the Readers purse and patience that I fill it no fuller Secondly I might strengthen my opinion from the Schoolmen amongst whom I have an Army to a man as is confessed even by Arriaga The first that ever was against me as Faventinus thinks was Cajetan and those that assert the positivity of sin are by Rada called Cajetanistae so that I may say to Mr. P. where was your opinion before Luther for Luther and Cajetan are known to be contemporaries Yet not to wrong Cajetan he onely holds the essence of the sin of commission to be positive but that the sinfullnesse of omission was so he never dreamed Do these authorities signify nothing with Mr. P hear him Pag. 174. If either the Schoolmen erre or were mistaken or were never read who can help it I see judgement often varieth with interest and things acquire a price not so much for what they are in themselves as for what they are relatively to our ends and purposes The Schoolmen's authority is no good money when he should take it is currant coyne when he should pay it I must needs say that the generall suffrage of the Schools doth signify much to me in matters where they are not overawed by a Church Canon But he hath a prettier evasion than this Pag. 170. The Jesuits in waggery did purposely propagate many blasphemies arising from the tenet of unconditionall reprobation in Protestant parts of the Christian world that by making them odious they might fright men from thence into the Church of Rome If there be any Jesuits that do propagate what they apprehend to be blasphemy I should think a fitter name might be given to so Devilish a practice than that of waggery Who betrayed him into this observation Dr. Jackson who yet doth not bluntly say that it 's the designe of the Factours for the Church of Rome to have this Doctrine generally embraced or acknowledged by us but inserts these words of Caution or at least to have the World believe that it were generally acknowledged by us Beshrew Mr. Bar who put Mr. P. upon a necessity of reading this Author if he can make no better use of him The Jesuits are generally reputed very Politick but if this be the best policy they have I should think we need not much fear their plots For what if they should fasten the Doctrine of absolute reprobation upon the Church of England Why thence it would follow that the God of heavē were worse than an incarnate Devil yea thou any wicked Spirit or the Devil himself can without stander be supposed to be But doth he not think that men would enquire whether that frightfull conclusion were rightly deduced from the former principle would they not tell those Popish factours that their Pastours teach them to confesse their sins and to take the shame of them to themselves Would they not bid them dwell at home and take notice of their own Dominicans who as strenuously assert the Doctrine of absolute reprobation as any that go by the name of Calvinists the same Dr. Jackson saith Pag. 3012. He that would diligently peruse Aquinas his writings and in particular his resolution of that Question An detur causa praedestinationis may finde him as strait lace't as Calvin was one and the same girdle would be an equall competent measure for both their errors Nay the Dr. saith the Dominican's and other Schoolmen were more faulty than Zuinglius or his followers But with Mr. P. Doctor Twisse is worse than the Jesuit's though the Jesuit's and Dominican's are too bad Pag. 170. Let me adde that two Papists as learned as ever did engage for upholding the Popish cause do acquit us of this imputation the making of God the Author of sin Suarez opus lib. 2. cap. 2. p. 111. The Hereticks potestants know well that God intendeth not that which is formall in sin nor inclineth the will of man to intend it Vasquez dis 99. cap. 4. n. 22. Calvin Zuinglius Beza do plainly affirm that sin as sin is not to be referr'd to God as the cause thereof both these Testimonies I take upon trust from D. F. Wh. P. 145. Having not the books themselves by me at the present But to requite him for this observation out of Dr. Jackson who attempts not the proof of it by any one example I shall give him another That the Popish Priests will sometimes go over to the Lutherans and pretend a conversion whereas their designe is onely to blow up the coals of contention betwixt them and the Calvinists And at the managing of such a designe I am sure Mr. P. hath as good a faculty as any man alive What successe can Mr. Duree expect in his negociations for peace when as men of bitter Spirits from among our selves do not stick to make the opinions of the Calvinists worse then those of the Atheists And that the Arminians are the consin-germanes to the Jesuits and do underhand aime at the introducing of Popery I shall give him the opinion of the whole house of Commons whose word 's in a Declaration of theirs to his Majesty are The hearts of your subjects are perplexed when with sorrow they behold a dayly growth and spreading of the faction of the Ariminians that being as your Majesty well knows but a cunning way to bring in Popery and the Professors of those opinions the common disturbers of the Protestant Churches and incendiary's of those states in which they have gotten any head being Protestants in shew but Jesuit's in opinion and practice Vid. a necessary introduction to the Archbish tryall by Mr. Prinne If he except against the house of Commons let him learn the same from a Jesuit's letter to the Rector at Bruxells Father Rector c. We have now many strings to our bowes and have strongly fortify'd our faction and have added two Bulwarkes more for when K. James lived we know he was very violent against Arminianisme and interrupted with his pestilent wit and deep learning our strong designes in Holland now we have planted the soveraigne drug Arminianisme which we hope will purge the Protestants from their heresy This letter was seized in the Archbish Study and attested against him at the Lords bar If yet there be not witnesse enough wee 'l call in the Lord Falklands speech p. 7. As Sir Tho. Moor sayes of the Casuists their businesse was not to keep men from sinning but to inform them quam prope ad peccatum sine peccato liceat accedere so it seemed their worke was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospell without bringing themselves into danger of being destroyed by the Law Mr. Speaker to go yet further some of them have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspicion that in gratitude they desire to return thither or at least to meet it half way Some have evidently laboured
signifies our nature and its faculties as under corruption The faculties in which the sinfull privations are by reason of those privations doe lust against the working of the Spirit And now I might take my leave of Mr. P. but that I am told of no lesse than 17 cogent Arguments used by him in his Divine Philanthropie which I had not the courage to venture on When Mr. B. told him that he durst not quote the Assemblies Confession he is made a lyar for that speech If he deserve such a censure so I am sure doth Mr. P. How could I be said to want courage to meddle with that which I had never read over And which now that I have been forced to read over hath rather exercised my patience than my courage so far am I from looking upon them as convincing Demonstrations that I think I should honour them sufficiently if I but say that they are good enough for a Sophister to use when he is put to course in the Horse-fair ex tempore He ptetends to have proved in ample manner That sinne hath an efficient cause properly so call'd being angry it seems with the saying of Augustin that makes it to have a deficient rather than an efficient properly so call'd Pag. 145. If man be not the efficient cause saith our doughty Disputant then he is either the material or formal or final Rather than 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 evill can have And he is the efficient cause too of the evil of the action if by an efficicient he meane no more than that unto which it may be ascribed But he and I both were best not to make too much noise least wee should awaken the youngsters to fall aboard us with such an Argument as this If man be the efficient cause either of a good action or a bad action then hee doth effect it by another action and so we may proceed in infinitum To let that pass the deficient cause is reduceable to the efficient and this is to be said Suppose the first sin of Angels to have been a proud desire to be equal unto God the cause of this proud desire was the will of the Angel but it was the cause of the action in such a sense as a causality may be said to have a cause per se of the vitiosity of the action it was onely the cause per accidens per concomitantiam nor doth the vitiotsiy of the effect alway suppose a vitiosity in the cause though it alway pre-supposeth an imperfection in the cause and where the cause it self is vitious its vitiosity is not the cause of the vitiosity of the effect for vitiosity of it self neither can effect nor be effected but the vitious cause taking together the being and the supervenient privation is the cause of the vitious effect taking it in like manner for the beeing and the superadded privation But if we contradict him we must say that God damns men for nothing Anselm in the place I before referred my Reader to makes this objection and laugheth at its weaknesse De Con. vir c. 6. Quidam cum audiunt peccatum nihil esse solent dicere si peccatum nihil est cur punit Deus hominem pro peccato cum pro nihilo puniri nemo debeat quibus quamvis humilis sit quaestio tamen quia quod quaerunt ignorant aliquid respondendum est What doth hee mean when he saith that God then must punish men for nothing If he meane that God would punish men because they have not that in their faculties habits actions which should be in them what absurdity is there in that Is not the punishment just except it be for positive entities How many men have been imprisoned for not paying summes of money which they did owe Yea I beleeve Mr. P. could well enough bear my being punished for not paying him his Arrears which he vainly enough fancyeth to bee due to him and yet non-payment cannot be accounted a positive entity nor doth Mr. P. know how to place it in any predicament of Beeings Siu is a punishment but punishment is a positive entity erg There is a punishment of losse which scarce ever any man said was positive There is a punishment of sense and this we say is no other way an evil or a punishment unto us than as it doth deprive us of some perfection of which we are capable The punishment of sense may be said to be positive as to its foundation not in its formality that is it is not positive if wee consider that in which the very evill of that punishment formally consists As to the rest of his Arguments 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 selfe When Mr. P. will undertake to vindicate every expression that hath been used in the managing of these controversies by men of his opinion then may I perhaps sense some kind of obligation to try whether I can justifie every thing that hath fell from Mr. W. and Mr. B. in the mean time they are of age let them speak for themselves if they count it needfull if they count it not needfull why should I spend labour about that â—n the doing of which I cannot take any great pleasure and for the doing of which â—hey will con me no great thanks This I â—annot but observe that though none durst undertake Dr. Twisse in the Arminian Conâ—roversies whilest he was alive yet since his death every puny will be nibling at him upon all occasions which puts me in minde of that paltry fellow in Pausanias who being never able to get the mastery in his life time of one Theagenes a famous Wrestler came many a night after hee was dead and scourged his Statue which was erected in the honour of him Paus in Attic. If Mr. T. P. or Mr. I. G. doe verily believe Dr. Twisse to be an enemy of that Divine grace which he pretends to have maintained let them follow him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he did those with whom hee tooke occasion to deale and when they shall have so done Mr. Jeanes a person of a very scholastical head will not long let them be without an answer And so I leave my Combatant resolving if it may be never more to come so near him till I am told by others that his breath smels sweeter Upon the review of my book J cannot but recal what I have often read from Gilbertus Cognatus of a man with an ulcer in his face who passing over a Bridge where the passengers were to pay a certaine piece of mony for every malady of body found upon them was required to pay the accustomed tribute for the ulcer in his face but hee refusing to pay it the Officer pulls off his
words Dr. Crakanthorpe thought meet to use against him Mr. Barlee hath already told Mr. Pierce I shall onely adde the Book was dedicated to King Charles and hath this title put to it Defensio Ecclesiae Anglicanae of which Church Mr. P. professeth himself a dutifull and obedient son and that Dr. Abbot saith of that Treatise that it was the most accurate peece of controversie that was written since the Reformation Next let us hear the most learned and peaceable Dr. Sanderson con 2. ad Clerum p. 29 30. Sundry of the Doctors of our Church teach truly and agreeably to Scriptures the effectual concurrence of Gods will and power with subordinate agents in every and therefore even in sinfull actions Gods free election of those whom he purposeth to save of his own grace without any motives in or from themselves the immutability of Gods love and grace towards the Saints Elect and their certaine perseverance therein to salvation the justification of sinners by the imputed righteousnesse of Christ apprehended and applied unto them by a lively faith without the works of the Law These are sound and true and if rightly understood comfortable and right profitable doctrines and yet they of the Church of Rome have the forehead I will not say to slander my Text alloweth more to blaspheme God and his Truth and the Ministers thereof for teaching them Bellarm. Gretser Maldonate and the Jesuites but none more than our own English Fugitives Bristow Stapleton Parsons Kellison and all the rabble of that crew freely spend their mouthes in barking against us as if we made God the author of sinne as if we would have men sin and be damned by a fatal necessitie sinne whether they will or no be damned whether they deserve it or no as if we opened a gap to all licentiousnesse and prophanesse let them believe it is no matter how they live heaven is their own cock sure as if we cried down Good Works and condemned Charity Slanders loud and false yet easily blown away with one single word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these imputations upon us and our doctrine are unjust but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let them that misreport us know that without repentance their damnation will be just Dr. Field B. 3. p. 117. The next Heresie which they say we are fallen into is the Heresie of Florinus who taught that God is the author and cause of sinne This saith Bellarm. Calvin Luth. Martyr have defended in their writings of this sinfull and wicked and lying report we are sure God is not the author but the devil pag. 140. Cal. Then is not worse than the Manichees in making God the author of those evils which the Manichees attribute to an evil beginning as Bellarm. is pleased to pronounce of him but is farther from that hellish conceit than Bellarm. is from hell it selfe if he repent not of these hellish slanders Dr. Ward prae de pecca orig p. 148. Prodiit non ita pridem clanculum liber quem author intitulavit amor dei erga genus humanum qui acriter contendit ex concessis sublap satis evidenter inferri omnium peccatorum hominum reproborum deum esse verum principalem authorem Audax assertum vel verius impudens calumnia I might mention more but I forbeare and doe earnestly desire those Episcopall Divines who close with us in the points of present contest that they would bethink themselves and consider what favour they must expect from these Arminian Ardelio's no more than what Polyphemus promised Ulysses to be last devoured If they cannot fall down and worship the Idols which these men have set up they must expect to be thrown into the fierie furnace nay they are tormented in it already in Augustines sense who calls the mouth of an angry adversary by that name for mark his word ch 2. p. 61. Whatever dishonours have been done unto the Protestant name by those of the Kirk or Consistory or their adherents here in England yet the dutifull sons of the Church of England have ever been free from any part of that guilt This doth expunge Bishop Hall Bishop Morton Bishop Brownerig whom we as they deserve call Fathers out of the number of the dutifull Sonnes of the Church of England Nay he sticketh not in the Preface to the Reader p. 6. to place them among the very unsound and unruly members of this Church Let me take the boldness to beseech them who are of any authority in that party as they love the truth than which nothing ought to be more precious as they tender the wellfare and safety of poor soules for whom Christ dyed that they would either plainly say that they have all this while been mistaken and through ignorance Preached and Printed Blasphemy or else brand this false accuser with the letter K which when the I aw I allude to was made was the first letter of the word Calumniator 3. I have spent more time in reading the Authors Pro Con about these points than ever I intend to doe being of opinion that the greatest Scholars will never be able fully to satisfie their own or other mens Reasons about them Nor should this seem any wonder to us who cannot be ignorant how many points there be in Natural Philosophy in which a man plungeth himself into inextricable difficulties whether he affirm or deny them With what confidence have I heard one young Sophister maintain that continuum fit ex indivisibilibus and another that continuum non fit ex indivisibilibus both thought themselves in the right but men of mature judgements standing by could easily see that neither the one nor the other could free his Assertion from the common Objections brought against it I thank God I have not the least temptation to doubt concerning the Trinity of the Persons nor the Hypostatical Union of the two Natures yet I never thought my self able to vindicate those mysteries from all the subtile Arguments and niceties of unbelieving sophisters The like I think concerning the Doctrine of Gods Decrees and the manner of the Spirits working Grace in the hearts of the Elect these are matters so very mysterious and my understanding so dark that I can scarce hope ever in this world to be freed from all scruples about them Would you therefore know why I hold Absolute Eternal Personal Election Efficacious determining Grace and the certain infallible perseverance of all Believers Truly because I finde these opinions most agreeable to Scripture to the communis sensus fidelium the instinct and impulse of the new creature in all ages and because I finde they doe most tend to the debasing of sinfull man and to the exaltation of Christ my Saviour and that free Grace of his by which I hope to be acquitted at the last day To this end I will relate two Historicall passages with which J have been much taken the one from Father Paul who hath filled the Christian world with his
us and those of our Religion beyond the Sea an action as unpolitick as ungodly And because I know the Reader will not account me tedious whilest I use the words of so eloquent a Lord I shall recite more passages from him to the same purpose Pag. 9. We shall find of them to have both kindled blown the Common fire of both Nations to have both sent and maintained that book of which the Author hath no doubt long since wished with Nero utinam nefcissem literas and of which more then one Kingdome hath cause to wish that when he writ that he had rather burned a Library though of the value of Ptolomies We shall find them to have been the first and principall cause of the breach I will not say of but since the pacification at Barwick we shall finde them to have been the almost sole abettors of my Lord of Strafford whilst he was practising upon another kingdom that manner of Government which he intended to settle in this where he committed so many so mighty and so manifest enormities as the like have not been committed by any Governour in any Government since Verres left Sicilie And after they had called him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England all things here being governed by a Juntillo and that Juntillo governed by him to have assisted him in the giving of such counsels and the pursuing of such courses as it is a hard and measuring cast whether they were more unwise more unjust or more unfortunate and which had infallibly been our destruction if by the grace of God their share had not been as small in the subtletie of Serpents as in the innocence of Doves But in entitling the honest Puritanes to the manifold violences that have been attempted or practised in Church and State he borrows a piece of policy from the Jesuits who if they had prospered in blowing up the Parliament house had intended to give it about that that so horrid and hellish a fact was perpetrated by he knows whom Honest Bishop Carleton in his Examination of Mr. Montagues Appeal saith That albeit the Puritans disquieted the Church about their conceived Discipline yet they never moved any quarrel about the Doctrine of our Church and that till Montague there was no Puritan Doctrine known Mr. Wotton saith in his answer to the Popish Atti p. 33. Hee that makes difference between the Protestants and Puritans in matters of Faith doth it either ignorantly or maliciously Mr. T. Fuller 610. p. 99. We must not forget that Spalato I am confident I am not mistaken therein was the first who professing himself a Protestant used the word Puritan to signifie the defenders of matters doctrinal in the English Church Formerly the word was onely taken to denote such as dissented from the Hierarchy in Discipline and Church-government which now was extended to brand such as were Anti-arminians in their judgement So that by Puritanes in all probability must be meant non-conformists And if Mr. P. dare say that such men as Mr. Paul Baine Mr. Arthur Hildersham Mr. Dod and Mr. Cleaver the Decalogists Mr. Tho. Hooker Mr. John Ball Mr. Tho. Shepheard were void of the power of godlyness or that they had not more of it than had their persecutors he must either expect not to be believed or seek some other place than England to vent his passion in If by the Puritanes he meaneth the giddy Brownists I have not a word to say in their excuse but this that the Prelaticall oppression was such as might have made wiser people than they madde Had they not a colourable pretext to call some of our Prelates Antichristian whose Courts vexed sundry laborious Preachers because they could not bow at the name of Jesus when as sundry idle sots whom they might frequently observe to stagger in the streets were never questioned But the most probable ground of his fury is yet behind my being noted by Mr. Barlee in the Margin to be a man of his own Colledge for doe but observe the phrases and periods of the man upon this occasion For ought I know he may be also in possession of mine own Fellowship and mine own Chamber and mine own meat and drink and those yearly revenues which are mine own too and for the which I may the rather expect to have some satisfaction because it seems the Visitors made him one of my Receivers and Usufructuaries for my legitimate heir or successor they could not make him And I have reason to be glad that he is thought such a pious and learned man because if he is pious he will the sooner pay me my Arrears and if he is learned he will not object against my known and indisputable right pag. 155. and Div. Phil. p. 147. I suffered the loss of what I thought to be the pleasantest possession on earth for being secretly suggested to be the Author of some bookes which to this very day I could never hear named and though I earnestly desired that I might hear my self accused and know distinctly my accusation and be heard speak for my self yet Dr. Reynolds could not obtaine that for me Thus he hath thrown his fierie darts at me at farre the greater part of Heads and Fellows of Colledges in Oxon at the Visitors and at the two Houses of Parliament But I know not how I am so little sollicitous concerning the quenching of these Darts that I find my self carried away with a very pleasing diversion concerning two different kinds of sober distraction or melancholy the one wherein the brain is generally and equally ill affected to all objects the other where the distemper is confined to some one object or other the brain being otherwise very sound and sober upon all other objects and occasions So Laurentius tells us of a Noble man that otherwise had his senses very perfect and would discourse of any subâ—ect very rationally but was perswaded that he was glass And Huartus tels us of a Noble mans foot-boy in Italy that thought himself a Monarch And Josephus Acostae tells us a sadder story of a Doctor of Divinity who would affirm that he should be a King and a Pope too the Apostolical See being translated to those parts of America which together with some other frantick distempers made him condemned to the fire for an Heretick Farre be it from me to wish or presage any such kind of punishment to Mr. P. for his impudence against the supream Authority of the Nation but I am under some temptation to think that Mr. P. how discreet and sober soever in other matters is fallen into some Hypocondriacall conceits much of that nature for what else could make him after that he hath been known for some years to be an Husband and peaceably to have enjoyed the Rectory of Brington to talk of an indisputable right to a Fellowship chamber meat and drink yearly revenues in Magdalene Colledge Nay he prints as if he had
is therefore not caused by God because it is not ens but non ens as they commonly call that which is but a privation e g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. contra gentes p. 6. De incar verbi p. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nys Tom. 2. 490. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who is such a stranger to St. Augustin that hath not read such sentences as these from him de lib. arbit lib. 1. Credimus ex uno Deo esse omnia quae sunt tamen non esse peccatorum auctorem Deum in 1 cap. Joh. v. 1. Peccatum quidem non per ipsum factum est quia peccatum nihil est Mali author non est qui omnium quae sunt author est quia in quantum sunt in tantum bonâ—… sunt 83 Quaest It would be endlesse to put together all sayings of the Ancients that are of this nature I shall take off my Pen when I have only transcribed the remarkable determination of Aquinas 1ª 2 ae q. 79. ar 2. in corpo actus saith he peccati est ens est actus ex utroque habet quod sit adeo omne enim ens quocunque modâ—… sit oportet quod derivetur a primo ente-omnis autem actio causatur ab aliquo existente in actu quia nihil agit nisi secundum quod est actu omne autem ens actu reducitur ad primum actum sc Deum sicut in causam quâ—… est per suam essentiam actus unde relinquitur quod Deus sit causa omnis actionis in quantum est actio peccatum nominat ens actionem cum quodam defectu Defectus autem ille est ex causâ creatâ sc libero arbitrio in quantum deficit ab ordine primi agentis i. e. Dei unde defectus iste non reducitur in Deum sicut in causam sed in liberum arbitrium sicut defectus claudicationis reducitur in tibiam curvam sicut in causam noâ— autem in virtutem motivaÌ„ a qua tamen causa tur quicquid est motionis in claudicatione secundum hoc Deus est causa actus peccati non tamen est causa peccati quia non est hujus quod actus sit cum defectu Nor secondly do I know any 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 Thirdly this positive being of sin is it a finite and participate being If not how is it not God if How is it not from the Fountain of all essences Fourthly I am the more confirmed that ther 's no medium betwixt Deus creatura because Mr. Pierce after all his enquiry hath not been able to finde any For whereas he doth tell me that the works of the Devill are a medium he could not sure but think that I would distinguish in blasphemy lying c. Betwixt the vital act and it's deficiency and dissonance from the Law of God the act it self I hold to bee positive and from God the irregularity of that act from which it is denominated blasphemy lying c. I would derive onely from mans corruption and the Devills temptation If he will not take this from me let him take it from those Gamaliels at whose feet he'el not account it any disparagement to sit as a disciple Dr. Fr. White Pag. 104. Defence of his Brother whereas sin is a deficience and aberration from the rule of justice it cannot subsist alone but even as halting must necessarily be joyned with some motion of the body hoarsnesse of speech with the action of speaking so the evill of sin is conjoyned with some action or motion of the Soul or body which hath a naturall and positive being and where unto there hapneth a going astray from Divine Law even as it hapneth to a lame mans naturall motion to have halting concurring with it Of that which is positive naturall in sinfull actions Divines acknowledge God to be the Author both in that he perserveth mans will and faculties whereby he is enabled to his operations and also because as the first cause he produceth together with the 2d. cause all positive motion Dr. Sand. 1 Tim. 4.4.5 Ser. Ad pop there is a naturall or rather transcendentall goodnesse honitas entis as they call it in every action even in that where to the greatest sin adhereth and that goodnesse is from God as that action is his creature but the evill that cleaveth unto it is wholy from the default of the person that commiteth it and not at all from God Dr. Abbot answer to Bishop Pag. 124. We say and you will say no lesse that God is the Author of all the actions in the World yet we say that sin is wholly and onely of man himself distinguish the accident from the subject the sin of the action from the action it self God in the one shall be glorified man justly condemned for the other Nay what if M. Pierce himself say that the sinfull action so far as it is an action is from God He saith that every good action of man is from the special grace of God Now seeing all the good actions that are done per gratiam viatoris be and must necessarily be on some account sinfull concerning these actions I demand are they from God If not how is every good action from God If they be then he spits in the face of his judicious Dr. Jack who saith exact Col. p. 3013. To imagine there should be one cause of the act and another of his obliquity or sinfullnesse of the act would be as grosse a solaecisme as to a assigne or seek after any other cause of the rotundity of a sphere or bullet besides him that frames the one or moulds the other or else he must say that the action that in perfect morall goodnesse which is in it are from God but the sinfull imperfection it self is from man through Gods permission and this he doth say 172. But then he ought not to be offended if we take the same liberty Pag. 158. He saith God made idolaters men And 159. men themselves are the works of God onely which is to grant more then with truth can be granted But thus I argue if God be the cause of men than of Davids child begotten by the action of Adultery for Scripture will alow me to call that child so soon as borne a man John 16.21 If the cause of that child undoubtedly then the cause of the action of generation by which as by a causality that child was produced Yet was he not the cause of the adulterious pravity cleaving unto that action Quid mirum si dicaemus deum facere singulas actiones quae fiunt malâ voluntate cum fate amur eum facere singulas substantias quae fiunt injustâ voluntate in honest â actione Ans de casu