necessary to the attaining of eternal Salvation that a man should either know or believe that the foreknowledge of future contingents doth agree to God I think that Arminianism doth take away the foundation of Gods Praescience there being nothing but the Will and Decree of God appointing and ordaining that a thing in its own nature contingent shall be which can make it certainly knowable or future yet this Divine Decree the Arminians will at no hand acknowledge I grant divers have taken pains to find out another bottom and foundation of Praescience besides the Divine Will or Decree but to very little purpose Never could I in Iesuit Lutheran or Arminian meet with any thing in this point that would satisfie a mind inquisitive after truth Some tell me of the Idaeas in the Divine intellect and say that by these God may know future contingents Idaeas upon the reasons and authorities alledged by the Schoolmen I am willing to admit but it is to me unimaginable that an Idaea should represent the futurity of that which in its own nature is meerly possible and so indifferent either to be or not be Who ever found in his mind an 〈◊〉 representing whether his House were to be built More I might say were I not prevented by the Learned Hoâ—â—nebeck Socin confut l. 2. p. 343 344. Others tell me of a real presence of things unto God from all eternity Which real presence if one should deny I see not how it could be proved If it should be granted I know not how on that Divine Praescience could be founded For the proof of both these I refer to Hornbeck l. 2. p. 344 345. But I am most of all unsatisfied with the Jesuits Scientia media Well may I call it the Jesuits Scientia media for Molina boasts that he was the first inventer of it and doubtless unto him it doth owe its Original or else to Fonseca The greatest antiquity it can pretend to is less than an hundred years for Fonseca tells us that in the year 1566 he propounded this as the best way of reconciling free-will and grace but thought not meet to publish it till 1596 in which interval namely about the year 1588 Molina published his Discourse de concordia liberi Arbitrii Gratiae in which he flieth to this Scientia media professing that it had not been to his knowledge delivered by any before If it had not been found out till 1660 I should not reject it upon that account Let 's hear what it is That by which God before any act of his own will did know which way the will of the Creature would turn it self on supposition that he afford such helps and concurses and by which he would have known the contrary had the will made use of its liberty to turn the other way Against such a conditionate middle or mixt knowledge 't is called by all three names our Reformed Divines English and Transmarine have brought such Arguments as never were answered never can be answered The truth is this kind of knowledge is so unhappy an invention that it brings in those very things for the avoiding whereof it was first devised It was excogitated that the liberty of the will might not be taken away and that God might not be made the Author of sin yet a Scholar of Voetius hath undertaken to shew and doth prove that this conditionate knowledge takes away all freedom from God and Men necessarily brings in the Stoical fatality and makes God the Author of sin see Voet. Disp. Selec Vol. 1. pag. 331 332 c. I desire any man to try how he can answer Doctor Twisse his Argument tending to prove that it is impossible to assign any other cause of a things passing out of the rank of possible into the rank of future than the Will of Gods Decree There is a late nibler at this Learned Doctor who had so much wit in his wrath as not to attempt the answering of his Arguments but yet which is his way of disputing rails against this proposition that Prescience of a thing future must needs presuppose a Predestination or a predetermination of it as if it contained a senseless errour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 128. The senselesness lies in this because they who make use of this sentence seem to think that God could decree to do something before he knew what he would decree to do If God did predetermine before he foreknew he predetermined at a venture he knew not what God knew all things which yet he cannot be conceived to have done if any thing can be conceived before his knowledge page 129. There 's in these Lines an Argument couched but not of the Gentleman 's own making it had been before used by Suarez and it is answered satisfactorily answered by that Scholar of Voetius whom I before commended Selec Disp. pag. 394. We grant it would be blasphemously irrational to say that God decrees he knows not what but we deny that it will follow that he decrees he knoweth not what if he know not a thing as future before he hath by his decree made it future We deny not the received order betwixt the acts and objects of the understanding and will but we say that the Scientia which in signo rationis precedes the decree is the Scientia simplicis intelligentiae not the Scientia visionis This unhappy Disputant thought that because all Gods praescience is science therefore all his science is prescience But he is now to take notice that there is a twofold knowledge 1. Natural by which God knows himself and all things possible in his own essence as a necessary cause of them This knowledge in order of nature doth precede any act of Gods will It had agreed to him though he had never made any decree at all concerning things ad extra But this knowledge is at no hand to be called foreknowledge 2. There is a knowledge which is called Libera and this must necessarily suppose the act of the will as the very name doth imply Unto this doth praescience belong We say that God could not from all eternity have a certain foreknowledge that a thing contingent should come to pass in time if he had not decreed the thing to come to pass in time but though God hath decreed all actions that are future yet according to Austins distinction decrevit ut bona eveniant ipso faciente mala ipso permittente This laid down I shall consider one argument by which Mr. P. goes about to prove that prescience precedes the decrees of election and reprobation and so dismiss him as a Writer fitter for my pity than conâ—utation Thus it is laid down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 129. If Gods praescience preceded not his decrees of Election and reprobation there was not a moment in which he was free to elect or reprobate for the Freedom to choose must needs precede the Act of choice and to deny God his freedom in
evil cannot be from God because it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Much more of this nature may be seen in Mr. Hickmans Iustification of the Fathers and Schoolmen And therefore if any which God forbid should be minded to lick up the vomit of Florinus Mr. T.P. by maintaining the positivity of sin hath encouraged them so to do But the best is his Impartial enquiry into the Nature of sin is so managed that one may say to him as once Gualter Haddon did to Hieronymus Osorius Video librum tuum constare ex ignorantia impudentia quarum una cum fiat ut nihil intelligas altera tamen efficitur ut omnia audeas There 's one continued fallacy runneth through all his Pages the confounding of the materiale or substratum and the formale of sin he that can distinguish these as who cannot that hath but dipped into a Systeme of Mâ—taphysicks hath answered all his reasons all his Authorities 2. Basil and others argue from the Nature of God unto which Holiness and Righteousness are essential and therefore sin so contrary to it cannot be caused by it 3. The Fathers much urge the reason drawn from the last Judgment in which God is to punish all the impenitent for their ungodliness Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance God forbid for then how shal God Iudge the World Rom. 3.5 6. God could have no mind to punish that which he himself caused nor could he justly punish man for doing that which he had made him to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nyssen excellently But it is time that I should pass to that Age in which the Heresie of Florinus buried as the Doctor thinks for so many Centuries was revived Of that thus he begins Dr. H. Pag. 2. It never revived in more than thirteen hundred years after the death of Irenaeus when it was again started by the Libertines a late brood of Sectaries Answer If the Doctor here speak of those that did by just and necessary consequence make God the Author of sin there were many betwixt Irenaeus and the two Tailors of Flandria that did so but if he would have us think that the Libertines did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in express terms entitle God to the sins of all men he must pardon us if we be not too haâ—ty in so thinking For Bellarmine who possibly read over rhe History of the Libertines with as much care as the Doctor tells us expressly that the Libertines do in words deny that they make God the Author or cause of sin de Statu peccati lib. 2. c. 2. The truth is their Tenent rather was that there is no sin than that God is the cause of sin They would not deny but that God wrought all the Adulteries and Rapines that were but then they affirmed that Adulteries and Rapines being wrought by God were no sins But under whose wings were these miscreants hatched and when did they first infect the Christian Church Dr. H. Pag. 3. The time of their breaking out affirmed to be about the year 1529. Founders of the Sect Coppinus and Quintinus Flemmings both and this Prateolus affirms for certain to be the Progeny of Calvin and other leading Men of the Protestant Churches Bellarmine more remissly Omnino probabile est Answer About is a word that will stretch and hath saved many a lie yet was it no more than was needful For so uncertain is our Historian about the time of these wretched miscreants rising that having in these words placed it at the year 1529 a very few Lines after he placeth it at An. 1527 but his Friend Prateolus placeth it lower yet at the year 1525 at which time Mr. Calvin was not much above sixteen years old being born if he who writes his Life deceive me not the sixth of Iune Anno 1509 and therefore it would be a most strange oversight in Prateolus if he should affirm that the Libertines were the Progeny of Calvin But the truth is Prateolus is guilty of no such oversight though the Doctor is pleased to charge it upon him There is no necessity in the World that e Schola nostrae tempestatis Evangelicorum which are Prateolus his words should take in Calvin Bellarmine doth indeed in the place quoted by the Doctor say Omnino probabile est ut Anabaptistae ex Lutheranis sic Libertinos ex Calvinianis promanasse But he addeth a reason which methinks no one of his admirers should be able to read without blushing For in the books of Calvin and his Master Zuinglius and his Disciple Beza as also of Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr are found most apert sentences out of which it is collected that God is the Author of all the wickednesses which are perpetrated by men Let us form this reason into an Euthymem that the goodliness of it may appear There are in Zuinglius Calvin Beza Bucer Martyr most apert sentences from which it is gathered that God is the Author of sin Therefore it is altogether probable that the Libertines did arise from the Calvinians The Antecedent he indeed useth all his wit and malice for many Chapters to prove howbeit with most pitiful success as divers have shewn divers are still ready to shew But why did he not use some covering for the Consequent the nakedness whereof is so visible Could he think that we without more ado would believe the Libertines were the brood of the Calvinians if the Calvinians have sentences in their writings from whence it may be inferred that God is the Author of sin Perhaps the Libertines were risen in the world before these mens writings were extant Perhaps they never saw these mens writings though they were extant when they did arise Perhaps there were other men no Calvinians whose writings the Libertines were acquainted with and sucked their loose opinions from Why do I use the word perhaps Most certain it is that no writing of any Calvinian either did or could bring Libertinism into the world But it is as certain that if the first Libertines were bookish men as I think they were not there were extant many Popish Divines and Professors Books in which were sentences more likely to draw men into Libertinism than any extant in Calvin or any of his Disciples or Collegues Nay if need were I could shew even in Bellarmine himself such sentences as have a greater shew of making God the Author of sin than any used by Calvin But if the Cardinal had a mind to lay those ugly brats of Libertinism and Anabaptism at the Protestants doors Why did he trouble himself to father them on two differing sorts of Protestants Why doth he say that Anabaptists are the progeny of the Lutherans and Libertines the brood of the Calvinians Doth he not confess that Luther and Melancthon did at first teach the very same things ministring to Libertinism that the Calvinians teach If so Why might not the Libertines learn their lessons from them Were not the first Anabaptists Libertines as well
apparently impertinent that I will trust any Reader with them Dr. H. pag. 42 43. 2. The Sublapsarian Opinion fighteth with God's holiness and makes him the cause of sin in the greatest number of men 1. In regard that of his own will and pleasure he hath brought mem into an estate in which they cannot avoid sin that is to say by imputing to them the transgression of their Father Adam 2. In that he leaves them irrecoverably plunged and involved in it without affording them power or ability to rise again to newness of life In which case that of Tertullian seems to have been fitly alledged In cujus manu est ne quid fiat ei deputatur cum jam fit In whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done Answ. If absolute Reprobation do indeed rob God of his holiness let it for ever be abandoned and not so much as named with the least approbation among Divines But what wretched ignorance is this whilst a man is pleading for the holiness of his Maker to lay down such a rule which if it prove true doth entitle him to all the wickednesses that ever were perpetrated by the sons of men I ask the Doctor Could not he who kept the Heathenish King from touching Abraham's Wife Laban and Esau from doing mischief to Iacob the Israelites Enemies from having so much as a mind to hurt them so restrain the lust of all and every man as that it should never conceive and bring forth sin and death If he could not he is not Omnipotent nor fit to govern the World If he could sith he hath not he is by the Doctor 's rule become the Author of all the pollutions that have been in the World through lust The best is the rule is most apparently false even in reference to the creature for a man is not guilty of all the sins which he had power to hinder but only of those sins which by virtue of his calling and place he was bound to hinder Let us see whether the Sublapsarians be more happy in their Principles than the Historian in his Two Principles of theirs are taken notice of 1. That God of his own will and pleasure hath brought men into an estate in which they cannot avoid sin that is to say by imputing to them the transgression of their Father Adam Little did I expect to find this Principle charged with any opposition to the holiness of God For though it be most unhandsomly expressed yet that which is intended by it is but this that It was the free constitution of God that if Adam stood he should transmit holiness to all his Posterity and if he did fall and rebel then his Posterity should be born in a condition of sin and misery If this be a truth then it is not contrary to the holiness of God If not a truth what shall become of Rom. 5.12 Let 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be rendred either in quo or eo quod it must needs hold forth this that when Adam sinned we sinned Which could not be if Adam had not been made by God a common Person a faederal as well as a natural head If he was made a common Person so as that his will was reputed our will his fall our fall he was made such by the meer will and pleasure of God for who can think that there was any thing that necessitated God to make him such It may be the second Principle is more hainous That is thus laid down 2. He leaves men irrecoverably plunged and involved in sin without affording them power or ability to rise again to newness of life If this be understood of all men it is a notorious calumny For the Sublapsarians hold that there are a great number of men upon whom God hath eternally purposed to bestow that grace which shall infallibly bring them out of sin and misery But there are some to whom he affords no such power Well What then Is he not therefore holy Absit If he had let all the race of mankind perish never sending his Son to take flesh and so become a Mediator betwixt God and Man he had notwithstanding been every way as holy as now he is But it seems it is again come to that pass that Deus non erit Deus nisi homini placuerit God shall not be God God he is not if he be not holy unless he have made such Decrees as please our Semipelagians Dr. H. page 43. 3. This Sublapsarian Doctrine is inconsistent with the mercy of God so highly signified in the Scriptures in making him to take so small and speedy occasion to punish the greater part of men for ever and for one sin once committed to shut them up under an invincible necessity of sin and damnation Answ. Who would have looked for such stuff from the Pen of a Divine If God make man after his own image allow him liberty to eat of all the trees but one and tell him most expresly that if he eat of that tree he shall die the death Must he needs be thought if he punish man for ever for eating of that tree to take a small occasion to punish man Had not this eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree all the circumstances in it that may render it out of measure sinful Had it not something in it contrary to all the Precepts of the natural Law But besides This charge of destroying God's mercy is grounded on a gross mistake For Sublapsarians do not make Reprobution to be Gods punishing men for ever or shutting them up under an invincible necessity of sin and damnation It is with them only the denying or not giving of an undue favour which yet he is pleased graciously to vouchsafe to others who could as little deserve it as those to whom it is denied Dr. H. Ibid. 4. This is incompatible with the Iustice of God who is said in Scripture to be righteous in all his wayes according unto weight and measure that the far greatest part of mankind should be left remediless in a state of damnation for the sin of their first Father only that he should require faith in Christ of those to whom he hath precisely in his absolute purpose denied both a power to believe and a Christ to believe in or that he should punish men for the omission of an act which is made impossible for them by his own decree by which he purposed that they should partake with Adam in his sin and be stript of all the supernatural power which they had in him before he fell Answ. All this is but a bundle of impertinencies improprieties calumnies No opinion destroys the Justice of God but that which ascribes injustice to him Injustice is not ascribed to God till he be affirmed to do something that is contrary to his goodness or his truth Which he is not by those who maintain his Decree of Reprobation Sublapsarians do not
Camero cap. 13. Yea and he wonders that Camero should think he had any fear when this so at least ill-sounding a Proposition was delivered by him He alledgeth that some School-men had said so before him Which may not be denied but yet seeing actus sunt suppositorum he will be as hard put to it not to make God the Author of Sin as any Calvinist I instance thirdly in Mr. Th. Pierce from whom thus I argue God is the Cause of every Being whether visible or invisible Therefore God is the Cause of Sin The Antecedent is an Article of our Creed The Consequent is proved because Mr. Pierce again and again asserts Sin to be positive His beloved Author Dr. Iackson in hâ—s eighth Book of Commentaries hopes to bring himself off from this argumentation by limiting the Proposition God made all things visible and invisible to substances which only are the immediate and direct effects and proper objects of creation Accidents had their beginnings as appurtenances to their subjects by resultance only But I answer that I suppose he is the first that ever said that All accidents had their beginning by resultance and the first that so limited this maxime to substances For though it may be granted that both creation and generation strictly so called are terminated to substances yet accidents are truly things and must have a cause a real cause and doubtless the Churches did ascribe the production of all things whether accidents or substances unto God and in reason he is as truly the cause of what is comproduced and concreated as of what is produced and created In page 35 this Dr. Iack. tells us what emboldned Divines to assign unto sin only a privative being viz. the maxime that Omne ens est bonum but that he tells us is meant only of a Metaphysical goodness No Divines thought otherwise but they were afraid to assign so much as a Metaphysical goodness to sin which is simply evil and such fear would have seised on Dr. Iackson also had he but well weighed what that is which goodness Metaphysical doth superadde to entity But that he had never weighed and yet talks confidently in this whole Controversie concerning the nature of sin and the efficient of sin as if his eyes had been blessed to see the things that scarce any saw before him Book 10 pag. 3012 c. cap. 5 6 he goes about to make Apologies for the harsh expressions of some good Writers and well deserving of all Reformed Churches Yea and for the Errors of the Dominicans or other Schoolmen more faulty than as he saith Zuinglius or his Followers in this point He wisheth that Paraeus had never entred into dispute with Becanus about this Question Whether God be the Author of Sin and is sorry he came off no better for Calvin's credit or for his own Avers tâ—at Bellarmine and Aquinas his Followers do make God the Author of Sin by as clear and infallible consequence as either Zuinglius or his Followers have done He saith the best Apology that can be made for Aquinas or Calvin is this that they were homines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authors of many various Works but of this Apologie we that follow them are not capable That if we were called to a strict account or examination of our Doctrine by the rules of Art a new question would have risen in our Schools Whether to attribut such acts and decrees unto God as we do and yet withal to deny that we concludently make him the Author of Sin doth not argue as great a measure of artificial foppery or supernatural infatuation as it would of impiety to resolve dogmatically in terminis terminantibus that God is the Author of evil But what is it that may make this Question allowed in any Academical Act Why it might be justly allowed though the Answerer were furnished with no other ground besides that usually avouched distinction between the act and obliquity of the act especially if the distinction were applied unto the first sin of our first Parents In that sin the act and obliquity are altogether as unseparably annexed as rotundity is with a sphere and to imagine there should be one cause of the act and another of the obliquity of the act would be as gross a solecism as to assign any other cause of the rotundity of a sphere besides him that frames it A discourse so loose that I much wondered it could find any place in the writings of an Author so famed for learning For every Fresh-man knows that there is not the same relation betwixt the act and its obliquity as there is between rotundity and a sphere every Fresh-man knows that there may be a sufficient ground of distinction betwixt things that are inseparably annexed every Divine also knows that the Calvinists do make man to be the cause of the sinfulness of the act as well as of the act it self all that they say is that the first cause may afâ—ord that concourse to a sinful action which is necessarily required to every action and yet not be the cause of the sinfulness of the action If Dr. Iackson think this impossible he should have told us how God could concur to the good actions of his Saints and not be the cause of the sinful imperfection which is inseparable from every action that doth not flow from a principle that is perfect I account he hath forsaken the Reformed Churches who saith that God gives any one in this life such a holiness as doth not fall short of the Law That habitual holiness which falls short of the Law must necessarily when it is put forth produce actions short of the Law and so far as they fall short of the Law they are sinful Now I ask is God the cause of my imperfect act of love to himself If he be not why do I either pray to him for it or praise him for it If he be the cause then he is either the cause of that sinful obliquity necessarily cleaving to it and making it need pardon or else he may be the cause of the act and not of the sinful obliquity that doth inseparably cleave to it If Dr. Iackson affirm the latter he contradicts his own Principle If the former he avoucheth that blasphemy which all good men abhor Wherefore he might have done well to reserve the excuse of Polygraphy for himself Calvin and Aquinas in this matter do not stand in need of it As little need had Paraeus of his sorrow for entring into dispute with Becanus for if ever man had the better Paraeus had it that day About the year 1604 Becanus at Mentz had a disputation concerning God's being the Author of Sin in which he expresly said that the God of the Calvinists was the Devil For this among other things Paraeus undertook him and Ferarias and Malhusinus and brought them to acknowledge that whatever became of Calvin it could not truly be said that the Devil was the God
as Anabaptists If they were not they are much abused by Historians And if they were sure either Anabaptism is falsly fathered on the Lutherans or else Libertinism also must call them fathers But why should we seek any other fathers of Anabaptism than the Papists Nothing made the Anabaptists so infamous as their pretended euthusiasms or revelations and their despising of dignities and rebelling against Magistrates And who laid the foundation of enthusiasm I shewed a young Scholar above twenty years ago when he began to be levened with that fanaticism and he will thank me for it I doubt not all the days of his life What Schools first taught rebellion against Princes Bishop Morton and twenty more have shewn As for Rebaptizing of persons Baptized in infancy whence Anabaptists have their name it is the most innocent errour of all the Anabaptists hold and yet even this oweth its rise and progress to Popish principles and practices as the Papists shall be made to know if they desire it Nor hath it been my hap as yet to hear of any opinion so wild and absurd of our late Sectaries that I could not derive from some famous Schoolman Well the Doctor himself is not unwilling to acquit Calvin from being the Parent of these Libertines and acknowledgeth that Calvin was not wanting to purge himself from such an odious imputation And I hope he hath sufficiently purged himself if a Learned and full Confutation of their opinion be a sufficient Purgation The truth is Coppin and Quintin as also Bertrand and Perseval were all Papists As for Antonius Pocquius whom Dr. Heylin according to his mistaking faculty calls page 3. Franciscus Porquius he was undoubtedly a Romanist and a Romanist in Orders a Franciscan Fryer It cannot be denied nor is it that Pocquius was for some time at Geneva and being to leave that place he would fain have obtained Letters Testimonial and Commendatory from Calvin as he had from Martin Bucer but Mr. Calvin though he then knew not the spirit of the man perfectly did so shrewdly suspect him to be a Fanatick that he would never be prevailed with to testifie any good thing on his behalf Yea when this Deceiver discovered himself he could not forbear him but chastised him and Quintin sharply and by name in his discourse against the Libertines And when the Queen of Navarre who though not tainted with the Libertines Errors was bewitched with the pretended Holiness of these two chief Sticklers took her self to be wounded through their sides this man of God wrote to her with admirable moderation so it was meet considering her dignity and the good that she had done to the Church of God but withal he reprehended her imprudence for admitting such men and by this Letter he so far prevailed that this abominable Sect which began to flock apace into France afterwards kept it self in Holland and the Countries adjacent the Epistle is to be seen among Calvins Epistles pag. 53. To conclude I do throughly joyn with the Doctor in detesting all those who either directly or by any just consequence known to them make the Holy God the Author or cause of all or any sinfulness Nor do I know any Calvinian that will not without the least hesitation joyn with us both in this detestation If there be any that will not let him be cursed with the severest Anathema's If he should publish any thing of this nature let his Book be a Victime to Vulcan as Master Archers was by the appointment of the two Houses and at the desire of the late Assembly of Divines A story of which transaction it will not be amiss here to insert from Doctor Arrowsmiths Chain of Principles In the year 1645. there was published in London an English Book wherein God was expresly made the Author of his peoples sins though not without some limitations The Assembly of Divines then sitting at Westminster took offence at this made complaint of it to both Houses of Parliament they both censured the said book to be burnt by the hand of the Common Hangman and the Assembly of Divines agreed upon a Declaration nemine contradicente by way of detestation of that abominable and blasphemous opinion which was also published under that Title Iuly 17. 1945 and in which we meet with these expressions among others that The most vile and blasphemous assertion whereby God is avowed to be the Author of sin hath hitherto by the general consent of Christian Teachers and Writers both Antient and Modern and those as well Papists as Protestants been not disclaimed only but even detested and abhorred Our common adversaries the Papists have hitherto only calumniously charged the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches with so odious a crime in the mean time confessing that we do in words deny it as well as they themselves Now should this Book be tolerated they might insult over us and publish to the world that in the Church of England it was openly and impudently maintained that God is the Author of sin than which there is not any one point whereby they labour in their Sermons and popular Orations to cast a greater Odium though most injuriously upon the Reformed Churches We are not for the reverence or estimation of any mans person to entertain any such opinions as do in the very words of them asperse the honour and holiness of God and are by all the Churches of Christ rejected Proceed we to what the Doctor saith about those who entertaining the same dreadful madness with Florinus did recommend it to the world under a disguise Of these thus he begins Page 3. Dr. H. Of this sort Manes was the first by birth of Persia and Founder of the damnable Sect of the Manichees Anno 273 or thereabouts This wretch did first excogitate two Gods the one good and the other evil both of like Eternity ascribing all pious actions to the one all sins and vices to the other Which ground so laid he utterly deprived the will of man of that natural liberty of which it is by God invested and therefore that in man there was no ability of resisting sin or not submitting unto any of those wicked actions which his lusts and passion offered to him Contendebant item peccatum non esse à libero arbitrio sed à Daemone eapropter non posse per liberum arbitrium impediri as my Author hath it Answ. Who is this Author Prateolus a Pontifician who neither took great pains in examining what the Ancients delivered concerning Hereticks nor was fearful of affixing to men what they never held It had been more comely for a man of great reading as Doctor Heylin either is or seems to be to have referred us to Epiphanius or Cyril of Ierusalem or Austin from whom we should have taken the opinions of Manes with less suspicion but seeing he hath consulted his ease more than his credit and chosen rather to take things upon trust from Prateolus than to peruse those
week at one of the Legats Houses for the proposing debating and framing of all their Decrees before they were brought to be voted and defined abroad in any publick Session for by this means the Legats would be sure either to have every thing prepared to their own mind and be able to number the Voices before hand which way they would be given or else not to suffer the matter to be brought to any open definition in their Councel at all Finally the foresaid Learned Doctor having given us the Decree concerning the new Canon saith that it was passed but by a few for of the Greek Church they had not one unless it were some such as blind Sir Robert of Scotland was of the English as few for the Bishop of Worcester Richard Pates was not yet come among them and when afterwards he came thither he was there but in a private and personal capacity having no employment given him by the Church of England of the Helvetian German and Northern Churches none of the French Church scarce two of the Spanish not many all the rest were Italians among whom divers were the Popes Pensioners and sent thither to out-ballance other mens voices some of them Titular and some Unlearned He that pleaseth may read the story of the remaining 21 Sessions in Padre Paul and having so done let him if he be impartial judge whether it be probable that such a company of men should be blessed by God to find out truâ—h and settle the peace of the Church But let us suppose there had been at Trent a Meeting of the most Holy Reverend and Learned Divines that the Church of Christ then afforded Did they determine any thing either for or against the Calvinians in these five points In no wise debates indeed there were about the mysterious point of Praedestination in which those Popish Divines which went the way that Pelagius did of old and Arminius of late prevailed whilest use was made only of corrupt carnal humane reason but when the testimonies of Scripture came to be examined they were manifestly overcome as Doctor Heylin himself tells us out of the incomparable Servits Hist. pag. 15. The same Doctor confesseth that the Decrees about this and the points connexed with it were so contrived that every one might understand them in his own sense so as to give no distast to the Dominican Fryars and their adherents pag. 26. Indeed the ancienter Popes of Rome notwithstanding the great pretence they made to infallibility were wiser than to take upon them to determine the differences betwixt the Dominicans Franciscans which are almost the same with the differences betwixt the Contra-Remonstrant Remonstrant Micraelius in his Hetorodoxia Calviniana disputatione quinta shall be my witness for this who after that he had told the World how much this question had vexed the Pontifician Schools How God was not the cause of sin seeing he was the cause of those actions as to their substance unto which moral pravity is conjoyned thus expresseth himself Parag. 6. Haec cum ita disceptabantur factum est tandem Lovanii in Belgio ut circa 86 annum superioris saeculi gravissimâ— de Praedestinatione inter Dominicanos Iesuitas lites extiterint quas quidem Nuncius Apostolicus ad tempus composuit sed postquam Iesuita Lud. Molina librum de concordia liberi arbitrii donorum gratiae evulgarat res ad ipsum pontificem delata est qui tamen arbitrum se veritus est interponere suam cuique permisit sententiam At which I do the less wonder because I find that the Pope had used the same artifice in a controversie depending betwixt the Franciscans and Dominicans about the Virgin Maries being or not being conceived free from Original sin alledging the Spirit of whose perpetual assistance Popes are wont so proudly to boast nondum mysterii tanti penetralia Ecclesiae suae patefecisse A brief but accurate story of this transaction is to be seen in the learned Apology of Dr. Andrew Rivet for the most Holy Virgin l. 1. c. 6 7 8. Yea something may be observed in the Councel of Trent which makes not a little for the Calvinists viz. that not Calarinus as the Doctor p. 15. but Catharinus invented a middle way That God of his goodness had elected some few whom he will save absolutely to whom he hath prepared most potent effectual and infallible means and that of these thus singularly priviledged all the places of Scripture which do ascribe all to God and which shew infallibility are to be understood and that the number of these is certain with God Yea Balthasar Meisner in his Anthropologia Sacra de gratia Dei Praedestinatione disp 11 yields in the examples of Paul and Abram a grace extraordinary efficacious infallibly and always which so calls a man that as it were by a necessary will and willing necessity he is converted unto Faith and the Church of which no cause can be assigned but the will of God the simple and absolute will of God which cannot be hindred is always most efficacious From these two mens acknowledgements and confessions I infer that seeing some are absolutely elected and converted by an insuperable grace therefore absolute election and grace insuperable are not contrary to Divine Wisdom or Goodness or Justice do not destroy the Liberty of mans Will and therefore are but weakly impugned when they are impugned by arguments drawn from these Topicks But if that will do the Doctor any courtesie or if he think it any credit to his cause I will grant him that thaâ— part of the Papacy which is most Papal doth favour his Arminianism and not many years ago a Pope as wicked as ever sate in the Chair when he was come to his dotage was prevailed with to make use of his infallibility and to condemn the Doctrine of Iansenius A copy of his Anathemaes and condemnations I have thought meet to insert as I find them in Maresius the Professor of Groning his Apology for the Iansenists Innocent Bishop Servant of the Servants of God to all faithful people in Christ Health and Apostolical benediction Whereas upon occasion of publishing a Book Entituled Augustinus Cornelii Jansenii Episcopi Iprensis amongst other opinions of his there did arise especially in France a controversie upon five of them many of the Bishops of France did sollicite us to consider those propositions presented to us and to give our certain and definite sentences touching every one of them The Tenour of the said propositions is as followeth The first Some precepts of God are impossible to just men willing and endeavouring according to the present power which they have Grace also is wanting to them whereby they might be possible The second In the state of lapsed nature there is no resistance made to interiour grace The third To merit and demerit in the state of lapsed nature there is not required in man liberty from necessity but liberty from
him with more than could be proved I should afterwards make use of this Charge as a Picture to draw Dr. Heylin by A dispassionate Heathen would have had more candor than to Father upon any party of Men every Brat which a provoked Adversary had laid at their door What evidence is there that the Opinion laid down by the Doctor page 38 is the Opinion of the Supralapsarian Divines Have all of them or the most famous of them either jointly or severally declared it to be their Opinion The Writings of some Antelapsarians I have read and have not found that they have simply and without distinction asserted that God ordained certain to eternal life certain to eternal death without any regard had to their righteousness or sin to their obedience or disobedience Nay they seem to me plainly to say that God never decreed to bestow salvation on any adult person but as a reward of obedience nor to inflict damnation upon any person but as a reward of disobedience Only they say If Election be considered quoad actum elgientis and Reprobation quoad actum reprobantis then there can be no cause assigned either of Election or Reprobation but only the will and pleasure of the Almighty Res volita actus volendi should not be confounded in a Disputation so mysterious as this about the eternal Decrees Whereas therefore Dr. Heylin page 39 adds That the Supralapsarian Doctrine first makes God to be the Author of Sin as both Piscator and Macarius I suppose it should be Maccovius and many other Supralapsarians as well as Mr. Perkins have positively and expresly affirmed him to be and then concludes him for a more unmerciful Tyrant than all that ever had been in the World were they joyned together I do with some confidence aver that this is a most manifest and malicious Calumny exceeding I think all the Calumnies that ever were uttered by any Arminian Mr. Mason in his Additions to Mr. Hoard had said That none of the Supralapsarians Piscator only and a few more of the blunter sort excepted had said directly and in terminis that God is the cause of sin The Doctor hath changed Mr. Mason's few into many and names Maccâ—vius and Mr. Perkins whereas Mr. Mason had only named Piscator But this is strange that neither Mr. Mason nor Dr. Heylin should direct us to any one place of these Authors in which any such phrase or speech doth occur Do they think that their Readers have leisure to turn over all the Writings of these blunter Supralapsarians or any divining faculty to find out who are intended by the few others and the many others For my part I will not think that any one Supralapsarian ever affirmed God to be the Author of Sin unless I see the very place in which such affirmation is contained But should I see any such thing in the Writings of Mr. Perkins I should be under a temptation to turn Cartesian and disbelieve my eyes so improbable and and almost impossible doth it seem to me that a Person of his piety and learning should leave upon Record a Position so sensless absurd impious I shall expect that the Doctor in some good convenient time do gather together those expressions of Piscator Maccovius Perkins in which God is expresly made the Author of Sin and publish them to the World or else he must give the World leave to think that he hath too much communion with the Father of Lies Further I say that it doth not from any Principle of the Supralapsarian follow either that God is the Author of Sin or that he is a verier Tyrant than ever lived upon earth though I shall grant that for man to do as God doth would be the highest cruelty I believe with the Supralapsarian that God hath decreed not to bestow converting Grace upon many whom he could easily had he so pleased have converted Should any man who could convert millions not convert them and afterwards punish them with eternal torments for not being converted he would be more cruel than ever Nero was But is God therefore cruel in not giving his converting Grace to those millions who perish eternally for want of it Not at all because he is not under a Law to contribute all that in him lieth towards the conversion of Souls but so would man be if he had such a converâ—ing power Suppose we that the Doctor had been endued with a power to work those wonderful things in Tyre and Sidon which would have made the Inhabitants repent in dust and ashes he would have been cruel with a witness had he not caused those wonders to be wrought but I trow so was not God though he never did nor ever intended to work Miracle in either of those places Dr. H. pag. 39. Well but the Doctor proceeds further and tells us that this extremity being every day found more indefensible the more moderate and sober sort of the Calvinians forsaking the Colours of their first Leaders betook themselves into the Camp of the Rigid Lutherans and rather chose to joyn with the Dominican Friers than to stand to the Dictates of their Master Calvin Answ. It would be endless to discover all the weaknesses of this period 1. Calvin was a Sublapsarian therefore surely not the Master of the Supralapsarians 2. The Dominican Friers do not all make the object of Predestination massam corruptam nor yet the Rigid if rigid Lutherans 3. Those that are Sublapsarians do not judge the Supralapsarian way indefensible Witness Davenant who hath defended the Supralapsarian way against the impertinent Objections of the Author of God's Love to Mankind and yet was himself of the other perswasion Thus of the Supralapsarians Now follows the Evidence brought in against the Sublapsarians and the Dreadful Sentence pronounced upon them Witnesses against them are the Remonstrants in the Hague Conference published by Bertius and Daniel Tilenus which our Historian hath taken word for word out of a supposititious Tilenus who hath troubled himself and the world with an empty piece called Arcana Dogmata Contraremonstrantium or the Calvinists Cabinet unlocked Printed for Richard Royston 1659 having also Printed an Examination of Tilenus before the Triers of Utopia Mr. Baxter in his Discovery of the Grotian Religion charged this Gentleman with giving a false and odious account of the Doctrines of the Synod of Dort He in his Defence alledgeth that he never tied himself to the Decrees and Canons of that Synod Yet Dr. Heylin page 41 calls them the Conclusions of the Synod of Dort which is to be conceived to have delivered the genuine sence of all the Parties as being a Representative of all the Calvinian Churches in Europe except those of France some few Divines of England being added to them The truth is Not one of his five Conclusions pag. 41 42 are the Conclusions of the Synod of Dort nor as they are worded are they so much as agreeable to the Conclusions of that
he phrasifieth Dr. H. Part 3. Pag. 2. There were some men who in the beginning of King Edward 's Reign busily stickled in the maintenance of Calvin 's Doctrines and thinking themselves to be more Evangelical than the rest of their Brethren they either took unto themselves or had given by others the name of Gospellers Of this they were informed by the Reverend Prelate and right godly Martyr Bishop Hooper in the Preface to his Exposition of the ten Commandments Our Gospellers saith he he better learned than the Holy Ghost for they wickedly attribute the cause of punishments and adversities to God's providence which is the cause of no ill as he himself can do no evil and over every mischief that is done they say it is God's will In which we have the men and their Doctrine how the name of Gospellers and the reason why that name was ascribed to them It is observed by the judicious Author of Europae Speculum that Calvin was the first of these latter times who searched into the Counsels the eternal Counsels of God Almighty And as it seems he found there some other Gospel than that which had been written by the four Evangelists from whence his Followers had the name of Gospellers for by that name I find them called frequently by Campneys also in an Epistolary discourse c. And finding it given them also by Bishop Hooper a temperate modest man I must needs look on it as the name of the Sect by which they were distinguished from other men Answ. All this I have at large transcribed because I have sundry observations to make thereupon First I observe that in all probability the Doctor never read Hooper but trusted to other mens eyes for he quoteth that as from the Preface of Mr. Hooper which is not to be found in the Preface but rather in his Postscript or Appendix to his Declaration of the ten holy Commandments or his Answer to certain Objections that keep men from the obedience of God's Law the fourth of which is Curiosity Nor is this the first time that he hath suffered himself and his Reader to be abused Secondly I observe that he attributes â—hese words to the Reverend Prelate and right godly Martyr Bishop Hooper whereas Hooper when he did write these words was no Prelate but only a licenced if licenced Predicant But I am glad however to find Dr. Heylin speak of honourably of the Ring-leader of the Non-conformists It seems when he is pleased he can allow one that scrupled the Habit and expresly condemned the Civil Offices of Bishops to be reverend and right godly and temperate and modest Thirdly I observe that he chargeth Mr. Calvin from the Author of Europae Speculum to be the first in these latter times that searched into the Counsels the eternal Counsels of Almighty God That the Author of Europae Speculum hath any such observation I am not sure If he have it no way contributed to procure him that esteem with which the World reads his Book for as all eternal Counsels are the Counsels of Almighty God so all the Counsels of God Almighty are eternal And to say that Calvin was the first who in this latter age searched into the Counsels of Almighty God is in effect to say that none of this latter age before Calvin regarded God's glory or mans salvation I suppose instead of eternal Counsels the Doctor intended to say hidden unrevealed Counsels But the assertion of absolute Election and Reprobation is no searching into the secrets of God Almighty or if it be Mr. Calvin cannot by any one that hath the least skill in History be thought to be the first that searched into God's secret Counsels seeing both Luther and Zuinglius had done it before him Fourthly I observe the unrighteous censure or calumny of the Doctor that Calvin by searching into God's Decrees had found out another Gospel than that which had been written by the four Evangelists from whence his Followers in these Points had the name of Gospellers Neither Calvin nor Calvinists ever found out any other Gospel than this He that believeth shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned Nor was the name of Gospellers given to Mr. Calvin's Followers on the account of their bringing in a new Gospel or on any other account but it was the general name by which all that joyned in opposing Popery called themselves Let any one but consult the word Gospellers in the Index of Mr. Fox's Martyrology and compare the places there referred unto he shall find Papists and Gospellers still opposed Gospellers used not as a name of ignoming but as a name of honour Let him also read Bishop Ridley's Letter to his Chaplain he shall find the same word used and contradistinguished to Papists Likewise in Latine no more usual distinction than Pontificii and Evangelici So that the Historian in making the Calvinists the only Gospellers makes them indeed the only Protestants Finally I observe that the words quoted from Bishop Hooper are inexcusable if they be not qualified with some distinction The Scripture doth not oftner ascribe unto God the Creation of the World than it doth ascribe unto his Providence all the Punishments and Adversities that befal either good or bad men yet it must be granted that God does not willingly afflict the sons of men and therefore never punishes them but when he finds something in them which deserves the punishment so that they may thank themselves for all the evil they suffer from God The Doctor 's next design is to vindicate one Campneys a Fellow that was made to bear a Faggot at Paul's Cross in King Edward's time the learned and pious Miles Coverdale preaching a Sermon when that punishment was inflicted on him This man it seems having either complied in Queen Mary's time or saved himself alive by flight when Q Elizabeth had restored the true Religion began to play his old pranks i. e. to cause disturbance by nibbling at such who were deservedly honoured and preferred in the Church publishing a Pamphlet but unto which he had not courage enough to affix his name against Predestination This Pamphlet was encountred by Mr. Iohn Veron a Chaplain to the Queen and Reader of the Divinity Lecture in S. Paul's Church as also by Mr. Robert Crowley sometime Fellow of Magdalen Colledge in Oxon at that time a famous Preacher in the City of London Both these put out Answers unto Campneys and their Answers were both licenced and approved and Veron's Dedicated to the Queen her self whereas Campney's virulent Pamphlet came forth surreptitiously neither Author nor Printer daring to put their names to it All this notwithstanding the Doctor would have us believe that Campneys defended the Doctrine of the Church Veron and Crowley opposed it as if the Church had so soon lost all her zeal for her Religion and would give no countenance at all to those that contended for it yet would vouchsafe to authorize the writings