomparable Impertinence That he would answer if he could guess where the vein of proof did lye and if he may guess it lyes in this that there can be no degrees in a privation p. 99. In which words ' â—is hard to say how many wayes he is unhappy 1. He cannot guess wherein the force of the proof doth lye and yet he will answer for all his ignorance But 2. he will not answer neither unless he may have leave to forge the thing to which he conceives he can give an answer if he may make a man of cloâ—ts he will adventure on that condition to strike at it when he hath done 3. He either thinks there are degrees even of total privations of which some are privations of no more then all grace but others of all and some too or else 4. of those that are damned in hell he thinks that some have more grace some less or some none at all some less then none at all Because some have a greater some a lesser damnation For my Inference is this That of those that are wholly deprived of grace some are greater sinners then others and more tormented Whose sin by consequence must be something besides a whole privation of grace It was indeed for want of Grace or by resisting Grace given that Ammon lusted after fiâ—st and secondly loathed his sister Tamar But besides that want or privation of Grace there were some positive effects which were damning sins 1. He lusted after 2. He dissembled with 3. He violently defiled 4. He hated his injured sister It is not through a want of Grace but abundance of wilfulnesse that some do resist the holy Ghost and depart from grace given And sure besides the privation of Grace there is that in some sinners by which they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inventors of evil things In a word there is some thing pâ—sitivâ— above the total privation of Grace by which it shall be more tolerable in the day of judgement for one reprobate then another So Mr. H. aymes purposely beside the mark unlesse he thinks there is Grace in hell Sect. 23. I having argued that sin is sâ—id to work in the Sinner all manner of concupiscence Rom. 7.8 perfectius est agere quà m esse Mr. H. saith that in such speeches sin signifies not abstractly and formally but it signifies our nature and its faculties as under corruption c. p. 100 Here is work for a volume if I could think it not below me to pursue Mr. H. in all his follies First I note his Confession that sin doth signifie something positive concretively and materially and that in Scripture Next his self-contradiction in that he had said p. 54. sin is so perfectly an abstract that if we conceive not of it as an abstract we cannot conceive of it as sin 3. His vertual denyal that sin and sinfulnesse are synonymous which yet he affirmed p. 53.
non payment is a negative thing not a privative as Mr. Hickman heedlesly supposeth yet the knavery and deceitfulness which is the cause of non-payment will be granted by all to be something positive And so Mr. Hickman saith very well I could well enough bear his being punisht for not paying me my arrears and bear it I will when that day comes and for usurping a Possession to which he hath not a better right than Ahab had to Naboths vineyard as I shall usefully demonstrate when I come to that subject Let non-payment be what it will yet usurpation and violence obduration and obstinacy resolving to be rich and hastening to it by any means are positive entities with a witness And now we see how his principles are run out into his practice For whilst he pleads against amendment and restitution by saying that non-payment is no positive entity and that I know not how to place it in any praedicament of beings doth he not wipe his mouth with the lew'd woman in the Proverbs and confidently say he hath done no wickedness Let the shop-keepers beware how they lend to such a Logician lest he tell them non-payment is no positive entity nor in any praedicament of beings and therefore not to repay is a thing of nothing But then they may serve him in such a manner as Zeno serv'd his saucy man whose like opinion debauch't his practice even keep him in Bocardo or some such prison and tell him that non-releasement is no positive entity nor doth he know how to place it in any praedicament of beings So much for his impertinence pag. 104. by which he hath made it very pertinent for me even to speak out of order concerning that to which I have design'd a peculiar place § 26. I had said that sin is the cause of punishment and therefore positive because the cause cannot have a lesser being then the effect In stead of this Mr. Hickman obtrudes these words upon me Sin is a punishment but punishment is a positive entity ergo p. 105. Had he spoken my words he would probably have cited my pages also A thing which he seldome thinks safe for him to do And yet he saith of the punishment of sense 't is well he speaks of it at all although he gives no reason for it that it is not positive if we consider that in which the evil of that punishment formally consisteth It seems the man is of opinion that because he takes sin to be a meer non-entity the punishment of it can be nothing but a privation of life added to the loss of the joyes of heaven and what is said of those torments which are inflicted upon the Reprobates made to be firebrands of hell he conceiveth with some of the Heathen Diodorus Siculus and his peers to be but Hypothesin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fabulous Mormo or Bugg whereby to fright such silly babes as we Praelatists and Arminians are thought to be for being so simple as to suffer the loss of all in this world rather then hazzard a greater suffering of somewhat more then a loss in the world to come This I say is his opinion for ought I can guess at his opinion by his expressions if he did steadfastly believe there is an infinite pain in Hell besides the totall privation of bliss and glory why would he say it is not positive if he thought the very evil of that unspeakable punishment doth not consist in that infinite pain why did he not tell us what it is wherein he supposeth it doth consist If besides the meer absence or want of pleasure the pains of hell are not positive and the worst evil of punishment to be imagined I will say to Mr. Hickman as Bishop Bramhall to Mr. Hobs Reddat mihi mimam Diogenes And had I not reason to withstand Dr. Twisse in his withstanding our Blessed Saviour by asserting it to be better to be eternally damned then reduc'd to nothing Yet Mr Hickman is very angry with my resisting that Doctor in whose behalf he railes at me but nothing else p. 106. At least he makes as if he were angry that so he may take that occasion to slip the neck of his Credit out of the very same collar in which he hath sense enough to see that his cause is strangled An Appendix § 1. HAving done with the main subject upon which Mr. Hickman should have spent his whole Book but upon which he was carefull to speak the least as if he were conscious to himself of speaking sinfully of sin whilst he saw he was to speak as either a Libertine on the one side or a Carneadist on the other I must now in a large Appendix review his Book from the Beginning and shew him the wickedness or the folly in many particulars of the whole of which he hath not been yet admonish'd And I must do it so much the rather that he may not say I have onely stuck upon his sick and sore parts of which he worthily complains in the Tail of the Body of his Discourse § 2. I begin with his Epistle to the Lecturers of Brackley wherein having premised by a significant implication That he and such as he is are some of the worthiest men alive pag. 1. and yet implicitly too confessing They are not worthy to live p. 2. I having proved out of their writings that they are guilty of such a whole the half of which saith Mr. Hickman makes them worthy of death he proceeds from his self-flattery and from his self-condemnation to do me the honour of being slander'd in the same breath with Doctor Hammond who must not look for better usage than God himself from such an Advocate and Patron of all impiety as teacheth the action of hating Good to be God's own creature or God himself § 3. To begin in his order with his calumniating my self he first tells his Brethren that what I charg'd his Masters with were the meer Chimaera's of my brain But how much to the shame both of him and them too I have already made apparent in the beginning of my Boâ—k By which I leave it to be judged and even by them of his own Sect whether it is not as willful and as malicious as it was an â—noccasioned and groundless slander If he examin'd my citations I have proved to his own and his Readers eyes that he is guilty of a studied and a deliberate wickedness But if he examin'd them not at all then it appears that he was resolute to write as bitterly as he was able without resolving to consider whether his writing would be found to be right or wrong § 4. Nor doth he content himself with this but adds a cast of his virulence though not more impious yet much more obvious to the discovery of the Reader to wit That God's being the Author of sin does necessarily follow on an opinion which I maintain p. 3.
to stretch out his hand to cut which act so far forth onely considered and no farther doubtless is no sin for then every stretching out of the arm to cut any thing should be a sin according to the old Logical axiome Quicquid convenit quatenus ipsum convenit omni But the applying of such an act to an undue object referring it to an undue end performing it in an undue manner or with undue circumstances by any of which obliquities it becometh a sin proceedeth wholly and solely from the corrupt will of the inferiour agent and not at all from God which as it layeth the whole guilt of the sin or moral act upon the actor so it clearly acquitteth God such his concurrence to the natural act or motion of his creature as aforesaid notwithstanding from the least degree of any agency or efficiency therein 8. He saith That what he hath here declared concerning these two last points as it is axactly agreeable to what his judgement then was when the two Sermons wherein the passages quoted by Mr. Hickman are found were preached so it is his present opinion still which he hath therefore somewhat the longer insisted upon not onely for that it seemeth to be the consentient tenet of the best School-men grounded upon discourse of reason and the Authority of St. Augustin and other of the antient Fathers and no way in his apprehension derogatory to the holiness goodness wisdom or majesty of God But also because the due consideration of it might prove if it were by some able hand distinctly clearly and intelligibly set down a probable expedient toward the reconciling of some differences among Divines held at a greater distance then perhaps they needed to have been for want of a right understanding between the dissenting parties For the Doctor professeth himself and he well hopeth he is in most things not much further from the truth for so doing as on the one side extreamly jealous of extreme opinions till they have undergone a severe trial so on the other side very inclinable to embrace middle and reconciling opinions where there appeareth not pregnant evidence of reason to the contrary 9. Lastly to conclude this whole businesse so far as he apprehendeth himself concerned he saith he is not unwilling the world should know that having from his younger years as his Genius led him addicted himself mostly to the study of the moral and practical part of Divinity but especially having for fear of approaching too neare to the Ark of Gods secret counsels kept a loof off from medling more then needs must with those more nice and intricate disputes concerning Gods eternal decrees the cooperation of Gods free Grace and mans free-will c. He contented himself for sundry years to follow on as most others did by a kinde of implicit credulity in the Sublapsarian way as the then most troden path until having a just occasion A.D. 1628. to make a little farther inquiry after the truth in those questions upon due search he saw a necessity of receding from that way in some things a more particular account whereof is given in a narrative lately printed with his consent which if well considered ought he thinketh in reason and charity to excuse him from the necessity of justifying every syllable or phrase that might slip from his tongue or pen in any thing by him spoken or written before that year and whilest he was very little or rather nothing at all versed in the study of those Questions Now since I have proved undeniably that the question was from the beginning betwixt my adversaries and me whether any kinde of sins plainly meaning whole sins not the formal part of sin which cannot possibly be the sin of which it is but the formal part have a positive being And since it is said by Dr. SANDERSON that the positive acts above mentioned murdering and ravishing of men women are so in the concrete horrid sins nay in the plainest tearmes to be imagined that a sin of commission doth consist of two things an act and an obliquity and since it is said by Mr Hickman that it belongs to the universality of the first cause to produce not onely every positive but every real being and not onely so but also the positive modifications of beings p. 95. It is apparent that Doctor SANDERSON is as much for my cause and as much a-against Mr. Hickmans as either my heart can wish or my cause require For though he conceiveth that the act may be considered without considering the object about which it is conversant in which case it cannot possibly be considered as a sin yet he declares that the Act of sin cannot possibly exist without the obliquity any more then the obliquity without the Act. And farther yet he doth affirm towards the end of his sixt paragraph both that the vitiated Act is the very sin and that the sin which is the vitiated act is not only a real but a positive entity I have published this happy concurrence with me not onely in his sense but according to his desire in his own manner of expression § 69. I now go on to discover his wilfull Calumny not so much against me as against Bp. HALL Bp. MORTON and Bp. BROWNRIG whom though he knew to be Bishops of the Church of England yet he reckons them them with the men of the Kirk or Consistory or their Adherents here in England whom I had charged with swearing the Scottish Covenant and making God the Author of sin who had done dishonours unto the Protestant name p. 31 32. For if the Reader will consult my Auâ—ocatacrisis chap. 2. p. 61 62. he will see I onely spake against the Papists and Presbyterians in words at length and by name and that upon no lesser motive or provocation then their making God the Author of sin So that now Mr. Hickman must either prove that those excellent Prelates were Presbyterians or Papists or such at least of their adherents as have been known to make God the Author of sin Or if he cannot prove this as I know he cannot he must make some amends for so foul a slander § 70. The request he puts up to the Episcopal Divines who close with such as he is in the present contest p. 31. renders him yet more criminall in two respects First because there are none of the Episcopal Divines who ever closed with the Hickmanians in saying that sin if it is positive is either God's creature or God himself or that our English Presbyterians have any power to make Priests For this and that he must confess is the present subject of our contest Next because he calls their Brethren Arminian Ardelio's by whom they must expect to be last devoured By which he would intimate to his Readers if I am able to understand him That we design the Doctrines they call Arminian as the condition of our Brethrens Communion with us which as it hath ever been
unhappy Boyes do make Knives when in very deed they do but steal them 2. Had he been made my Receiver by my consent he must have given me an Account as the person to whom his Receipts were due 3. He confesseth An usufructuary doth want the Title and cannot pretend he hath Ius ad Rem So that now in the same sense in which he pretends to the Usus-fructus he doth implicitly confess I am proprietary in chief and I may very well summon so sawâ—y an officer to a Reckoning When Doctor Heylin said of Mr Cheynel that he was the Vsufructuary of the rich Parsonage of Petworth the English of it was usurper and nothing else For 't is a Rule as I remember in the Civil Law Potest proprietas esse Maevii Vsus-fructus Titii tamen usus Sempronii And even where the usus-fructus is duly setled as most unduely in Mr. Hickman it is but jus in re by his confession And usus-fructus is defined by Ius Alienis Rebus utendi fruendi salvâ rerum substantiâ So the Propriety is mine who have jus ad rem The Visitors could not by doing wrong either take away my Right or conferr upon another what they could never take from me To be out of possession is so far from being a prejudice to my Right That God's Anointed himself hath been as long out of his whose Right hath yet been alwayes greater at least by one Title then any subject's § 82. But Mr. Hickman is well satisfied that he wants nothing at all but a Right and Title to his possession pag. 46. And the taking that for a small defect may very probably be the reason why the Assembly Annotators on the English Bible did seem to think it no sin to be God's and the Churches Vusufructuaries in such a figurative sense as in which Mr. Hickman may be called mine For 't is observed by Dr. Gauden and many others that in every place through the Bible where the word and Spirit of God signally commands them to brand the sin of sacrilege with a black marke as one of the Divels hindmost Herd the Presbyterian Expositors do so slily and slightly pass it over as if they had neither seen nor smelt that foul beast as if there were no gall in their pens no Reproof in their mouthes no courage in their Hearts against this sin they scarce ever touch it never state it make no perstrictive or invective stroke against it which could not be saith the Observator their Ignorance or inadvertency but the cowardise cunning and Parasitism of the Times in which they were content for some Presbyterian ends to connive at sacriledge in those good Lords and Masters whose charity they hoped yea Doctor Gauden professeth he heard of them profess they expected would turn all that stream which Bishops ☜ Deans and Chapters injoyed to drive the Presbyterian Mills to keep up the honour of Ruling and teaching Elders These soft fingered Censors saith the Reverend Doctor a little after very gently touch that rough Satyr of sacrilege where t is expresly put in the balance with Idolatry and overweighs it as more enormous Thus farr that Learned and moderate man whom perhaps the Annotators may charge with impudence as Mr. Hickman does me and that against the two Houses too on whom they probably will bestow the Supreme Authority of the Nation It being a Grace which Mr. Hickman was pleased to grant them § 83. Whereas he saith that my being married doth evacuate and nullifie my Title to all Academical Injoyments pag. 46 47. first I must tell him that I was single when I was cast out of my Fellowship which was my Freehold and some years after did so continue even till after I was presented to the Rectorie of Brington my injoymâ—nt of which he seems to envie ibid. And so I hope he will acknowledge my Arrears are due to me till then Nor can he with any Truth that I ever pretended to any more 2. I am not sure my being married can null my Title untill Doctor Oliver and the true Fellows shall so declare it and wise men have thought that by their good leave I am Fellow still till by a lawfull Election they put another into my place For Thomas Goodwin we know is a most scandalous usurper so as the Rhapsodist himself can be hardly worse And so my modus habendi may still be optimus as Mr. Hickmaâ—'s is pessimus in the very worst sense too For I have an Academical enjoyment by Right Mr. Hickman onely by usurpation I am warranted by Vlpian to say I have it though many years together I have not held it Nam eum Habere dicimus qui Rei Dominus est aeque ac eum qui Rem Tenet 3. And it was strange that Mr. Hickman could think me incapable of my own at Magdalen Colledge by my having injoyed a single Parsonage whilst at the very same time he thought himself capable of things which were none of his even a Fellowship in the Colledge a Vicarage of Braâ—kly and a Parsonage at Saint Towles too and all by no other title then what the wickedness of the Times could bestow upâ—n him So Mr. Tombes the Arch-Anabaptist could be qualified by the Times to be Parson of Rosse and Vicar of Lempster and Preacher of Bewdly and Master of the Hospital at Ledbury All which he was somewhat fitter for then Mr. Hickman if but capable of something by being lawfully ordained Whereas Mr. Hickman having been onely made a Minister not a Priest or a Deacon as Doctor Heylin doth well distinguish and made a Minister no otherwise then as the Friaâ—'s Pork was made Pickerill cannot be capable of the least much less of two or three Livings And perhaps in time he may say as much if he will reade Doctor Hammond upon the Ordinance of the two Houses for the ordination of Ministers Pro Tempore Printed at Oxford 1644. For which that Great Author was never yet accused of being impudent though what he writ was against the two Houses § 84. Because he know's I never said I was sâ—spected by the Visitors to be the Author of a Libel which words the man was resolved to use he tells his Reader that my words might look lâ—ke such an Affirmation p. 47. whereas before he confessed my words were no other then that I was secretly suggested to be the Author of some books which to this very day I could never hear nam'd p. 44. were all things Libells which were written for the cause of the King and of the Church or were any way displeasing to those mens Palates who came to Vâ—sit Or is it lawfull to ruine men upon bare suspicion Was this for the credit of the Visitors or them that sent them Be it so that I was suspected as any other man might be I was as innocent as the morning in which I was told by Dr. Râ—yâ—olds of such suspicion And that he told me
gra l. 2. part 1. p. 37. col 1. lin 17.18 edit Amsterd 1632. f Calvin Inst. edit Genev. 1637 lib. 1. c. 18. Sect. 3. fol. 70. p. 1. l. 10. g Lib. 3. caâ— 23. Sect. 6. fol. 324. p. 2. lin 8 9 from the bottom Martin Borrhaeus stuggardinus in Pâ—oph Esataeoracula c edit Basil. 1561. in cap. Esa. p. 259. lin 50. i D Twiss vin Gra. l. 2. part 1. p 36. col 2. l. 15. †1 Tim. 4.2 * Necess Vin. c. 3 p. 13â— to p. 136 cited at large in my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 3. p. 180. c. †See self condemnatiâ—n exemplâ—fied c. 3. pag. 140 141 142. c. * 1 Tim. 4.1 2 Sam. 16.22 which compare with 2 Sam. 12.11 12. The continuation â—f the Accompt See his words and pâ—ges cited Philan. c. 3. S. 28 and c. 4. S. 21. pag. Seventeen Arguments to prove the positive Entity of sin M Hickman's inteâ—â—essing himself â—n another mans province See the words and pages cited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ch 3. p. 150 15â— c. His laying the foundation of perfect Libertinism and Ranâ—ism †Note M. H. ascribes eveâ—y reall Being to the first cause producing it p. 95 96. * Prov. 30.20 Occasioning 16 other Arguments for the positive entity of sin See the Arguments at large in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 3. p. 148. to p. 166. M. Hick's Title page is impertinent to hiâ— Book * See Introduct p. 7. and compare it with c. 3. p. 140.141 142. A brief and general account of M. Hickmans whole book A Building made up of nothing but one long entry and 3 Back doors * Beshrew M. Barlee p. 60. Pag. 67. M. H. turns his back upon 14 Arguments at once Nine more at once he passeth by without answer His promise â—n justifying the School men doth end in posâ—ing them over without regard His widest Back-door of all at which he makes a most shamefull and foul escape from the thing in Question The thing in Question from the beginning was sin properly so called See Div. Phil. c. 3. p. 110. c. and c. 4. p. 42 43. * Note that D. Field calls sin of commission an evil Act and also saith 't is meerly positive as shall be shewed c. 3. Sect. 2. * Rom 7.13 How M. Hick was frightâ—d from it in spite of S. Paul and D. Reynolds Sin a concrete and so confessed by Master Hickman a little after he had denyed it * Note he confesseth that the hating of God is Complexum Quid. p. 95. that it hath a materiall an formall part pag. 94. that it is an Action ibid. The positive act proved to be the sin of cursing God Master Hickman though challenged not attempting to disprove it See 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 chap. 1. p. 11 12. No imaginable difference beâ—wixt the positive act of lying with Bathsheba and the Adultery which was the sin Sin confessed by D. Twisse to include a positive Act. Vind. Gr. l. 2. par 1. 〈…〉 p. 155. * Omne peccatum definite consideratum secundum certam speciem duo Com. plectitur Actum Naturalem Actus Turpitudinem sive cum lege Dei Repugnantiam E. G. Furtum Omne duo notat viz. actum surripiendi res alienas actus hujus deformitatem quatenus lege divinâ— nobis interdiciâ—ur c. Vin. Gra. l. 2. part 1· p. 155. The same is confessed by M. Whit. and M. B. and iâ— lucid Intervals by M. Hickm himself Who writes against his own knowledge Look forwards on c. 6. Sect. 14 15. And as much against his own interest I. By the grossness of his falshood and Tergiversation II. By inferring that vertue hath no positive being III By arming the Atheist against himself in proving that God hath no positive Entity IV. By putting it out of his power to deny he is a Brute till he renounce his transition â— Thesâ— ad Hypoâ—hesin * Note it cannot be here meant whether it hath it from God or man it being Blasphemy to say it can be from God which is the crime in M. H. I now oppose The stone at which M. H. hath not stumbled onely but faln past all recovery The true state of sin specifiâ—d as it differs from either part of sin and from sinfulness it self * See Aquinas in particular 1.2 quaest 75. art 1. art 2. * Note that D. Field hath affirmed this very repugnance to be a positive thing l. 3 c. 23. p. 120. and hath said that sins are positive acts p 119. not obliquities of the acts M. Hickman gets nothing though we should grant him his Reduplication but rather looseth all he gâ—pes at Nay proves himself a Carneadist or Libertine That sin is posiâ—ive and concrete may be concluded from Bonaventure in lib. 2. sent dist 32. quaest 1. Concupiscentia duo dicit secundum id quod est Dicit enim appetitum dicit nihilominus in actu appetitus excessum c. â—pud Voss. Pel. Hist. p. 217. Mr. H.'s chief strength from Mr. Barlows youngest writings Why first encountred An account of Dr. Field's Reasons for the positive entity of sin l. 3. of the Church ch 23. Edit 2. p. 119.120 * Doctuâ— siquls alius Ecclesiae nostrae scriptor Richardus Field Exer. 2. p. 71. Edit 2. The first Reason * Note that he who commits such sins iâ— denominated evil in part by passive denomination for that he wâ—ntetâ— that orderly disposition which should be in himself though chiefly indeed by active denomination c. The 2. Reaâ—son * Notandum S. Patres interdum malitiam peccati explicare per privationem â—oni non quod debeat inesse ipsi actui peccati sed quod debeat inesse homini operanâ—i c. Lâ—ssius de perf Div. l· 31. cap 16. Corder p. 596. The first reason was never answered The second anâ—swer'd by Mr. Barlow in his younger years * Sicut Ambulatio per se sumpta potest esse bona Sic odium Dei per se sumptum poâ—est esse bonum per conseuens ipsum esse actus non erit per se malum pag. 74. The answer shewd to be invalid in five respects I. By its granting what it pretendeth to deny II. By implying â— contradiction III. By being offenâ—sive to pious minds IV. By offending against the rules of sense V. By the twofold unfitness of the â—â—mile alledged GVLIELM de RVBIONE vindicated by way of reply to M. BARLOW'S answ * Odium Dei est malum solum ob defectum objecti debiti nam si terminaretur ad peccatum esset bonum pag. 73. M. Hickmanâ— answer proved vitioâ—s in three respects I. By such a gross Fallacy as by which he is proved no mâ—n but either a beast or somewhat worse II. By such a shifting from the Question as proves him convinced of his maintaining a gross errour By Blasphemy expressed and contradiction implyed * Quaedam mala sunt etiam citra legem
either from God or God himself and primarily none from men or divels The infirmities of the first * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. contra Gentes mihi p. 6. c. * Look bâ—ck on ch 5. â— 5. num 7. Of the second By which he is proved out of his mouth to be the worst of Blasphemers p. 171. Of the third Wherein he makes God the Fountain of the Essence of sin Mr. Barlow in his exercit 2. de naturâ mâ—li p. 45.72 Aquinas 1.2 q. 79. Art 1. ad 3. Of the fourth Wherein he ascribeth unto God what God ascribeth unto the Divel 1 Ioh. 3.8 His third Argument artificial * Look back on c. 3. S. 2. â— 3 4 5 7 The positive importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not considered by Master Barlow Exâ—r 2. pag. 39 51.65 Qui 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ☞ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicit qui scortationem qui furâ—tum dicit duo semper dicit materiale formale Alsted Lex Theol c. 8. p. 233. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicta ex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut observat Alst ex Fran. Iuâ—io Vocabulum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quo hic utitur Johannes significat quicquid fit contra legem Hemm de viâ vitae p. 554. * D. H. Ham. in Fundamen c. 16. p. 183. †See the positive instances of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1.29.30 31. â— The like Importance of peccatum proved by reason and experience Peccare significat Actionem tantùm non etiam omissionem Alsted ubi Supra * Omne peccatum DUO connotat Dr. Twisse Vin. Gra. l. 2. parâ— 1. p. 155. Matthaeus vero Marcus monstrant quod materia Peccati in Sp. Sanctum sit contemptus Christi Evangelii Hemming ubi supra p. 554 His 4th or last Argument †p. 88. Bellè dicunt Scholastici in omni Peccato considerari terminum à quo â—d quem Omne namque peccatum est defectio à Creatore ad Creaturam Alsâ—ed lex Theol. c. 8. p. 232. A short account of those shifâ—s which pretend to be Answers to some few Arguments †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ch 3. p. 156. Mic. 6.16 Gal. 5.19 Col. 1.21 Eph. 5 11. Heb 9.14 1 Iohn 3.8 Rev. 9.20 Of sins being called the works of the Devil His Concessions and contradictions about the habit of Drunkennesse * Autocatacâ— ch â— p. 161. p. 94. His Concessions and contradictions about the pâ—sitive filth of sin Ezek. 23.13 Ier. 13.23 * Isa. 5.18 †Mat. 11.41 * Mat 25.30 His concession tergiversation concerning blasphemy and Atheism c. Hiâ— râ—markable forgerie of an Argument in his Adversaries name His stupendious impertinence and supposal of Grace in Hell or some privation besides All. 2 Sam. 13 14. Act. 7.51 Rom. 1.30 Matth. 10.15 Luk. 10.14 24. Of sins working Concupiscence Mr. Hickmans Answer absurd in 8. respects Of the efficient cause of sin Mr. H.'s conviction confession in despite of his whole Enterprise Of sins being nothing if no effect Mr. Hâ—ckmans vain attempt to prove knavery to be nothing * 2. Cor. 8.12 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesiod Prov. 30 2â— * Satis perspicuè intelligent nequaquam Stoicas opiniones in Ecclesiam invehendas esse Zenonis servus dicebat se injustâ— plecti quia fato coactus esset peccare Melanchâ—hon in loc com pag 54 The cause of punishment Mr. H. denial of any positive damnation unless he thinks it no punishment to be damn'd * ☞ See D SANDERSONS 4. Reasons for his rejecting the way of Doct. Twisse in Doctor Hammond's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 12 13. * p. 108. Mr. H. his flattery and condemnation of himself His willful falshood His self-contradiction and confession of having written against his conscience Dr. Hammond vindicated from Mr. H. his several Falsifications His confounding the things which he once distinguisht The sâ—d effects of the Calvinian Scheme Mr. Hâ—'s saâ—ciness and irreverence to Dr. Ham added to all his wilful forgâ—â—ies His scurrilous usage of Dr. Taylor and its occasion Original sin The Dissâ—â—isfaction of Episcopal Divines Dr. Taylor 's errour on the right hand extremely better then the heresie of Presbyteriâ—ns on the left M. H.'s preferring Calvin to the 4. Evanâ—elists * See the Quinquarâ—icularian History part 3. c. 16 p. 2. The way to stoâ— a papist's mouth Mr. H.'s sense of his sâ—urrility with his desire never to mend His new sense of his carnality And malignlty to the Episcopal Government * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Iren. l. 1. c. 8. p. 68. The first page of his Preface proves all that follows to be but the fruits of his revenge * Pref. p. 6. †Book p 1. * See Epist. before Hist. Quiâ—quar p. 6. His frivolous exception to Heathen learning * See my reasons for the use I make of thâ— Heathens in my sinner impleaded par 1. ch 1. Sect. 5. See Bp. Andrewes his dâ—fence of using the Heathens in our writings in his Sermon of Imaginations p. 31. * Note Reader that Menanderâ— Comoedie is of Thais the famous Harlot out of which St. Paul haâ—h cited that saying to the Corinthians See Grot vot pro Pa. p. 116. * Justin. Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex edit Sylburg 1593. p. 7. ad p. 29. †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. sâ—rom 7. p. 669. B. The Heathenish Nature of his own †See it prefixed to his Hist. Quinquar A. 3. * Polyb. l. 4. p. 285. A new Discovery of his stealth With their Aggravation Nulla fides pietasque viris qui Castra sequunâ—ur Lucan * Note the Rule in the civil Law that he who steales or purloynes another mans writings or bonds or the like is liable to an action of theft c. Digest 47.2.27 32. cited by Dr. Zouch in his Câ—ses of civil law p. 95. His mistake of Iustice for Drollerie The Calvinian Tenet renders all study uselesse * Note that that Sermon was long since Printed before reprinted in the Remaines of Mr. HALES The Kings declaration forbidding its being preached No good Arguing from evil custome The Lord Falklands judgment against Calvins Mr Hickmans inhumane and slanderous insinuation How much woâ—se in himself then in any other Therefore thou art inexcusable O man for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest dost the same things Rom. 2.1 It s odiousness shâ—wn by a parallel case His profession of cordial friendship with its effect His sacrilegiâ—us Eulogie bestowed on them of his way The Doctrine of the Church of England vindicated with Bp Laud and Bp. Montague Of Mr. H.'s Impertinence implying Presbyterians to be Idolaters The Arch-Bishop cleared as to what he did against Sherfield See Dr. Ham. of Heresie p. 126. An Impartiall narrative of the case Bishop White in his Epistle Ded. before his Treatise of the Sabbath p. 22 23. The Doctrine of S. Iohn concerning Aâ—tichrist Original sin assented
back on ch 3. Sect. 28. p. 52 53 54. The Synagogue of the Libertines a Acts. 6.9 b Acts 7 54. c Verse 57. d Verse 58. Fitly applyed to Mr. Baxter e See the New Discoverer Discoverd Ch. 3. Sect. 1. p. 61 62 63 64. where Mr. Baxters words and pages are set at large His railing on K James and Bp. Bancroft f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived frâ—m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And is used by Atheneus lib. 18. for an Incendiary a Boute-few a setter of things into combustion New Discov Discov ch 5. p. 98 99. Ibid. from p. 1â—3 â—â— p. 117. On Bp Andrews and Dr. Sandeâ—son for their Iustice to the Puritans See that Preface of Dr. Sanderson Sect. 17 aâ—d 18. i See the Reverend Dr. Hammond his pacifick Discourse c. p. 8. l. ult k Cavendum ne cum Purâ—tanis â—uibusdam Deum faciamus Autorem peccaâ—i vid. episâ— Ded. Dan. Tilen pref Notis suâ—s in Canon Synod Dordr l See the last page of the most learned Dr. Sandersons most incomparable preface m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodot in Thalia c 78. p. 194. His Confession of his own wickednesse again confessed by himsâ—lf â—hough but in pâ—rt His prodigious falsifying of Common Prayers a Postscrip at the end of his True Catholick p 315. b Iude 13. His denial of that Confession which hâ— confessed a litâ—le before His perjury and Rebellion proved out of his own words See his holy Commâ—nwealâ—â— Prâ—f p â— Ibid. p. 10. Ibid. p. 9. â—nd 10. His playing at fast and loose with his Integrity His timâ— seâ—ving and fawring upon his Soveraign Richard a Five Dispuâ— of Church Gov. and worship Epist. Dedic per totam b Maâ—k how this suits with the Assemblies Confess of faith that all things whatsoever are ordained by God c Compare this with his Confession that was no Parliament which yet had a better pretencâ— then Richard Hiâ— rejoycing in our late miseries c. d Key for Câ—tholickâ— Epist. De. per totam e Note the Presbyterian agreement with the Pope in excommunicating Kings K. Charlâ—s might be faught against but Mr. Richard must not f Note his chaâ—ging upon God all the Villanies of the times His Flattering mentions of old Oliver as tenâ—erly carefull of Christs câ—uâ—e g Dedâ—c epist. or pref before his Holy Commonvvealth p. 6 h ibid. i ibid. p. 8. k ib. p. 25. l ib p. 484. m ibid. n bid o Epist. Ded. before his Key for Cath p. 8. p ibid. b. 17. His bâ—ing Accessary to the most parrâ—cidial act the murdeâ— of Gods Aâ—ointed q See the preface to the Essaâ— for the good Olâ— Cause r 1 Tim. 5.22 Reâ—el 18.4 The sâ—ven wayes of partaking in other mens sins Such were Mr. Baxters Priâ—â—es Oliver and Râ—chard Hâ—s being an incendiary in the Wâ—rr and incouâ—aging many thousands â—â— rebell proved out of his confessions t Though here he confâ—sseth he was a Cokblower and incouraged thousands to Rebell yet he daâ—es not â—epent p. 486. u Mark the tendernesse of his Conscien e first he sought against his King then considered if lawfully x Note that by one of the 3. estates he must mean the King or the Bishops His Denying the supremacy of the King which yâ—t he allovved the tvvo Cromwells vvâ—â—reby he is proved by his Confession to be a Râ—bell x Note that by one of the 3. estates he must mean the King or the Bishops y Pref. p. 23. His being a Traytor to the Houses which he had set above the King by setting Richard above them wâ—en they disowned him And for owning Cromwells Iuâ—to for a full and free parliment * Note his ungodly Resolution to take that for granted which was visibly false viz. that the King would have ruin'd the Representatives of the Nation and its whole security Holy Com. wealth page 480. section 19. He is evinced out of his mouth to have been perjur'd over and over His charge against the Lords and Commons and his setting aside the King more then the houses ever did His most Notable contradiction about the Houses ruling without the King His new Miscarriage against Grotius and the Episcopal Divines He is proved to be a Jesuite by as good Logick as he useth * See my Appendix to New Disc. Disc. sect 5. p. 170. to 174. The Jesuites Doctrine of Probability chez les provinciales p. 73 74. Popery common to Thom. Goodwin with some noted Presbyterians * See his Antapologia p. 29. * See Dr. Roger Drakes letter to M. Love p. 7. Mr. Baxter's Puritanism as well in life as Doctrine His additional Falshood The originall of Puritanism among Professors of Christianity * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Iren. advers Haer. l. 1. c. 9. p. 72. * Homer· Il. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irenaeus ubi supra †See the pages exactly cited with the wordâ— in my new Dis. Disc. c. 3. sect 1. p. 61 62 63. c. * See his Confession in his Holy Common wealâ—h pag. 490 lin 9 10. †He hath promis'd neve to gainsay it on the hypothesis spoken of Our English Puritanes caracterized by Salmasius one of the learnedest of the Beyond-sea Protestants * Defens Reg. c. 10. †How neerly this toucheth Mr. Baxter see the whole third Chapter of my New Disc. Disc. Mr. Baxter declared by God's Anointed to be a factious and schismatical person * Quaere whether M. Baxter was not the Kings subject as much as â—romwell's * Quaere whether the King and his learned Iudges with him did not know his Right as well as Mr. Baxter His double injury to Master Dance * Quaere whether the King and his learned Iudges with him did not know his Right as well as Mr. Baxter His double injury to Master Dance Homer Odyf. 17. His unparallel'd bitterness against Episcopacy and our Church seven wayes rebuked * He means â—y that word the constant sons of the Church of England * Key for Catholicks page 416. †☞ Note that in the 42 of Edw. 3. the first chapter doth enact that if any staâ—ute be made to the contrary it shall be holden for null And see Iudge Ienk. p. 62. * Consult Biblioâ—heca Regia for it sect 3. p. 328. †See his Majesties Concessions at the â—sle of Wight ib. p. â—57 * See Doctor Gauden's Hiera Dacrua c. â—1 p. 334. Hom. Odyss 17. The Conclusion * Eccles. 8.11 * Ad quartum actum ultra in hoe Dramate desultando fâ—igultientes Presbyteriani spectati sunt Quinam alii merito Râ—gis Occiâ—i crimine notari magis debuere quà m qui viam ad eum occidendum munierunt Illi sunt qui nefariam illam securim cervicibus ejus inflixerunt non alii Salmas Defens Reg. c. 10. †Praevidit eas quas nunc Britania sentit Calamitates inde orituras Gâ—ot vot pro pace p. 49. * 2 Thes. 3.14
observe how he defended and was faithfull to the King Lords and Commons to which he was Sworn and Sworn and Sworn again by his Confession Alluding I suppose to those three Oathes that of Allegiance that of Supremacy that of the Scotish and English Covenant Wherein He Swore to be faithfull and obedient to his Majesties person and posterity to assert and defend them with the utmost of his power that is to say with Life and Fortune He swore the two first with one hand upon the Bible the third with hands lifted up to the most high God After which I cannot tell whether he enter'd into the Engagement to be true and Faithfull to that which followed without the King and house of Lords but that he did as bad or worse I shall prove out of his writings by what now follows § 10. First he dedicates a book to Protector Richard wherein he playes the Parasitaster in a most loathsome manner The style in which he directs his Flattery is To his Highness Richard Lord Protector of the Common-Wealth of England Scotland and Ireland After which he begins to cogg with the man in these words These papers are Ambitious of Accompanying those against popery into your Highness presence for the tender of their service I observe the Nation generally rejoyceth in your peaceable entrance upon the Government Many are perswaded you have been strangely kept from participating in any of our late bloody contentions that God might make you an Healer of our Breaches and imploy you in that Temple-work which David himself might not be honoured with This would be the way to lift you highest in the esteem and love of all your People and make them see that you are appointed by God to be an Healer and Restorer and to glory in you and to blesse God for you as the instrument of our chiefest good My earnest prayers for your Highnesse shall be that you may rule us as one that is Ruled by God That you may alwayes remember you are Christs and your Peoples and not your own Your zeal for God will kindle in your Subjects a zeal for you Parliaments Ministers will heartily pray for you and praise the Lord for his mercies by you and Teach all the people to love honour and obey you I crave your Highness favourable acceptance of the tendred service of a Faithfull Subject to your Highness Richard Baxter In another Epistle to the same Richard to whom he dedicates another book he fawns and waggs the tail and catches at favour by these expressions You have your government and we our lives because the Papists are not strong enough Pope Pius V. in his Bull against our Queen Elizabeth saith we will and command that the Subjects take up Armes against that Haereticall and Excommunicated Queen Whether such Opinions as these should by us be uncontradicted or by you be suffered to be taught your Subjects is easie to discern We desire you that you would not advance us to temporal honours or dignities or power nor make us Lord Bishops nor to abound with the Riches of this World these things agree not with our calling Give not leave to every Seducer to do his worst to damn mens Souls when you will not tollerate every Tratior to draw your Armies or People into Rebellion If you ask who it is that presumeth thus to be your Monitor It is one that Rejoyceth in the present happiness of England and earnestly wisheth that it were but as well with the rest of the world and that honoureth all the providences of God by which we have been brought to what we are and he is one that concurring in the common hopes of greater blessings yet to these Nations under your Government was enâ—ouraged to do what you dayly allow your preachers to do and to concurr with the Rest in the Tenders and some performance of his service That God will make you a healer and preserver of his Churches here at home and a succesfull helper to his Churches abroad is the Earnest prayers of your Highness faithfull Subject Richard Baxter After this in a Third Epistle directed to the Army He calls the powers that were last laid by meaning either Richard or the Corrupt minority of the Garbled House but I rather suppose the Former The best governnours in all the world that have the supremacy whom to resist or depose is forbidden to Subjects on pain of Damnation In what respect he affirmeth those powers the best he explains by Wisdom and holyness conjunct And of the same he saith shall the best of Governours the greatest of mercies seem intollerable O how happy would the best of the Nations under heaven be if they had the Rulers that our Ingratitude hath cast off Again he tells them his book was written whilest the Lord Protector prudently piously faithfully to his immortall honour did exercise the Government Nay speaking I am sure either of Richard or the Rump but I think of Richard he saith he is bound to submit to the present Government as set over us by God and to obey for conscience and to behave himself as a loyall Subject towards them Nay his Reason for this is yet more monstrous first partially to Richard he saith A Full and Free Parliament hath owned it and so there is notoriously the Consent of the People which is the Evidence that some Princes had to justify the best Titles Next maliciously to the King his only rightfull Soveraign Lord he saith That they who plead Inheritance and Law must fetch the Original from Consent Lastly that nothing might be wanting to speak him a Time-server in grain He said to Richard concerning Oliver the bloodiest Tyrant in all the World That the Serious endeavours of his Renowned Father for the Protestants of Savoy had won him more esteem in the hearts of many that fear the Lord then all his Victories in themselves considered To which he added We pray that you may INHERIT a tender Care of the Cause of Christ plainly implying the Tyrant Oliver to have been Tenderly carefull of the Cause of Christ and so becoming by such Cajolrie a most eminent partaker in all his villanies Yet this is the man that stands neer Aeternity as he boasteth of himself and therefore unfaithfull Man-pleasing would be to him a double crime § 11. Having praemised his fearfull daubing with the Titularie Protectors whom he confessed to have Governed according to an instrument made by God knows who and according to the humble petition and advice made by all the world knows whom to wit a most illegall and Criminall sort of Traytors nicknamed a Parliament And with that having compared though not so fully as I intend his malicious disowning the Lords Anointed whom he had sworn and sworn and sworn again to be faithful unto and to defend against all such usurpers as Oliver Ale-seller and Richard
were known to be I shall now observe in how many respects Mr. Baxter comes to be partaker of other mens sins besides the hideous and frightful nature of his Own I mean the sins of both the nominal Protectors and of that sort of men who had set them up To which end it will be usefull briefly to reckon the severall wayes whereby a man may be Accessory when another is Principal in a transgression 1. By Consent and Approbation so Saul was guilty of Stephens death Act. 8.1 So the Gnosticks were guilty of sins committed by other men because they had pleasure in those that did them Rom. 1.32 2. By Counsel and advise so Achitophel was guilty of Absolons Incest and Rebellion 2. Sam. 16.23 So also Caiphas had a hand in the blood of Christ Ioh. 11.49 3. By Appointment and Command so Pharoah and Herod are said to have slain the little children they never toucht Exod. 1. and Matth. 2. So David is said to have slain Vriah the Hittite though with the hand as well as the Sword of the Children of Ammon 2. Sam. 12.9 4. By Commâ—nding Defending or Excusing the Fact or the Malefactour Wo be to you that call evill Good that put darkness for light and bitter for sweet Esa. 5.20 Wo be to them that sowe pillows to all Armeholes and make Kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls Ezek. 13.18 5. By any kind of participation of any illgotten Goods whether gotten by Rapine or kept by fraud and unjust Title Of this saith the Psalmist when thou saw'st a Thief thou consentedst with him and hast been partaker with Adulterers Psal. 50.18 Thy s Princes are Rebellious and Companions of Thieves every one loveth gifts and followeth after Rewards Isa. 1.23 6. By too much Lenity and Connivence which harden's a sinner by Impunity And therefore Ahab was threatned for the unjust Mercy he shew'd to Benhadad with a sentence of Death without Mercy Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a Man whom I appointed to utter destruction therefore thy life shall go for his life and thy people for his people 1. Kings 20.42 This was the sin that brake Eli's Neck 1. Sam. 3.13 and 4.18 The Magistrate is made to be Gods Revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evill And he ought not to bear the sword in vain Rom. 13.4 7. By unseasonable silence and Neglect of the Christian duty of reprehension For this is a sin against those precepts Levit. 19.17 Isa. 58. 1. Ezek. 3.17 and 33.7 Now by how many of these wayes Mr. Baxter hath been Accessarie to the Murder of One King and to the exclusion of another and to the debauching the peoples souls by his scandalous writings and example I leave to be pronounced by the Intelligent Readers Who that they may judge the more exactly shall do well to compare his signal Confessions above recited both with his flattering and blessing the Old and Young Cromwell And with his other Confessions which now ensue § 12. He confesseth he was moved to engage himself in the Parliament Warr Holy Common-wealth p. 456. And yet 2. That the Disorders which on both sides were unexcusable were no just cause to cast the Nation into a Warr. p. 474. Nay 3. That he would have ingaged as he did which was against his natural King and Leige Lord if he had known the Parliament he means the 2. Houses had been the beginners and in most fault p. 480. Nay 4. that the warr was not to procure a change of the constitution to take down Royalty and the house of Lords but clean contrary p. 482. why then did he fawn upon both the Cromwels 5. That all of them did rush too eagerly into the heat of Divisions and warr and none of them did so much as they should have done to prevent it And that himself in particular did speak much to blow the coals for which he saith he daily begs forgiveness of the Lord. p. 485. Nay 6. That he encouraged many thousands to engage against the Kings Army And is under a self-suspicion whether that engagement was lawfull or not yea that he will continue this self suspicion p. 486. Nay 7. he confesseth what he is by solemnly making this Declaration That if any of us can prove he was guilty of hurt to the person of the King or destruction of the Kings power or changing the Fundamental Constitution of the Common-wealth taking down the house of Lords without consent of all three States that had a part in the Sovereignty c. He will never gainsay us if we call him a most perfidious Rebell and tell him he is guilty of farr greater sin than Murder Whoredom Drunkenness or such like Or if we can solidly confute his grounds he will thank us and confess his sin to all the World p. 490. Here then I challenge him to make good his promise For I have proved him as guilty as any Rebell can be imagin'd in divers parts of this Postscript And his grounds I have confuted in my Appendix for Mr. Hickman § 78 79. If he thinks not solidly let him answer it if he is able § 13. What his chief Ground is upon which he goes whilest he speaks of the King as of a Rebell to the two Houses I easily gather from these words which I finde in his Praeface to the same book To this question did not you resist the King His answer is Verbatim thus Prove that the King was the highest power in the time of divisions and that he had power to make that war which he made and I will offer my Head to Iustice as a Rebell He here implicitely confesseth the King was once the highest power and implyes he lost it by the Divisions But that he never could loose it and that demonstrably he had it I have made it most evident in the Appendix of this book which concerns Mr. Baxter as much as Mr. Hickman at least as far as I have proved the Supremacy of the King § 78. which both the Houses of that Parliment did swear to acknowledg and to assert However if his Supremacy had been a Disputable thing yet whilst the most learned of the Land both Iudges and Divines did assert it in books which were never answered Mr. Baxter should have staid for the decision of that dispute before he resisted that power for the resisting of which for ought he knew he might be damned Rom. 13.4 Besides when he knew 't was no sin to abstain from fighting against the King and that fighting against him was a damning sin if it was any in the judgment of such persons as BP Hall BP Morton BP Davenant BP Brownrigg D. Sanderson D. Oldsworth thousands more he should have taken the safest course and rather have strained at a Gnat then have swallowed a Camel In a word That the warr was begun by the two Houses and only followed by