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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
the negative precepts of the Almighty whereby he forbids us to give a being to this or that which he tells us he hateth the being of Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife is as much as to say thou shalt not put such a concupiscence in being And yet to covet another man's wife is as positively something as to covet his own and more positively something than not to covet another man's though that is the vice and this the virtue 13. They indeed who deny this natural freedome of the will must either yield to the Manichees or else do worse as hath been shew'd But this being granted there needs no new principle as the Manichees dreamed for the production of what is evil For he that may do good by maâ—king use of that Talent which God hath given him hath eo ipso the power to do the contrary unless he is irresistibly and unavoidably good which no man is on this side heaven Now since both the habits and acts of sin are as positive as the habits and acts of virtue and equally reducible to the species of Quality and that there needs no other power for the production of the former then what is given us whilst it is given us to be truly free agents It will be fit to make it appear that I have not onely my private but publick reason also for what I teach § 6. DIONYSIVS the AREOPAGITE who refell's the two principles in the Manichaean sense doth set them up and assert them in the sense of the Scripture Affirming God to be the principle of every thing that is good and the Divel on the contrary of every thing that is evil to wit the evil of sin which is evil properly so called He asserts the first in these wordâ— of Saint Paul Rom. 11.36 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he explains by the Restriction thought fit to be added by Saint Iames c. 1. v. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he affirms the second in these termes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet 3. the power to sin though not the act of sin it self he rightly affirm's to be from God which power is innocent as in Adam and the Angels before their Fall who could never have sinned if before they actually sinned they had not had the power to sin But for the exertion of that power into act that being evil cannot possibly proceed from so good a fountain IGNATIVS in ep ad Magnes p. 53. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 IUSTIN MARTYR in Apolog. 1. pro Christ. p. 35. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see him especially in Quaest. Resp. ad Orthod p. 396. 436. TERTVL contra Marcion Lib. 2. cap. 5 6. Suae po testatis invenio hominem a Deo constitutum lapsumque hominis non Deo sed Libero ejus Arbitrio deputandum ATHANASIVS de anima humana loquens in orat contra Gent. p. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And very much more to this purpose p. 9.37 de Incar verbi dei p. 57 58. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 58. AVGVSTIN Retract l. c. 9. per totum Malum non exortum nisi ex libero voluntatis Arbitrio Quid opus est queri unde iste motus existat quo voluntas avertitur ab incommutabili bono ad commutabile bonum cùm eum non nisi animi voluntarium ob hoc culpabile esse fateamur c. Quae tandem esse poterit ante voluntatem Causa voluntatis Aut igitur voluntas est prima causa peccandi aut nullum peccatum est prima Causa peccandi Non ergo est cui rectè imputetur peccatum nisi voluntati voluntas est quâ peccatur rectè vivitur NAZIANZ orat 40. p. 671. apud D. Barl. p. 52. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vide D. D. Hammondi Annot. in 1 Cor. 8.4 FVLGENTIVS apud Aqu. 1.2 q. 79. art 3. Deus non est ultor istius rei cujus est Actor PROSPER in senten ex Aug. p. 444. Iniquitas per ipsum facta non est quia Iniquitas nulla substantia â—st Mark hâ—s Reason and the two things which it implyes 1 That iniquity is an Accident and 2. Such as is not from God and therefore elsewhere he saith that the sole cause of evil deeds is the liberty of the will ad quam solam male gesta recurrunt CLEM. ALEX. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 167. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so in the place above cited § 3 he saith all substances have their production from God but not all Actions or operations unless when they are good The Original of the evil he imâ—putes to free-will And thus he disputes against them who feigned another crâ—ator even of substances beside the onely true God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CYRILLUS HIERO 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 30. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 citing that Text Eccles. 7.30 And that of the Apostle Ephes. 2.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And after in the same page 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a little after p. 34. speaking of the Devil and applying to him that of Ezek. 28.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he adds it was very well said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 AMBROSIVS de Cain Abel l. 2. c. 9. fol. 260. H. Qui peccatum suum ad quandam uti Gentiles asserunt Decreti aut operis sui Necessitatem referunt Divina arguere videntur quasi ipsorum vis Causa Peccati sit sed quanto gravius Peccato ipso ad Deum referre quod Feceris Reatus tui invidiam transsundere in Authorem non Criminis sed Innocentiae EPIPHANIUS l. 1. To. 3. Haeres 36. p. 266 267 268. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing can be without God except sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and more to this purpose p. 265.588 yet saith he God doth not hinder men from sinning by violence or force upon their wills 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 671. AUGUSTIN de civit Dei l. 5. c. 9. Malae voluntates à Deo non sunt quia contra naturam sunt quae ab illo est Sicut omnium Creaturarum Creator est ita omnium potestatum dator non voluntatum where by the will he means the action of the will § 7. That God gives onely the power to act what he forbiddeth and that no more is meant by those Fathers who say that all things in some sort do come from God still implying the act it self to be solely from the creature when it is wholly against God as the act of hating God is confess'd to be I have already made apparent by diverse instances recited And Doctor Stearn hath don it by diverse others An. med l. 2. p. 256 257. of which I shall mark but three or four ANSELMVS de concord Praed Praesc Nulla
is a high self-determining principle the great spring of our actions of Iudgement pag. 152. But Mr. B. as many others is produced by me in no fâ—â— place I not observing any order either of dignity or of time but giving to every one a place as he meets my memory or my eye The words of GROTIUS deserve great heed whilst he saith that the liberty of a man's will is not vitious but able by its own force to produce a thing that is vitious that is an action meaning that a vitious action as the action of hating God is meerly from the sinner man or Divel and not without impiety to be ascribed unto God either as a mediate or immediate cause And though I cited some part of his words before yet not to fail of his intenâ— I shall intreat my Reader to weigh the whole Neque ab eo quod diximus dimovere nos debet quod mala multa evenire cernimus quorum videtur origo Deo adscribi non posse ut qui perfectissimè sicut ante dictum est bonus sit Nam cum diximus Deum omnium esse Causam addidimus eorum quae verè subsistunt Nihil enim prohibet quominus ipsa quae subsistunt deinde causae sint Accidentium quorundam quales sunt actiones Deus hominem mentes sublimiores homine creavit cum agendi libertate quae agendi libertas vitiosa non est sed potest suâ vialiquid vitiosum producere Et hujus quidem generis malis quae moraliter mala dicuntur omnino Deum adscribere auctorem nefas est p. 27 28. LYCERUS vindicating God from the very same calumnie with which Mr. Hickman hath not feared to â—sperse him saith that the Divel did peccâ—re ex semetipso according to our Saviour Ioh. 8.44 that he alone is pater fons malorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first inventor of evil things to which he accommodates that of Austin Quomodo Deus pater genuit filium veritatem sic Diabolus lapsus genuit quasi filium mendacium God is said to be omnipotent not because he can do all things saith LOMBARD out of Augustin but because he can do whatsoever he will who cannot will to do any thing but what is good But there are some things saith he which God cannot do to wit those things wich are unjust sunt alia quaedam quae Deus nullatenus facere potest ut pâ—ccata p. 247. Non potest Deus facere injusta p. 248. These following Doctrines quod voluntas hominis ex necessitate vult eligit quod liberum Arbitrium est potentia passiva quod necessitate movetur ab Appetibili item quod dignitas esset in causis superioribus posse facere peccata Item quod alâ—quis faciat aliquid omnino ut Deus vult ipsum facere voluâ—tate Beneplaciti quod talis peccet c. were condemned with an Anathema by the Bp. of Paris and all the Professors of Divinity in that university A. D. 1270. 1341. together with the Blasphemies of Ioannes de Mercurio of the Cistercian order that God is in some sort the cause of the sinful act And that whatever is caused by the will of the Creature is so caused by vertue of the first cause And that God is the cause of every mode of the act and of every Circumstance that is produced All which are the Blasphemies asserted as Necessary truths by Mr. Hickman accordingly do call for a condemnation Bp. BRAMHALL shewes it to be his judgement whilst he censures Mr. Hobbs for saying that God wills and effects by the second causes all their actions good and bad and saith it implyes a contradiction that God should willingly do what he professeth he doth suffer Act. 13.18 Act. 14.16 Then he thus states the matter God causeth all good permitteth all evil disposeth all things both good and evil The general power to act is from God in him we live move and have our being this is Good But the specification and Determination of this general power to the doing of any evil is from our selves and proceeds from the free will of man it is a good consequence This thing is unrighteous therefore it cannot proceed from God Thus Aquinas and others are also expounded by Diotallevius not to mean that God is any cause of the evil act but that he doth not withdraw his necessary support from the will which abuseth its liberty in determining it self to the evil act and so that God is only the condition without which we cannot do evil not the cause by which we do it And so saith Aquinas Licet Deus sit universale principium omnis intentionis motus humani quod tamen determinetur voluntas humana ad malum consilium hoc non esse à Deo sed ab ipsâ again he saith non à motione divinâ sed à dispâ—sitione humanae voluntatis oriri ut malae potius actionâ—s quà m boâ—ae sequantur He also cites for his opinion what I have cast into the Margin and of which the result is this Dâ—termiâ—ationâ—m ad producâ—ndam huâ—â—s actus enâ—itatem esse à voluntate humanâ non autem à Deo Deum ita nolle antecedenâ—er ut haec entitas sit ut eam eâ—iam esse patiatur suum concursum non subtrahendo si conditio id exigat ex Creaturae libertate opposita p. 92.93.94 mark how it is expressed by Dr. GO AD. God made Adam able to be willing to sin but he made him not to will sin that he chose death it was by the strength of his will given him by God but God did not binde him to chose death for that were a contradiction a necessitated choice if the Nature of a voluntary Agent be well observed this point will be most evident And now the judicious Dr. Hammond will be the fittest to shut up all He that first gives the Law and then preâ—etermines the Act of transgressing the disobedience the doing contrary to that law that first forbids eating of the tree of knowledge and then predetermines Adams will to choose and eat what was forbidden is by his decree guilty of the Commission of the act and by his Law the cause of its being an obliquity And indeed if the obliquity which renders the act a sinfull act be it self any thing it must necessarily follow that either God doth not predetermine all things or that he predetermines the obliquity and Regularity bearing the same pâ—oportion of Relation to any act of Duty as obliquity doth to sin it cannot be imagined that the Author of the sinful Act should not be the Author of the obliquity as well as the Author of the pious Act is by the disputers acknowledged to be the Author of the regularity of it To conclude this Chapter in the words of Dr Reynolds Let not any man resolve sins into any other original then his
c. Athanasius's testimonie p. 76. l. 4. à fin c. See in p. 55. l. 9. c. Greg. Arimin a noble Schoolman p. 85. l. 10. c. compare p. 58. l. 5. à fin c. with Gregor Arimin nobilior Scholasticus p. 19. 124. p. 53. l. ult p. 30. l. 14 c. Mr. Hickman Rob. Baronius in Metaphysica Generali How many men have been imprisoned for not paying summs of money which they did owe p. 104. l. 19. c. Apud homines debitor incarceratur ob non solutam summam pecuniae quod negativum quid est §. 5. p. 54. l. 5. c. 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 wil of the Angel But it was of the vitiosity of the Action onely the cause per accidens per concomitantiam Nor doth the vitiosity of the effect allways suppose a vitiosity in the cause though it always presuppose 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 being and the superadded privation p. 103. l. 9. to l. 20. Supponamus primum malum culpae in Angelis fuisse vitiosam volitionem aequalitatis cum Deo causa efficiens hujus vitiosae volitioniâ— fuit ipsa voluntas Angelica Verùm per accidens per concomitantiam quandam producta est ea vitiositas vitiositatem effectâ— non semper praesupponere vitiositatem in causa p. 59. l. 4. c. Non ergò volumus vitiositatem causae per se efficere vitiositatem effecti quia vitiositas causae per se nihil operari potest vitiositas verò effecti per se produci non Potest sed tantum asserimus Causam vitiosam prout includit ens privationem enti superadditam producere effectum vitiosum sumendo similiter nomen effectûs vitiosi prout includit ens aliquod privationem enti superadditam p. 61. l. 12. c. Had Mr Hickman been Heire apparent to Dr. BARON and Mr. BARLOW as sure I am he is to neiâ—her he should have waited for the Decease as well of the second as of the first For how liberally soever a man intends towards his childe he seldom puts off his shooes till he goes to bed Nor will any but such Vermin as are Followers of a Camp not at all to fight but to prey and plunder strip a man of his cloathes before the breath is out of his body Dr. ROBERT BARON indeed is dead and knows not what is done to him But I hope Mr. BARLOW is both alive and live-like and so t is too soon for Mr. Hickman to take his goods into possession If Mr. Hickman shall deny what is become so proverbial for Notoreity and excuse himself by an older proverb that many times good wits do Iump which being true when Mr. H. doth knock his head against a post can have no truth here even for that very Reason A man may fitly say to him as I have heard Sr. Thomas More once said to Gallus in a Tetrastick Although what Gallus had done in verse as Mr. H. hath done in prose was many centuries of years before Sr. Thomas was yet in being Vatibus idem animusque vere spiritus idem Qui fuit Antiquis est modo Galle tibi Carmina namque eadem versusque frequenter eosdem Quos fecere illi Tu quoque Galle facis Now because that great and good man was no Philosopher of the Heathens Mr. Hickman will not be angry at it if I try to put his good Latine into almost as good English Thou Gallus hast the same both spirit and minde With them that writ in time of yore For when thou writest Verses oft I find Thou writ'st the same they writ before § 20. Whereas Mr· Hickman adds further p. 2. that I abused Mr. Barlee with Drollerie as hansome as ever dropped from the pen of of Ben Iohnson in his polemicals I thank him as much as if I did but I do not accept of his Commendation of which how ambitious Himself hath been we see by other mens Drollery to which he hath put his own name Vindicative Iustice is such a necessary Vertue as without which it is impossible for humane society to subsist Which if Mr. Hickman will needs call Drollery I must needs assure him he shews his ignorance of the word My doing of justice on some offenders in vindication of God and Man I own as a Duty incumbent on me And in particular this last which I have done upon this Compiler I take to be such as could not safely have been omitted For Diagoras turned Atheist upon his seeing a Plagiarie escape unpunisht § 21. He saith he reckons me unfortunate in choosing the tremendous mystery of reprobation for my first publick essay p. 2. Not that he thinks me to be unfortunate indeed but because his fingers itchâ— to be stealing a passage from Mr. Hales on 2 Pet. 3.16 concerning Eccius his saying that he chose to speak of Reprobation as an Idoneous subject in quo juveniles aestus exerceret which Mr. H. knew not how to introduce with any fitnesse unlesse he might say I was unfortunate in making choise of that subject But was not the Refuting of irrespective reprobation and of the horrible Blasphemies deduced from it by its Assertors a subject fit for my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or first endeâ—vours when if that Tenet is once swallowed down all further study is rendered uselesse that I may not say pernicious too And when no more then common Reason improved a little by Philosophy is required to refute it upon the principles supposed And when in the principles I speak of all who have read our Church Catechisme are very sufficiently instructed Whether so or not so let it be judged by them who have read me at least as they were running and not by him who will not read me As Mr. H. professeth he neither hath nor will p 3. though he professeth the contrary in other places For which and other Contradictions I leave him wholly to their lash who bid him go forth and be a Preacher though not a Priest especially for his saying I was unfortunate in any thing because by using that word he hints the falshood of his own and his Brethrens Doctrine That whatsoever comes to passe was fore-determined by an absolute unconditional decree importing the Necessity of all events Which doctrine must needs be false if I was unfortunate in my choise and as false if I was fortunate But if he will have the Doctrine true then it was clearly the will of God even according to his own and his Brethrens Doctrine
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
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