shewed because both are eternall and the act of Gods will which is God himselfe and withall to devise a cause hereof is to cast our selves upon an unavoydable absurdity as namely to say That God did ordaine that upon the foresight of this or that in men he would ordaine some of them to solvation and others unto damnation And indeed the harshnesse of the Tenent consists chiefly in confounding these different considerations whereby a colour is cast as if we maintained that God did decree to damne men of his meere pleasure and not for sin 2. As touching the second which is this That the finall impenitency and damnation of reprobates are necessary and unavoydable by Gods absolute decree Here as it were to make weight impenitency and damnation are clapt together as unavoydable by Gods absolute decree whereas it is without all question that supposing impenitency to be finall damnation is unavoydable by the Law of God as who hath ordained that whosoever dies in impenitency shall be damned And as for impenitency doth this Author or any Arminian deny it to be a fruit of that originall corruption wherein all are borne I perswade my selfe they doe not Corvinus professeth of all That by the sinne of Adam they are conjecti in necessitatem peccandi Then againe doth he maintaine that any is able to cure this but God It seems he doth not by that which followeth where he signifieth that God in his opinion did not absolutely intend to leave men to that woefull estate wherein they were borne What then Will he have God bound to cure it in all If so then certainly he doth cure it in all For it were impossible God should not doe that whereunto he is obliged in the way of justice But nothing more manifest then that God doth not cure it in all therefore certainly he is not bound to cure it in all But I imagine he conceives that God is ready to cure it in all and it is mans fault that he doth not cure it in any As much as to say if man would doe somewhat which he may doe then God would give him repentance Here is good stuffe towards and undoubtedly this is the criticall point as touching the nature of efficacious grace Yet this I know full well how carefull the greatest Rabbies amongst the Arminians are to decline And will it not manifestly follow herehence that the grace of repentance is given secundum merita according to some good work of man that went before Which was condemned in the Synode of Palestine above 1200 years agoe Nay what will you say if their doctrine hereabouts in the issue thereof comes to this namely that God doth work in man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Velle credere modo Velit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Velle resipiscere modò Velit as I can shew it under the hand of one and I have cause to suspect that it comes also from another manner of hand then his with whom I have had to deale with And in this case it shall not be true that God shews mercy on whom he will in giving faith and repentance but rather he shall shew mercy on whom man will And like as when a question is made why such a man is rewarded by the Magistrate no wise man will answer because it is the pleasure of the Magistrate so to reward him but rather represent the cause on mans part why he was reward so if God shews mercy in giving repentance according to some preparation found in one man rather then in another it shall not be said that God hath mercy on whom he will but rather the reason on mans part is to be represented why God doth give him repentance Yet these Petitions he calls maxima gravamina on the part of Reprobation And will he not give us leave to propose in proportion hereunto our maxima gravamina as touching their opinion in point of election namely 1. That it is not the meer pleasure of God but the faith and repentance of a man foreseen that is the moving cause of divine election 2. And that every man hath power to believe and repent and no man hath more cause to be thankfull unto God for giving him any more grace to believe and repent in the way of grace preventing then he gives to reprobates I speak of reprobate men but for ought I yet know to the contrary I may as well deliver it of the reprobate Angells And as touching that which they call grace subsequent which is only Gods concurrence seeing God affords that to any sinfull act they may thank themselves rather then God for that like as for Gods concurrence unto any act of sinne These doctrines are no gravamina to the tender consciences of our Adversaries The doctrine opposite to this which here he dislikes must needs be this God hath not absolutely purposed from eternity of his meer will and pleasure but upon consideration of actuall continuance in sinne and unbeliefe to cast off men from grace and glory Now this actuall continuance in unbeliefe I presume must be finall and upon the consideration hereof God casts them off from grace but I pray from what grace surely from the grace of faith otherwise it stands not in any contradiction to our Tenent So that their doctrine in the issue comes to this Whom God foresees that they will not believe unto death he decrees that they shall not believe unto death and applied unto repentance thus Whom God foresees that they will not repent unto death he decreeth that they shall not repent unto death This is the sober and savoury doctrine of these impugners of the grace of God and yet they perceive not what a spirit of giddinesse possesseth them in this It is without question I think that God leaves many in that woefull estate which here is called corruption of nature no more without any specification wherein it consists the guilt whereof is eternall death and seeing that if he so leaves them it cannot be denied but that God intended so to leave them All the question is Whether God did absolutely intend to leave them Now had this Author as he professeth his dislike of Gods absolue intention hereof so dealt clearly and shewed how he did intend so to leave some as namely upon what condition or upon foresight whereof and withall given some proofe of his assertion his ingenuity had been commendable Yet we say that God did not at all intend to leave men in this state For the terme men in this place being indefinite it is capable of truth either way And this Author defines not whether he speaks of some or of all We willingly grant he doth not leave his elect in that woefull state but brings them out of it by faith and repentance which are expressely called the gifts of God in holy Scripture But as for Reprobates I doe not find he gives either faith or repentance unto them And Austin lib. 5. contra Julian
themselves God took not that pleasure in them as to give them his custodient grace to keep them from withdrawing themselves which grace and that out of his good pleasure he afforded unto others But this grace comes in no account throughout with this Author like unto the Remonstrants who would have no other notice taken of any other counsell of God then that whereby he decreeth to save believers and damne unbelievers But if you call them to enquire of Gods decree to bestow the grace of Faith and repentance upon some and not on others as whether it proceeds absolutely or conditionally they usually lend a deafe eare to this whereby it is as cleare as the Sunne what estimation they make of the grace of regeneration of the grace of Faith and of repentance and after what manner they give God the glory of it By the way observe I pray how he makes the state of man in being a reprobate consequent to his withdrawing himselfe which undoubtedly is a Temporall act and accordingly the act of Reprobation whereby a man is denominated a reprobate to be meerely Temporall and consequently such an act must election be also viz. not eternall but Temporall Still he keepeth himselfe in his strength of confusion as most advantageous for him as in saying God forsakes no man till by actuall sinnes and continuance in them he forsaketh God But albeit God forsaketh no man as touching the inflicting of punishment untill man commits actuall sinne and continueth therein impenitently yet before this God did forsake him as touching the denyall of this grace custodient from sinne and the denyall of the grace of repentance to rise out of sinne which yet he grants to many as in shewing mercy to whom he will like as whom he will he hardneth and so accordingly cures in some that naturall infidely and hardnesse of heart wherein we are all borne and leaves it uncured in others Now consider we his argument following which is this If God reject no man from salvation in time or in act and deed till he reject God then surely he rejected no man in purpose and decree but such a one as he foresaw would reject and cast off God Now this argument not one of our Divines deny not only as it is applied to reprobation but neither doe we deny it applied unto election For we willingly professe that like as God bestowes salvation on none but such as he then findes believers penitent and given to good works in like sort wee all professe that God decrees to bestow salvation on none but such as he foreseeth will believe repent and become studious of good works Like enough many doe wilfully dissemble the true state of the Question between us others ignorantly mistake it The question is not whether God decrees to bestow salvation on such as he foreseeth will believe and reject those from salvation whom he foreseeeth will not believe but of the order of reason between these decrees of God and the foresight of obedience the one side and disobedience on the other that is whether like as faith repentance and good works in men of ripe years doe precede their salvation as disposing causes thereunto so the fore-sight of faith repentance and good works precede election as disposing causes or prerequisites thereunto In like manner on the other side whether as finall perseverance in sinne precedes damnation as the meritorious cause thereof So finall perseverance in sinne as foreseen by God precedes reprobation as the decree of Damnation as the meritorious cause thereof So that the argument here mentioned which is all his strength in this place rightly applyed must runne thus Faith repentance and good works actually existent precede salvation as the disposing causes thereunto therefore faith repentance and good works foreseen precede election as the disposing causes thereunto and what is this but as good as in expresse termes to professe that election is of faith repentance and good works though it be in direct contradiction unto Saint Paul professing in terminis to speak in this Divines language that the purpose of God according to election is not of works So on the other side Finall perseverance in sinne precedes damnation as the meritorious cause thereof therefore finall perseverance in sinne foreseen precedes the decree of damnation as the meritorious cause thereof And then what is to make reprobation to be of evill works if this be not Whereas Saint Paul look by what arguments he proves that election is not of good works viz. because before Jacob and Esau were borne or had done good or evill it was said of them the Elder shall serve the Younger by the same argument it is equally evident that Reprobation is not of evill works Yet we acknowledge an exact conformity between Gods decrees and the execution thereof because like as God damnes no man but for sinne so he decreed to damne no man but for sinne where sinne is in each place made the meritorious cause of damnation not of the decree of damnation And like as God bestowes salvation on no man of ripe years but by way of reward of faith repentance and good works so he decreed to bestow salvation on no man of ripe years but by way of reward of faith repentance and good works where faith repentance and good works are in each place made the disposing causes to salvation but not to election There was never any so madde saith Aquinas as to say that merits are the cause of predestination as touching the act of God predestinating and Why but because so is the cause of predestination to be enquired into as the cause of Gods will is enquired into but formerly he had shewed that there can be no cause of Gods will as touching the act of God willing Now let every one judge whether the act of reprobation be not as clearly the act of Gods will as the act of predestination and consequently whether it be not equally as mad a course in Aquinas his judgement to devise a cause of reprobation as to devise a cause of predestination on the part of Gods will And no marvail for the act of Gods will is eternall all the works of the creature are temporall Then the act of Gods will is God himselfe for there is no accident in God and therefore they may as well set themselves to devise a cause of God as a cause of Gods will His phrase of casting off is ambiguous if it signifieth the denyall of salvation it followeth disobedience if it signifieth the deniall of grace it precedes disobedience in what kind soever 3. Our velle and facere are both temporall in God it is otherwise for his deeds are temporall and may admit the works of men precedaneous thereunto but his resolutions are his decrees and they are all eternall and can admit no work of man precedaneous thereunto yet is God as just in the one as in the other For like as he damnes no man but for
the Gospell according to that Mar. 1. Repent ye and believe the Gospell Now to believe the Gospell is one thing the summe whereof is this That Jesus Christ came into the World to save sinners but to believe in Christ is another thing which yet this Author distinguisheth not though it appears by the course of his argumentation that he draws to this meaning and that in a particular sense which is this to believe that Christ died for them as appears expressely in the latter end of this Section And no marvaile if this Author carry himselfe so confidently in this being as he is armed with such confidence But I am glad that in one place or other he springs his meaning that we may have the fairer flight at him to pull down his pride and sweep away his vain considence though we deale upon the most plausible argument of the Arminians and which they think insoluble My answer is first Look in what sense Arminius saith Christ died for us in the same sense we may be held to say without prejudice to our Tenet of absolute reprobation that all who heare the Gospell are bound to believe that Christ died for them For the meaning that Arminius makes of Christs dying for us is this Christ dyed for this end that satisfaction being made for sinne the Lord now may pardon sinne upon what condition he will which indeed is to dye for obtaining a possibility of the redemption of all but for the actuall redemption of none at all Secondly But I list not to content my selfe with this therefore I farther answer by distinction of the phrase of dying for us that we may not cheat our selves by the confounding of things that differ To dye for us or for all is to dye for our benefit or for the benefit of all Now these benefits are of a different nature whereof some are bestowed upon man only conditionally though for Christs sake and they are the pardon of sinne and Salvation of the Soule and these God doth conferre only upon the condition of faith and repentance Now I am ready to professe and that I suppose as out of the mouth of all our Divines that every one who hears the Gospell without distinction between Elect and Reprobate is bound to believe that Christ died for him so farre as to procure both the pardon of his sinnes and the salvation of his soule in case he believe and repent But there are other benefits which Christ by his obedience hath merited for us namely the benefit of faith and repentance For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell Col. 1. And He hath blessed us with all spirituall blessings in Christ that is for Christs sake and God works in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ and therefore seeing nothing is more pleasing in Gods sight on our part then faith and repentance even these also I should think God works in us through Jesus Christ and the Apostle praies in the behalfe of the Ephesians for peace and faith and love from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ that is as I interpret it from God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost as an efficient cause and from the Lord Jesus Christ God and Man as a meritorious cause thereof Now I demand whether this Author can say truly that t is the constant opinion of our Divines that all who heare the Gospell whether Elect or Reprobate are bound to believe that Christ dyed to procure them faith and repentance Nay doth any Arminian at this day believe this or can he name any Arminian that doth avouch this Nay doth himselfe believe this If he doth not if he cannot shew any Arminian that doth with what face can he charge this opinion upon us as if we should extend the obligation to believe much farther then the Arminians doe whereas usually they criminate us for not extending it so farre as we should And indeed there is a main difference between these benefits and the former For as touching the former namely pardon of sinne and salvation God doth not use to conferre them but conditionally to wit upon the condition of faith and repentance But as for faith and repentance doth God conferre them conditionally also If so then let them make known to us what that condition is on mans part and whatsoever it be let them look unto it how they can avoid the making of grace to wit the grace of faith and repentance to be given according unto works But if these graces are conferred absolutely and Christ dyed for all to this end that faith and repentance should be conferred absolutely upon all then it followeth manifestly herehence that all must believe and repent and consequently all must be saved So that not only Election as Huberus that renegate faigned must be universall but Salvation also Thus have I given in my answer distinctly to that which he delivered most confusedly Fourthly I come to the scanning of the particular opinion of Zanchy namely that every one that hears the Gospell whether elect or reprobate for so I suppose it proceeds to wit only of them who heare the Gospell though this Author takes no consideration of that neither but hand-over-head laies about him like a mad man is bound to believe that he is elect in Christ and will trye whether I cannot reduce that opinion of his also to a faire interpretation And here first I observe Zanchy is not charged to maintain that every hearer of the Gospell is bound to believe that he is elect in Christ unto faith and repentance but only to salvation that puts me in good heart that Zanchy I shall shake hands of fellowship in the end and part good friends Secondly I distinguish between absolute-absolute-Election unto Salvation and election unto Salvation-absolute The first only removes all cause on mans part of election the latter removes all cause on mans part of salvation By cause of salvation I mean only a disposing cause such as faith repentance and good works are as whereby to expresse it in the Apostles phrase we are made meet partakers of the inheritance of the Saints of light Now albeit Zanchy maintains as we doe that all the elect are absolutely elected unto salvation there being no cause on mans part of his election as we have learned yet neither Zanchy nor we doe maintain that God doth elect any unto salvation absolute that is to bring him to salvation without any disposing of him thereunto by faith and repentance Now to accommodate that opinion of Zanchy I say it may have a good sense to say that every hearer is bound to believe both that Christ dyed to procure Salvation for him in case he doe believe and that God ordained that he should be saved in case he doe believe where beliefe is made the condition only of salvation not of the Divine ordination and the confusion of these by the Arminians doth usually
understandings purged from prejudice and false principles 5. My fifth argument is this If sinne be the cause of Reprobation that is of the decree of damnation then either by necessity of nature or by the constitution of God not by necessity of nature as all that hitherto I have known confesse But I say neither can it be by the free constitution of God for mark what a notorious absurdity followeth hence and that unavoidably namely that God did ordaine that upon foresight of sinne he would ordaine them to damnation marke it well God did ordaine that he would ordaine or God did decree that he would decree In which words Gods eternall decree is made the object of Gods decree Whereas it is well known that the objects of Gods decrees are meerely things temporall and cannot be things eternall we truly say God did decree to create the World to preserve the World to redeeme us call us justify us sanctify and save us but it cannot be truly said that God did decree to decree or ordaine to ordaine for to decree is the act of Gods will and therefore it cannot be the object of the act of Gods will Yet these arguments I am not so enamoured with as to force the interpretations of Scripture to such a sense as is sutable hereunto presuming of the purity of my understanding as purged from prejudice and false principles I could willingly content my selfe with observation of the Apostles discourse in arguing to this effect Before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the elder shall serve the younger therefore the purpose of God according to election stands not of works In like manner may I discourse Before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the elder shall serve the younger therefore the purpose of God concerning Reprobation stands not of works And like as hence it is inferred that therefore election stands not of good works so therehence may I inferre that therefore reprobation stands not of evill works 6. If sinne foreseen be the cause meritorious of reprobation then faith and repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto election For therefore evill works foreseen are made the meritorious cause of reprobation because evill works exsistent are the meritorious cause of damnation And if this be true then also because Faith and Repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto salvation then by the same force of reason faith repentance and good workes foreseen must be the disposing cause unto election But faith repentance and good workes foreseen are not the disposing causes unto election as I prove thus 1. If they were then the purpose of God according to election should be of faith repentance and good works which is expressely denyed by the Apostle as touching the last part and may as evidently be proved to be denied by him in effect of the other parts also by the same force of argumentation which he useth as for example from this anticedent of the Apostles before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it no more evidently followeth that therefore the purpose of God according to election is not of workes than it followeth that the same purpose of God according to election is not of faith nor of repentance For before they were borne they were no more capable of faith or of repentance than of any other good works And undoubtedly faith and repentance are as good works as any other 2. If God doth absolutely work faith in some and not in others according to the meer pleasure of his will then it cannot be said that faith foreseen is the cause of any mans election For in this case faith is rather the means of salvation then salvation a means of faith and consequently the intention of salvation rather precedes the intention of faith than the intention of faith can be said to precede the intention of salvation And to this the Scripture accords Acts 1348. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life making ordination to everlasting life the cause why men believed answerable hereunto is that Acts 2. last God added daily to the Church such as should be saved and that of Paul to Titus according to the faith of Gods elect So that according to Pauls phrase fides est electorum but according to the Arminians Doctrine the inverse hereof is a more proper and naturall predication as to say electio est fidelium But God doth absolutely work faith in some men according to the meer pleasure of his will denying the same grace to others which I prove 1. By Scripture Rom. 9. 18. God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth compared with Rom. 11. 30. Yee in times past have not believed but now have obtained mercy where it appears by the Antithesis that to find mercy is to believe that is to obtain the grace of faith at the hands of God in Saint Pauls phrase 2. By cleare reason for if it be not the meer pleasure of Gods will that is the cause hereof then the cause hereof must be some good workes which he finds in some and not in others whence it manifestly followeth that God giveth grace according unto works which in the phrase of the ancients is according to merits and for 1200 years together this hath been reputed in the Church of God meere Pelagianisme 2. I further demand what that good worke is whereupon God workes it in one when he refuseth to worke it in another Here the answer I find given is this that God doth work in man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle credere modo velit Now of the absurdity hereof I appeale to the very light of nature and let all the books that ever were written on this argument be searched and let it be enquired whether ever any did expresse themselves in the manner of so palpable and grosse absurdity as wherein the act of willing is made the condition of it selfe whence it followeth evidently that it must be both before it selfe and after it selfe for the condition must allwaies exsist before the thing conditionated Yet they are driven upon these rocks of absurdities in spight of their teeth so shamefull is the issue of their discourses who in hatred of Gods truth revealed in Gods word and in a proud conceit of their own performances in the way of argumentation dare prescribe rules to all others how to carry themselves in the interpretation of Scriptures as namely to be so warie as that they doe not deliver any thing repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles as if the word of God supposed them that are admitted to the studying thereof to have their understandings already purged from prejudice and false principles not that it is given by God for this very end namely to purge our understandings for what is the illumination or opening of the eyes of the mind other than the purging of
manner to command Abraham to sacrifice his sonne but it was not Gods determination that Isaack should be sacrificed In like sort he commanded Pharaoh to let Israel goe but withall he told Moses he would harden Pharaohs heart that he should not let them goe for a long time 2. But in the accommodation of these distinctions unto thy selfe What ground hast thou to affirme that God willeth not thy salvation in particular If thou believest Gods word assureth thee thou shalt be saved if thou believest not yet thou maist believe and Gods word hath power to bring thee unto faith as formerly I have discoursed And as for the best of Gods Children who doe believe to the great comfort of their soules rejoycing with joy unspeakable and glorious 1 Pet. 1. They were sometimes in as uncomfortable a condition as thou now art And the rather I put thee upon this because I see he that takes upon him to comfort thee doth take a course rather to feed thy humour then to remove it in as much as he never enquires into the cause thereof For albeit he gave to understand he would apply his argument with as much art and cunning as could be yet it may be that was rather with respect to the advantage of his own cause then to thy consolation But let us see whether he mends it in the next Minister Christ came into the World to seeke and to save what was lost and is a propitiation not for our sinnes only i. e. the sinnes of a few particular men or the sinnes of all sorts of men but for the sinnes of the whole World therefore he came to save thee for thou wast lost and to be a propitiation for thy sinnes for thou art part of the whole World CONSIDERATION Still he continues to afford thee as much comfort as any Reprobate in the world and if thou desirest no more thou maist rest satisfied with this but withall I confesse he affords thee as much comfort as he can afford any of Gods elect for he maketh elect and Reprobate all alike in receiving comfort from Gods Word Christ came into the world to save that which was lost but unlesse he came to save all that is lost it will not follow that he came to save thee We know that pardon of sinne and salvation is procured by Christ for none but such as believe and therefore be not deceived without faith looke for neither by faith be assured of both and that thou art one of Gods elect and no Reprobate And observe well he tells thee nothing of Christ meriting faith and repentance this now a dayes is plainly denyed by the Remonstrants and this Authour is content to say nothing of it when he is put to it we know what must be the issue of it if he sayeth Christ hath merited faith and repentance for thee the meaning is but this Christ hath merited that if thou wilt believe thou shalt believe if thou wilt repent thou shalt repent And that Christ hath merited that God should bestow faith and repentance not on whom he will according to the meere pleasure of his will but according to mens workes The comfort that our doctrine ministers unto thee is this If thou dost believe in Christ thou maist be assured thou art an elect of God if thou dost not believe there is no cause why thou shouldest thinke thy selfe a Cast-away for albeit thou hast not faith to day yet thou maist have faith to morrow Give thy selfe to Gods Word and waite upon him in his ordinances thou maist be so wrought upon as that unbeliever was 1 Cor 14. Who is there represented falling downe on his face and confessing that God was in the Preacher of a truth And though at first thou attendest to it but in a carnall manner yet God may open thy heart as he opened the heart of Lidia and make thee attend unto it in a gracious manner Tempted The World as I have heard is taken two waies in Scripture Largely for all mankind and strictly for the elect or believers In this latter sense Christ dyed for the World Or if for all yet it was only dignitate pretii not voluntate propositi thus only for a few selected ones with whom it is not my lot to be numbred CONSIDERATION Suffer not thy selfe to be abused by them who pretending thy comfort yet seeke nothing lesse but only the promoting of their owne cause And observe how he takes notice of no other benefits of Christs death then such as belong unto men upon the condition of faith to wit pardon of sinne and Salvation in which case the mention of Gods elect comes in very unseasonably And thus is the love of God set forth unto us so God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And if it be not thy lot to be numbred amongst believers then we can give thee by Gods Word no assurance of thy Salvation But if thou art not a believer yet thou maist be in good time as formerly I have spoken more at large and therefore no reason to think thou art a Reprobate And if once thou dost believe in Christ our doctrine gives thee assurance of Justification Salvation and Election the Arminan doctrine doth not As for faith and repentance we say Christ hath merited them also but to be bestowed how According to mens workes say our Arminians though forraine Arminians professe plainly that Christ merited not faith and regeneration for any And if thou relishest this comfort be satisfied with it we say faith and repentance are bestowed absolutely according to the meere pleasure of Gods will and accordingly Christ merited them but not for all for then all should believe and repent and be saved but only for some and who can these be but Gods elect whence it followeth clearly that whosoever believes may by our doctrine be assured of his election not so by the doctrine of Arminians but if thou believest not thou art in no worse case then the best of Gods childern have been for there was a time when they believed not therefore thou hast no more cause to think thy selfe a cast-away then they had Minister God hath founded an universall Covenant with men upon the bloud of Christ and therefore he intended it should be shed for all men universally he hath made a promise of salvation to every one that will believe and excludes none that will not believe CONSIDERATION This I confesse is to administer as much comfort as is administred to any Reprobate but how can this qualify thy discomfort and discontent which riseth from this conceit that thou art a Reprobate And the truth is that by our Doctrine wee were all in a miserable case if Gods Covenant of grace extended no farther then this But hath not God promised to be our Lord and our God that sanctifyeth us to circumcise our hearts and the hearts
of our Children to love the Lord our God with all our hearts to take the stony heart out of our bowells and give us an heart of flesh and to put his own spirit within us as he seeth our waies so to heale them yea to heale our back-slidings to heale our rebellions All this this sweet comforter takes no notice of contenting himselfe with such a grace to be merited for him by Christ as this if he will believe he shall believe if he will repent he shall repent if he will love God with all his heart he shall love him with all his heart Yet when a man doth believe they are able to give him no assurance of his salvation or of his election because they maintaine that a man may totally and finally fall away from grace And all because their doctrine is that Gods effectuall grace in working the act of faith and repentance is given meerely according to mens works Tempted God purposed that his Sonne should dye for all men and that in his name an offer of remission of sinnes and salvation should be made to every one but yet upon this condition that they will doe that which he meanes the greatest part shall never doe i. e. Repent and believe nor I among the rest CONSIDERATION How doth God meane that the greatest part of men shall never believe and repent by our opinion Is it in this sence that they shall not believe and repent if they will When was it ever knowne that any of our Divines ever wrote or taught this We think rather it is impossible it should be otherwise therefore say it is a very absurd thing to call this Grace as the Arminians doe Indeed we say that God doth not meane by his preventing grace to work the wills of the greatest part of men to believe repent Doe not the Arminians say so too Yes verily and a great deale more for they deny that he workes any mans will to believe and repent in this manner but we say God purchaseth thus to worke the wills of all his chosen ones and when he hath wrought them to keepe them by his power through faith unto Salvation and put his feare in their hearts that they shall never depart a way from him Jer 32. 40. And upon this ground we can assure believers of their election which Arminians cannot And them that believe not keepe from dispaire in better manner then the Arminians can for they leave them to themselves to believe whereas the Scriptures shew that to be impossible so that they take upon them to comfort such quite against the haire But we comfort them with a possibility of being converted unto God by representing his allmighty power whose voyce is able to pierce into the graves and make dead Lazarus heare it This power he shewed in converting Saul when he marched furiously Jehu like against the Church of God Therfore be thou of good comfort especially considering thou art as it were under the wings of God thou hearest his voyce many come out of their graves at his call some at one time some at another and so maist thou God knowes how soone then shalt thou be assured of thine election which by Arminianisme thou canst not be in the meane time thou hast no cause to conclude that thou art a Reprobate Minister God hath a true meaning that all men who are called should repent and believe that so they might be saved as he would have all to be saved so to come to the knowledge of the truth and as he would have no man to perish so he would have all men to repent and therefore he calls them in the Preaching of the word to the one as well as to the other CONSIDERATION He keepes his course to afford thee the best comfort his doctrine yeelds which is as much as is incident to a Reprobate and how that should make thee conceive better of thy selfe then as of a Reprobate I doe not perceive Gods meaning is that as many as heare the Gospell should believe and repent ex officio that is that it shall be their duty for he commands it but he hath no meaning to bestow on all and every one the grace of faith and repentance as appeares by experience And if God did will they should de facto believe and be saved then either God is not able to bring them to faith and to save them or else his will is changed In like sort if it were his will that all and every one should know his truth then God is not able to make all and every one know his truth for it is apparent that all doe not it is apparent that all have not the Gospell The Apostle saith That God will not have any of us to perish but all to come to repentance he doth not say he would but he will And this is true of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as the Apostle speakes of believers and elect But as for others the Scriptures plainly professe that God blinds them hardens them and of Israell in the wildernesse The Lord saith Moses hath not given you an heart to perceive nor eyes to see nor eares to heare unto this day Deut 29. 4. He calls all that heare the Gospell indifferently by the Ministry of the Word but he openeth not the heart of all to attend unto it as to the Word of God like as we read he opened the heart of â—idia Acts. 16. 14. Tempted God hath a double call outward by his word inward by the irresistible work of his spirit with this he doth not call every man to believe but a very few only whom he hath infallibly and inevitably ordained to eternall life and therefore by the outward call which I enjoy among many others I cannot be assured of Gods good will and meaning that I shall believe repent and be saved CONSIDERATION Our Doctrine teacheth not that God calls every one by his Word that is an Arminian interjection But the outward call belongs to many more then are chosen as our Saviour sayth many are called but few are chosen Indeed he gives faith and repentance to a very few which no Arminian denyes only the Question is Whether God gives faith and repentance to whom he will or according to mens works We saytis to whom he will proceeding herein according to the meere pleasure of his will and not according to mens workes which to affirme is manifest Pelagianisme and publikely condemned many hundred yeares agoe It is true if thou dost not believe Gods Word doth not assure thee that he will make thee believe that were to assure thee of thine election before thy vocation a most unreasonable thing to be expected But God by his word assures thee that t is his meaning that without faith thou shalt not be saved Yet there is no cause thou shouldest think thy selfe a Reprobate for this was the condition of every one of Gods elect before their calling
shewing the like grace to them which he shewed to others 1. So that the moving cause of Reprobation is the alone will of God and not the sinne of man originall and actuall like as on the other side the moving cause of election is only the will of God or not faith or any good workes whereupon this Authour is loath to manifest his opinion This doctrine is not only approved by Doctour Whitaker Doctour of the Chaire in the Universitie of Cambridge and that in his Cygnea Cantio a little before his death but justified and confirmed by varietie of Testimonies both of Schoolemen as Lumbard Aquinas Bannes Petrus de Alliaco Gregorius Arminensis of our owne Church and the Divines thereof as taught by Bucer at Cambridge by Peter Martyr at Oxon professed by the Bishops and others promoted by Queen Elizabeth and farther in the yeare of our Lord 1592 there was a famous recantation made in the Universitie of Cambridge by one Barret in the 37. of Elizabeth whereunto he was urged by the heads of houses of that Universitie The Recantation runnes thus Preaching in Latine not long since in the Universitie Church Right worshipfull many things slipt from me both falsly and rashsly spoken whereby I understand the mindes of many have been grieved to the end therefore I may satifie the Church the truth which I have publiquely hurt I doe make this publique confession both Repenting and Revoking my Errour First I said that no man in this transiâ—â—ie world is so strongly underpropt at least by the certainty of Faith that is unlesse as I afterwards expounded it by Revelation that he ought to be assured of his owne Salvation But now I protest before God and acknowledge in my conscience that they which are justified by faith have peace towards God that is have reconciliation with God and doe stand in that grace by faith therefore that they ought to be certaine and assured of their owne Salvation even by the certainty of Faith it selfe 2. Secondly I affirmed that the faith of Peter could not faile but that other mens faith may for as I then said Our Lord prayed not for the faith of every particular man but now being of a better and more sound Iudgment according to that which Christ teacheth in plaine words Ioh. 17. 20. I pray not for these alone that is the Apostles but for them also which shall believe in mee through their word I acknowledge that Christ prayed for the faith of every particular believer and that by the vertue of that prayer of Christ every true believer is so stayd up that his faith cannot faile 3. Thirdly touching perseverance to to the end I said that that certainty concerning the time to come is proud for as much as it is in his owne nature contingent of what kind the perseverance of every man is neither did I affirme it to be proud only but to be most wicked but now I freely protest that the true and justifiing faith whereby the faithfull are most neare united unto Christ is so firme as also for the time to come so certaine that it can never be rooted up out of the mindes of the faithfull by any temptation of the flesh the world or divell himselfe so that he that once hath this faith shall ever have it for by the benefit of that justifying faith Christ dwelleth in us and we in Christ therefore it cannot but be both increased Christ growing in us dayly as also persevere unto the end because God doth give constancy 4. Fourthly I affirmed that there was no distinction in faith but in the Persons believing in which I confesse I did erre Now I freely acknowledge the Temporarie faith which as Bernard witnesseth is therefore fained because it is temporary it is distinguished and differeth from the saving faith whereby sinners apprehending Christ are justified before God for ever not in measure and degrees but in the very thing it selfe Moreover I adde that Saint Iames doth make mention of a dead faith and Paul of a faith that worketh by love 5 Fifthly I added that forgivenesse of sinnes is an Article of faith but not particular neither belonging to this man or that man that is as I expounded it that no true faithfull man either can or ought certainely believe that his sinnes are forgiven But now I am of an other mind and doe freely confesse that every true faithfull man is bound by this Article of faith to believe the forgivenes of sinnes and certainely to believe that his owne particular sinnes are freely forgiven him neither doth it follow hereupon that that Petition of the Lord's prayer to wit forgive us our trespasses is needlesse for in that Petition we aske not only the gift but also the increase of Faith 6 Sixtly these words escaped me in my Sermon viz As for those that are not saved I doe most strongly believe and doe freely protest that I am so perswaded against Calvin Peter Martyr and the rest that sinne is the true and proper cause of Reprobation But now being better instructed I say that the Reprobation of the wicked is from everlasting and that saying of Saint Austine to Simplician to be mòst true viz If sinne were the cause of Reprobation then no man should be elected because God doth know all men to be defiled with it And that I may speak freely I am of the same mind and doe believe concerning the Doctrine of Election and Reprobation as the Church of England believeth and teacheth in the booke of the Articles of faith in the Article of Praedestination Last of all I uttered these words rashly against Calvin a man that hath very well deserved of the Church of God to wit that he durst presume to lift up himselfe above the high and Almighty God by which words I doe confesse that I have done great injurie to that most learned and right good man and I most humbly beseech you all to pardon this my rashnes as also in that I have uttered many bitter words against Peter Martyr Beza Zanchy Iunius and the rest of the same religion being the lights and ornaments of our Church calling them by the odious names of Calvinâ—sts and other slanderous termes branding them with a most grevious marke of reproach whom because our Church doth worthily reverence it was not meet that I should take away their good name from them Doctor Fulke in like manner maintaines that reprobation is not of workes but of God's free will Rom 9 Num 2. His words are these God's election Reprobation is most free of his owne will not upon the foresight of the merits of either of them for he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth vers 18. Yet here is to be distinguished for the explication of the truth That God's decree of Reprobation may be considered either as touching the Act of God reprobating and willing or as touching the things hereby willed or Decreed As
of his Scene whereunto it is fit he should be serviceable And as for the two Articles here mentioned wherein they are said unanimously to agree and which he calls maxima gravamina It is true they doe agree herein but it may be in a farre other sense then he is willing should be taken notice of For as for the first 1. That the moving cause of reprobation is the alone will of God and not the sinne of man originall or actuall 1. This is true in proportion to election that like as no good work of man is the moving cause of election but only the will of God so no sinne or evill work of man is the cause of reprobation but only the will of God 1. That so it is of election the Apostle both 1. Saith Election is not of Workes but of him that calleth 2. And proveth thus Before Esau and Iacob were borne or had done good or evill it was said The Elder shall serve the Younger therefore Election is not of Workes that is of good workes but of him that calleth 2. That so it is of reprobation I prove by the same argument of the Apostle thus Before Esau and Iacob were borne or had done good or evill it was said the Elder shall serve the Younger therefore reprobation stands not of workes that is of evill workes but of the meer pleasure of God 1. And like as this is farther evident by Gods course of calling in the point of Election as the Apostle intimateth for as much as God calleth effectually whom he will in bestowing faith and repentance upon them For as the Apostle afterwards professeth He hath mercy on whom he will 2. So it is as evident in the point of reprobation in as much as God refuseth to call whom he will by denying faith and repentance unto them as afterwards the same Apostle professeth saying that God hardneth whom he will 2. And this doctrine we doe explicate by distinguishing that which our Adversaries desire to confound least their cheating carriage should be discovered as formerly I have shewed For Predestination and Reprobation may be considered either quoad Praedestinantis Reprobantis actum or quoad Praedestinationis Reprobationis terminum as much as to say quoad res praedestinatione reprobatione praeparatas that is either as touching the act of Predestination and Reprobation or as touching the things decreed by Predestination or Reprobation Now as touching the act of Predestination never any man saith Aquinas was so mad as to say that the merits of man are the cause of predestination And why so Because the act of predestination is the act of Gods will and formerly saith he I have shewed that there can be no cause of the will of God as touching the act of God willing but only as touching the things willed by God Now apply this to reprobation For is not reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating the very act also of Gods will This cannot be denied and herehence it followes that like as there can be no cause of Gods will as touching the act of God willing so there can be no cause of reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating And like as it was a mad thing in Aquinas his judgement to say that merits were the cause of predestination as touching the act of God predestinating so it is no lesse madnesse in his judgement to maintain that either sinne originall or actuall can be the meritorious cause of reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating And what are the reasons hereof in School-divinity Why surely these 1. Predestination and Reprobation are eternall but good workes and evill workes of the creature are temporall but impossible it is that a thing temporall can be the cause of that which is eternall 2. The act of Predestination and Reprobation is the act of Gods will and the act of Gods will like as the act of his knowledge is the very essence of God even God himselfe and therefore to introduce a cause of Gods will is to bring in a cause of God himselfe 3. If works or faith foreseen be any moving cause of Divine election then either they are so of their own nature or by the meer constitution of God Not of their own nature as it is apparent therefore by the constitution of God but this cannot stand neither For if by the constitution of God then it would follow that God did constitute that upon foresight of mans faith he would elect him that is ordaine him to salvation And what I pray is to constitute Is it any other then to ordaine And herehence it followeth God did ordaine that upon foresight of mans faith he would ordaine him unto salvation Whereby the eternall ordination of God is made the object of his eternall ordination whereas it is well known and generally received that nothing but that which is temporall can be the object of divine ordination which is eternall In like sort I dispute of reprobation if sinne be the cause thereof then either of its own nature it is the cause thereof or by the ordinance of God Not of its own nature as all are ready to confesse if you say by the ordinance of God then it follows God did ordaine that upon the foresight of mans sinne he would ordaine him unto damnation For reprobation is Gods ordaining a man unto damnation as touching one part of the things decreed thereby which we come to consider in the next place and that both in election and in reprobation having hitherto considered them as touching the act of God electing or reprobating and shewed that thus they can have no cause But as touching the things decreed thereby they may have a cause as Aquinas professeth and we professe with him As for example to begin with election The things decreed or destinated to a man in election are two Grace and Glory Now both these may have a cause For both Grace is the cause of glory and Christs merits are the cause both of grace and glory But let grace be rightly understood For in the confuse notion of grace many are apt to lurke thereby to shut their eyes against the evidence of truth For no marvail if men be in love with their own errours and in proportion to the love of errour such is their hatred of Divine truth opposite thereunto Now by grace we understand the grace of regeneration whereby that naturall corruption of mind and will commonly called blindnesse of mind and hardnesse of heart which we all bring into the world with us through originall sin is in part cured More distinctly we call this grace the grace of faith and repentance whereby our naturall infidelity and impenitency is cured Now this grace we say God bestowes on whom he will finding all equall in infidelity and impenitency For so the Apostle tells us that God hath mercy on whom he will And as God bestowes it on whom he will not finding any
death upon a sinner of meere pleasure but being provoked thereunto and that according to the purport of the first place Ezech 18. by the sinner himselfe and also according to the purport of the second place only in case of impenitency And I concurre with him in this And so I conceive it to be delivered in the same sense with that Lament 3. 32 33. For though he cause griefe to wit by reason of mens sinnes v. 39. yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies to wit in case he repents Ier. 18. 7. Iudg. 10. 16. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Mark I pray not willingly to wit in as much as he is provoked thereunto by sinne and by refusall to repent And this is in the former Scripture phrases not to take pleasure in the afflicting and grieving of men For if any work be such as wherein pleasure is taken we need not enquire after a cause why it is done but though no pleasure be taken in it yet for some benefit redounding thereby a man may doe it yea though it be grievous and bitter unto him As a sick man is willing to take a bitter potion for the recovery of his health Now come we to the argument God takes no pleasure in the death of any therefore he doth not of pleasure inflict death We willingly grant it in as much as he never inflicts eternall death on any that doth not dye in sinne unrepented of And as he doth not inflict death on any of meere pleasure that is without just cause on the part of him that dyeth deserving it So we willingly confesse that God did never decree to inflict death on any without just cause on the Malefactors part deserving death And this is the uttermost whereunto this Authors argument can be extended And all our Divines unanimously confesse that God neither decreed to damne any man of his meer pleasure but for his sinne wherein he died without repentance 3. Observe the cunning of this Disputer to deceive himselfe first and then to abuse his readers For whereas he should have proceeded in his argument by degrees thus God hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner therefore he doth not of his own pleasure inflict death and thence proceed if he had thought good to conclude the like of Gods decree thus if God doth not of his ownpleasure inflict then neither doth he of his own pleasure decree to inflict death and damnation This author leaping over the inflicting of death as a block in his way for the last consequence would have betrayed its own nakednesse flyeth at first to the application of it to Gods decree Now I willingly grant that Gods having no pleasure in the death of a sinner doth signify that God inflicts death on no man without a cause for that were of meer pleasure to inflict But dares he herehence inferre therefore God doth not of meer pleasure decree to inflict death and damnation on man for sinne for to this alone comes all the force of this argument Now to shew the vanity of this consequence consider I pray 1. It is as if he should argue thus in plain termes sinne is alwaies the meritorious cause of damnation therefore sinne is the meritorious cause of Gods eternall decree of damnation Now this Enthymeme hath no force any farther then it may be reduced into a Categoricall Syllogisme and this Enthymeme is reducible into no other Syllogisme then this Damnation is the decree of Damnation sinne is the cause of Damnation therefore sinne is the cause of the decree of damnation But in this Syllogisme the proposition containes a notorious untruth Or thus Sinne is the cause of damnation therefore the foresight of sinne is the cause of the decree of damnation But this Enthymeme is not reducible unto any categoricall Syllogisme at all for as much as it consists of foure termes all which must be clapt into the Syllogisme whereunto it is reduced and consequently make that Syllogisme consist of foure termes which utterly overthrowes the illative forme thereof 2. We may as well dispute thus Good works as well as faith and repentance are the disposing cause unto salvation therefore good works as well as faith and repentance or the foresight of them are the disposing cause to Gods election or to the decree of salvation But shall I tell you the chiefe flourish whereupon this Author and usually the Arminians doth insist in this his loose argumentation I conceive it to be this they hope their credulous readers unexpert in distinguishing between Gods eternall decree and the temporall execution thereof will be apt hereupon to conceit that we maintain that God doth not only of meer pleasure decree whatsoever he decreeth but also that he doth decree of meer pleasure to damne men which yet is utterly contrary if I be not deceived to the tenet of all our Divines all concurring in this that God in the execution of the decree of damnation proceeds according to a Law and not in the execution of reprobation only but also in the execution of election And the law is this Whosoever believes shall be saved whosoever believes not shall be damned And like as he inflicteth not damnation but by way of punishment so he conferres not salvation but by way of reward But in the execution of his decrees of election unto grace and reprobation from grace we willingly professe that God proceeds according to no law given unto men to prepare themselves hereunto but meerly according to his good pleasure having mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will And this indeed is the criticall poynt of this controversy But neither this Author nor his complices some of them of my knowledge have any heart to deale on this I come to his Second pregnant place as he calleth it DISCOURSE SECT II. GOD hath shut up all in unbeliefe that he might have mercy on all Rom. 11. 32. in these words of the Apostle are two all 's of equall extent the one standing just against the other an all of unbelievers and an all of objects of mercy look how many unbelievers there be on so many hath God a will of shewing mercy And therefore if all men of all sorts and conditions and every man in every sort be an unbeliever then is every man of every condition under mercy And if every man be under mercy then there is no antecedent precise will in God of shutting up some and those the most from all possibility of obtaining mercy for these two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they cannot stand together TWISSE Consideration I Willingly grant the word all in each place is of equall extent but how in the Apostles meaning in this place that is look in what sense the Apostle takes the word all when he saith God hath concluded all under unbeliefe in the same sense he takes the word all when he sayeth that he might have mercy
manner who shall deliver me from the body of this death And receiving a gracious answer concerning this concludes with thankes I thank my God through my Lord Jesus Christ if I have a will to believe to repent I have no cause to complaine but to runne rather unto God with thankes for this and pray him to give that power which I find wanting in me And indeed as I may adde in the fourth place this impotency of believing and infidelity the fruit of naturall corruption common to all is meerely a morall impotency and the very ground of it is the corruption of the will therefore men cannot believe cannot repent cannot doe any thing pleasing unto God because they will not they have no delight therein but all their delight is carnall sensuall and because they are in the flesh they â—annot please God and because of the hardnesse of their hearts they cannot repent sinne is to them as a sweet morsell unto an Epicure which he rolleth under his tongue Fiftly dost thou blaspheame God because of Leprous Parents thou art begot and conceived and borne a leprous child What impudency then is it in thee to challenge him for injustice in that the spirituall leprosy of thy first Parents is propagated to thy soule Lastly if thou renouncest the Gospell what reason hast thou to complaine of want of power to embrace it so farre as not to renounce it hast thou not as much power to believe as Simon Magus had as many a prophane person and hipocrite hath that is bred and brought up in the Church of God Hadst thou gone so farre as they and performed submission unto the Gospell by profesing it surely thou shouldest never be brought to condemnation for not professing of it but rather for not walking according to the rule of it which thou promisedst when first thou gavest thy name to Christ I come to the third 3. Look what the Word promiseth that doe the Sacraments scale the word promiseth Justification Salvation to all that beleive the same doth the Sacraments seal As Circumsion Rom. 4. 5. Is said to be the seale of the Rightiousnes of faith so is Baptisme it did in our Saviours dayes and in the dayes of his Apostles seale to the believer and penitent Person the assurance of the forgivenesse of their sinnes over and above Baptisme is the Sacrament of our birth in Christ and the Lords Supper of our growth in Christ each an outward and visible signe of an inward invisible grace But what is the grace were of the Sacrament is a signe Is it a power to doe good if a man will Call you that grace which is not so much as goodnesse for certainly goodnesse consists not in a power to doe good if a man will but in a definite inclination of the will it selfe to delight in that which is good and to be prone to doe it But this grace whereof Baptisme is a signe is suo tempore conferenda like as Circumcision was even to those Jewes who yet were not regenerated untill they were partakers of the Gospell Jam. 1. 18. Of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth Writing unto the twelve tribes of the Jewes And it is very strange to me that regeneration should so many years goe before vocation But this opposite Doctrine and the sealing of a blanke is nothing strange to me I was acquainted with it twenty yeares agoe and I seeme plainly to discerne the chimney from whence all the smoake comes 4. As for other gifts bestowed on the Reprobates 1. We willingly confesse they shall never bring them to salvation be they as great as those who were bestowed on Aristotle Plato Aristides Sophocles and the most learned morall and wise men of the World that never were acquainted with the mystery of Godlinesse it was wont to be received generally for a truth that Extra Ecclesiam non est satus But Arminians take liberty to coyne new Articles of our Creed 2. But yet they may doe them good hereby they may Proficere ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quo mitius puniantur For certainly it shall be easier in the day of udgement for Cicero then for Cattline for Augustus than for Tiberius for Trajan than for Heliogabalus 3. And therefore it is certainly false that they are hurtfull and that they proceed out of extreme hatred And as for love the Scripture teacheth us that Jacob was loved of God and Esau hated each before they were borne Such is the condition of all the elect as Jacob of all the Reprobates as Esau and in Thomas Aquinas his judgement Non velle alicui vitam aeternam est ipsum odisse Knowledge I confesse of the mysteries of Godlinesse where life and conversation is not answerable doth encrease mens condemnation neither is God bound to change the corrupt heart of any man if they are workers of iniquity Christ will not know them at the great day though they have Prophesyed in his name and in his name cast out Devills neither was it ever heard of that the graces of edification and graces of sanctification must goe together and that God in giving the one is bound to give the other As for being proud of them pride for ought I know requires no other causes but domesticall corruption but he that acknowledgeth God to be the giver of any gift and hath an heart to be thankfull for it I make no doubt but he hath more grace than of edification only certainly the gifts they have sinke them not to hell but their corrupt heart in abusing them And hath a man no cause to be thankfull unto God for one gift unlesse he will adde another The Gentiles are charged for unthankfulnesse Rom. 1. But it seems by this Authors Divinity it was without cause unlesse we will with this Author say they all had sufficiency of meanes without and power within to bring them to salvation and what had Israell more Or the elect of God more in any age True for according to the Arminian tenet an elect hath no more cause to be thankfull to God for any converting grace than a Reprobate In a word what good act wrought in the heart of man whether of faith or of repentance or any kind of obedience hath man cause to be thankfull to God for when God workes it in him no otherwise than modó homo velit and so they confesse he workes every sinfull act Have they not in this case more cause to thank themselves than to thank God And unlesse we concurre with them in so shamelesse unchristian gracelesse and senselesse an opinion and in effect if God converts the heart of man according to the meere pleasure of his will and hardeneth others all the gifts that he bestowes on man are censured by this audacious censurer as Sauls bestowing Michal on David Jaells courtesy and usurers bounty c. or a baite for a poore fish as if God needed any such course
the word of God But Ecce Rhodus ecce Saltus we are come to the Dialogue it selfe where he undertakes to make good that which he saith And here begins the Enterlude Tempted Woe is me I am a Castaway I am utterly rejected from grace and Glory CONSIDERATION Let me take liberty to set down what I should think fit to answer unto such a complaint Now my Answer is this Who hath revealed this unto thee Art thou privy Councellour to the Almighty We are taught that secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed are for us and for our Children to doe them Now where and when and how hath God revealed this his counsell unto thee namely concerning thy rejection from Grace Glory We know no other revelations divine then are contayned in his Word Now hath God in his word revealed unto thee more then unto me that thou art a reprobate The word saith unto thee If thou shalt confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom 10. 9. Now how canst thou make it appeare that this belongs lesse unto thee then to any Martyr that ever was content to lay downe his life for Christ Wilt thou say Thy sinnes make thee to conceive so I answer are thy sinnes greater then were the sinnes of Manasses who made his sonnes passe through the fire to Molech gave himselfe to witchcraft and sorcery and filled Jerusalem with bloud from corner to corner If his sinns were not sufficient to conclude that he was a Reprobate why should thy sins be thought sufficient to conclude that thou art a Cast-away Are thy sinnes greater then Sauls were who was a Blasphemer a Persecutor of the Saints of God from Citty to Citty Yet was he received unto mercy Wilt thou say Thy sinnes have been committed since thy calling Yet are they greater then was the sinne of Peter in denying Christ his Master with execrations and oathes And these sinns were committed not only after his calling but even within his Masters hearing too Yet he went out and wept bitterly And Christ as soone as he was risen sent word of his resurrection by name to Peter to comfort him Nay hath not God taught us in his word that the bloud of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sinne 1 John 1. And how canst thou make it appeare that any one that ever was or is hath greater interest therein then thy selfe wilt thou say this remedy belongs unto none but such as believe and repent but I doe not I answere in like sort there was a time when Paul believed not and when every one believed not yet at length they believed and so maist thou wilt thou say But I cannot believe and repent I answer this is the condition of all till God takes away the stony heart out of their bowells and gives them a heart of flesh and puts his owne spirit within them wilt thou say God gives grace to others but not to thee I answer there was a time when God had not mercy on them at length an houre came wherin he called them so an houre may come wherin he may call thee And thou hast no more cause to conclude that he hath rejected thee then every Child of God had before his calling that God had rejected him without grace neither thou canst nor they could believe but grace can bring all to faith and repentance and thou hast no more cause to think that God will not bring thee to faith then any elect had before his calling to think that God would not bring him to faith Now seeing this grace is given in the Word doe thou wait upon God in his owne ordinance which any naturall man hath power to doe as namely to goe heare a sermon thou knowest not how it may worke upon thee yea though thou commest thither with a wicked mind For we read of some that comming to take Christ were taken by him And Father Latimer taking notice of some that come to Church to take a nap yet never the lesse saith he let them come they may be taken napping Minister Discourage not thy selfe thou poore afflicted soule God hath not cast thee off for he hateth nothing that he hath made but bears a love to all men and to thee amongst the rest CONSIDERATION And not only poore but miserable also is that afflicted soule that hath no better comforter whether we consider the nature of the consolation or the warrant of it For first hath not God made Froggs and Toades and Devills as well as man And hath an Arminian that boasts so much of strongest arguments of comfort no better comfort to an afflicted soule then that she is Gods creature which is the condition of a Frogge and a Divill and a damned spirit 2. Then as touching the warrant of it Is the booke of Wisdome the best store-house of comfort for an afflicted soule a booke writen by Philo the Jew that living after Christs passion resurrection and ascention yet never believed in him Againe speake out and tell us what is the fruit of that love which God beares to all men Hath he ordained to give Salvation unto all to this afflicted soule in particular If he hath not but damnation rather unto some and particularly to this soule for upon what ground darest thou say or canst assure he hath not art not thou as miserable a comforter to her as ever Jobs friends were to him Or hath God ordained to give all men the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance if so then either absolutely or conditionally if absolutely then all must be regenerate all must believe and repent If conditionally speake it out and let thy Patient know what condition that is on performance whereof by man God will give him faith say what thou wilt the comfortable issue shall be this That grace is given according to workes and this indeed is the only Arminian consolation Tempted 1. God hateth no man as he is his creature but he hates a great many as they are involved in the first transgression and become guilty of Adams sinne CONSIDERATION Pooresoule suffer not thy selfe to be instructed by them that labour to deprive thee not only of the comfort of Gods grace but of the comfort of common sence Dost thou well understand what it is to hate a man as a sinner and not as a man If hatred be no more then displeasure surely whatsoever be the cause of it in hating thee he is displeased with thee as thou art his creature and that in thy proper kind of man if withall it signify punishment whatsoever the cause thereof be surely he punisheth thee as man though not for thy natures sake for that is the worke of God but for some corruption he finds in thee And we should prove very sorry comforters if on such a distinction as this we should ground any true
issues doe justly befall them because they abhorre to professe that God causeth us to walke in his statutes and to keepe his judgements and doe them The course that Junius took to quiet her conscience who thought she was damned for neglecting to goe to Masse by proving unto her that the Masse was a meere wil-worship was faire and reasonable but the course this Author takes to comfort an afflicted soule I have shewed to be most unreasonable Absolute reprobate hath a different sense according as it is differently applyed If applyed unto damnation or the denyall of glory we utterly deny that either the one is inflicted or glory is denyed absolutely but meerely upon supposition of sinne But applyed to grace we willingly confesse that God doth absolutely give the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance to whom he will according to that of Saint Paul He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Rom. 9. 18. compared with Rom. 11. 30. Where to shew mercy is apparently to bring men unto faith neither can it have any other sense Rom. 9. 18. being set in opposition to hardening and in reference to the objection rising therehence in the words following Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine for who hath resisted his will v. 19. And while this Author denies that faith and repentance are given according to the good pleasure of Gods will which is to give them absolutely he must be driven to confesse that they are given conditionally and if a man will take any comfort therehence he must be acquainted with the condition which yet this Author undertaking the office of consolation upon this ground doth from the first to the last conceale as if he feared to discover the shamefull nakednesse of his cause which I have adventured to display and whereof I desire the indifferent reader would judge So that indeed this discourse is a new snare rather to entangle a poore soule in sadnesse and heavinesse inextricable fowler-like then any true office of consolation where she may escape as a bird out of the first snare of the Fowler by breaking it and delivering her Indeed these grounds of hope and comfort a Minister cannot make use of that holds absolute Reprobation What sober man would expect he should but such a one is never a whit the worse comforter for that For as for these grounds I have already discovered them to be voyd of all truth of all sobriety For if men be not absolutely Reprobated from the grace of faith and of repentance but conditionally For as for the denying of glory or inflicting damnation we utterly deny that God hath decreed that they shall have their course absolutely according to the meere pleasure of his will having made a Law according whereunto he purposeth to proceed therein it became this Author performing the part of a Comforter on this ground to make knowne the condition which he utterly declineth And with all I have shewed the reasons of his carriage thus in Hugger Mugger to wit that their shamefull Tenets might not breake forth and be brought to light We abhorre to say that God gives the grace of faith and repentance according to mens workes Wee abhorre to say that God workes in men the act of believing and repenting provided they will believe and repent or that he workes in them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle of every good worke modovelint But our comsolations proceed as I have shewed in this manner If any man man doth believe and repent we can assure such a one by our doctrine that he is an elect of God this Arminians by their doctrine cannot as who maintaine that a true believer may fall a way from grace and be damned which is to hold the soules of the best children of God upon the rack of feares and terrours and tortures continually and make them walke as it were upon pinacles of the Temple for they have no assurance of stedfastnesse but in their owne wills to keepe them from dropping into Hell fire which burneth under them If men doe not believe and repent we will enquire into the cause of their feares grounds of their apprehentions that they are Reprobates and shew that they have no just cause for such apprehensions whether it be the conscience of their sinne or want of faith that doth affright them For as much as the holiest meÌ„ living before their calling had as great cause to be affrighted as they yet had they thereupon conceived themselves to be Reprobates this had been but an erronious conceit If perhaps it be not the conscience of sinne in generall that affrights them but rather the conscience of some sinne in speciall which they conceive to be a sinne unto death or a sinne against the Holy Ghost which they conceive to be unpardonable we will conferre with them thereabouts and try whether they understand aright the nature of that sinne and endeavour to scatter those mists of illusions in this particular which Satan hath raised desiring to swallow them up in desperation if it doe not prove to be a sinne against the Holy Ghost we will set them in a course to get the spirit of faith and of repentance For albeit God alone can give them yet seeing his Word is a Word of power even a voyce that pearceth the graves we willperswade them to give themselves to be wrought upon by Gods Word and we will pray for them who yet want spirit to pray for themselves And albeit they cannot prepare themselves in a gratious manner to the hearing of Gods Word yet let them come and when they are come let his Word worke yet if forthwith we have not that comfortable experience of Gods goodnesse towards us let us not give over to wait at the lords gates and to give attendance at the posts of his doore Give him leave to be the Master of his own times let us not prescribe unto him We know his course is to call some at one houre of the day some at an other and at the very last hour he calleth some This is the way of consolation that we take We doe not take any such course as this Author at his pleasure obtrudes upon us that God would have all to be saved and that Christ died for all I have allready set forth this Authors collusions in his triple universality of Gods love Christs death and and of the Covenant of grace We rather will exhort him to believe and herein we will take such course as God in his Word hath directed us unto and we will pray unto God that his Word may be as the raine that cometh downe and the snow from Heaven returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth buâ—d hat it may give seed to the sower and bread to him that eateth So his Word may be that goeth out of his mouth it may not returne unto him voyd but accomplish that
which he will and proper in the thing whereto he sends it And remove all vaine grounds of apprehensions of terrible things against themselves What if a great many be reprobated from grace and shall never have any part in Christ it doth not follow that this afflicted soule is any of them what one is there of the children of God which was not sometimes dead in sinne and if pangs of childbirth goe before the delivering of a child into the world of nature why should it seeme strange that pangs of childbirth are suffered before a man be brought forth in to the world of grace And these feares and terrours wherwith this poore soule is perplexed may be unto her as pangs of childbirth to bring her forth into a new world We say that by Gods Word we are to conceive that ye are elected upon our faith and repentance Thus Paul concluded the election of the Thessalonians 1 Thess 1. 3 4. And 2 Thess 2. 13. Thus Melancthon would have us seeke it but by the Arminian doctrine it is in vaine to seeke after it for as much as none can find it We acknowledge that as our Saviour saith Few are chosen therefore we admonish every one to strive to enter in at the straight gate This was our Saviours exhortation delivered by way of answer to a question made unto him by his Apostles Whether there were but few that should be saved We teach that Christ hath died for the people of God for the elect of God for his Church for his body not only to make satisfaction for sinne and to procure salvation for them in case they believe but to procure also the Holy Spirit for them to make them believe and repent c. And this is wrought by the word which is the sword of the spirit We take not the course he obtrudes upon us We make no such distinctions for the consolation of the afflicted as he faignes We deale plainly and spare not to professe that albeit salvation is open to all that believe and that by the ordinance of God yet that no man is able of himselfe to believe or repent for as much as the Scripture testifies that all are dead in sinne in the state of nature and led captive by the Divell to doe his will and that the very Law of God doth strengthen sinne such being the course of mans corruption that the more he is forbidden this or that the more it provokes him to transgresse taking occasion by the law to work in mans heart all manner of concupiscence this is our course to beat downe the pride of man and beat out of him all conceit of ability to doe any good as of himselfe and so to cast him downe at the feet of Gods mercy Yet God is able by his grace to quicken him and being brought up in the Church of God wherein is the balme of Gilead able to heale our waies be they never so sinfull and that that is administred not according to the vile workes of men as if they had any power to prepare them for the participation of Gods grace but of the meere favour and good pleasure of God Who calleth as the Apostle speakes 2 Tim. 1. 9. with an holy calling not according to our own workes but according to his own purpose and grace And that for the merits of Christ who hath merited not only pardon of sinne and salvation for all that believe but faith also and regeneration for all his elect and being as we are members of Gods Church we have no cause to despaire but sooner or later God may call us as continually he doth some or other and we know not how soone our turne may come And as for Gods purpose touching the performance of the condition of faith we plainly professe That God purposed to give faith and repentance only to his elect according to that Act. 13. 48. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life And Acts 2. last God added daily to his Church such as should be saved Now heare I pray their doctrine on the other side which set out our manner of consolation devised most ridiculously at their own pleasure so to expose our doctrine to scorne Doth God purpose to bestow faith and repentance upon any other besides his elect This they must avouch if they contradict us and that he purposeth to bestow it on all and every one but how Not absolutely on any that is not according to the meere pleasure of his will how then Surely conditionally to wit according to mens workes that so not Semi-Pelagianisme only but plain Pelagianisme may be commended unto Gods Church for true Christianisme And what is that worke in man whereupon God workes faith or repentance in them Surely the will to believe the will to repent So that if all men will believe will repent then in good time through Gods grace they shall believe they shall repent and if this be not to crowne Gods grace with a crowne of scornes as Christ himselfe was crowned with a Crowne of Thornes I willingly professe I know not what it is We utterly deny that God hath two wills one contrary to the other We acknowledge that in Scripture phrase Gods commandement is called his will as This is the will of God even your sanctification 1 Thess 4. 3. But this is not that will of God which the Apostle speakes of when he saith Who hath resisted his will Rom. 9. 19 For his will of commandement is resisted too oft But the will he speaketh off there is the will of Gods purpose and decree whereof the Psalmist speakes saying Whatsoever the Lord will that hath he done both in Heaven and earth Now suppose God command Abraham to sacrifice his sonne Isaack and yet decrees that Isaack shall not be sacrificed both which are as true as the word of God is true yet there is no contradiction For as much as his commandement signifies only Gods will what shall be Abrahams duty to doe not what shall be done by Abraham On the other side Gods decree signifies what shall not be done by Abraham Now what contradiction I pray is there betweene these It is Gods will that it shall be Abrahams duty to sacrifice Isaack but it is not Gods will that Isaack shall be sacrificed by Abraham for as much as when Abraham comes to the poynt of sacrificing Isaack the Lord purposeth to hold his hand In like manner God commanded Pharaoh to let Israell goe It was his will then that it should be Pharaohs duty to let Israel goe but withall he toâ—d Moses that he would harden Pharaohs heart that he should not let Israel goe whereby it is man iâ— est that God decreed that Israel should not be dismissed by Pharaoh for a while and that as is signified in the Text to make way for his judgements to be brought upon the land of Egypt whereby God meant to glorify himselfe as in the sight of Pharaoh and of his
built upon the freenes of the other in not being given according unto men's merits As it appeares de bono perseverantiae cap. 15. Where having proposed some exceptions of the Massilienses made against his doctrine of predestination comming to make answer thereunto he begins thus Ista cum dicuntur saith he ita nos à confitenda Dei gratia id est quae non secundum merita nostra datur a confitenda secundum eam predestinatione sanctorum deterrere non debent When these things are objected they must not deterre us from confessing God's grace I meane such a grace as is not given accordiog unto works nor from confessing the predestination of Saints according thereunto Now if the absolutenesse of predestination be grounded upon this that grace is not given according unto merits the scripture phrase denies it to be given according unto workes But Bellarmine acknowledgeth that in this Argument merits and workes are taken by the Ancients in one and the same sense it followeth that as many as deny the absolutenesse of predestination must therewithall maintaine that Grace is given according to men's merits or works And the reason is evident For if God doth not give grace according unto men's works but of his mere pleasure decreed to give grace unto some and not upon consideration of their works And this is to elect absolutely and antecedently without the foresight of any deserving yea of any works though by that expression which this Authour useth he doth sufficienty manifest that his opinion is that God elects not only upō the foresight of men's workes but upon the foresight of men's deservings It is farther considerable to prevent the reaches of such crafty foxes as we have to deale with whose course is in joyning the decree of conversion and salvation together to translate that which belongs unto one unto the other most unreasonably For albeit God proceeds according to the mere pleasure and without all respect to workes in conferring grace and decreeth accordingly to conferre it Yet he proceeds not merely according unto pleasure and without all respect of works in conferring glory but according unto a Covenant which is this whosoever beleiveth shall be saved and accordingly he bestowes the kingdome of heaven by way of reward for faith repentance and good workes This hath Christ deserved at the hands of his Father that our weake performances should be thus rewarded Lastly it is farther to be considered that God as he thus bestoweth salvation by way of reward of our faith repentance so from everlasting he did decree to bestowe salvation namely by way of reward Not that either faith or repentance or good workes any or all of these were the cause least of all the deserving cause of God's decree or antecedaneous to his decree but of his mere pleasure decreed both to give the grace of faith and repentance and to bestow eternall life by way of a reward thereof as may farther be proved and that clearly divers waies 1. By the Apostl's discourse where he discourseth after this manner Before Esau and Iacob were borne or had done good or evill it was said that the Elder shall serve the younger therefore election is not of workes But if election did proceeed upon the foresight of faith repentance and good workes or any of them then it might justly be said that it were of faith repentance or good workes or of all of them And the force of the Apostles argument extends to conclude that election is noe more of faith or of repentance then of workes not only because faith and repentance are workes and so accounted in Scripture phrase as it appeares Io 6. 29. But cheifely because before men are borne they are uncapable of faith and repentance as of good workes 2. If faith were a motive cause unto election then either it were so of it 's own nature or by constitution Divine not of it's own nature as it is apparent If by constitution divine mark what strange absurdities follow namely this that God did ordaine that upon the fore sight of faith he would ordaine men unto salvation whereby God's eternall ordination is made the object of his ordination whereas the Objects of God's decrees are alwaies things temporall never any thing that is eternall 3. It cannot be said that God giveth salvation to the end he may give them faith but it may farre more congruously be said that God gives faith to the end that he may save them therefore the intention of salvation is rather before the intention of giving faith then the intention of giving faith is before the intention of giving salvation Or better thus if God foresee faith before he decrees salvation then the intention of giving faith without which God cannot foresee faith is before the intention of giving salvation and consequently the giving of faith should be the last in execution that is men shall first be saved and aferwards have faith bestowed upon them to wit in another world where they live by sight and not by faith I come to the decree of reprobation the Objects whereof are two proportionable to the two objects of election or predestination The first is permission of sin the second is Damnation for sinne according to that of Aquinas Reprobatio includit voluntatem permitendi culpam damnationem inferendi pro culpâ Reprobation includes a will to permit sinne and to inflict damnation for sinne The first object of reprobation I say is permission of sinne not Sin as this Authour would have it but permission of sinne Because these decrees to wit of permitting sinne and inferring damnation for sinne are decrees of meanes conducing to a certaine end For like as in election God decreeth to bestowe faith repentance and obedience on some and to reward it with everlasting life for the manifestation of his glory in the way of mercy mixt with justice So in Reprobation he decrees to permit others to sinne and finally to persevere therein and to damne them for their sinne to manifest his glory in the way of vindicative justice Now whosoever intends an end must also be the Auhour of the meanes conducing to that end Now God though well he may be the Authour of permission of sinne yet he cannot be the Author of sinne Albeit upon God's permission of sinne it followeth that sinne shall exist Now to permit sinne is all one with denying grace whether it be grace Custodient to preserve from it or grace healing to pardon and cure it after it is committed Now like as the Lord hath mercy on whom he will in pardoning their sinne and healing it by faith and repentance So he hardeneth whom he will by denying faith and repentance So that as God of his mere pleasure grants the grace of faith and repentance unto some so of his mere pleasure he denies it unto others And so in Reprobation he decreeth of his mere pleasure to deny it But albeit the Lord of mere
abstaine from sinne when such a grace is granted him and consequently in granting such a grace he permits him still to sinne as well as in denying it and in denying he permits him to doe good as much as in granting it So that still it is not God that keepeth a man from sinne as often as he abstaineth from it but merely the power of his own free will Whereby it is evident that this Authour as well denies that God is the Authour of any good as that he is the Authour of any evill But man is Authour of the one as well as of the other The power of doing good he will grant is from God neither can it be denied but that the power of doing evill is from God He will grant likewise that God is ready to concurre to any good act if man will and I presume he will not deny but that God concurres also to the substance of every evill act The only difference that remaines is this God perswades only to good and disswades only that which is evill Now this third and last assertion we grant as well as he Yet he layes to our charge that we make God the Authour of evill but cares not at all how he denies God to be the Authour of any good in the actions of men and makes noe place for any grace save such as is hortatory which is performed usually by the ministery of men Yet consider what Bradwardine sometimes Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Elect hath written in this kind before Luther or Calvin were borne The title of the fourth chapter of his second booke is this That free will being tempted cannot of his own strength without the helpe of God and his grace overcome any temptation Of the first this that free will strengthned with what created grace soever cannot without another speciall succour of God overcome any temptation of the sixth this that That speciall succour of God is the unconquerable grace of God Of the seventh this That no man though not tempted can by the strength of his free will alone without created grace or with created grace how great soever it be without the speciall asistance of God avoide any sin all these propositions he demonstrates with variety of argument Behold the ingenuity of this Authour He flies in the face of Calvin and Beza and other our Divines for maintaining that unlesse God by his grace keep and preserve a man effectually from sinning it cannot be that he should abstaine from sinne Bradwardine maintained the same before any of these were borne yet he saith nothing to him le ts all his arguments alone but upbraides us for maintaining the same doctrine without giving any reason to convict us of our errour Adde to this which I have omitted the Corolary of that seventh chapter in Bradwardin formerly mentioned is this That it is the will of God which preserves them that are tempted from falling and them that are not tempted both from temptation and from sinne Not one of the arguments whereby he confirmes any of these positions doth this Authour goe about to answer In like manner Alvarez Positâ permissione divinâ infallibiliter peccat homo upon supposition of God's permission man sins infallibly The proposition he intends to prove in that disputation is this Therefore a man is not converted because he is not aided of God But both he and we deny that hereupon a man sinneth necessarily alwaies but only in some cases In some cases it followeth as namely a man borne in sinne and in the state of corruption the naturall fruits whereof are infidelity and impenitency untill God affords a man the grace of regeneration he cannot believe he cannot repent They that are in the flesh cannot please God Thou after the hardnesse of thy heart that cannot repent Therefore they could not believe In which case God is not the cause of infidelity and impenitency but these proceed naturally and necessarily from that originall corruption wherein they are conceived and borne God is only the naturall cause why this their naturall corruption continues uncured For none can cure it but God it being a work nothing inferior to the raising of them from the dead Yet he is no culpable cause of this For as much as he is not bound to any but he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth So that necessarily without the grace of regeneration every man continueth in his naturall corruption devoyd of faith of hope and love These being supernaturall and whereunto no man can attaine with out supernaturall grace In like manner hence it followeth that no naturall man can performe any morall good act in a gracious acceptable manner in the sight of God because â—he fountaines of such performances are not found in naturall men But they have a free power as to commit any naturall evill worke so to abstaine from it though not in a gracious manner Free power as to abstaine from any vertuous act so to performe it also though not in a gracious manner They may be temperate chast just and the like but their vertuous actions are not truly vertues in a Christian account because they know not God nor Christ much lesse doe they believe in him and performe these vertuous actions out of their love unto him If Maccovius and Whitaker and Pareus be of the same mind and the Dominicans with them and Bradwardine before them all let the indifferent Reader consider what an hungry opposition is made by this Authour not offering to answer any one of their Arguments nor of mine neither in my Vindiciae Nor saith ought by way of reply upon any answer to the like argument of Arminius The resolution of all that here he delivers determining in a rule himselfe proposeth without reason or authority to justifie it A rule as here it is applyed conteining a notorious untruth For causa deficiens in no case can be efficiens in proper speech any more then causa efficiens can be accounted deficiens unlesse it be understood in divers kinds As for example efficiens naturaliter may be deficiens moraliter and deficiens moraliter may be efficiens naturaliter An efficient cause naturally may be deficient morally and so a cause deficient morally may be efficient naturally Least of all can it have place in the present question which is of the cause of sinne For sinne as sinne evill as evill non habet causam efficientem sed deficientem hath no cause efficient but deficient only as Austin hath long agoe determined and it is a rule generally received and never that I know denied of any Againe causa deficiens in necessariis may be culpable I confesse and so interpretativè as they say may be interpreted to be as good as an efficient As in a civill consideration it is said of the Magistrate that Qui non vetat peccare cum possit jubet He that forbiddeth not a man to sinne when it
Synod of Palestine 1200. yeares agoe to this day The difference of opinions here feigned by him about the point of Reprobation amongst our Divines is like the feigning of a knot in a bulrush For what is a peremptory denying of grace and glory to some men lying in the fall other then a denyall of that grace and glory which is prepared in the decree of election to the sonnes of God though indeed neither of them make it a denyall which is done in time but rather Gods decree to deny it For do not the latter Divines maintaine it to be peremptory as well as the former For what difference doth he devise between a flat denyall and a peremptory denyall and as for the latter decree belonging to reprobation here mentioned namely a preordination of the man thus left to the torments of hell do not the latter Divines acknowledge this decree to belong to Reprobation also Only they professe that God preordaines none to eternall torments in hell but for their sinnes actuall as well as originall of as many as live to ripenesse of age Now I would faine know what Divine of ours maintaines the contrary 1. Our Divines in saying Reprobation is Decretum quo statuit non misereri do manifest that not denying grace but the decree of denying it is Reprobation Walaeus speaketh of no common endowments though that be a truth which here is attributed unto them else how should they be called common endowments 2. If he decrees to leave Reprobates without grace and consequently under that necessity of sinning into which all are cast by the sinne of Adam it is nothing strange I thinke that God should accordingly leave them therein though in a different manner the Lord prostituting some to their own lost's and to the power of Satan more then others and making some even by the ministery of the Gospell proficere ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quo mitius puniantur as Austin some where speaketh If Gods decree cannot be frustrated as here is avouched I wonder he should charge us with teaching that God decreeth this or that immutably For if he should change any of his decrees they should undoubtedly be frustrated Indeed we do not say that God decrees Hypothetically to give grace to wit upon condition that men will make themselves fit for it and for failing herein to deny them grace And I am very glad to observe so good correspondence in the suffrages of Protestant Divines in the Synod of Dort and our English also with them Sect 3. 3. God both decreeth and executeth this leaving of men to themselves of his alone absolute will and pleasure This is the third branch 1 That they say so witnesse the suffrage of our English Divines We affirme that this non election is founded in the most free pleasure of God And that no man lying in the fall is past over by the meere will of God is numbred by the same Divines among the heterodox positions To this purpose also speake The Palatinate Ministers The cause of Reprobation is the most free and just will of God That God passeth over some and denyeth them the grace of the Gospell the cause is the same free pleasure of God Thus the Divines of Hessen God decreed to leave some in the fall of his own good pleasure The proofe of this they fetch from the execution of this decree in time God doth in time leave some of mankind fallen and doth not bestow upon them meanes necessary to beleive c. and this out of his most free pleasure This they joyntly affirme and prove it by this reason especially All men were lookt on as sinners If sinne therefore were the cause that moved God to reprobate he should have reprobated or rejected all But he did not Reprobate all therefore for sinne he reprobated none but for his owne pleasure in which we must rest wthout seeking any other cause 1. Now from these two things layd together viz. 1. That God did bring men into a necessity of sinning 2. That he hath left the Reprobates under this necessity it will follow that he is the Authour of the reprobates sinnes 1. Because Causae causae est causa causati the Cause of a cause is the cause of its effect if there be a necessary subordination betweene the causes and the effect whether it be a cause by acts negative or positive But God is the cheife or sole cause by their doctrine of that which is the necessary and immediate cause of the sinnes of reprobates namely their impotency and want of supernaturall grace therefore he is by the same doctrine the true and proper cause of their sinnes 2. Because Removens prohibens that which withdraweth and withholdeth a thing which being present would hinder an event is the cause of that event As for example he that cutteth a string in which a stone hangs is the cause of the falling of that stone And he that withdraweth a pillar which being put to uphold a house is the true cause in mens account of the falling of that house But God by their opinion withholdeth from reprobates that power which being granted them might keep thē from falling into sinne therefore he becometh a true morall cause of their sinnes In whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done sayth Tertullian In cuius manu est quid ne fiat ei deputatur cum iam fit It will not suffice to say that God by withholding grace from reprobates becometh only an accidentall not a proper and direct cause of their sinnes For a cause is then only accidentall in relation to the effect when the effect is beside the intention and expectation of the cause For example Digging in a feild is then an accidentall cause of the finding a bag of gold when that event is neither expected not intended by the husbandman in digging But when the event is lookt for and aymed at then the cause though it be the cause only by withholding the impediment is not accidentall As a Pilot who withholdeth his care and skill from a ship in a storme foreseeing that by his neglect the ship will be drowned is not to be reputed an accidentall but a direct and proper cause of the losse of this ship This being so it followeth that God by this act and decree of removing and detaining grace necessary to the avoyding of sinne from reprobates not as one ignorant and carelesse what will or shall follow but knowing infallibly what mischeife will follow and determining precisely that which doth follow viz their impenitency and damnation becomes the proper and direct cause of their sinnes That God of his meere pleasure sheweth mercy on some and hardeneth others is the expresse word of God Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Now to shew mercy is to give the grace of faith and obedience as appeares
we acknowledge of predestination both in the way of a meritorious cause on Christs part and in the way of a disposing cause on our part For God we say hath predestinated to bestow upon us both grace and glory for Christs sake where Christ is made a meritorious cause of grace and glory but not of the act of predestination And farther we say that God hath predestinated to bestow glory upon us as a reward of grace as a reward of faith repentance and good workes and to this purpose it is said that God by his grace doth make us meet partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Coloss 1. 12. But as for the bestowing of grace on any we say there is no cause thereof on mans part For he hath mercy on whom he will Rom. 9. 18. and he hath called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his own purpose and grace 2 Timoth. 1. 9. Now let us apply this to reprobation which is the will of God as well as predestination and if there can be no cause of predestination quoad actum Praedestinantis because there can be no cause of the will of God quoad actum volentis Who seeth not that by the same reason there can be no cause of reprobation quoad actum reprobantis And if it be a mad thing to maintain that merits are the cause of predestination quoad actum praedestinantis it must be as mad a thing to maintain that any merits of the creature can be the cause of reprobation quoad actum reprobantis And this doctrine Aquinas applies expresly to Reprobation it selfe upon the 9. Rom. Lect. 2 da at the end of these words Praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis but how ex parte actus reprobantis nothing lesse but rather ex parte effectus and what effect not the denying of grace but only as touching the inflicting of punishment thus Praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis ex parte paenae quae praeparatur reprobatis in quantum scilicet Deus proponit se puniturum malos propter peccata quae à seipsis habent non à Deo And farther we prove this both by cleare evidence of Scripture and cleare evidence of reason and thirdly by as cleare a representation of their infatuation that oppose this doctrine and particularly of the Author of this discourse First by cleare evidence of Scripture Rom. 9. 11. Where the Apostle proves that Election stands not of good works by an argument drawn from the circumstance of the time when that Oracle The elder shall serve the younger was delivered together with the present condition of Jacob and Esau answerable to that time thus Before the children were borne or had done good or evill it was said to Rebecca The Elder shall serve the Younger Therefore the purpose of God according to Election stands not of good workes Now look by what strength of reason the Apostle concludes this of Election by the same strength of argumentation may I conclude of reprobation in proportion thus Before the Children were borne or had done Good or Evill it was said to Rebecca The Elder shall serve the Younger therefore the purpose of God according to reprobation stands not of evill workes that is like as good workes are not the cause of Election so evill workes are not the cause of Reprobation to wit quoad actum reprobantis as touching the very act and eternall decree of God it selfe Secondly observe I pray whether my reason be not as cleare If God upon the foresight of sin doth ordain a man unto damnation thus I am content to propose it in the most rigorous manner then this is done either by necessity of nature or by the constitution of God Not by necessity of nature as it is confessed and the cause is evident for undoubtedly he could annihilate them and so he can the holiest creature that lives as all sides confesse Therefore it must be by the constitution of God but neither can this hold For if so then God did constitute that is ordaine that upon the foresight of sin he would ordaine men unto damnation Where observe that the act of divine ordination is made the object of divine ordination as much as to say he did ordaine to ordaine or he did decree to decree Whereas the objects of Gods decrees are alwaies things temporall as for example We say well God did decree to create the world to make man out of the earth to send Christ into the World to preserve us to redeeme us sanctify us save us But Gods ordination or decree is an act eternall and cannot be the object of his decree or ordination I challenge all the Powers of darknes to answer this and to vindicate the Tenent which I impugne from that absurdity which I charge upon it if they can O but some will say it 's very harsh to say that God of his meer pleasure doth ordain men unto damnation I am content to doe my endeavour to remove this scandall out of the way of honest hearts yea and out of the way of others also First therefore consider is it fit to resist the evidence of divine truth because it is harsh to mens affections Secondly Wherein consists this harshnesse Is it in this that nothing is the cause of Gods decree and will nothing temper the harshnes of it unles a thing temporall as sinne be made the cause of Gods will which is eternall and even God himselfe But let us deale plainly and tell me in truth whether the harshnes doth not consist in this That the meer pleasure of Gods will seems to be made the cause not of Gods decree only but of damnation also as if God did damne men not for sin but of his meer pleasure And this I confesse is wondrous harsh and yet no more harsh then it is untrue though in this jugling world things are so carried by some who will both shuffle and cutt and deale themselves as if we made God of meer pleasure to damne men and not for sin which is a thing utterly impossible damnation being such a notion as hath essentiall reference unto sin But if God damne no man but for sinne and decreed to damne no man but for sinne what if the meer pleasure of God be the cause of this decree what harshnes I say is this As for example Zimri or Cosby perished in their incestuous act and gave up both lust and ghost together so going as it were quick to Hell never fearing the judgements of God untill they felt them If we say God decreed they should be cut off in this sin of theirs and be damned for it What hatshnes I pray in this though God made this decree of meer pleasure For is it not manifest he did For could he not if it had pleased him have caused them to outlive this sin of theirs and given them space for repentance and
not space only but grace also for repentance seeing as Austin saith Quantamlibet praebuerit Patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis aget Paenitentiam Now I pray what is become of the harshnes of this our Tenent as is pretended And the truth is the harshnes lyeth not here though our Adversaries would faine draw it hither but rather on the other part of reprobation as it denotes Gods purpose for the denying of grace to wit the grace of Regeneration the grace of faith and repentance but on this part they are not very forward to cry out upon our Tenent as savouring of harshnes but themselves rather driven to such straites as either to deny faith and repentaince to be the gift of God wherein the Remonstrants now a daies are come so far as cleerely to professe that Christ merited not faith and Regeneration for any whence it followeth that if God doth give faith and repentance unto any yet it is not for Christs sake that he gives it Or being demanded how it comes to passe that God gives it not to all if his meer pleasure be not the cause of this difference as namely in shewing mercy unto some when he hardens others they are put upon this shift to say that if they would believe God would give them faith if they would repent God would give them repentance and one that I have had to deale with on this very argument spares not to professe that God doth work in man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Velle credere resipiscere modè Velit One thing I had almost pretermitted and that was to represent the infatuate condition of this declaration to wit as touching the Authors Tenet in opposition to ours as in saying that Gods decree to cast off men for ever is grounded upon the foresight of their continuance in sin and unbeliefe For this continuance must be understood of finall continuance therein least otherwise the contradiction to our Tenent be not duely expressed Now the foresight hereof is made to precede Gods casting men off for ever but from what surely from grace and glory in contradiction to our Tenent as here it is shaped and consequently in election the foresight of finall perseverance in faith and repentance must be shaped to precede Gods giving grace to wit in another world as if the other world were appoynted for the giving of grace to some and denying it another and that the giving of the grace of faith and repentance and denying it unto others was after the one hath persevered in faith and repentance and the other in infidelity and impenitency unto the end in this World For this is it we meane by grace when we say God in Election destinates it to one and in Reprobation decrees to deny it unto the other and in contradicting us it is fit they should use our termes in our meaning unles they expresse the contrary and give a reason of it 3. As for the Persons on whom this decree passeth and the aggravation there mentioned namely of shutting up the greater part of men even of those that are called under sinne and damnation This is confessed on all hands That the greatest part of men are reprobated even of those that are called and our Saviour hath expresly given us to understand That many are called but few are chosen And it is without question that if it be lawfull for God to deale thus with one it is as lawfull to deale so with the greatest part yea with all And experience justifieth that the greatest part of them that are called doe not performe true faith and repentance and if they did and dye therein then the greatest part of them that are called should be chosen Whereby it is manifest that God doth not give Faith and Repentance unto the greatest part of them that are called and consequently it is nothing strange that he shuts up the greatest part of them that are called under Damnation So that in true account there is no weight at all of aggravation in this Like as you have read in Newes from Parnassus that when the French and the Spaniard weighed their powers in the ballance and the French being found to weigh 25 Millions and the Spaniard but 20 He thinking to help the matter and to make himselfe as weighty as the French clapped into the scale the Kingdome of Naples and the Dukedome of Millan but beyond his expectation the scale proved never a whit the more weighty then before but lighter rather 4. As for the last claw to help the matter with a couple of Epethetes of invincible sin and unavoidable damnation one of these might have sufficed to be expressed seeing undoubtedly Damnation is no otherwise avoidable by man then by avoiding sin the cause thereof For it is undenyable that man dying in sin his damnation is unavoydable by the whole power of nature But as for the avoydablenes of sin the Author of this Discourse acknowledgeth it no otherwise then by grace and we willingly professe that all sin is avoydable by grace But by the way it is implied that such a grace is afforded unto all reprobates whereby they may avoyd that infidelity and impenitency for which they are damned But this we deny For if this were true then all Reprobates were enabled to believe to repent to please God to discerne the things of God to be subject to the Law of God but to say this is directly to contradict the Word of God which professeth of some that They could not believe Ioh. 12. 39. of others that They cannot repent Rom. 2. 5. Of all naturall men that They cannot discern the things of God as which seem foolishnesse unto them 1 Cor. 2. 14. of them that are in the flesh that They cannot please God Rom. 8. 8. of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the affection of the flesh that 't is enmity against God and it is not subject to the Law of God nor can be Rom. 8. 7. And of the Israelites in the Wildernesse for forty years together God had not given them eyes to see nor eares to heare nor an heart to perceive Deutron 29. 4. INTRODUCTION SECT II. THE first side is divided for 1. Some of them present man to God in the decree of Reprobation considered and looked upon out of or above the Fall and make the Will of God without any consideration of sin in man Originall or Actuall to be the cause of his eternall Rejection that so he might shew his absolute and unlimited power and dominion over him in appointing to heaven or hell whom he pleased and this way goe Calvin Beza Zanchius Piscator Gomarus That way seems to charge God very deepely and to make him the prime and principall cause of mens everlasting ruine and the author also not only of the first sin that entred into the world but of all other sins likewise that are successively committed therein as meanes to bring men by a course and colour of justice to those
cause in man any way moving him either in its own nature or by divine constitution moving him to bestow this grace on any So the Apostle 2 Timoth. 1. 9. God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his own purpose and grace And indeed we being all found dead in sinne what could be found in one to move God to bestow the life of faith and repentance upon him more then upon another And if any such thing were found in man moving God hereunto then should grace be bestowed according unto works that is in the Fathers phraise as Bellarmine acknowledgeth according unto merits which was condemned 1200 years agoe in the Synod of Palestine and Pelagius himselfe was driven to subscribe unto it otherwise they had condemned him also But as touching the conferring of glory God doth not bestow this on whom he will finding men equall without any moving cause thereunto even in man For though there be no moving cause hereunto in man of its own nature yet there is to be found a moving cause in man by constitution divine whereby God is as it were moved to bestow solvation on some and not on others For God hath made a gracious promise that whosoever beleeveth and repenteth and continueth in faith and repentance unto death shall be saved and whosoever beleeveth not and repenteth not shall be damned So then though men are equall in originall sinne and in naturall corruption and God bestowes faith and repentance on whom of them he will curing their corruption in whom he will yet when he comes to the conferring of glory men are not found equall in morall condition and accordingly God cannot be said on like manner to bestow glory solvation on whō he will For he hath tyed himselfe by his own constitution to bestow solvation on none but such as dye in thestate of grace Yet I confes some say that God bestows solvation on whom he will in as much as he is the author of their faith repentance bestows these graces on whō he will yet certainly there is a different manner in the use of this phraise of bestowing this or that on whom he will For when God bestowes faith and repentance he findes them on whom he will bestow it no better then others But when he comes to the bestowing of glory he findes them on whom he bestowes that farre better them others Now we come to the things decreed in reprobation and these are two 1. The denyall of the grace of regeneration that is of the grace of faith and repentance whereby mans naturall infidelity and impenitency is cured 2. The denyall of glory and the inflicting of damnation The first of these to wit the denyall of grace mentioned is made to whom he will And it must needs be so in ease God gives this grace to whom he will And the Apostle professeth that as God hath mercy on whom he will so he hardneth whom he will And as God denies this grace to whom he will so did he decree to deny it to whom he will Yet there is a difference considerable For albeit God hardneth whom he will by denying unto them the grace of faith and repentance yet notwithstanding like as it is just with God to inflict damnation upon them for that sinne whether originall or actuall wherein he findes them when the ministry of the word is afforded them so likewise it cannot be denied to be iust with God to leave their infidelity and impenitency wherein he finds them uncured But yet because God hath not made any such constitution namely that whosoever is found in infidelity and impenitency shall be so left and abandoned by him therefore he is properly said as to cure it in whom he will so to leave it uncured in whom he will finding them all equall in originall sinne and consequently lying equally in this their naturall infidelity and impenitencv So wee may iustly say there is no cause at all in man of this difference to wit why God cures infidelity impenitency in one and not in another but it is the meer pleasure of God that is the cause of this difference And if any list to contend hereabouts we shall be willing to entertaine him and conferre our strength of argumentation on this point 2. But as touching the denyall of glory and inflicting of damnation which is the second thing decreed in reprobation there is alwaies found a cause motive yea and meritorious hereof to wit both of the denyall of the one inflicting of the other And God doth not proceed herein according to the meer pleasure of his will that by reason of his own constitution having ordained that whosoever continueth finally in infidelity in profane courses and impenitency shall be damned And albeit on the other side it may be said in some sence as formerly I have shewed that God saves whom he will in as much as he is the author of faith which he bestowes on whom he will yet in no congruous sence can he be said to damne whom he will for as much as he is not the author of sinne as he is the author of faith For every good thing he workes but sinne and the evill thereof he only permits not causeth it And lastly as God doth not damne whom he will but those only whom he finds finally to have persevered in sinne without repentance so neither did he decree to damne or reprobate to damnation whom he will but only those who should be found finally to persevere in sinne without repentance Now let us apply this to the Article we have in hand which is this The moving cause of reprobation is the only will of God and not the sinne of man originall or actuall and for the explication hereof according to that which hath been formerly delivered We say that reprobation doth signify either a purpose of denying grace as above mentioned or a purpose of inflicting damnation And each may be considered either as touching the act of Gods decree or as touching the things decreed We shew how the Article holds or holds not being differently accommodated 1. As touching the things decreed 1. As touching the deniall of grace We say That God decreed of his meere good pleasure to deny unto some the grace of faith and repentance for the curing of that naturall infidelity and impenitency which is found in all without any motive cause hereunto found in one more then in another 2. As touching the inflicting of Damnation We say That God decreed to inflict damnation on some not of his meer pleasure but meerly for their finall perseverance in sinne without repentance 2. As touching the very act of Gods decree We say Nothing in man could be the cause hereof but the meer pleasure of God as Aquinas professeth it a mad thing to devise in man a cause of divine predestination as touching the act of God predestinating as I have
of God is it a Christian course to renounce it or to question the integrity of it because he finds no footing in Antiquity for it What then shall become of the faith of Laicks and such as are unlearned Must the writings of the Fathers be translated into all vulgar Languages and the unlearned addict themselves to the study of them least otherwise their faith prove a wavering faith for want of finding Antiquity to favour it Belike the writings of the Prophets and Apostles are no part of Antiquity in this Authors more mature judgement But if formerly the doctrine of absolute reprobation were received upon the evidence of Gods word as it is fit the faith of every Christian should be grounded thereupon especially the faith of a Divine called to be a Teacher of others I should think there were no just cause of alteration but upon discovery of the errour of those grounds whereupon formerly it was builded and the discovery hereof alone were chiefly to the present purpose namely to shew just cause of change of mind alteration of judgement but no such course doe I find taken here These motives and reasons here proposed may carry a shew of reason why a man being yet to chuse his faith in these particulars possessed with neither way but indifferent might preferre one way before another one opinion before another but nothing sufficient to justify a change unlesse the weaknesse of former grounds be laid open For it may be that the former grounds might be such as upon due comparison would be found to overweigh these pretences For upon view that I have taken of the discourse following I find not one argument drawn from those places of Scripture that treat of election and reprobation these I find are purposely declined as so many rocks as if the Author feared to make shipwrack of his errours pardon my boldnesse in so naming them Austin is my precedent in this saying Hoc scio contra istam praedestinationem quam secundum scripturas defendimus neminem nisi errando disputare posse but in the mean time while he fears to make shipwrack of his errours let him take heed least he make shipwrack of a good conscience But proceed we with him about the inquiry what footing this doctrine finds in Antiquity He saith he cannot find it but it is more then I find that ever he made any convenient search after it his whole discourse hereupon is of so hungry a nature The absolutenesse of election and reprobation we conclude in Christian reason from Gods absolute carriage in giving and denying grace understanding thereby the grace of regeneration Now the absolutenesse herein as we suppose consists in bestowing this grace on some and denying it to others according to the meer pleasure of the Lords will Now hath not the Apostle more ancient then all the Antiquity he speaketh of professed in expresse termes that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth What need we seek farther amongst the Ancients for the iustification of this And that mercy here is meant such a mercy in bestowing faith on some which is denied to others in converting the wills of some unto good when others are not converted I could prove by variety of places out of Austin whose authority in this case is farre more worthy then all the authority this Author produceth Neither is this the voyce of Austin only but of Ambrose also in that famous saying of his Quem vult religiosum facit so much magnified by Austin And not Ambrose alone but Nazianzen also and Cyprian are alleaged by him as concurring with him in the foundation of the doctrine of predestination which he makes to be the freedome of Gods grace in converting whom he will And which is farre more then this yea farre more then all that can be produced to the contrary by the very Prayers of the Church every where in use he iustifies the generall concurrence in that which he accounts the foundation of predestination As when their common course was to pray unto God that he would be pleased to convert unto the faith of Christ the hearts of Heathens and wherein did this conversion consist but in giving them faith and repentance manifestly giving us to understand thereby that the whole Catholique Church did concurre in this Article of Faith that it was in the power of God according to his free grace to convert whom he would unto the faith of Christ and consequently not to convert whom he would For if there were any cause on mans part why he doth not convert some converting others then there were also on mans part a cause why God doth convert some not converting others and consequently grace should be given according unto works that is in the phrase of the Ancients Gratiam dari secundum merita as Bellarmine acknowledgeth which was ever accounted expresse Pelagianisme and was as expressely condemned in the Councel of Palestina above 1200 years agoe and Pelagius himselfe was driven to subscribe unto it by shamefull dissimulation so to prevent Anathematization of his own person But the upper way saith this Author was never taught or approved by any of the Fathers for 600 years Here breaks forth another reason of this Authors or his that directed him cunning carriage in distinguishing the two waies of our Divines in maintaining the absolutenesse of election and reprobation to wit that in the course of his discourse he might serve his turne with both and where Antiquity served not his turne against the one yet might it serve his turne as he thought against the other But the truth is there was no such question at all ventilated in those daies as touching the obiect of predestination no nor in Austins neither nor many hundred years after that I know And no marvell For it concernes the ordering of Gods decree aright which is meerly Logicall as I have shewed in my Vind. Grat. Dei It s true that S t Austin doth usually accommodate that of S t Paul Rom. 9. 21. concerning the Masse unto mankind considered in Massa damnata as he commonly calls it that is in the corrupt Masse but not alwaies but sometimes he speaks of it and accommodates it cleerely unto the Masse of mankind uncorrupt yea as yet not created as there I have shewed And as for the right ordering of Gods decrees and the right stating of the object of predestination and reprobation We desire no better nor other ground then that of the Apostle God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth that is he cures infidelity and hardnes of heart in whom he will by bestowing faith and repentance upon them and leaves it uncured in whom he will by denying faith and repentance unto them And as for the rigour of this Tenent as it is commonly accounted of making the Masse of mankind not created the object of predestination I have already shewed the vanity of that
fides à naturâ sit In my poor judgement the Fathers as many as stated predestination according to the prescience of mens works had no other meaning but this that God did predestinate no man to eternall life but such as coming to ripe years should believe in Christ and repent no man unto eternall death but such as should finally persevere in infidelity and impenitency so making works foreseen the cause of salvation but not of Gods decree And Aquinas was bold to professe that Nemo fuit it a insanae mentis qui diceret merita esse causam praedestinationis divinae quoad actum praedestinantis And 't is a good rule that Gerson gives that holy mens Writings are not to be urged precisely according to the letter De Vitâ Spirituali animae Sect. 1. co 11. Notet his quód Doctores etiam sancti sunt magis reverenter glossandi in multis quà m ampliandi quoniam non omnes semper adverterunt aut advertere cogitaverunt ad proprietatem locutionis Improprietas autem non ampliari debet sed ad proprietatem reduci alioquin quid mirum si augetur deceptio 5. We know what answer Austin himselfe makes unto this De Praedestin Sanct. cap. 14. Quid igitur opus est ut eorum scrutemur opuscula qui priusquam ista Haeresis oriretur non habuerunt necessitatem in hac difficili ad solvendum quaestione versari quod proculdubio facerent si respondere talibus cogerentur 6. As before I shewed Fulgentius himselfe maintaines predestination to be secundum praescientiam yet Vossius acknowledgeth him as well as Austin to have maintained the absolutenesse of predestination 7. Lastly this passage concerneth predestination alone as it signifies the divine decree of conferring glory but who ever was known to maintaine the divine decree of conferring grace to have been secundum praescientiam according to foresight of any work in man For this is plainly to maintain that grace is given according unto works which in the Ancients phraise is all one as to acknowledge that grace is given according unto merits which is direct Pelagianisme and condemned 1200 years agoe in the Synod of Palestine As for that of Minutius Foelix We deny that God doth sortem in hominibus punire non voluntatem We doe not say Genitura plectitur we say that in every one who is punished by God ingenii natura punitur Wee confesse that Fatum illud est quod de unoquoque Deus fatus est and that pro meritis singulorum qualitatibus etiam fata determinat Yet the holy Ghost professeth in the mouthes of all his Apostles that both Herod and Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and People of Israel were gathered together against the holy sonne of God to doe that which Gods hand and Gods councell predetermined to be done and yet this predetermination divine I should think was nothing prejudiciall to the liberty of their wills As for Hierome this Author saith that he was an eager opposer of the Pelagians but no where doth it appeare that the point of predestination comes in question between them These very passages out of Hierome are proposed by Grotius in his Pietas Ordinum Hollandiae and answered by Gratianus Civilis punctually and long before by Bellarmine Lib. 2. de Grat. lib. arb cap. 14. I answer what is this any other but that which the Fathers many of them have professed in saying that predestination is secundum praescientiam And doth not Fulgentius affirm the same Yet is he acknowledged by Vossius a maintainer of the absolutenesse of predestination as well as Austin Did Hierome deny faith to be the gift of God or granting it to be the gift of God did he maintaine that God gave it according unto works If not but according to the meer pleasure of his will having mercy on some while he hardned others the case is cleare that he maintained absolute election unto faith As for Gods decree of salvation and damnation we willingly professe that God decreed to save no man but upon his finall perseverance in faith and piety to damne none but such as finally persevere in infidelity and impenitency Now compare we these decrees together the decree of giving faith and the decree of saving which of these are most likely to be the foremost it is apparent that salvation is more likely to be the end in respect of faith and faith the means in respect of salvation then the contrary And the generall and most received rule of Schooles is that the intention of the end is before the intention of the means I think the glory of God in the way of mercy mixed with justice is the end of both and that the decrees of giving faith and salvation are simultaneous as decrees of means tending to the same end and so neither before the other But Hierome saith that ex Praescientia futurorum nascitur dilectio vel odium I confesse he doth in a disjunctive manner thus vel ex praescientia vel ex operibus And we know that passions such as Love and Hatred are commonly said to be attributed to God not quoad affectum but quoad effectum and so they may fairely stand for salvation and damnation which proceed ex operibus in Hieroms phraise But admit he means hereby decretum salvandi which rising expraescientia fidei must presuppose the decree of giving faith to precede I answer then there is to be acknowledged an impropriety of speech and here is place for Gersons rule Sancti non semper adverterunt ad proprietatem locutionis And the rather because Hierome we never find exercised in this Controversy And it is against common reason that faith should be intended before salvation And lastly this were to impute unto him to acknowledge 2 motive cause of Predestination quoad actum praedestinantis which Aquinas professeth against as a thing impossible namely that there should be a cause of Gods will quoad actum volentis Nay he is bold to say that No man was so mad to say that merits are the cause of Predestination quoad actum praedestinantis The last part of this Authors performance in the poynt of Antiquity is the Councell of Arles subscribing as he saith the letter which was written by Faustus against Lucidus the Predestinarian for so he styles him and in his Epistle he insists upon two Anathema's the one this Anathema illi qui dixerit illum qui periit non accepisse ut salvus esse possit The other this Anathema illi qui dixerit quod vas contumcliae non possit affurgere ut sit vas in honorem First I will answer as touching the Anathema's themselves then as touching the credit and authority of this story 1. As touching the Anathema's The first proceeds as well of him that is baptized and afterwards perisheth as of him that is a Pagan and never was baptized and perisheth in his Paganisme as the Anathema it selfe witnesseth if it be repeated at
And thus in no moment of nature is the Predestination of Christ either before or after the Predestination of man as our Brittish Divines maintained at the Synod of Dort but at once God predestinated both him to be our Head and us his Members like as Aquinas maintained Christs predestination and our predestination to be one act in God and consequently neither could be the cause of another Thus have I dispatched mine answer unto them as touching mine own opinion But supposing the method of the Contra-Remonstrants sound in making salvation of man to be intended by God as an end and both mans faith in Christ and Christs Mission to be intended as means We deny this to be absurd or ignominious unto Christ Le ts heare how they prove it thus If the decree of sending Christ be posterior to the electing of singular persons unto salvation then the intention of mans salvation was posterior to Gods intention of satisfaction to his justice which say they is absurd and foolish to wit to decree the salvation of sinners unlesse first he decree satisfaction to his justice But I answer according to the forme of the Contra-Remonstrants doctrine First by proving their order to be sound Secondly by shewing the invalidity of the Remonstrants discourse First therefore There was never any other order of intentions acknowledged by the learned then such as is found between the intention of the end and the intention of the means tending thereunto And the Order most received is this That the intention of the end is before the intention of the means Now let every man that is is his right Witts consider which is more likely to be the end and which the means of these two Mans salvation and Christs Mission to satisfy for the sinne of man Was ever any man known to be so brainsick as to affirme that the salvation of man is a means tending to this end namely the sending of Christ into the World to satisfy for the sinne of man On the other side how fair and plausible is it to affirme that Christ was sent into the world to satisfy for mans sinne to this end that man might be saved whence it followeth evidently by the most approved rules of Schooles that the intention of mans salvation is in signo rationis before the intention of sending Christ into the world to make satisfaction for sinne Againe if Christs sending into the world to make satisfaction for sinne be first in intention then it should be last in execution by rules undeniable and such as are manifest by the very light of nature Whence it followeth that man should be first saved and after that Christ sent into the World that by his sufferings Gods justice might be satisfied Now I come to the consideration of the Remonstrants argument The Consequence of the Major we grant but the Minor we deny And it is a vaine thing for them to cry out that it is absurd and foolish to say that the intention of salvation precedes the intention of satisfying Gods justice for words must not carry it and it is well known that the most empty vessells give the greatest sound I have shewed how absurd it is to conceive that man was saved to this end that Gods justice may be satisfied and that 't is farre more probable to say That by Christs sufferings Gods justice was satisfied to this end that man might be saved For the salvation of man we say was not intended by God simply but after a certain manner to wit in the way of mercy mixed with justice which end doth not presuppose the permission of sinne as these Remonstrants shape the matter to varnish over their consequence with some colour of probability but rather it bespeaks both the permission of sinne and satisfaction to be made for sinne to the end that so man might be saved not simply but after a certain manner to wit in the way of mercy mixed with justice But suppose they were considered as sinners Why should the Remonstrants look strangely upon this doctrine namely that God should intend the salvation of sinners in signo rationis before he intended that his justice should be satisfied For doe not they maintaine that God by power absolute can pardon sinne without all satisfaction But supposing that God will not pardon sinne without satisfaction in this case they may contend that God must first intend to take a course that such satisfaction may be made and then intend to save And let them contend but in the name of reason and not of clamours and content themselves with the infatuation of themselves with such senselesse conceits and not spread this scab unto others also My reason to the contrary is still the same namely that if God be pleased to save sinners in despight of sinne in the way of mercy mixt with justice the case is cleare that satisfaction for sinne is rather a means of mans salvation then mans salvation is a means tending to the procurement of satisfaction for sinne and consequently the intention of salvation of sinners is in reason to precede the intention of procuring satisfaction rather then to follow after it as the intention of the end is rather to be accounted before then after the intention of the means Yet say these Remonstrants if a man will be so obstinate as notwithstanding the felicity of these Remonstranticall witts in fruitfull inventions and subtile argumentations still to deny that there is any absurdity herein thus over and above we prove it For as yet they have runne themselves out of breath If say they the decree of Christ a Saviour be after the election of particular persons unto salvation it followeth that God did decree some particular mens salvation before he ordained Christs merits to procure their salvation but this is foolish and absurd I answer No more foolish and absurd then the former and indeed every one of these consequences for the expressing whereof they affect to seem very inventious doe savour of no invention at all the Consequents doe so evidently even every one of them appeare as clearely in the Antecedent as a mans face in a glasse and are to be accounted rather Tautologies then deductions much lesse doe they rellish of any subtilty of wit So that all this while they seem to be in travell with nothing but wind or sick of the disease called Tenasmus striving mightily to doe somewhat when indeed they doe nothing at all And our former argument still hath place and here also applied doth manifest that seeing the merits of the sonne of God are the means of mans salvation then mans salvation is the end of Christs merits therefore in all probability the intention of mans salvation as the intention of the end should precede the intention of sending Christ to merit as the means rather then to be subordinate unto it And indeed if the sending of Christ into the World to merit should be first in intention then should it be
himselfe Now I come to the second 2. And that is this That all mens ends are unalterable and indeterminable by the power of their Wills and this he saith is upon the matter all one 1. Now this is most untrue there being a vast difference between the actions of men and the ends of men The ends of men being the works of God And what a monster shall he be in the Church of God that with Vorstius shall dare to affirme that all the works of God were not determined from everlasting or being determined they are alterable and that in such sort as to be otherwise determinable by the wills of men especially considering that the very acts of mens wills being wrought by God as all sides now a daies confesse it consequently followes that they were also determined from everlasting by the Will and Counsell of God What should I alleage the 11 th Article of Ireland for this God from all eternity did by his unchangeable Counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures and neither the liberty nor contingency of second causes is taken away but established rather There is no Arminian that I know dares deny either that every act of man is wrought by God or that look what God doth work in time the same he did before all time decree and that from everlasting I know there is a main and a most Atheisticall difference between us on one part but I doe not find them willing to shew their hornes directly therein but carry the matter so as if they would obtrude upon us the acknowledgement either of the temporall not eternall condition of decrees divine or at least of their alterable nature whereas themselves dare not plainly manifest themselves to be of any such Atheisticall beliefe Let us instance in particular Let the salvation of some and damnation of others be the ends this Author meaneth Now dare any of them with open face professe that the salvation of the elect and damnation of the reprobate was not from everlasting determined by God Be the supream ends of God concerning man the manifestation of his glory in the way of mercy on some in the way of vindicative justice on others Dare any of them professe that any of these ends are not from everlasting determined by God or being so determined dare they professe that these divine decrees are alterable or possible to be undetermined by the will of the creature What a prodigious assertion were either of these If they dare not say Gods will is changeable What an unshamefac'd course is this to obtrude upon us an alterable that is a changeable condition of Gods decrees But perhaps you may say here is no mention at all made of Gods decrees but of mans ends And I willingly confesse there is not And I am perswaded this Author dares not in plain termes professe that Gods decrees are alterable But hereby you may perceive and have a manifest document of the illusions of Satan and how mens carnall affections which are more in love with errour then truth doe make them to shut their eyes against the one and open them unto the other It were a very harsh thing to say plainly that Gods decrees are alterable and that being determined by him they might be undone or made undetermined by the wills of men Therefore the Devill finds a means to draw us to entertain the same blasphemous opinion not barefac'd but hoodwickt as it were and that is by changing the phrase For though it be uncouth to heare of an alterable condition of Gods decrees yet it seems nothing harsh to discourse of the alterable condition of mens ends But give me leave to unmask the Witch and make it appeare how the Devill gulls us in this Mens ends are either so called as intended by man himselfe or as appoynted by God If this Author speak of mens ends as intended by man himselfe wee willingly grant that they are alterable at his pleasure as for example Man intends one thing to day he may intend another thing to morrow he intends one thing this houre he may intend another thing the next and at his pleasure reverse his former intentions And no marvail considering that man partly is of a fickle disposition in respect of his affections studious of change and subject to innovation as the Moone partly of an improvident disposition he knows not what a Yeare what a Month what a Day what an houre may bring forth And therefore though never so wise and constant in his courses yet may he have just cause to change his resolutions and purposes But of such ends of man to wit as intended by man it is manifest this Author speaks not But of ends appointed by God these be the ends he will have to be alterable and determinable anew by the wills of men which cannot be without the alteration and change of Gods purposes and intentions which is as much as to say without the change and revocation of Gods decrees And an end not yet actually existing but only in intention can admit of no other alteration then in intention which this Author considering not though perhaps he abhorres to say Gods decrees are changeable and alterable and shuts out so uncouth an assertion at the fore-doore yet as it were by a back-doore to receive it in and in the dark and mufled or veyled only with a different phrase a different expression Yet forthwith he takes a new course For whereas by the word unalterable he did imply that Gods decrees concerning mens ends should be of an alterable condition in the words following he changeth his tone and will not have the ends of man to be determined by God at all but left unto man to be determined as when he saith In vaine is our freedome in the actions if the end which they drive at be pitched and determined Whereby it is manifest he will not have the end whereunto men drive to be determined And this end can be no other then salvation for that alone I take to be that whereto men drive and which they labour to attaine every one naturally seeking after Summum bonum after happinesse So that in the issue it comes to this The salvation of this Author is not yet determined by God but left to be determined by his will and that I take to be in the way of a moving cause and that moving cause I guesse to be his finall perseverance in faith and repentance whereupon and not till then shall this mans salvation be determined by God as much as to say that Gods decrees are as meerly temporall as are the executions of them And herein this Author doth exactly agree with Doctor Jackson perhaps being so happy as to understand him or perhaps being so happy as to light upon an interpreter of him some one that breaths the same spirit of opposition to Gods truth
that he saith he proves by Iohn 16. 9. The spirit shall convince the World of sinne because they believe not in me Reprobates therefore are bound to believe But now they cannot be justly bound to believe if they be absolute and inevitable Reprobates for three causes 1. Because it is Gods will that they shall not believe and it appears to be so because it is his peremptory will that they shall have no power to believe for its a Maâ—ime in Logick that Qui vult aliquid in causâ vult effectum ex ista causa necessario profluentem No man will say that it is Gods serious will that such a man shall live when it is his will that he shall not have the concourse of his providence and the act of preservation now will any say that forget not themselves that God doth unfainedly will that those men shall believe whom he will not furnish with necessary power to believe Now if it be Gods will that absolute reprobates shall in no wise believe they cannot in justice be tied to believe For no man is bound to an act against Gods peremptory will 2. Because it is impossible that they should believe they want power to believe and must want it still God hath decreed they shall have none to their dving day without power to believe they can no more believe then a man can see without an eye and live without a Soule Nemo obligatur ad impossibilia To believe is absolutely impossible unto them and therefore in justice they can be tyed to believe no more then a man can be bound to fly like a Bird or to reach heaven with the top of his finger 3. Because they have no object of saith Credere â—ubet dâ— fidei nulium objectum 〈◊〉 This decree makes God to oblige men to believe and to give them no Christ to believe in and to punish them as transgressors of the covenant of grace when yet they have no more right unto it or part in it then the very Devills Can God justiy bind men to believe a lye To believe that Christ died for them when it is no such matter If a man should command his Servant to eate and punish him for not eating and in the mean time fully resolve that he shall have no meat to eate Would any reasonable man say that he were just in such a command such a punishment Change but the names the case is the same TWISSE Consideration IN this discourse on the poynt of Gods justice this Author seems to storme and shewes great confidence of bearing downe all before him but the more ridiculous will it prove in the issue when it shall appeare that all this wind beats down no corne He takes his rise from a particular opinion of Zanchy whose opinion is that all even Reprobates are bound to believe they are elected in Christ unto salvation though never they shall believe nor can believe But doth this Author himselfe concurre with Zanchy in this opinion If he did I presume it were upon some better ground then the authority of Zanchy and in all likelihood we should have heard of those grounds or doth himselfe believe that that passage Ioh. 16. 9. He shall convict the World of sinne because they believed not in me doth evince as much or import as much as that is whereunto Zanchy drives it If he doth not concurre with Zanchy in either of these why should he tye us to the particular authority of Zanchy Must we be bound to stand to every interpretation of our Divines or every particular opinion of theirs wherein perhaps they were singular Secondly suppose this opinion of Zanchy be a truth and suppose we concurre with him herein will it from this opinion follow that therefore even Reprobates have power to believe Who seeth not that it is a flat contradiction to the antecedent For the Doctrine of Zanchy as here it is related is this that even Reprobates though they cannot believe yet are they bound to believe Now will it herehence follow that therefore they have power to believe Whereas it is manifestly supposed in the antecedent that they cannot believe And to my understanding the distinction of Elect and Reprobate in this case is most unseasonable For to what end doe we Preach unto our hearers that all sorts of men are bound to believe but this to wit that every one that heareth us being privy to his condition may understand that he of what condition soever he be which is supposed to be better known to him then to the Preacher or at least as well is bound to believe But as for these different conditions of elect and reprobate no man can be privy to the one untill he doth believe nor to the other untill finall perseverance in unbeliefe And if I list I could alleadge the opinion of another Divine who is very peremptory in his way professing that the Ministers calling upon us to believe is no commandement at all but like a Kings gracious Proclamation unto certain malifactors who are all accused of High Treason giving them to understand that in case they will voluntarily confesse their sinne and accept of his gracious pardon offered them he will most graciously pardon them But if they will not but stand rather to their triall presuming to acquit themselves right well and prove themselves to be true Subjects let them stand to the adventure and issue of their tryall And that thus the covenant of grace is offered to be received by them only who feare to come and dare not come to the tryall of the Covenant of works But I will not content my selfe in putting off Zanchy in this manner although by the way I cannot but professe that were I of their opinion who teach that God gives unto all and every one when they come into the World a certain grace for the enlivening of their wills whereby they are enabled to will any spirituall good whereto they shall be excited I see no reason but that the way is open to everlasting life as well by the covenant of works as by the covenant of grace for let perfect obedience be the spirituall good whereto they are excited let them but will it as it is supposed they can and then God will be ready to concurre to the doing of it like as to the work in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 resipiscere modò velimus so also I should think to work in us perfect obedience modò velimus And in this case I pray consider what need were there of faith in Christ on their part more then on the part of the Holy Angells certainly there would be no need of repentance Thirdly therefore consider we the constant Doctrine of Divines not that Reprobates are bound to believe but that all that heare the Gospell are bound to believe but in what sense Piscator saith as I remember that the thing which all such are bound to believe is
his familiar spirit takes himselfe to be spares not to professe that about the reconciling of Gods predestination with the liberty of mans will a poynt that comes so neere to this in hand as a poynt can doe there are many distinctions devised by the learned but yet he saith of them that they did not qutetare intellectum and therefore that he did captivare suum in obsequium fidei and Alvarez no dwarfe neither in Scholasticall that is rationall Divinity addeth that herein Cajetan piissimè doctissimè loquitur But who they are that have taken notice of those arguments here specified and at the sight of them were so ston'd as at the sight of some Medusas head and thereupon came to this course of incantation or pacification he doth very wisely conceale and like a man of authority puts it upon us to take it upon his word Yet I doe not remember that I have rested my selfe upon any such course though the holy Apostle thinks it sufficient to cleare any course of God from injustice by proving that Scripture doth attribute such a course unto God as I have shewed out of Rom. 9. 14. It is true the spirit which this Author breaths is the right Pelagian spirit according to the Pelagians in Bradwardines daies for their vaunt was that they could not be refuted by any reason Philosophicall but only by certain naked authorities Theologicall as I have heard of a Schollar sometimes challenged by a friend and kinsman of his for being given as he heard to the Arminian Tenet made a ready answer with protestation that that opinion was very plausible but that S t Paul was against it And therefore Bradwardine undertakes to confute them by reason Philosophicall so farre off was he from being cowed with their vain boasts and braggs His words are these Sicut antiqui Pelagiani ventoso nomine secularium scientiarum inflati consistorium Theologicum contemnentes Philosophicum flagitabant ita moderni Audivi namque quosdam advocatos Pelagii licet multum provectos in sacris apicibus affirmantes Pelagium nusquam potuisse convinci per naturalem Philosophicam rationem sed vix arguebatur utcunque per quasdam authoritates Theologicas maxime autem per authoritatem Ecclesiae quae Satrapis non placebat Quapr opter per rationes authoritates Philosophicas ipsos disposui reformare And for my part though I affect not in those poynts to goe beyond Scripture and Christian reason yet I am content to be led whethersoever my adversary thinks good to lead me And as a Schollar of my acquaintance being left handed and accordingly casting his cloake over the right shoulder was answered by a Cittizen observing it when he enquired his way saying when you shall come to such a place you must turne on your right hand meaning indeed on the left so likewise I am nothing afraid of this mans Philosophy nor his Abettors neither nothing doubting but as many as I find opposing this divine truth which we maintain their best dexterity in Philosophicall and rationall discourse will prove but a left handed Philosophy and in this very field of argumentation I purpose to lay upon him ere we part But let us first consider the things that he replies 1. He saith There is nothing in Scripture abhorring from sound and right reason he addes Odious too as if his Philosophy had taught him that it is the part of reason to hate and not rather of affections This rule when we were initiates in the University we were soon acquainted with Yet this Author to vent his fulnesse casts himselfe upon an unnecessary proofe thereof and the mischiefe is that his proofe maketh his cause worse then it was before For having formerly made the comparison between the word of God and sound and right reason in his reason he states the comparison between faith and reason nature and Scripture not distinguishing between nature corrupt and uncorrupt reason corrupt and uncorrupt Our service of God is reasonable in as much as it is performed by reasonable creatures and the rule thereof is not naturall reason but meerely the word of God In whom was naturall reason more eminent then in Philosophers Yet were they wont to be called Haereticorum Patriarchae and the Apostle hath professe of all such that the things of God seem foolishnesse unto them 1 Cor. 2. 14. Now I pray consider soberly how reasonable such courses are judged to be which are accounted foolishnesse and what a sweet harmony there is between things revealed and mens understandings and whether reasonable and foolish be not a plain contradiction as well as wise and foolish If we enjoy a more pure and refined reason then they let us give illumination Divine the glory of it and say with him in Job verily there is a spirit in man but the illumination of the Almighty giveth understanding And seeing the word of God is the only means of Divine illumination let us thank Gods word for all I come to the second Materiall of his reply 2. And that is this that all those Doctrine which are adâ—erse and repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles are not to be taken for Doctrines of Scripture but devices of men corrupting Scripture by false glosses and interpretations No marvaile that when men oppose the misteries of Godlinesse they fall upon the mysteries of iniquity Here we have a rule given to try whether a Doctrine proposed be to be taken for a Doctrine of Scripture yea or no And mark it well I beseech you and I desire that every sober man will mark it well and judge whether it deserve not to be numbred amongst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the depths of Satan And withall judge whether the pretended Author of this discourse can in any probability be the Author of this and whether it becomes not rather some old beaten Souldier in Arminianisme that takes upon him to be the Master and Dictator of Sentences About Regula fidei the rule of Faith there is much question between us and Papists the meaning whereof is what that is whereinto must be made the last resolution of our Faith We say it is the word of God contained in the Books of the Old Testament and the New Papists say it is the voyce of the Church This Author deviseth a new way which I think was never heard off before except among the Socinians namely that it is the judgement of understandings purged from prejudice and false Principles For albeit the Doctrine of Faith we judge to be contained no where but in Gods word yet notwithstanding as touching the meaning of it nothing must be taken to be the true meaning of Scripture how fairely soever grounded thereupon in shew unlesse withall it seem nothing repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles Into this therefore must be made the last resolution of our faith Again where shall we meet with these judges as they are here
so as if we maintained that God ordained them to be damned absolutely and for the meer pleasure of God concealing the only cause for which God ordained that they should be damned namely for the wilfull transgression of Gods holy Commandements Only the giving and denying of the grace of regeneration the giving of faith and repentance for the curing of that naturall infidelity and impenitency that is found in all and the leaving it uncured by denying faith and repentance this indeed we maintain to be absolute according to that of Saint Paul he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Rom. 9. 18. Now dare any of them deny faith and repentance to be the gift of God They doe not they dare not only of late they have come thus farre as to deny that Christ merited faith and regeneration for any Secondly inquire whether God gives faith and repentance to some and denyes it to others of his meere will and pleasure or because he finds some good works in the one which he finds not in the other Here is the criticall poynt we defend no other absolutenesse of election and reprobation but such as depends wholly on this namely that God finding men equall in corruption hath compassion on some giving them faith and repentance which he denies unto others All other absolutenesse of Election and Reprobation besides that which we undertake by cleare demonstration to deduce herehence we utterly renounce Neither can our adversaries be so grossely ignorant as not to perceive that this is the criticall poynt of these controversies the resolution of the truths wherein will set an end to all contention about Election and Reprobation Why then doe they not deale plainly and try their strength in this whereby they should carry themselves fairely and ingenuously and deale above board For here alone is that absolutenesse of God in execution which we maintaine but here they are not so prone to shew their hornes this argument is not so fit for the raising of clamours and Tragedies And hating the truth of God as touching his soveraignty over his creatures to have compassion on whom he will and to harden whom he will as also the prerogatives of his grace to work us effectually to that which is pleasing in his fight and that in whom he will also yet not daring plainly to deliver their mind in this as wherein they are found most absurd and encumbred with shamefull contradictions therefore by the back dore as it were they hope to discredit it and by opposing the absolutenesse of Reprobation to supplant and undermine the Doctrine of Gods free grace And not content with this they miserably corrupt our doctrine also in the poynt of absolute Reprobation drawing it to this as if not reprobation only but damnation also were made absolute by us and that God damned men not so much in the way of justice for their sinne as of his own meere pleasure At length to come to the third particular of his reply 3. And that is this that howbeit some things in Scripture which are peculiar to the Gospell are above our understandings and must without hesitation be believed yet many things there have their foundation in nature and may be apprehended by the light of nature and amongst these the justice of Gods waies is one as hath been shewed Isai 5. 3. and Ezek. 18. To this I answer That the waies of God mentioned Isai 5. 3. is only in his expecting fruits after so great pains that he had taken in husbanding his vineyard And Ezek. 18. consists only in rendring unto men according to their waies Neither doth it follow that because the justice of God doth plainly appeare in these particulars therefore it doth appeare as cleerely or comprehensively in all others Is there no difference between the waies of God there mentioned and the waies of Gods justice mentioned in other place as namely in causing the Sonnes of Achan to be stoned to death with Achan himselfe for his Sacriledge in drowning the old World not sparing the very Infants and sucklings and for their conspiracy against Moses and Aaron causing the earth to swallow up not Dathan and Abiram only but their Wives and Children and all that they had So in consuming Sodom and Gomorrah with fire And as for the punishing of of sinne this is no peculiar truth of the Gospell I had thought the Gospell in the proper nature thereof had been above reason altogether and no way capable of demonstration And as for the justice of God must not this suppose him to be a free agent Or was this known to Aristotle by all the light of nature whereunto he attained We that believe him to be a free agent and withall the creator of all are ready to demonstrate that it is in his power to doe what he will with his creature and that not only to annihilate him though never so holy but to inflict what paine soever upon him yea even the torment of hell fire which Medina acknowledgeth to have been Communem omnium Theologorum sententiam viz. that this he can doe ut Dominus vitae mortis as I have shewed in my Vindiciae graciae Dei and by variety of arguments proved it more then once in two severall digressions which this Author pretends to have seen yet answereth not one of them And as for justice divine toward the creature whereupon this Author doth with such confidence discourse both Vasquez and Suarez Jesuits in other poynts concerning Gods justice are miserably at odds yet joyntly concurre in this that all iustice Divine doth presuppose the free determination of Gods will Now because I find this Gentleman so conceited of the purity of his rationall faculty and the power thereof as to require that all interpretation of Scripture should veyle bonnet to the soveraignty thereof I purpose to try his ability this way for the expediting of certain arguments about the absolutenesse of Gods decrees in generall and particularly of the decree of Reprobation Therefore to combate with him on his own ground and in his own element I dispute thus 1. No temporall thing can be the cause of that which is eternall but the sinnes of men are all temporall whereas Reprobation is eternall therefore the sinnes of men cannot be the cause of Reprobation If it be said that sinne is not made the cause of reprobation but as it exsists in Gods foresight and so not so much sinne as the prescience of sinne is the cause of reprobation I reply that this device cannot stand viz. that the prescience of sinne should be the cause of reprobation and that for this reason The cause of reprobation whereof we enquire is of the nature of a meritorious cause But the prescience of God can no way be said to be a meritorious cause thereof Science and prescience are causes of Gods works in the kind of an efficient Physicall not in the kind of an efficient morall such as are
all causes meritorious If it be farther said that not so much the foresight of sin as to speak more properly sinne foreseen is the cause of reprobation I reply against it in this manner sinne foreseen doth suppose Gods decree to permit sinne and consequently if sinne foreseene be before reprobation then also the decree of permitting sinne is before the decree of reprobation that is the decree of damning for sinne But this cannot be as I endeavour to prove by two reasons The first is this There is no order in intentions but between the intention of the end and the intention of the means and the order is this that the intention of the end is before the intention of the means Therefore if the decree of permitting sinne be before the decree of damning for sinne the decree of permitting sinne must be the intention of the end and the decree of damning for sinne must be the intention of the meanes But this is notoriously untrue For it is apparent that damnation tends not to the permission of sinne as the end thereof for if it did then men were damned to this end that they might be permitted to sinne But far more likely it is that sinne should be permitted to this end that a man might be damned which yet by no means doe I a vouch other reasons I have to shew the vanity of this argumentation I rather professe that permssion of sinne and damnation are not subordinate as end means but coordinate both being means tending joyntly to a farther end which under correction from understandings purged from prejudice and false principles I take to be the manifestation of Gods glory in the way of justice vindicative 2. My second reason is if permission of sinne be first in intention and then damnation it followes that permission of sinne should be last in execution but this is most absurd namely that a man should be first damned and then suffered to sinne 2. My second principall argument is this Reprobation as it signifies Gods decree is the act of Gods will now the act of Gods will is the very will of God and the will of God is Gods essence and like as there can be no cause of Gods essence so there can be no cause of Gods will or of the act thereof Upon some such arguments as these Aquinas disputes that the predestination of Christ cannot be the cause of our Predestination adding that they are one act in God And when he comes to the resolution of the question he grants all as touching actum volentis that the one cannot be the cause of the other But only quoad praedestinationis terminum which is grace and glory or the things predestinated Christ is the cause of them but not of our predestination as touching the act of God predestinating And I think I may be bold to presume that Christs merits are of as great force to be the cause why God should elect man unto salvation as mans sinnes are of force to be the cause why God should reprobate him unto damnation The same Aquinas a tall fellow as touching Scolasticall argumentation hath professed that no man hath been so mad as to say that merits are the cause of predestination quoad actum praedestinantis and why but because there can be no cause on mans part of the will of God quoad actum volentis Now reprobation is well knowne to be the will of God as well as election and therefore no cause can there be on mans part thereof quoad actum reprobantis And it is well knowne there is a predestination unto death as well as unto life and consequently t is as mad a thing in his judgement to maintaine that merits are the cause there of quoad actum praedestinantis God by efficacious grace could breake off any mans infidelity if it pleased him that is by affording him such a motion unto faith as he foresaw would be yeelded unto this is easily proved by the evident confession of Arminius formerly specified Now Why doth God so order it as to move some in such a manner as he foresees they will believe others in such a māner as he foresees they will not believe but because his purpose is to manifest the glory of his grace in the salvation of the one and the glory of his justice in the damnation of the other Herein I appeale to the judgement and conscience of every reasonable creature that understands it in spight of all prejudice and false principles to corrupt him 4. In saying sinne foreseen is the cause of Gods decree of damnation they presuppose a prescience of sinne as of a thing future without all ground For nothing can be foreknown as future unlesse it be future now these disputers presuppose a futurition of sinne and that from eternity without all ground For consider no sinne is future in its own nature for in its own nature it is meerely possible and indifferent as well not to be future as to become future and therefore it cannot passe out of the condition of a thing meerely possible into the condition of a thing future without a cause Now what cause doe these men devise of the futurition of sinne Extra Deum nothing can be the cause thereof For this passage of things out of the condition of things possible into the condition of things future was from everlasting for from everlasting they were future otherwise God could not have known them from everlasting And consequently the cause of this passage must be acknowledged to have been from everlasting and consequently nothing without God could be the cause of it seeing nothing without God was from everlasting Therefore the cause hereof must be found intra Deum within God then either the will of God which these men doe utterly disclaime or the knowledge of God but that is confessed to presuppose things future rather then to make them so or the essence of God now that may be considered either as working necessarily and if in that manner it were the cause of things future then all such things should become future by necessity of nature which to say is Atheisticall or as working freely and this is to grant that the will of God is the cause why every thing meerely possible in its own nature doth passe from everlasting into the condition of a thing future if so be it were future at all And indeed seeing no other cause can be pitched upon this free will of God must be acknowledged to be the cause of it And consequently the reason why every thing becomes future is because God hath determined it shall come to passe but with this difference All good things God hath determined shall come to passe by his effection All evill things God hath determined shall come to passe by his permission And the Scripture naturally affords plentifull testimony to confirme this without forcing it to interpretations congruous hereunto upon presumptuous grounds that these arguments proceed from
is ingaged to give ability of believing unto men he may as well inferre that he is engaged to give ability unto men to the keeping of his law and what need was there of Christs coming into the world Seeing by his coming into the world we have gained no better condition by the Arminian Tenet than to be saved if we will and if men have ability to to keepe the law even by the law they may be saved if they will and it will follow as well that God without giving this ability to keepe the law cannot justly punish the transgressours of it as that God without giving men ability to believe cannot punish men for not believing no more than a Magistrate having put out a mans eyes for an offence can command this man with justice to read a booke and because he reads not put him to death But this is a very vile simile and stands in no tolerable proportion to that whereunto it is resembled For the man thus bereaved of his eyes hath a will to read and consequently it is no fault for not reading for all sinne is in the will But it is not so in not obeying either Law or Gospell If a man had a will to obey and believe but he could not in such a case it were unreasonable he should be punished But in the case of disobedience unto God we speake of all the fault is in the will voluntarily and wilfully they neither will obey the one nor the other like as they that have accustomed themselves to doe evill can not doe good as a blackemoore cannot change his skinne Yet with this difference that man is never a whit the more excusable or lesse punishable for not doing that which is good not so the blackemore for not changing his skinne But such is the shamefull issue of them that confound impotency Morall with impotency naturall as if there were no difference As wild is the comparison following of the Masters exacting from his Servant a just employment of that stock which he hath taken from him An evill servant may have a will to play the good husband in imploying his Masters stock where he pleased to intrust him with it But though he hath a will to be faithful and thrifty yet without matter to worke upon he cannot exercise this fidelity of his to his Masters behoofe Shew the like will in a carnall man to believe if he could and if God bereave him of power in such a case then conclude the unreasonablenesse of Gods courses herein But if the Master gave him a stock to employ upon a resonable rent to be payd him yearly for certaine yeares if so be the servant wast the stock Shall it not be lawfull for the Master neverthelesse to require his debt And bid him pay that he owes him This is the case we speake of In Adam we all have sinned saith the Apostle and thereby have wasted that stock of grace which God had given us and so disabled our selves to performe that duty we owe to God What therefore Shall not God call upon us to pay our debts because we are become bankrupts Especially considering the naturall man is proud enough of his abilities to performe any thing that is good And as for ability to believe is there not a kind of faith performed by prophane persons by Hypocrites who concurre with the best in the profession of the Gospell Nay Is there not a secret kind of hypocrisie as when a man thinks his heart is upright towards God when indeed it is not Otherwise what should move Saint Paul to call upon the Corinthians to examine themselves whether they were in the faith saying Know you not your selves how that Christ is in you except ye be reprobates 2 Car. 13. 5. It is true there is a faith infused by the spirit of God in regeneration but who ever said that any man was damned because he doth not believe with such a faith As much as to say that non-regeneration is the meritorious cause of damnation Now how well he hath proved that our Doctrine in the poynt of absolute reprobation is repugnant to Gods justice let the indifferent judge DISCOURSE SECT IV. Which I divide into Three Subsections SUBSECT I. THe Third Attribute which it oppugneth is the truth of God God is a God of truth Deut. 32. 4. Truth it selfe Ioh. 14. 6. So called because he is the fountain of truth and the perfection of truth without the least mixture of false-hood the strength of Israell cannot lye 1 Sam. 15. 29. Never could any man justly charge him with dissembling Let God be true and every man a lyar saith the Apostle that he might be justified in his sayings and overcome when he is judged Rom. 3. 4. That is men may lye for all men are lyars but God cannot lye for God is true if any man should goe about to challenge him of untruth his challenge would easily appeare to be a calumny The truth of God like a glorious Sunne will break through all those clouds of accusations which seek to obscure and hide it Simile gaudet Simili God loves such as are of a true heart Psal 51 6. And hath an hypocrite in utter detestation and therefore he must needs be true himselfe No man for ought I know doubts of it But by this decree is God made untrue and hypocriticall in his dealing with all men and in all matters that concerne their eternall estate particularly in his commands in his offers of grace and glory in his threats in his passionate wishes and desires of mens chiefest good and in his expostulations and commiserations also 1. In his commands for by this doctrine God commands those men to repent and believe whom he secretly purposeth shall never believe Now whom God commands to believe and repent those he outwardly willes should believe and repent For by his commandements he signifies his will and pleasure and he must inwardly and heartily will it too or else he dissembles For words if they be true are an interpretation of the mind when they are not are meere impostures and simulations 2. In his offers of grace and glory these offers he makes to such as refuse them and perish for refusing them as well as unto those who doe accept them to their salvation This is evident Math. 22. where those were invited to the wedding that came not And Acts 3. 26. Where t is said To you hath God sent his Sonne Jesus to blesse you in turning every one of you from your iniquities Math. 23. 37. How oft would I have gathered of you saith Christ speaking of such as neglect the day of their visitation and so lost their salvation This is evident also by reason for as many as are under the commandement are under the promise too as we may see Acts 2. 38 39. Repent and be Baptized every one of you and you shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost for to you and to your Children
but to draw them up by these to an expectation of better things and a carefull endeavour to please God that they might obtain them But what blessings had the Gentiles more than common blessings doth he particulate any And as for the expectation of better things than the things of this world whereunto he pretends God doth draw them hereby what oracle hath he for this Prosper in the Book wherein he insists hath nothing at all of any possibility of knowledge of God unto salvation arriveable unto by the meere contemplation of the creature neither have I found any such Oracle throughout the Nation of the Arminians Nay he professeth plainly that that knowledge of God which is attaineable by the contemplation of the creature is not sufficient unlesse he enjoy the true light to discusse the darknesse of mans heart De vocatione Gent. l. 2. cap. 6. his words are these Tam acerbo natura humana vulnere sauciata est ut ad cognitionem Dei neminem contemplatio spontanea plenè valeat erudire nisi obumbrationem cordis vera lux discusserit And the Apostle more than once professeth of the Gentiles that they were without hope And the tast of the powers of the world to come seemes to be by the Apostle ascribed to the word of God as the cause of it Heb. 6. Yet 't is true the Heathen had odde notions of a condition after death as many as believed the immortality of the soule but where I pray was it upwards in heaven or downewards rather under the earth as Styx Phlegeton and the Campi Elisii yet Cicero looks upwards I confesse in his Tusculans questions but yet he goes no farther than the starres and this was their expectation of better things though Adrian an Emperour and a Schollar too bemoans himselfe that he knew not what should become of his poore soule Animula vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae tu abibis in loca nec ut soles dabis jocos horridula rigida nudula But this Author most confidently supposeth that these better things are manifest by the creatures by the contemplation whereof he might attaine to the knowledge of them and then I doubt not but he might entertaine a hope to attaine them provided he carefully endeavoured to please God which this Author conceaves to have been very possible and therewithall knew what that was by doing whereof he might be sure to please God And all this he obtrudes upon his Reader by a most dissolute course without one crumme of reason for it In like sort he discourseth very confidently of the end of man without distinction of any relation hereof as if the end of man were equally known as well by light of nature as by revelation of Gods word Solomon telleth us That God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill Was this known to the Gentiles by the light of nature Not one of all the Philosophers of old acknowledged the Worlds creation out of nothing and who ever manifested any such faith among them as of enjoying a perpetuall society with God in heaven But it may be they all erred in interpreting the book of nature aright and understanding the language thereof concerning this poynt of faith This Author may doe well to cleare the World of this errour and that out of the book of the creatures and then proceed to interpret unto us therehence a generall resurrection also And if he could find Christ there too togeather with the Incarnation of the Sonne of God and his death and passion resurrection and ascension and sitting at the right hand of God to make request for us and our justification by faith in him togeather with regeneration also and the generall judgement then no doubt though the Gospell should continue to be a scandall to the Jewes yet surely through the incomprehensible benefit of his comfortable atchievements it should continue no longer to be foolishnesse unto the Gentiles only our faith should then cease and be turned into sight before we are brought to the seeing of the face of God And yet I see no great need of Christ if it be in the power of an Heathen man to know what it is to please God and to have an heart to please him For certainly as many as know what it is to please God and have an heart to please him God will never hurt them much lesse damne them to hell Yet the Apostle telleth us that they that are in the flesh cannot please God but whether this Author thinks Heathens to be amongst the number of them that are in the flesh I know not But I little wonder when an Arminian spirit of giddinesse hath possessed him if he proceed to the confounding not only of the Law with the Gospell but heathenisme also such as might be with Christianity But suppose a man might attaine to as much knowledge by the meere contemplation of the book of nature as we doe obtain by the Revelation of Gods word yet we that conceive the knowledge of Gods word to be no impediment to the absolutenesse of reprobation must needs find our selves as much as nothing streightned herein by this Authors roaving discourse as touching the generall providence of God in his works as long as that of the Apostle he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth shall stand and be received for the word of God we shall never want ground for maintaining the absolutenesse both of election by the one and by just proportion of Reprobation also by the other For so long as God doth absolutely and according to the meere pleasure of his will decree to have mercy upon some by giving them faith and repentance for the curing of their infidelity and hardnesse of heart this is very sufficient to maintain the absolutenesse of election unto grace and if God doth absolutely and according to the meere pleasure of his will decree to harden others by denying them the grace of faith and repentance so to leave their naturall infidelity and hardnesse of heart uncured this shall be as sufficient to maintaine the absolutenesse of Reprobation from grace As for election unto salvation though the decree thereof can admit no cause yet we say that God by this decree doth not decree to bestow salvation on any man of ripe yeares but by way of reward of faith repentance and good workes as for the decree of Reprobation from glory and to damnation though the decree hath no cause yet we say that God by this decree doth not decree to inflict damnation on any but for sinne unrepented of only I confesse that as touching the interpretation of those words of Saint Paul He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth I doe not know how it may be charmed by good witts least it may seem repugnant to some reason gathered by contemplation of the creatures for some affect such a
was sufficient to convert them which must be by the Antithesis to bring them to faith provided that they that is the hearers play the good husbands in the using of it But what is it to play the good husbands These and such like Phrasiologies are the usuall sculking courses of the Arminians like the inke which the Fish Saepia casts forth that she may thereby the better hide her selfe and escape from the hands of the Fisher But certainly it must be some worke or other to be performed by the hearer whereby he shall be brought to faith therefore I say it is either the worke of Faith it selfe or some other worke preceding it not of faith it selfe for faith it selfe cannot in reason be said to be a worke whereby a man is brought to faith Secondly herehence it followeth that Mans good husbandry being here distinguished from the worke of Faith it selfe the act of Faith is hereby made the work of mans will not of Gods grace if some work preceding faith whereupon faith is wrought by grace it followeth that the grace of faith is given according to mans works this is the foule issue of their tenet making faith either not at all the worke of God or if wrought by God to be wrought according to mans worke And thus they shape the grace of God conferring faith not only towards Reprobates but also towards the elect Now observe I beseech you how our Brittaine Divines doe purposely reject this Doctrine in the Synod of Dort art 3. in their third Thesis of those which are rejected by them The Thesis which they reject is positis omnibus gratiae operationibus quibus Deus ad efficiendam hanc conversionem utitur voluntatem hominis relinqui in aequilibrio velitne credere vel non credere convertete se ad Deum vel non convertere All the operations of grace supposed the will of man is left in an even ballance whether he will believe or no whether he will convert himselfe to God or no this is the very opinion of this Author against which our worthy Divines dispute there in this manner If this were so then it would follow that God by his grace is not the principall cause of mans believing and conversion but man by his free will rather For in this case God shall not predominantly worke mans conversion but upon condition only to wit in case the will first move it selfe whereby the lesse worke is given to God and the greater worke to man to wit in mans conversion 2. Herehence it will follow that God gives no more grace to the Elect than to the Reprobate and that the elect are not bound to be more thankefull to God than the non-elect because the worke of God in both is no other than to place the will in an even ballance 3. The grace of conversion is given with an intention that it shall prove effectuall and to move nay rather to bring man to the producing of the act of faith in such sort as it cannot be made in vaine Haec gratia a nullo duro corde respuitur ideo quippe tribuitur ut cordis duritia primitus auferatur And seeing the good Husbandry of mans consists in obedience to the Gospell it appears hereby that the grace they speake of is no other than the Gospell exhorting to repentance and this we confesse is sufficient in a certain kind to wit in the kind of instruction and exhortation and is not this sufficient to convict of unbeliefe as many as wilfully resist it and such is the condition of all in hearing the Gospell to whom God gives not the grace of conversion for as Saint Austin saith Libertas sine gratiâ non est libertas sed contumacia and no other impotency of beliefe doe we ascribe to a naturall man but such as consists in contumacy which is meerely a fault and corruption of the will not the defect of any naturall power and therefore as I said the impotemcy of converting to God by faith and repentance is impotency morall consisting meerely in the corruption of the will and there is no question but every man hath as much power to believe as Simon Magus of whom it is said that he believed Fides in voluntate est saith Austin credimus quando volumus but the will of man is so corrupt that without speciall preparation by Gods grace it is rather wilfully set to walke in the waies of flesh and bloud than obsequious to that which is good we make no question but that as Prosper saith every one that heareth the Gospell is thereby called unto grace even to obtaine pardon of sinne and salvation upon his faith in Christ and is called upon also to believe but withall we say with our Brittaine Divines Art 3. De Conversione Thesi 1a. In the explication thereof that God gives his elect not only posse credere si velint which in Austins opinion lib. 1. de gen contra Manic cap. 3. and de praedest Sanct. cap. 5. is common to all but velle credere nay they spare not to professe that if God should worke in us only posse credere posse convertere and leave the act of believing and converting to mans free will we should all doe as Adam did and fall from God through our free will and never bring this possibility into act take their own words Quod si vires quasdam infundendo daret Deus tantum posse credere posse convertere ipsum interim actum committeret libero hominum arbitrio certe quod primus parens fecit faceremus omnes libero arbitrio a Deo deficeremus nec possibilitatem hanc in actum perduceremus Haec itaque eximia est illa specialis gratia qua non modo possunt credere si velint sed volunt cum possunt Phil. 3. 13. Dat Deus nobis velle perficere As for that which he discourseth of Gods principall aime that the Church of Israell should bring forth good fruit let us speake plainly and not cheat our selves first and then become impostors unto others was it that which God did principally intend Gods intentions are his decrees now if God did decree they should bring forth fruit de facto who hath resisted his will Nay take their own rules according to their doctrine of Scientia media Why did God give them only such a grace to move them unto fruitfulnes which he foresaw they would resist And refuse to give such grace as he foresaw would not be resisted and that without all prejudice to their wills Let thē answer unto this for that God in the storehouse of his wisdome hath such courses as being used he foreseeth infalliby that any sin will be hindred Arminius acknowledgeth as I have oftē alleadged him But we may safely say 1. That God intended it should be their duty to bring forth fruit 2. If he did farther intend that the Church of Israel should de facto bring forth fruit this he
day to the Senate House and meeting by the way with him who had given him that warning he called him by his name and to shew his fearlesse condition sayd The Ides of March are come true S r quoth the other but they are not yet past The mortall wound in the Senate House was given him before he feared it for of thirty and odde wounds there received it is written that every one of them was mortall His heroicall spirit bare him out neverthelesse not against the feare for that was now out of season but against the sense of mortall paine in such sort as not to commit any indecent thing in dying under the hands of so many Assassinates either in word or deed for not a word of distemper was uttered by him only to Brutus his neere Kinsman and deare unto him when he came upon him in like manner as the rest he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and took care to gather his garments in such sort about ut honeste caderet Heaven and hell are ordained by God as the portion of the righteous the one of the wicked the other I hope this Author will not deny but that Heaven according to his phrase was unavoydably obtained by our Saviour yet this nothing hindred his hope but rather confirmed it by casting out of feare And the hope of Christ is the first thing this Author instanceth in while he amplifies the nature of hope but in his large expatiation thereon according to his course he spent so much time that he might well forget it before he come to the accommodation of it unto his Argument And indeed hope in Scripture phrase is the looking for of Christ and the glory he brings with him and what a senselesse thing is it to conceive that the more sure we are of blessednesse the lesse we should expect and look for the enjoyment of it Doth not our Saviour bid his Disciples Luke 10. 20. not to rejoyce in this that Devills are subdued unto them but rather to rejoyce in this that their names are written in heaven Now let any sober man judge whether this joy shall be of force to expectorate our hope and not rather to confirme and increase it As for Hell I know none are assured thereof as of their due portion but the Devills yet they feare and tremble never a whit the lesse for that But men while they live on earth not one of them in particular that I know are or have any just ground to be assured of their damnation For albeit faith in Christ may well be an assurance of mans election yet nothing but finall perseverance in infidelity or impenitency can be a just assurance to any man of his damnation As for the eternall states of men they are not existent but only in Gods intention and consequently to alter their eternall states is to alter Gods intentions Now what Arminian of these daies that is of any learning and judgement dares boldly affirme that it is in the power of the creature to alter Gods intentions In like sort with what sobriety can any man deny that every man is determined either to salvation or damnation the prescience of God being sufficient hereunto and we acknowledge that none is ordained by God to be damned but for finall perseverance in sinne unrepented of none to be saved of ripe yeares but by way of reward for his faith obedience repentance As for power and liberty to choose either let that be first rightly stated Moses Deut. 30. 19. or the Lord rather by him professeth that he hath set before them life and death and exhorts them to choose life the meaning whereof is to choose that the consequent whereunto is life now that was obedience unto the lawes and holy ordinances of God Now as touching the power and liberty to choose this we say 1. That this power was given to all in Adam and we have all lost it in him through sinne for we all sinned in him as the Apostle in expresse tearmes professeth Rom. 5. 12. 2. The power that we have lost in Adam is no naturall power but a morall power like unto that whereof the Lord speaketh by the Prophet Jeremy Jere. 13. 23. Can a Blackamore change his skinne Or the Leopard his spotts No more can you doe good that are accustomed to evill Nor will any sober man judge that such an impotency as this doth make a man excusable In the like sort our Saviour unto the Jewes Iohn 5. 44. How can yee believe that receive Honour one of another and seek not the Honour that comes of God only So that this impotency is meerly morall arising from the corruption of their wills Had a man a will to believe to repent but withall had no power to believe and repent though he would here indeed were a just cause of excuse but all the fault hereof is in the will of man This our Britaine Divines at the Synod of Dort upon the 3. and 4. Articles of the second Position expresse in this manner The nature of man being by voluntary Apostacy habitually turned from God the creatour it runs to the creature with an unbridled appetite and in a lustfull and base manner commits fornication with it being always desirous to set her heart and rest on those things which ought only to be used on the by and to attempt and accomplish things forbidden What marvell then if such a will be the bondslave to the Devill The will without charity is nothing but a vitious desire inordinata cupiditas Aug Retract 1. 5. 3. Yet the same Austin professeth Lib. 1. de Gen. cont Manich cap. 3. credere possunt ab amore visibilium rerum temporalium se ad ejus praecepta servanda convertere si velint And ad Marcel De spiritu littra proves at large that fides in voluntate est Only it is the grace of God to prepare the will ut velit and so to encrease with the gift of charity ut possit so that there is a great deale of difference between posse si velit and posse simpliciter in Austins judgment posse si velit is lesse then velle but posse simpliciter is more then velle 4. Lastly what meanes this Author to discourse thus hand overhead of power and liberty to choose whether as if whatsoever they pretend their true meaning were that man hath power to believe and repent without grace For as for power to believe and repent through Gods grace no man denyes Why then doth he not try his strength on this point which indeed is the criticall point of these controversies and wherein it will clearly appeare whether they differ one iot from the Pelagians For the question between the Pelagians and the Catholiques in Austins dayes was not about the possibility of willing or doing that which is good but only about the act of willing and doing And herein they granted instruction and exhortation requisite All the question
he the Lord knoweth Now who doubts but that our doctrine of justification by faith and not by workes may be an occasion to some to abuse the grace of God unto wantonnesse such there were even in the Apostles daies but what Shall we therefore renounce that doctrine I am not yet come to the tempering of the manner of proposing this doctrine I have more to say before I come to that What difference is there in harshnesse between these doctrines If ye doe not believe therefore ye doe not believe because God hath ordained you to destruction and this If ye doe not believe therefore ye doe not believe because God hath not regenerated you Let any man shew how a doore is open to slothfulnesse more by the one then by the other especially considering the ground of all is mans inability to believe without this grace of God effectually preventing and working him unto faith Now this doctine is plainly taught and that particularly of certain persons to their faces Ioh 8. He that is of God heareth Gods word ye therefore heare them not because ye are not of God The phrase to be of God I interpret here of regeneration but both Austin of old and our Divines of late doe interpret of election and so it is precisely the same with the Preaching of reprobation in his true colours as this Author interprets it and passeth this censure upon it as opening a doore to liberty and profanenesse which may I confesse well be occasionally to carnall men or to men possest with prejudicate opinions yet here it appears plainly to be in effect the same with that which our Saviour himselfe Preached But take this withall as it may be an occasion of slothfulnesse so it may be a meanes to humble men and beat them out of the presumptuous conceit of their own sufficiency to heare Gods word to believe to repent and the like and thereby to prepare them to look up unto God and to waite for him in his ordinances if so be as the Angell came downe to move the waters in the poole of Bethesda to make them medicinable so Gods spirit may come downe and make his word powerfull to the regenerating of them to the working of faith and repentance in them And I appeale to every sober mans judgement whether to this end tended not the very like Doctrine and admonition proposed by Moses to the Children of Israel in the Wildernesse Deut. 29. 2 3 4. Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh and all his servants and unto all his Land The great temptations which thine eyes have seene those great miracles and wonders Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and eares to heare unto this day For is it not Moses his purpose to set before their eyes how little they have profited in obedience and thankfulnesse unto God and amendment of life by all those great workes of his in the way of mercy towards them and in the way of judgement towards the Egyptians And what was the cause of all this but the hardnesse of their hearts and the blindnesse of their eyes and to what end doth he tell them that God alone can take away this hardnesse of heart and blindnesse of mind which hitherto he had not done Might he not seem to justify them in walking after the hardnesse of their hearts by this and harden them therein by this Doctrine of his like as this Author casts the like aspersion in part upon the like Doctrine of ours Yet Moses passeth not for this so he might set them in a right course to be made partakers of Gods grace and that by the ministry of the Law to humble and prepare them for the grace of God which is the Evangelicall use of the Law And it is remarkable that in the first verse of this Chapter these words are said to be the words of the Covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Children of Israel in the land of Moab beside the Covenant which he made with them in Horeb. Wherefore seeing the Covenant made in Horeb was the Covenant of the Law it followeth that this Covenant is the Covenant of grace and these words are the words of the Covenant of grace which is plainly expressed in the next Chapter v. 6. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed that thou maiest love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soule that thou maiest live And what is the usuall preparation hereunto but to humble men by convicting them of sinne and of their utter inability to help themselves and that nothing but Gods grace is able to give them an heart to perceive and eyes to see and eares to heare But yet because we doe not speake in the same measure of the spirit and of power as Moses and our Saviour did therefore we labour to decline all harshnesse as much as lyeth in our power where we see occasion is like to be taken of offence Therefore first as touching this discourse of Calvins If you believe not therefore it is because you are already destinated unto damnation I say this is untrue more waies then one First if he conceives destination unto damnation goes before Gods decree to deny faith this I utterly deny and have already proved that in no moment of reason doth the decree of damnation precede the decree of denying grace Therefore Gods decree to deny them grace is rather the cause why they believe not then the decree of damnation Secondly whether we take it of the one or of the other or of both yet the proposition is utterly untrue For it doth not follow that because a man doth not as yet believe therefore God hath decreed to deny him faith and because he hath so decreed therefore he denies him faith For he that believes not to day may believe to morrow Saul was sometimes a persecutor of Gods Church but was it at that time lawfull to conclude that because he did not then believe therefore he was destinated unto damnation so that the reason indeed is either because God hath not decreed at all to give them faith or because the time which God hath ordained for their conversion is not yet come This is so cleare that Calvin himselfe were he alive would not gainsay upon consideration Neither doth he justify this discourse but only saith we must be more wise then so to discourse to our Auditors But this Author in saying this is to set downe our doctrine of reprobation in its colours delivers that which is shamefully untrue and nothing sutable with our doctrine More necre to the matter we should say rather That like as therefore a man heareth Gods word because he is of God that is as I interpret it because he is regenerated of God so therefore men heare them not because they are not of
God that is not yet regenerated but yet neverthelesse they may be in good time Yet here also there is some defect for want of cleare explication of this truth For will you conclude hence that non-regeneration is the cause of infidelity as some doe in effect Why but this is either notoriously false or if true it is true in such a sense as whereby God is no more the cause thereof then a Physitian is the cause of a disease because he will not cure it For infidelity is a naturall fruit of mans hereditary corruption and God alone can cure it but if he will not God is not to be said to be the cause of any disobedience issuing therefrom otherwise then per modum non removentis by way of not removing the cause of it or per modum non dantis quod prohiberet by way of not curing the cause that is by not giving faith Now what harshnesse there is in this to as many as doe not concurre with the Pelagians so as in plain termes to professe that Grace is given according to mens works And the objection framed against Austin and grounded upon that doctrine which he acknowledged ranne thus Caeteri qui in peccatorum delectatione remoramini ideo nondum surrexistis quia nec dum vos adjutorium gratiae miserantis erexit Therefore you are not risen out of that delight you took in sinne because the succour of Gods grace hath not raised you not as Calvin expresseth it Therefore you believe not because ye are ordained to destruction And this very doctrine as formerly I said our Saviour spares not to apply to some particular persons and Preach it to their faces like as Moses Preacheth the very same doctrine to the Children of Israel Deut. 29. 2 3 4. Yet Austin to prevent harshnesse doth not like this manner of proposing it so well seeing it may be and it is fit it should be delivered coveniently thus Si qui autem ad huc in peccatorum damnabilium delectatione remoramini apprehenditis saluberrimam disciplinam Quod tamen cum feceritis nolite extolli quasi de operibus vestris aut gloriari quasi non acceperitis If any of you doe yet continue in the delightfull course of damnable sinnes take hold of wholesome discipline which when you have done be not proud thereof as of your own work or Glory as if you had not received this grace of God Now what advantagious service this first witnesse hath done him I am well content the indifferent may judge I come to his second witnesse that is of the Land-grave of Turing reported by Hesterbachius as I remember it is about the Twelfth Century of yeares since our Saviours incarnation This man being admonished by his friends of his dangerous and vitious courses made this answer Si praedestinatus sum nulla peccata poterunt mihi Regnum Caelorum auferre Si praescitus nulla bona mihi illud valebunt conferre It is not the first time I have met with this story not in Vossius only but in an Arminian Manuscript it seems they make some account of it yet I see no cause they should make any such account thereof It is the common voyce of prophane persons corrupting the doctrine of Predestination to serve their own turnes My selfe remember an instance of it in my minority when I was little more then a child and I remember both the Person whom and the place where it was delivered and it was accounted as a signe of a prophane heart yet this Vossius makes use of as an instance forsooth of a Predestination Heretique And I wonder why they doe not devise as well a Praescientiarian Heresy and that by as good an instance as this of one of Austins Monkes who being reproved by his brethren made the like answer as touching Gods praescience but yet with more sobriety saying Whatsoever I am now I shall be such as God foreseeth I will be Yet herein as Austin professeth he spake nothing but truth but the saying of the Landgrave implyes a notorious untruth namely that if he were predestinated he should be Saved though he continued in his sinfull courses Now this I say is a grosse untruth For predestination is the preparation of Grace as Austin desineth it and consequently such as are predestinated shall be taken off from their sinfull courses in good time and by Grace be brought unto Salvation In like sort he supposeth a Reprobate may be truly righteous whereas Austin professeth of such as are not predestinate that God brings none of them to wholsome and spirituall repentance whereby man is reconciled unto God in Christ what patience soever he affords them Contr. Jul. Pelag. l. 5. c. 4. Nay this kind of Argumentation drawn from destiny Stoicall wherewith our adversaries doe usually reproach our doctrine of Predestination like as the Pelagians did in the same manner reproach Saint Austins doctrine concerning Predestination I say this argument was in course and profligated in the daies of Cicero and censured as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an idle argumentation as before I mentioned and it is to be seen in Cicero his book De Fato and thereupon they distinguished of some things which they called Fatalia as victory and some things which they called Confatalia as all necessary meanes requisite to the getting of the victory And Origen though he be accounted a favourer of our adversaries Doctrine in his writings yet he shewes the vanitie of this Argument applyed to fate wherby undoubtedly he meanes providence divine For he proposeth such a kind of objection as if a sicke man should dispute himself from taking Physick after this maner Either by destiny is it appointed I shall recover or no If my destiny be to recover I shall recover though I use no Physicke if my destiny be not to recover all the Physitians in the world shal doe me no good And the vanity of this is represented by the like argument in another manner thus If it be thy desteny to beget children whether thou usest the company of Woemen or no thou shalt beget children And concludes thus Ut enim hic si fieri non potest ut quis procreat nisi cum muliere concubuerit sic si valetudinis recuperatio medicinae via efficitur necessariò adhibetur medicus The Greeke of Origen is set downe at large by Turnebus in his disputation upon Cicero his book De Fato against Ramus Now judge you I pray what colour of detriment to Religion hath he produced from our doctrine of absolute Reprobation and whether his discourse herein is any better then the imagination of a vaine thing DISCOURSE SECT IV. BUt there are two things chiefly which are said for the vindicating of this opinion from this crimination 1. First that many of them which believe and defend this opinion are Godly and holy men and therefore it doth not of it selfe open a way to liberty but through the wickednesse of men who pervert the
law but under grace Rom. 6. 12. Now what encouragement is this to the Souldiers of Christ to goe on chearefully and couragiously in fighting the Lords battailes against the world the flesh and the Divell seing we are assured the day of victory and the glory of it shall be ours in the end God keeping us by his power through faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1. And delivering us from every evill worke to wit either by obedience or by repentance and preserving us to his heavenly kingdome and that either by delivering us from the houre aftentation which comes all over the world Revel 3. Or delivering us out of it 2 Pet 2. 9. Or having an eye to our strength so to order it that we shall be able to beare it 1 Cor 10. 14. As for those that have not yet any comfortable evidence of their election yet considering that they may have it and albeit the number of the elect are by farre fewer then the reprobate yet considering how few have the Gospell in comparison to those that enjoy it not though Turkes Saracens and Heathens are without hope Eph. 2. 12. and 1 Thess 4. 13. Yet we Christians are not yea albeit of them that are called but few are chosen Mat. 20. 16. and 22 14. Yet considering how many corrupt wayes there are amongst Christians Nestorians Armenians Abyssines or Coptites who joyne circumcision with the Gospel as in Egypt and Ethiopia the Greek Church denying the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the sonne and corrupted with many other superstitions Lastly considering how farre Antichristanity is spred and the abominable Idolatry of the Church of Rome we whom God hath delivered out of Babylon have no cause I meane any particular person to project that because the elect are but few therefore we are not of the number of them and thereupon give over all care of hearkening to Gods word which is the power of God unto Salvation and may shew its power upon us also we knowe not how soone but rather as our Saviour answered being demanded of his disciples whether there were but few that should be saved saying strive you to enter in at the streight gate plainly giving to understand that as the gate is said to be streight that leadeth unto Life so there be but few that enter thereat therefore they should strive so much the more to be of the number of those few For what if along time we have little or nothing profited what if we have cause to doubt whether we have any true faith or no such doubts maybe better signes then we are awar of otherwise why should the Apostle exhort the Corinthians to examine themselves and prove whether they were in the faith or no But however it fairs with us doth not the Apostle plainely teach us that God calls some at the first houre of the day some at the the third some at the last 2. Now I come to the consideration of his answer to the objection as himself hath formed it And first I observe that whereas he pretends to build his answer upon consideration of the number of Reprobats without comparison greater then the number of the elect yet the absurd reasoning which he brings hereupon doth nothing at all depend on that For albeit the number of the elect were greater then the number of such as are Reprobats and that without comparison yet the reasoning here deduced from the contrary proposition hath equally place as in the contrary case As namely to reason thus Either I am absolutely chosen to grace and glory or absolutely cast off from both Secondly the joyning of grace and glory together as this Author doth joyne them in this reasoning shaped by him is a miserable confounding of things that differ For to be absolutely chosen unto grace is to be ordained to have grace conferred upon him not according to any worke of his but meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will answerably to that of the Apostle God hath mercy on whom he will but no man is so chosen unto glory as namely to be ordained to have Salvation bestowed upon him not according unto workes but according to the meere pleasure of God if we speake of men of ripe yeares For God hath ordained to bestow Salvation on such only by way of reward of their faith repentance and good workes So on the other side to be asolutely cast off from grace is to be ordained to have grace denied him not according to any worke of his but meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will like as Paul professeth that the Lord hardeneth whom he will But no man is so castaway from Glory or unto damnation as namely to be ordained to be deprived of Glory and to be damned meerely for the good pleasure of God but altogether for his infidelity impenitency and evill workes Thirdly no such thing followes as here is inferred from the supposition of election unto Salvation For seing no man is elected to obtaine Salvation whether he believe or no but only in case he believe hereupon men are rather excited to labour for faith then to be carelesse thereof and farther we say that as God hath ordained to bring them to Salvation so he hath ordained to bring them hereunto by sanctification and faith 2 Thess 2. 13. And the word of God is a powerfull meanes to worke them hereunto even to the working out of their Salvation with feare and trembling that because they are given to understand that God is he who wroketh in them both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure On the other side if a man be ordained to damnatiō yet seeing no man is ordained to be damned but for despising the means of grace in case he heare the Gospel for ought any man knowes he may as well be ordained to salvation as to damnation this I should think is rather an excitement not to despise or neglect the meanes of grace then to despise or neglect them Suppose God should not damne any man but annihilate them and suppose this were known unto us by the same argumentation it would follow that a man should have no care of good workes But this consequent is notoriously untrue For seeing the perfection of my reasonable nature whereby I differ from brute Beasts consisteth in knowledge and morall vertues and there is no knowledge that doth more ennoble us then the knowledge of God and no better rule of morality then the law of God surely it stood me upon in reason to strive according to my power to know God and to be obedient rather then otherwise although I know for certaine that after certaine yeares both body and soule should be returned unto nothing Come wee now to the consideration of this reasoning in respect of grace Suppose God hath elected me unto grace yet seeing he bestowes not grace but by his word therefore there is no reason I should neglect the use
Augustini quisque teneat De me intelligo quemlibet ante uterum matris pradestinatum vel ad vitam vel ad mortem quod nunquam quisquam nisi in horâ mortis cognoscere potest Ego sum ex numero damnatorum ergo Deo nunquam asscribi possum Hoc certo credatis rectum esse quod Paulus Rom. 9. scribit Misereor cujus misereor Discedo ad lacus infernales Deo vos commendo cujus misericordia mihi negata est Et addit Major haec verba Hic est fructus perversae doctrinae de praedestinatione hominum Concerning which relation give me leave to observe somewhat 1. Here is no such thing as this Author relates that Hosuanus should say that man by Calvin and Austins opinion is not dealt withall secundum bona or mala opera and indeed this deciphering out of Austins and Calvins opinion is notoriously untrue neither as touching occultiores causae of mens eternall conditions as indeed it is apparent that in the way of a cause meritorious there is no other cause of damnation then sinne and in the way of a disposing cause no other cause of salvation then faith repentance and good workes And as touching the efficient cause of both none is or can be the cause thereof but God But as touching the cause why God gives grace to one and denyes it to another wee willingly confesse there is no cause thereof but the meere good pleasure of God In like sort of absolute cast-awayes here is no mention no nor of Vas formatum ad ignominiam nor any such saying of himselfe that he was none of the worst 2. Here is no mention made of the cause moving him hereunto as this Author pretends but only 't is said that it proceeded of desperation And though Major adds as a Coronis his censure that Hic est fructus perversae doctrinae de praedestinatione hominum yet I hope his censure is no Oracle with us no nor with Lutherans neither for I find him branded by Osiander in his Ecclesiasticall History And though he were of Austins and Calvins opinion in this poynt of predestination and did despaire yet it followes not that this doctrine moved him to despaire Suppose the conceit of being a reprobate moved him hereunto might it not move him hereunto according to the Arminian tenet as well and according to any tenet provided they doe not believe that God hath as yet decreed nothing or if he hath that his decrees may be recalled And then again by our Doctrine of Predestination it cannot be concluded of any man that he is a reprobate while he lives Nay this seems contrary to his own opinion which was this that no man can know whether he be predestinate to life or death till the houre of his death and his death was not brought upon him but wrought by him And as it was in his power not to have killed himselfe so was it in his power not to believe that he was a reprobate by this opinion of his Then again what moved him to conceive that he was a reprobate is concealed all along Now the conscience of sinne committed against the Holy Ghost may make a man conceive he is a reprobate of what opinion so ever he be concerning reprobation And as I take it That famous Doctor of Germany whom Goulartius mentioneth remaining then at Hall in Swabe was no Calvinist of whom he reports out of the History of Germany That having oftentimes turned his Conscience some times toward God some times toward the World having inclined in the end to the worser part said and confest publiquely that he was undone and fell so deepe into despaire as he could neither receive nor take any comfort or consolation so as in this miserable and wretched estate of his soule he slew himselfe most miserably It was not the doctrine of Predestination or Reprobation brought him unto this And though a man hath not sinned against the holy Ghost yet a conceit of such a sinne may drive a man unto this or of blasphemies in an inferior degree when God gives a man over unto the power of Satan as Gaulartius makes mention by his own experience of another desperate man whom he had heard who being exhorted to turne from the too vehement apprehension of Gods justice unto his mercy which was open unto him He answered very coldly you say true God is God but of his children not for me his mercy is certain for his elect but I am a reprobate a vessell of wrath and cursing and I doe already feele the torments of Hell When they did exhort him to call God his Father and Jesus Christ his Sonne My mouth saith he doth speake it but my heart hath horrour of it I believe that he is the Father of others but not of mee When they did lay before him that he had known God heard his word and received his Sacrament yea but he added I was an hypocrite and guilty of many blasphemies against God And then he returned to his ordinary discourses I am a vessell prepared to wrath and damnation I am damned I burne The same Goulartius reports out of the History of the times of a Learned man at Lovaine called Master Gerlach Who had profited so well in his studies as he was one of the first amongst the learned of that time And that being touched with a grievous sicknesse he sighed continually and feeling himselfe to draw neer his end he began to discover the ground of his sighes speaking such fearfull words as desperate men are accustomed to utter crying out and lamenting that he had lived very wickedly and that he could not endure the judgement of God for that he knew his sinnes were so great as he should never obtain pardon so as in this distresse he dyed oppressed with grievous and horrible despaire What this wickednesse of his was in speciall it seems he concealed it might be horrible enough though done in secret yet no just cause of despaire unlesse it were the sinne against the holy Ghost The like is recorded of M. Iames Latomus one of the chiefe Doctors of the University of Lovaine being one day out of countenance in a Sermon before the Emperour Charles the Fift returning ashamed and confounded from Brussells to Lovaine and did so apprehend the dishonour that he fell suddainly into despaire whereof he gave many testimonies in publique the which did move his friends to keepe him close in his house from that time unto his last gasp Poore Latomus had no other speech then that he was rejected of God that he was damned and that he hoped for no mercy nor salvation as having malitiously made warre against the grace and truth of God He dyed in this despaire neither was it possible for any friends or Physitians to make him change his opinion 3. If this story of Hosuanus be a truth I like his condition the worse for not giving any reason moving him to this desperation and
a true crimination but by flying to Gods absolute proceedings in giving or denying grace And albeit in this poynt wholly consists the Crisis of this Controversy yet this Author utterly declines the sifting thereof as some precipice and breake-neck unto his cause to wit Whether God gives and denyes grace according to the meere pleasure of his will or according to mens workes albeit the issue of all his comforts comes to this namely that either God is not the Author of our faith which now adaies the Remonstrants with open mouth professe that Christ merited for none or if to juggle with the World they pretend an acknowledgement that God is the Author of it yet they plainly professe that he dispenseth it to some and denyes it to others according to some good condition or disposition he findes in the one and which he findes not in another But let us take into consideration what these solid grounds of comfort are whereof a Minister is bereaved by our Doctrine Three I find here mentioned A treble Universality 1. of Gods love 2. Of Christs death 3. Of the Covenant of grace As if universality now adayes were a better Character of the Arminian faith then of the Roman Religion I may take liberty to equivocate a little when this Authour equivocates throughout and that in a case wherein iâ— is most intollerable in a case of consolation to be ministred to conscientia timorata as Nider calls it a poore afflicted soule as this Authour expresseth it To the discovery whereof I will now proceed having signified in the first place that all these consolations are no other but such as every Reprobate is capable of as well as the Children of God which is so apparent as needs no proofe only in the issue of their Tenet the faith of them freeth a man from the conceit of being an absolute Reprobate So that in effect it comes to this Thou poore afflicted soul be of good comfort for if thou wilt hearken unto me and imbrace those solid grounds of comfort which I will reveale unto thee assure thy selfe they shall be as the Balme of Gilead unto thy soule whereby thou maist be confident that albeit it may be thou art a Reprobate and that God from everlasting hath ordained thee unto damnation that yet certainly thou art no absolute Reprobate no more then Cain or Esau Saul or Judas or the Devills were For these my principles will assure thee that there never was nor is nor shall be any absolute Reprobate throughout the world 2. I come to the examining of them particularly to shew that every one of them is as it were against the haire So evident are the testimonies of Scripture against them all and they are obtruded upon a superficiary and most most unsound interpretation of Scripture in some places For 1. as touching the first the universality of Gods love For hereby Gods love is made indifferent unto all and consequently towards Esau as well as to Jacob whereas the Scripture professeth that God loved Jocob and hated Esau and this the Apostle makes equivalent to the Oracle dilivered to Rebekah concerning them before they were borne 2. He might as well have proposed it of the universallity of Gods mercy whereas the Scripture expressely distinguisheth between vessels of mercy vessells of wrath 3. This love is explicated by them to consist in a will to save all Now election is but Gods will to save and the Scripture plainly teacheth and it is confessed by all that I know excepting Coelius Secundus to whom this Authour it seemes is most beholding for his story of Spira that though Many are called yet but few are chosen And whereas it is confessed that the most part of men are Reprobates that is from everlasting willed unto condemnation yet never the lesse they beare us in hand that all men even Cain and Judas yea and as I think the Devills and all were willed by God unto Salvation And that there is no contradiction in all this And every poore afflicted soule must believe hand over head that all this is true what species of contradiction soever be found therein which this Authour from the begining of his discourse to the end hath taken no paines to cleare least otherwise he forfaits all hopes of comfort upon such soveraine grounds as are here proposed by faith wherein aman may be as well assured of his Salvation and freedome from damnation as any Reprobate in the World For albeit he be a Reprobate and God should reveale this unto him yet upon these grounds he may be confident that he is no absolute Reprobate 2. I come to the Second comfortable supposition and that is the universality of Christs death namely that he died for all Now this is opposite to Scripture evidence as the former yea and to Christian reason if not more For albeit God so loved the World even the whole World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have Life Everlasting which gives a fair light of exposition to those places where Christ is said to have dyed for the sins of the World yea of the whole world to wit in this manner that whosoever believes in him shal not perish but have everlasting life yet the Scripture speaks as often of Christs death in a restrained sense as where it is said Christ gave himselfe a ransome for many And that his bloud was shed for his Apostles and for many for the remission of their sinnes And that Christ should save Gods people from their sinnes And that God hath purchased his Church with his bloud And Christ gave himselfe for his Church And that he is saviour of his body And that he dyed for the elect And in the 17 of John our Saviour would not pray for the World but only for those whom God had at that time given unto him and who afterward should believe in him through their word And look for whom he prayed with exclusion of the rest for their sakes he sanctified himself Now that this is spoken in reference to the offering of himselfe up unto God upon the crosse it was the joynt interpretation of all the Fathers whom Maldonate had read as he professeth on that place and there reckons up a multitude of them Then againe Christs death and passion we know was of a satisfactory nature and therefore if he dyed for all he satisfied for all the sinnes of all men why then are not all saved Why is any damned Is it just with God to torment with everlasting fire for those sinnes for which he hath received satisfaction and that a more ample one then mans satisfaction can be by suffering the torments of Hell fire For therefore it shall never end because it shall never satisfie Againe how many millions were at that time dead and in hell fire and did Christ satisfy for their sinnes by his death upon the Crosse and they continue still to
his trust in himself with Gods concurrence as if otherwise a mans condition were uncomfortable and the way were open to desperation But what doth Austin answer to such like discourses of old de Predest sanct cap 22. An vero timendum est ne nunc de se homo desperet quando spes ejus demonstratur ponenda in Deo non autem desperaret si eam in se ipso superbissimus infelicissimus poneret Is it to be feared least a man despaire when it is proved that a mans hope is to be placed in God and that he is free from despaire in case he place his hope in himselfe most proudly and most unhappily As for that which he cites out of Melancthon it is every way as much to the purpose as that which he cited out of Calvin in the first Section Melancthon sayeth we must judge of Gods will by his Word so saith Calvin his words are these Qui recte atque ordine electionem investigant qualiter in verbo continetur eximium inde referunt consolationis fructum To enquire after a mans election in the Word is the way to reape singular consolation But they that enquire after the eternall counsell of God without the Word in exitialem abyssum se ingurgitant they plung themselves into a gulfe of perdition Yet when Melancthon sayeth multa disput antur durius the comparative there is not to be rendred as this Authour renders it more harshly but rather thus somwhat harshly And of Melancthons concurrence with Calvin in the doctrine of predestination as touching the substance of the doctrine I have formerly shewed out of his owne Epistle who professeth that he differeth only tradendi ratione in the manner of delivering it and of his owne professeth that they are of a popular nature thus Mea sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adusum accommodata as it were woven with a thicker thred and fited to use and practise No man doubts but that as Melanchton saith it is Gods immutable commandement to heare the Son and to assent to the promise and the promise is universall to wit that whosoever believeth shall be saved Therefore let us not seeke election besides the Word it is a grave counsell and well becomming Melancthon and Calvin gives the very same councell in the very Booke Chapter and Section last related by this Author But he saw it fitter for his turne to represent Melancthon professing as much rather then Calvin We nothing doubt but God will performe that he hath promised and therefore whosoever believeth shall be saved according to our doctrine not so according to the doctrine of Arminians who maintaine that a man may totally and finally fall away from faith Rogers upon the Articles of the Church of England Art 17. Not only acknowledgeth this universality of Gods promises according to the Tenor of that Article but concludeth herehence That they are not to be heard that say that the number of the elect is but small and seeing we are uncertaine whether we be of that company or no we will proceed in our course as we have begunne and accompts all such adversaries of this truth touching the universality of Gods promises and let every sober man judge whether this Author doth not justify this their discourse whom he accompts adversaries to the truth of that Article in that particular The same Rogers in his 8 proposition as touching the comfortable nature of predestination writs thus This doctrine of predestination is to the Godly ful sweet pleasant and comfortable because it greatly confirmeth their faith in Christ and encreaseth their love towards God But saith he to the wicked and reprobate the consideration hereof is very sower unsavory and most uncomfortable as that which they think though very untruly and sinfully causeth them either to despaire of his mercy being without faith or not to feare his justice being extreamely wicked whereas neither from the Word of God nor any confession of the Church can man gather that he is a vessell of wrath prepared to damnation What more contradictions to this Authors discourse of the uncomfortable condition of predestination according to our way yet who was this Authour was he at any time accompted an innovatour in this Church His books dedicated to Arch-Bishop Bancroft writing upon the Articles of the Church of England perused and by the lawfull authority of the Church of England allowed to be publick And because some choosing to play at small game rather then sit out may say that he speakes not a word of absolute election or absolute reprobation let his 5. Proposition be observed which is this Of the meere pleasure of God some men in Christ Jesus are elected and not others unto salvation this he prooves by that Rom. 9. 11. That the purpose of God might remaine according to election And that Eph. 1. 5. Who doth predestinate us according to the good pleasure of his will And that 2 Tim. 1. 9. Not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace And that Exod. 33. 19. And Rom. 9. 15. I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy And as touching the other part of not choosing others that of Solomon Prov. 16. 4. The Lord hath made all things for his owne sake yea even the wicked against the day of evill And Rom. 9. 21. Hath not the Potter power over the clay to make of the same lumpe one vessell unto honour and an other unto dishonour And comming unto the Errours and adversaries of this truth Hereby saith he is discovered the impiety of those men which think that 1. Man doth make himselfe elegible for the Kingdome of Heaven by his owne good workes and merits so teach the Papists 2. God beheld in every man whether he would use his grace well and believe the Gospell or no and as he saw man so he did predestinate choose or refuse him 3. Besides his will there was some other cause in God why he chose one man and cast off another but this cause is hidden from us 4. God is partiall and unjust for choosing some and refusing others calling many and electing but few The other place alleadged by this Author of Melancthon partly repeates the same matter concerning the universality of the promises no mention at all with him either of the universality of Gods love or of the universality of Christs death or of the universality of the Covenant of grace partly opposeth it to dangerous imaginations of predestination what are these but such as proceed without the word For without doubt it is to be understood in opposition to that which he formerly delivered advising us to judge of the will of God by his expresse Word and all one with seeking election extra verbum formerly specified of both which Calvin speakes more at large in that very place aleadged by this Author in the first Section of this last sort of Arguments And there Calvin commends the one as a
Egyptians so in the sight of the children of Israel and of the bordering Nations No contradiction at all in this no more then Gods word is found to contradict it selfe And nothing but ignorance makes our adversaries so bold as to impute contradiction to us in this We grant willingly that God did intend that most should never believe and repent For as much as he intended to deny the gift of faith and repentance unto most as it is apparent he doth neither dares any Arminian deny it Only they feigne that God would give faith and repentance unto all in case they would prepare themselves which not only includes manifest Pelagianisme but over and above ends in non-sense as I have but erst and often times before made as cleare as the Sunne Gods eternall rejection of many thousands which is impossible to be avoided for how is it possible that what was from everlasting should be avoyded by man or Angell who are brought forth in time not to have been from everlasting though it be all one with the answers of the tempted and is contradictory to the comforts which this Author deviseth out of his own braine and proposeth too in a most colluding manner as before I have shewed and withall not so well sorting with the manner of comforts which he feignes and at meere pleasure obtrudes upon us which yet he cannot evacuate without betraying the shamefull nakednesse of his cause when denying God to bestow the gift of faith and repentance absolutely on whom he will and according to the meere pleasure of his will he is driven to manifest how he takes sanctuary in Pelagianisme maintaining the grace of faith and repentance to be conferred by God on men according to their workes and that in a most unsober manner as I have shewed at large yet notwithstanding is this eternall decree of God concerning the rejection of man nothing contrariant to better grounds of consolation ministred by our doctrine then any can be ministred by Arminians as who doe not so much as undertake to minister better comfort to any then such as is common to them with Reprobates But as for all those that are brought up in the Church of God who we can assure them that there is no cause excepting guilt of that sinne which is unto death or which is against the Holy-Ghost why any of them should conceive themselves to be Reprobates nay the affliction of conscience being the most ordinary meanes whereby God doth prepare men for a comfortable translation out of the state of nature into the state of grace they have cause to conceive comfort in this that these feares and terrours may be as pangs of child-birth to deliver their souls into the world of the sons of God and this vally of Achor a doore of hope this Bethany a house of sorrow or mourning the high-way unto the vision of Peace as Bethany was commonly taken by our Saviour in his way unto Jerusalem For conclusion we have heard a strange cracking of thornes in this but all proves but a squibbe their best light of consolation goes out in an unsavoury snuffe of Pelagianisme Let us remember though Thunder and Earth-quakes and Lightning have their course in the vaine imaginations of men yet God is still and ever will be in the small voyce of his word Let us give Gods truth the glory of our consolation As for Errour and that dangerous errour in defacing the glory of Gods grace let us never seeke any comfort therein and let them that love it take what comfort in it they can I doe not envy them but rather pitty them I would their hearts served them to have compassion upon them selves DISCOURSE SECT IV. SEcondly it leaves a Minister weake grounds only and insufficient to quiet the tempted and therefore it makes him unable to comfort His grounds that are left him are insufficient because they cannot convince and make it evident to the understanding of the tempted that he is not that which he feares i. e. a Reprobate out of temptation probabilities will uphold a mans hopes as they did Manoahs wife Judg. 13. 22 23. If the Lord would kill us he would not have received a burnt offering at our hands nor shewed us all these things because men are not so mistrustfull then but in temptation men are very suspitious and incredulous like Jacob who would not be perswaded that Joseph was alive and a great man in Egypt till he saw the Chariots that were sent to fetch him thither Gen. 45. 25. And like Thomas who would not believe that Christ was risen till he saw the print of the nailes and speare Iohn 20. 25. They will not believe any thing that is said for their comfort till it be made so apparent that they have nothing to say to the contrary My selfe have known some who in their temptations have often put their comforters to their proofes to their protestations nay to their oathes too before they would believe their words of comfort And in this temptation men are so strongly possest with a feare of the greatest evill in the World eternall rejection from God that they will not easily without manifest conviction believe the contrary But such grounds as these a Minister that holds absolute reprobation hath not he can say nothing that is able to make it appeare infallibly and unavoydably to the tempted that he is no absolute reprobate All that he can say is Be of good comfort you are a believer you are a true repenting sinner therefore no reprobate for faith and repentance are fruits of election and arguments of a state contrary to that which you feare But this the tempted will deny he will say that he is no believer c. And how will the Minister convince him that he is He must prove to him by the outward acts of faith and repentance for they are only apparent to him that he doth repent and believe but this proofe is not demonstrative doth not convince him because opera virtutum simulari possunt the externall acts of saith repentance or any other grace may be counterfeited The Devill may seeme to be an Angell of light Wolves may goe in Sheepes cloathing Judas may make the World believe by his Preaching and following Christ that he is a true Apostle And Simon Magus though he remaine in the gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity may be thought by his receiving of Baptisme to be a true believer And so may any Hypocrite by some exterior act of faith and repentance cosen the best discerner of spirits among men and gaine the opinion and esteeme of a true penitent and believer Actions externally good or good in appearance may be evill indeed for want of a good rule a good manner a good end some other good circumstances with which an action which is good must be cloathed For bonum non oritur nisi ex integris and so by consequence cannot certainly prove the man that doth
be such a God A Morall efficient is twofold being only of a moveing nature to move others to doe somewhat as namely either by perswading or by meriting or deserving He that perswades moves an other to doe some what he that meriteth thereby moves another either to reward him or punish him Now to walke in the light of this distinction and not to please our selves by walking in darknesse though God be the prime principall and invincible cause of man's damnation in the kind of a cause efficient physicall which should not seeme strange to an ordinary Christian who knowes full well that vengeance is God's peculiar worke as the Iudge of all the world and that he delights in the execution thereof yet this hinders not but that man may be the cause of his own damnation in the way of a meritorious cause justly deserving it Omnis poena Deum habet Authorem All punishment hath God for the Authour of it This is a principle acknowledged both by the Arminians and Vasquez the Jesuite but never is punishment inflicted on any by the hands of God save on those who formerly have deserved it Consider we farther as touching the severall kinds of causes formerly mentioned if the question be which is the principall Aristotle answereth that this is not confined to any one kind of them somtimes the materiall cause somtimes the formall cause somtimes the efficient somtimes the finall cause is the demonstrative cause the cause propter quam the cause by vertue where of the effect hath its existence but this peculiar and speciall cause is described thus It is that whereby satisfactory answer is made to the question demanding why such a thing is Now in execution of punishment or condigne vengeance this satisfactory answer is made by representing the meritorious cause never by representing the efficient cause as for example if it be demanded why such a malefactor is executed upon the gallowes no sober man will answer because the Sheriffe cōmanded it to be so or because the Judge would have it so but because he robd upon the high way or committed some criminall fact or other which is capitall by the lawes of our land and to be punished with hanging upon the gallowes In like sort if question be made why devills or wicked men are damned is it our doctrine to referre the cause hereof to the mere pleasure of God Doe not all confesse that God inflicts damnation upon thē merely for their sinnes and transgressions wherein they have continued unto death without repentance Yet we acknowledge that God could have taken them off from their sinnes while they lived if he would by giving them repentance as he hath dealt with us and that merely of his free grace For we willingly confes that our sinnes are our owne but our faith is not our repentance is not When I say our owne I meane in respect that they are of our selves otherwise we acknowledge both faith and repentance to be our owne accipiendo in asmuch as we receive them but they are God's gifts and so they are his dando in asmuch as he gives them as Remigius speaketh Now what is become of this Authours pompous discourse Is it not the like the cracking of thornes in the fire making a great noise but the light of distinction like fire sets an end unto it and makes it appeare in its owne likenesse and proves nothing but a squib For albeit God in his decree makes the damnation of reprobates to be necessary and unavoidable yet seeing he makes it not to fall on any but for their sinnes what colour of dishonour unto God in ordaining that Iudas shall necessarily and unavoidably be damned for betraying the Sonne of God and afterwards most desperatly murthering himselfe If hereupon he could no more avoid his damnation then Astionax could the breaking of his neck when the Grecians tumbled him downe from the tower of Troy will any man that is not bereaved of common sense make strange of this It is true God did appoint both Iudas and all other wicked persons that never break off their sinnes by repentance unto destructiō of his own voluntary disposition For God workes all things according to the counsaile of his will and if it pleased him he could annihilate them upon the fresh foot of any sin or after they have suffered the vengeance of hell fire as many yeares in hell as they lived here in sinne yea and the devills in hell as Origen was of opinion and the Jewes at this day are of the same by Sir Edwin Sandes his relation whether this Author be of the same or not I know not And lastly we willingly confesse that the decree of God was antecedent to the deserts of men for reprobation is as antient as election and election was made before the foundation of the world if we believe Saint Paul rather then any other who either by word or deed doth manifest himselfe to be of a contrary opinion Still damnation is inflicted by God only for sinne and in degree answerable unto their sinnes and only because of their sinnes as a meritorious cause thereof though God makes use of it to his owne ends and the manifestation of his owne glory as Solomon professeth namely that God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill And Saint Paul tells that as the Lord suffereth with long patience the vessells of wrath prepared to destruction that he might shew his wrath and make his power known So likewise another reason hereof he specifies to be this That he might declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory For when we shall behold the unspeakable misery brought upon others by reason of their sinnes how rich will God's glory appeare unto us when we consider that had it not been for his free grace delivering us from sinne we had been swallowed up of the same sorrowes And thus Alvarez writeth disput III. The glory of God's mercy in his elect and in like manner the manifestation of divine justice on Reprobates is truely and properly the finall cause why God did permit sinnes both in Reprobates and Angells And he proves it out of this passage of Saint Paul So Aquin 1 p. pag. 23. art 5. This is the reason saith he why God hath chosen some and Reprobated others that representation might be made of Gods goodnesse towards the Elect in the way of mercy pardoning them and on the Reprobates in the way of justice punishing them And Alphonsus Mendoza a Scotist concurres with them in this and we see they make Saint Pauls doctrine their foundation And indeed albeit at the day of judgment there will be found a vast difference between the Elect and Reprobates the one having departed this life in the state of faith repentance the other in infidelitie and impenitency in such sort as God will bestow on his elect
eternall life by way of reward and inflict eternall death on the other by way of punishment yet in conferring the grace of regeneration of faith and repentance upon the one and denying the same graces unto the other the Lord carrieth himselfe not according to mens workes but merely according to the pleasure of his owne will shewing mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will in which respect he is said to make men in what condition he will as Rom 9. 20. Shall the thing formed say to it that formed it why hast thou made me thus Though indeed he makes but one sort of them after a new fashion leaving the other in the state of naturall corruption wherein he findeth them And likewise is compared by the same Apostle to a Potter who out of the same lump makes one vessell unto honour and an other unto dishonour But to returne I have I trust sufficiently shewed that in all this which he hath delivered when things are rightly understood and duely considered ther 's nothing found alien from the holy nature of God no more then it is repugnant to his holy nature to decree and execute vengeance condigne vengeance even the vengeance of damnation on men for their sinnes in such sort that it shall unavoidably overtake all those that breake not off their sinnes by repentance before their death Nothing more agreeable to Scripture nor to the nature of God revealed unto us in holy Scripture then this and consequently nothing more agreeable to Christian reason But as for naturall reason God forbid we should make that the rule of our faith as concerning the resurrection of the dead and the powers of the world to come the rewards of heaven and the torments of hell where the worme never dieth and the fire never goeth out And may it not seeme very strange that a Christian and a Divine and one magnified by the Arminian party for great abilities should undertake to prove this doctrine to be contrary to Scripture to the nature of God and to sound reason Well let us proceed to observe how well he performes what he undertakes And here he saith 1. That the Scripture makes man the principall nay the only cause in opposition to God of his owne ruine We answer the Scripture makes man the only cause of his owne ruine in the meritorious cause thus man's destruction is of himselfe But this nothing hinders God from being the cause why vengeance destruction and damnation are executed upon man for he is the God to whom vengeance belongeth he delights as well in shewing judgment as in shewing mercy Indeed did we maintaine that God damnes the Reprobate whether man or Angells of his mere pleasure this Argument of his were seasonable We know full well that God of his free grace shewes mercy but judgment only upon provocation and herein he proceeds slowly too for he is slow to wrath and easie to be intreated Yet God's afflicting is not alwaies for sinne neither doth it alwaies proceed in the way of punishment when we suffer for Christ we have cause to rejoyce that he counts us worthy to suffer for his name neither were the afflictions of Iob brought upon him for his sinnes but for the tryall of his faith and to make him an example of patience to all succeeding generations and as for that of Ezech I will not the death of the wicked It is the usuall course of men of this Authours spirit thus to render the wordes whereas our last English translation renders them thus I have noe pleasure in the death of the wicked Now as a man may will that wherein he takes noe pleasure as a sick-man takes a bitter potion sometimes for the recovery of his health so God may will that wherein he takes noe delight And whether it be meant of first or second death it cannot be denied but God wills it for he workes all things according to the councell of his owne will Then againe if we consider the infliction of death as an execution of judgment God not only willeth this but delights therein also as it is expressed That of Prosper is nothing to the present purpose we treating here of the cause of damnation not of sinning we say God is the God to whom vengeance belongeth not to whom sinne belongeth Besides sinne as sinne hath noe efficient cause at all but defficient as Austine hath delivered many hundered yeares agoe It is true it is in Gods power to preserve any man from any sinne it is in his power to take any man off from any sinfull course by repentance if he will but he is bound to none he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth and in all this he is not culpable In the next place he tels us It is contrary to God's nature but what To damne men for their sinnes neverbroken offby repentance for all our divines maintaine that God is Authour of damnation to none but such and to such God is not mercyfull nor gratious nor suffers them any longer nor shewes any goodnesse towards them while they lived he did yea much long suffering and patience inviting them thereby to repentance yea and by his word also inviting many but after they dye in sinne therewithall an end is sett to the dispensation of Gods gracious proceedings with them Much lesse doe we deny him to be good and mercifull and of great kindnesse to all that call upon him For Gods mercy doth not exercise it selfe by necessity of nature but by freedome of will yet he heareth the cry of Ravens and not a Sparrow falleth to the ground without the providence of our heavenly father and the very Lyons roaring after thir prey doe seeke their meat at the hands of God These mercyes are temporall but as for spirituall mercyes for the working and cherishing of Sanctification these are not extended unto all but to some only even to whom he will And accordingly the elect of God are called vessels of mercy Yet to the execution of damnation on any he proceeds not till after death and stayes no longer so slow to wrath he is towards the worst and no more slow to the best of them Who is a God like unto thee saith Micah that taketh away iniquity here this Authour out of wisdome maketh a stoppe leaving out that which followeth and passing by the transgressions of the remnant of his heretage That restriction belike he did not so well brooke but having leapt over that he is content to take in that which followeth he retaineth not his wrath for ever because mercy pleaseth him to witt towards the remnant of his heritage of his people But I hope nought of this can hinder God from being the Authour of damnation to all that dye in sinne without repentance without any prejudice to his holinesse though he retaineth wrath for ever against them We come to his reason which he calls soūd saying that it
rather then to an other If Scholars of our Universities use any such phrases it is no other then they find in use among School-divines It is true indeed Jesuites oppose the Dominicans in this This Authour sides with the Jesuites but why doth he not take to taske any one chapter in Alvarez on this point to answer to overthrow their grounds which are no other then the very word of God and cleare reason doth justifie And the ground of the Jesuites in opposing is meerely an invention of their own concerning a certaine knowledge of God called a middle knowledge a vile invention and a palpable untruth and controulable of manifest contradiction For they suppose a thing knowable by God as future before God's will hath passed upon it to make it future being in it's own nature meerly possible and consequently cannot passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the condition of a thing future without a cause Now noe cause can be devised hereof with any colour of reason but the will of God For first the cause hereof must be eternall seeing the thing it selfe of the cause whereof we dispute is eternall to wit the fruition of any thing This I say was eternall for it is known with God from all eternity Now there is noe eternall cause to be found but in God alone therefore the cause why things meerly possible in their own nature became future and that from everlasting must be found in God alone Therefore it must either be the will of God or the knowledge of God that did make it future and seing the knowledge of God rather supposeth them to be future then makes them so what remaines but that the will of God must necessarily be the cause hereof Nay consider whether the Jesuites themselves doe not manifest more ingenuity by farre then this boisterous Theologue that thinks to carry all with the blast of his words the resolution of whose arguments generally neither having the word of God for their ground nor any confest principle of reason Whereas not the greatest Angell of God will take upon him such an authoritative manner of discourse For did we grant that God by his Allmighty will did impose any necessity upon our wills Yet Suarez confesseth that so to worke doth neither involve any contradiction nor exceed the Allmighty power of God Whereas we are ready to prove and have already proved that their doctrine of God's concourse without subordination of the second causes to the first implies flat contradiction We say the wills determination of it selfe is the worke of God otherwise faith and love and every gracious act shall not be the worke of God Againe the wills determination of it selfe is no other then the wills operation and this Authour that opposeth us dares not deny the wills opperation to be the worke of God But what School divine can he produce that delivers himselfe in so absurd a manner as to say that God first determines the will and that afterwards the will determines it selfe especially speaking of such actions of the will as are produced by the power of nature The wills determination of it selfe we say is the worke of God moving the creature agreably to the nature thereof that is to be carried necessarily to that which is it's end and appeares to be good in genere convenientis and freely to the meanes which appeare to be good in genere conducentis as fit to pronounce the end intended All confessing Durand excepted that God works the act the question whether he works the act absolutely the will a second agent subordinate unto God as to it's Creatour Or conditionally modo vellimus provided that we will it God the first agent subordinate to the will of the creature This Authour will have it to be wrought by God that is conditionally in dependence upon and expectation of the operation of the creature which we say is most absurd First because thus the first agent is made subordinate to the second agent which is most unaturall Secondly observe a manifest contradiction For the question is about actus volendi the act of willing in man Now if God produce this act upon supposition that man produceth this act then the same act is produced by God upon supposition that it is produced by man If it be produced by man what need is there of God's producing it by way of supplement Thirdly by this meanes the thing is made the condition of it selfe For hereby it is said this act is made upon condition that it doth exist so the selfe same thing shall be before after it selfe 4. Thus man's production of the act shall be noe worke of God which holds off faith and repentance as well as of any naturall act in this Authours opinion Fiftly It is not possible the will can produce the act unlesse God produceth it If then God doth not produce it unlesse the will doth produce it in this case there shall be noe act produced For if I goe not to London unlesse you goe with me nor you goe to London unlesse I goe with you here is no going at all till one saith I say I goe and his resolution carrieth the other with him if the others depend thereupon 6 Whereas to helpe at a dead lift the Jesuiticall doctrine of Scientia media middle knowledge is called in after this manner God foreseing that at such an instant the will of man will produce such an act if God be pleased to concurre and upon this foreknowledâ—e God resolves to concurre This doctrine I have already confounded by shewing the apparent falsity of this supposition For seeing the wills producing such an act at such an instant is a thing merly possible in it's own nature no more future then not future It is impossible that this should passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the conditioÌ„ of a thing future without a cause And noe cause hereof can be but the will of God as I have often proved It followes that the wills producing such an act depends rather upon the will of God to have it produced then on the contrary that Gods producing such an act dependes upon the creatur's will to produce it As for that which followes of the absolute dominion that the will of the creature should have over it's action I presume he meanes independent it sounds more like the voice of the Devill then of a sober Christian Yet it is more then I know that Lucifer himselfe challengeth any such absolute Dominion over his actions unto himselfe If he doth I know noe greater sinne that hee or the creature can be guilty of unlesse in case grosse ignorance doth excuse it To deny God to be the first Agent is to deny his God-head and if hee be primum agens hee must be primum liberum too the first free agent And to make our selves to be prima libera the first free agents what is other
then to advance our selves into the very Throne of God's Soveraigntie and doe wee not feare least his wrath smoake us thence And if all this that hee contends for were granted him that nothing but mere necessitie were found in the motion of men's wills yet Suarez will justifie us from speaking contradiction or delivering ought that exceeds the compasse of God's omnipotencie And what if all the world were innocent yet God should not be unjust in casting the most innocent creature into hell fire as Medina professeth and that by the unanimous consent of Divines and Vasquez the Jesuite acknowledgeth this to be in the power of God as he is Lord of life and death and in the last chapter of the booke de praedestinatione gratiâ which goes under Austin's name there is an expresse passage to justifie it And albeit that worke be not Austin's yet it is lately justified to be the worke of a great follower of Austin's and as Orthodoxe as he namely the worke of Fulgentius as Raynaudus the Jesuite hath lately proved and justified that passage also together with that which is usually brought by School-Divines to prove it out of the twelfth chapter of Wisedome and shewes the right reading as followed by Austin and Gregory And withall represents a pregnant passage taken out of the fifteenth Homily of Macarius to the same purpose And out of Chrysostome in his 2. De compunctione cordis about the end thereof And out of Austin upon Psalme the seventieth about the beginning And to these he addeth Ariminensis Cameracensis Serarius and Lorinus all maintaining the same And this is evident by consideration of the power which it pleased the Lord to execute upon his holy Son and our blessed Saviour and by the power which he gives us over brute creatures This I say if all that he contends for were granted should rather be concluded therehence namely that in this case the creature should be innocent then that God should be the Authour of sinne especially considering that God performes in all this noe other thing then belongs unto him of necessitie as without which his moving of the second causes it were impossible the creature should worke at all which we have made good by shewing the manifest absurdity of their contrary doctrine who maintaine a bare concourse Divine either in subordination unto the agency of the creature or without subordinating the operation of the creature to motion Divine But we doe subordinate it as without which the second cause could not worke at all and by vertue whereof it doth worke and that freely so farre forth as liberty of will is competent to a creature but not so as to make the creature compeere with his Creatour Let man be a second free Agent but set our God that made us evermore be the first free Agent least otherwise we shall deny him the same power over his creatures that the Potter hath over the clay of the same lumpe to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour This power in my maker the Lord hath given me eyes to discerne as taught us in his holy word and an heart to submit unto it and to his providence in governing my will even in the worst actions that ever were committed by me without any repining humour against his hand though I thinke it lawfull for us in an holy manner to expostulate with God sometimes in the Prophets language and say Lord why hast thou caused us to erre from thy waies and hardened our hearts against thy feare Which yet I confesse he brings to passe at noe time infundendo malitiam by infusing any malice into me who naturally have more then enough of that leaven in me but non infundendo gratiam not quickning in me that holy feare which he hath planted in me of which grace I confesse willingly I have a great deale lesse then I desire though the least measure of it is a great deale more then I doe or can deserve Neither shall I ever learne of this Authour after his manner to blaspheme God if at any time hee shall harden my heart against his feare Though this Authour speakes commonly with a full and foule mouth yet his arguments are lanke and leane and of noe substance but words As when hee saith that God over-rules men's wills by our opinion Now to overrule◠a man is to carry him in despight of his teeth Wee say noe such thing but that God moves every creature to worke agreably to it's nature necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently free Agents freely though nothing comes to passe by the free agency of any creature but what God from all eternity by his unchangable counsell hath determined to come to passe As the eleventh Article of Ireland doth professe by the unanimous consent of the ArchBishop Bishops and Clergy of that Kingdome when those Articles were made So I speake warily and circumspectly the rather because one Doctour Heylin doth in a booke intituled The History of the Sabbath professe Chapter 8. page 259. That that whole booke of Articles is now called in and in the place thereof the Articles of the Church of Ireland confirmed by Parliament in that Kingdome Anno 1631. A thing I willingly confesse at first sight seemed incredible unto mee namely that Articles of Religion agreed upon in the dayes of King Iames should be revoked in the dayes of King Charles but expect to heare the truth of that relation For the Authour thereof hath never as yet deserved so much credit at my hands as to be believed in such a particular as this But to returne this Authours text is nothing answerable to the margent For first imperare to command is one thing and to over-rule is another thing though he that doth imperare command ought is commonly accounted the Authour thereof as a cause Morall from whom comes the beginning of such a worke But utterly deny that God commands evill and the truth is wee acknowledge noe other notion of evill then such as the Apostle expresseth in calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an incongruitie to the law of God which law commands somethings and forbids other things I come to his third reason 3. I grant wicked counsellours and perswaders are deservedly accounted the Authors of sinne The common use and acception of the words as I shewed in answer to the first is observed to denote such Therefore Cicero makes Authour and disswader opposite and by law they are punishable in the same degree with the Actors But God is noe counsellour or perswader to any lewd course but forbids it and disswades it and that with denuntiation of the greatest judgments among trangressours 2. I willingly confesse that councelling is farre inferiour to enforcing yet in Scripture phrase earnest intreaty or command is oftentimes exprest by compelling as Mat 14. 22. Mark 6. 45. Luk 14. 23. Gala 6. 12 and 2. 14. 1 Sam 28. 23. 2 Chron 21. 11. And noe marvaile
sight of this Sun For thou did'st it secretly but I will doe this thing before all Israel and before the Sun It is utterly untrue which this Authour obtrudes upon us as if we thought it unlawfull for God by reason of his justice to put to death men innocent and without blame Was any more innocent then the Son of God yet he gave him to suffer somewhat more then the death for the sins of men Neither must we be gull'd with his phrases of the Devills deflouring of men when by him they are carried away into abominable courses so as to oppose Scripture blaspheme God the language of the holy Ghost being this that all the outrages committed upon the holy Son of God by Herod and Pontius Pilate the Gentiles and people of Israel were such as God's hand and counsell had before determined to be done And the like cruelties or worse were executed upon the Saints of God by their Kings who imploied their soveraigne power in executiō of the beast's behests yet this is called the will of God God hath put into their hearts to fullfill his will and to agree to give their kingdomes to the beast untill the word of God be fulfilled And the truth is if God permit such abominable courses and hardens men's hearts occasion being offered they will commit them according to the common proverbe He must needs goe whom the Devill drives And the very definition of the permission of sinne given by Arminius doth convince this though he carrieth himselfe very superficiarily explicating God's providence in this and the nature of obduration which I have prosecuted at large in my Vindiciae in answer to Bellarmine especially where I treat of the abduration of Pharaoh chap 11. Neither doe we make damnation the end whereunto God permits sinne but both permisson for sinne and damnation for sinne we make the meanes tending to another end namely the manifestation of God's glory in the way of justice vindicative which in Scripture phrase is called the declaration of his wrath And to make God the Authour of sinne by these courses is clearely to charge the holy Ghost with blasphemie seing the holy Ghost gives cleare testimony to all this in the word of God Sect. 5. That God is the Authour of men's salvation and conversion all sides grant and yet he doth noe more in the procuring them then these men report him to doe in the Reprobates impenitency and damnation The salvation and conversion of the Elect say they he hath absolutely and antecedently without the foresight of any deserving of theirs reselved upon and by irresistable meanes in their severall generations draweth them to believe repent and indure to the end that so they might be saved and his absolute decree accomplished On the other side the damnation the sinnes and the finall impenitency of Reprobates he hath of his alone will and pleasure peremptorily decreed this his decree he executeth in time drawing them on by his unconquerable power and providence from sinne to sin till they have made up their measure and in the end have inflicted on them that eternall vengeance which he had provided for them What difference is here in the course which God taketh for the conversion and salvation of the Elect and the obduration and damnation of the Reprobates And therefore what hindereth but that God by their grounds may as truely be stiled the prime cause and Authour of the sinnes of the one as of the conversion of the other The Fathers thought it a plaine case and therefore they did make sinne an Object of prescience and not predestination and bent the most of those arguments by wich they refuted this foule assertion against an absolute irresistable and necessitating decree as I could easily shew but that I feare to be over long Only I will cite some few of those Authour's words whom the learned reverend Bishop hath alleadged in favour and for the defence of the Predestinarians and the maintainers of Gotteschalk's opinion The Church of Lyous in their answer to the positions of Johannes Scotus which he framed against Gotteschalke hath these words Whosoever saith tthat God hath laid a constraint or necessity of sinning upon any man he doth manifestly and fearefully blaspheme God in as much as he maketh him by affirming that of him to be the very Authour of sinne Remigius Arch. Bishop of that Church explaining the Churches opinion in that point of prescience and predestination in seven severall rules in the fift of those rules he hath these words to the same purpose God saith he by his prescience and predestination hath laid a necessitie of being wicked upon noe man For if he had done this he had been the Authour of sinnes And thus in my iudgment doth it plainly appeare that by absolute Reprobation as it is taught the upper way God is made to be the true cause of men's sinnes Observe the false carriage of this Authour That God is the Authour of men's salvation and conversion he saith all sides grant as if there were noe difference between Arminians and the Orthodox between him and us in this We say God workes faith and regeneration in us and that for Christ's sake The Remonstrants in their Censura censurae in expresse termes deny that Christ merited faith and regeneration for us and judge by this indifferently whether they make faith and regeneration to be the guift of God Or when they doe in termes professe this as Epicurus verbis Deos posuit re sustulit whether they doe not equivocate Aske this Authour in what sense he makes God to be the Authour of man's conversiō whether any otherwise thē 1. In giving men power to believe if they will to repent if they will 2. In perswading unto faith repentance 3. In concurring with man to the act of faith repentance Now as touching the first that mere nature not grace Deo credere ab amore rerum temporalium ad divina praecepta servanda se convertere omnes possint si velint saith Austin All men can if they will believe God and from the love of temporall things convert themselves to the keeping of God's commandements Now this is noe more then posse fidem habere posse charitatem habere to be capable of faith of charity and this is naturae hominum of the nature of man As Austin testifies in another place where he saith posse fidem habere posse charitatem habere naturae est hominum fidem habere charitatem habere gratiae est fidelium To be capable of faith and charity is the nature of man but to have faith and to have charity is the grace of the faithfull Consider in reason supernaturall grace is not in reason to be accounted inferiour to a morall vertue but so it will prove if it be but a power to be good if we will For morall vertue doth not give a man a power only to doe
as he could easily shew but that he feares to be overlong It is nothing but froth It is not the first time I have had experience of such like Pyrgopolinices eloquence of his Bradwardin hath demonstrated that the will of God is absolute throughout speaking of his decree and none conditionall and his demonstration is this If there be any will of God conditionall then the condition whereupon it proceds must be willed by God or no to say it is not is to acknowledge some things to exist in the world in the producing whereof God hath noe hand which is generally disclaimed And Durand who affirmes some such thing is opposed generally and indeed his arguments are very sleight But if God doth will that condition then either he wills it absolutely or conditionally If absolutely then the cause is gained For then that which was first willed was willed also absolutely not conditionally As for example if God wills a man's salvation upon condition of faith if withall God's will be and that absolutely to give him faith it followeth that God wills that man's salvation and that absolutely If it be answered that the condition is willed not absolutely but upon another condition of that other condition I enquire whether God willed it or noe If noe then something is produced in the world in the production whereof God hath no hand which is very inconvenient If you grant that he willed that also I farther demand whether he willed it absolutely or conditionally If absolutely then all that depended thereupon were absolutely willed and so the cause is obtained If you say this condition was willed also conditionally so a way is made to a progression in infinitum which is a thing unsufferable by the consent of all And as many as are put to give instance will forthwith manifest the nakednes of their cause This demonstration of Bradwardine I sometimes represented to this very Authour in our private walking and communication and he professed it was a very ingenious argument As for the other terme Irresistable this manifests this Authour's meaning that some will of God speaking of his decree is of a resistable nature Whereas St. Paul to the contrary plainly gives us to understand that God's will is irresistable the Psalmist saith that the counsell of the Lord shall stand And my counsell shall stand and I will doe whatsoever I will And therefore his decrees are resembled to mountaines of brasse As for the lost terme necessitating For the Gentleman paies us in words for want of better coine not considering that words are but winde he would cheat his Reader by this presuming he would be so simple as to believe that God by this decree of his takes away the liberty of the creature but it doth not nor any contingency as the eleaventh article of Ireland doth particulate and Bradwardine who peculiarly useth this phrase understands hereby noe other necessitie then upon supposition which Alvarez shewes by generall concurrence of School-Divines that it may well stand with absolute contingency and liberty it being noe other necessity then that which is called secundum quid in some respect And such a necessitie Arminius maketh consequent to permission Bradwardine is express that God necessitates the will to produce a free act And he nothing differs from Aquinas his doctrine where he maintaines that God's will imposeth noe necessitie upon the creatures will because he ordaines both necessary things come to passe necessarily and contingent things contingently that is with a possibility to the contrary likewise free actions freely that is with a free active power in the Agent to doe otherwise But come we to the consideration of the passages produced out of the Ancients For I presume they are the choicest For though he feared to be overlong and therefore could not exhibit all yet therefore it behooved him to represent the best And I believe he could produce more of this nature For I have been an eye witnes of it under his hand now foure yeares agoe And though he produce them not I hope to doe it for him ere we part to shew how little I feare his concealements and somewhat of the Predestinarians also being glad of such an opportunity to discover the wildnesse and precipitation of his judgment touching that which is called the predestinarian heresy here touched by him The first is a passage taken out of the Church of Lyons denying that God hath layed a necessitie of sinning on any man Another out of Remigius both represented yea many more of this nature by that most reverend and most learned Arch-Bishop of Armagh Doctor Usher in his history of Goteschalk 138. and 173. To these I answer First these Ancients are about 850 yeares after Christ yet marvailous orthodoxe considering those times in the point of predestination And let no man think that they deny a necessity of sinning laid upon all by originall corruption the consequent of Adam's prevarication If they were of any other opinion should it become us to follow them in this Doctor Potter acknowledgeth it as the doctrine of the Church of England that libertas à peccato liberty from sinne is not incident to a naturall man it is true he desires to quash it by saying there is yet in man Libertas à necessitate à liberty from necessitie but from what necessity From the necessity of sinning If so why should he then deny a liberty from sin yet he never taketh any paines to cleare this from contradiction but blindfoldly followes Bernard without caring much to understand him And he looks to be pardoned because Vossius did so before him M. Fulke in his answer to the Rhemish Testament usually distinguisheth between libertas à peccato libertas à coactione liberty from sinne and liberty from constraint and denying all liberty from sinne to a naturall man yet grants unto him a liberty from coaction I have taken some paines to shew Doctor Potter's superficiary carriage in this and to cleare Bernard which it may be I will adde to this by the reason of the homogeneous nature of it In the meane time liberty from sinne is utterly denied to a naturall man and that by the doctrine of our Church And noe marvaile seeing Arminius himselfe and Corvinus those great patrons of natures power doe acknowledg this as before I mentioned only they say God is ready to remove this necessitie of sinning from all and every one 2. But the meaning of Remigius and the Church of Lyons is the same with that of Prosper formerly mentioned in his answer to the objection of Vincentius where he confesseth Hominem non redemptum Diabolo esse captivum a man not redeemed is captivated by Satan and that creatura peccatrix poenalem dominationem Diaboli merito patitur cui relicto vero domino sponte se vendidit The creature sinning deservedly suffers the dominion of Satan by way of punishment as to whom he sould him selfe voluntarily Haec
hath a Corollary to this effect That some kind of necesity and liberty are not repugnant but may consist together Againe God doth after a sortnecessitate every created will unto every free act therefore and to every free cessation and vacation from act that by necessity antecedent naturally And he addes a Corollary that some kind of antecedent necessity and liberty are not repugnant and may consist together This distinction of liberty from necessitie liberty from sinne liberty from misery I find in Bernard and Vossius alleadgeth it only out of him and the School-men might take it up after him Bernard hath many obscure passages in the prosecuting of it especially in reference to the two first members Neither doth Vossius take any paines to cleare them from a manifest contradiction in shew And no marvaile if Doctor Potter doth not in stating the opinion of the Church of England in the point of free will which he undertakes very magnificently in his answer to charity mistaken he was content to be led by his blind guid now the seeming contradiction is this If there be in a naturallman no liberty from sinne then is he necessarily carried into sinne and how then is there any liberty in him from necessitie unlesse necessitie be taken as all one with constraint And Bernard sometimes in that very treatise doth clearly expresse himselfe to understand thereby coaction And so M. Fulkes in his answer to the Rhemish testament denying unto man liberty from sinne yet grants unto him a liberty from coaction And indeed sinne to the profane person is like a sweet morsell which he rolleth under his tongue as the booke of Iob speaks he comes not constrained thereunto but naturally takes delight therein I doubt too many there be who though they are driven to confesse that a naturall man hath no liberty from sinne yet they please themselves with a certaine expression of Lindan's that a man hath free will unto sinne hoping therehence to conclude when time serves that a man as he hath freedome to commit it so he hath freedome to abstaine from it and so by a backe doore to draw in a Tenet quite contrary to the first namely that even a naturall man hath liberty from sinne I am not sure that Lindan did well understand his own expression so as to know how to make it good much lesse that they are able who licke their lips at it But of this and the clearing of Bernard and of the difference between liberty naturall and liberty morall I have else where discoursed at large And Calvin observing this contradiction might well blame them that confound necessity with coaction whereby a way is opened to conclude that because a man is free from constraint of sinning therefore he is free from necessity of sinning whereas originall sin doth necessarily incline him to sinfull actions courses in generall though to this kind of sin in speciall or to this particular in what kindsoever it doth not yet by the way it is to be considered that Calvin in some particulars as namely in gracious courses did attribute so much to the efficacy of God's operation upon a man's will as that the actions performed thereby though voluntary yet in his opinion were not to be accounted free indeed they are wrought in opposition as it were in spight of a certain principall of corruption that in part remaines in the very best of God's children But we see no reason to the contrary but that when once God hath planted in us a principle of new life of the life of grace by the spirit of regeneration though all the powers thereof doe incline only to that which is good like as the powers of naturall corruption incline only unto evill yet the particular use and exercise of those is alwaies free Like as the particular use and exercise of the powers of our corruption is allwaies free to the committing of this or that sinne according unto emergent occasions standing in congruity to every man's particular dispositioÌ„ 2. The Authour keepes himselfe to the language of his own Court but he should not so imperiously put it upon his opposites to concurre with him in the language of Ashdod We know nothing that necessitates the will to sinne but that originall corruption wherein every man is conceived and which we brought with us into the world For that makes us impatient of a yoake like unruly Heyfers And nothing is more burthensome unto us in our corrupt nature then the holy lawes of God The statutes of Omri are not so nor all the manner of the house of Ahab these are punctually observed when God's holy ordinances are proudly despised God moves every creature to worke agreeably to ' its nature Necessary Agents necessarily contingent Agents contingently Free Agents freely He doth not move to any such act as is sinfull save only where the feare of God is not at all found or not quickned but the motions and suggestions of Satan entertained nor then neither alwaies and that not only in his own children but even in the hearts of the wicked to restraine from sinfull courses in spight of Satans temptations by injecting into their minds the consideration either of danger or of shame ensuâ—ng so in a naturall way to restraine from the committing of such an act as is sinfull especially when he seeth it prejudiciall to the peace of his Church in generall or any member thereof in particular otherwise if he gives them over to Satan and moves them agreably to his suggestions entertained by them as being naturally well pleased with them why should this seem strange to any So that not any sin is inevitably committed by the most wicked creature that lives upon the face of the earth but he hath power enough I doe not say to avoid it an absurd phrase as if sinne were a thing to be forced upon a man whether he would or no but to abstaine from it though not in a gracious manner that being in the power of them only who have the spirit of regeneration dwelling in them 3. In the same language he prosecutes his vile cause giving manifest evidence to the world that it cannot be supported without lyes nor embraced by any but those whom God in his secret judgments hath given over to strong illusions to believe lyes It is not incredible to me that ever any Papist or Protestant hath affirmed that God necessitates the will to sinne They generally acknowledge that evill hath no cause efficient but deficient only The terme of God's operation is no other then the substance of the act which as an entity and as an act must necessarily proceed from God as Aquinas hath delivered And albeit they maintaine that God's concurrence to the producing of the act doth worke upon the will of the creature which from the first time that Divines came resolutely unto the acknowledgment of this Divine concourse to the act of sin hath also been received
a thing it is for any man to maintaine that there is some cause of predestination as touching the act of God predestinating So as mad a thing it must be every way to avouch that there is a cause of Reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating And truely the Apostle St. Paul plainly manifests that upon what ground he proves that Election is not of good works namely because before Iacob or Esau were borne or had done good or evill it was said The elder shall serve the younger upon the same ground we may be bold to conclude that Reprobation is not of evill workes And the same reason manifests that faith and infidelity are excluded from being the causes the one of Election the other of Reprobation as well as good and evill workes And both Piscator by evidence of Scripture and Bradwardine by evidence of reason have demonstrated that no will of God is conditionall which is to be understood as touching the act of God willing And it may be evidently further demonstrated thus If any thing be the cause of God's will then either by necessity of nature or by the constitution of God Not by necessity of nature as is evident and all confesse there being no colour of truth for that besides such an opinion were most dangerously prejudiciall to God's soveraignty and liberty If therefore they say it is by the constitution of God maske I pray what an insuperable absurdity followeth hereupon For seing God's constitution is his will it followeth that God did will that upon foresight of this or that he would will such a man's salvation and such a man's damnation And thus the act of God's will is made the Object of God's will even the eternall act of God's will Whereas to the contrary it is apparent that the objects of God's will are things temporall never any thing that is eternall But as touching things willed we readily grant it may be said there is a cause thereof as School-Divines doe generally acknowledge And thus Gerardus Vossius speaks of the conditionall will which he faith the Fathers doe ascribe to God For this is the instance which he gives thereof as for example when God ordaines to bestow salvation on a man in case he believe here faith is made the condition of Salvation but not of the will of God And in like manner we willingly grant that reprobation is conditionall inasmuch as God intends to inflict damnation on none but such as die in sin without repenance But albeit predestination as touching this particular thing willed may be said to be conditionall according as the School-men explicate their meaning and reprobation likewise as touching the particular of dānatiō mētioned yet no such thing cā be truely affirmed either of the one or of the other as touching the particulars of grāting or denying the grace of règeneratiō which are intended also by the decrees of predestinatiō reprobatiō For albeit God intends not to bestow salvation on any but upon condition of faith nor damnation on any but upon condition of finall impenitency and infidelity Yet God intends not to bestow the grace of regeneration on some for the curing of their naturall infidelity and impenitency Nor to leave the same infidelity and impenitency uncured in others by denying the same grace of regeneration unto them This I say God doth not intend to bring to passe upon any condition For if he should then grace should be conferred according unto works which was condemned in the Synod of Palestine and all along in divers Synods and Councells against the Pelagians So that albeit God proceeds according to a law in bestowing salvation and inflicting damnation yet he proceeds according to no law in giving or denying the grace of regeneration for the curing of our naturall corruption but merely according to the pleasure of his will as the Apostle testifies saying He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth And if the conferring and denying of this grace be absolute how much more are the decrees hereof to be accounted most absolute And consequently that one man is delivered from the power of his sins whether originall or habituall another is not but still continueth under the power of them This I say doth must needs come to passe by vertue of Gods absolute decrees Yet no absolute necessity followeth hereupon First because no greater necessity then that which is absolute can be attributed to the existence and continuance of God himselfe Secondly God did absolutely decree to make the world yet no wise man was ever known to affirme that the worlds existence was and is by absolute necessity In like sort God did absolutely decree that Iosiah should burne the Prophets bones upon the Altar That Cyrus should build his Citty and let goe his captives That no man should desire the Israelites land when they should come to appeare before the Lord their God thrice in the yeare That God would circumcise their hearts and the hearts of their children to love the Lord their God withall their heart and with all their soule To put his feare in their hearts that they should never depart away from him To cause them to walke in his statutes and judgments to doe them To worke in them both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure Yea to worke in them every thing that is pleasing in his sight through Iesus Christ Likewise that Absolom should defile his fathers Concubines that the Jewes should crucify the Son of God that some through disobedience should stumble at the word that the Kings should give their kingdomes to the beast Yet these actions were done by them as freely as ever they did ought in their lives All these things I say by Scripture evidence were decreed by God to come to passe The good by God's effection the evill by God's permission and decreed absolutely on their parts that did them if not let it be shewed upon what condition on Absolon's part he should defile his fathers Concubines upon what condition on the Jewes part they should crucify the Son of God upon what condition on their part others through disobedience should stumble at God's word And upon what condition on their part the Kings should give their kingdomes to the beast And if they take Arminias his way let them reply upon mine answere to Arminius if Bellarmin's let them reply upon my answer to Bellarmine that we may not trouble the world with out Tautologies If a different way from both these I shall be glad to be acquainted with it give it such entertainement as according to my judgment it shall be found to deserve So that with Epiphanius though we are ready to concurre in denying destiny which as before we heard out of him was a necessity derived from the starres yet with Austin we may still hold that the wills of men need not to be exempted from all necessity to maintaine the liberty
way which I expresse in the very words of Mr. Doctor Abbats Bishop of Sarisbury ere he died and I conceived that indeed this motive prevailed with most and therefore I thought good so much the more throughly to discusse that But doe I say they tooke this course to free God from the imputation of sinne Nothing lesse my words are these in the Digression cap. 2. Quod plurimos movet illud est nimirum quod in sententia illâ de massâ nondum conditâ omnia sint ut aiunt intricata perplexa infinitis difficultatibus involuta in hac verò de massâ corruptà predestinationi hominum praestruendâ contra clara sint omnia cum Scripturarum autoritate judicioque antiquitatis planissimè consentientia where I mention two reasons that moved them to take this way 1. This in that opinion concerning the Masse of mankind not yet created all passages are intricate perplext and intangled with infinite difficulties but in the opinion concerning the Masse corrupt all things are cleare 2. This that in this other opinion all things are most plainly found to agree both with the authority of Scriptures and with the judgment of antiquity Now after I had endeavoured to discover the insufficiency of this plea in the second and third chapter of that fourth Digression in the matter of predestination In the fourth chapter I propose mine own judgment concerning the true benefit of this way in making the corrupt masse of mankind the object of election and reprobation not the judgment of others as this Authour carrieth the matter but mine own judgment For thus I beginne Ad extremum vis liberè pronuntiem quid unicè proficiatur ex hac nostrá praedestinationis Objecti sententiae temperatione Dicà m igitur quid sentiam Hinc nimirum efficitur ut à lapsu primorum parentum decreto praedestinationis subjiciendo subordinando liberemur huic unicè provisum esse ab istius quasi mediae temperatioris opinionis assertioribus mihi plusquam probabile aut verisimile videtur ne scililicet alias peccatum fieri statueretur decernente Deo tanquam medium ad fines à Deo in praedestinatione sibi praestitutos accommodatum unde etiam quà m author peccati constituendus sit nullâ solidâ ratione explicari posse videtur In the last place will you give me leave freely to professe what we profic by thus tempering our opinion touching the object of predestination I will therefore deliver what I thinke So that herein I purpose mine own opinion only not the opinion of others Herehence thus we gaine that we are freed from subjecting and subordinating man's fall unto God's decree of predestination It seemes to me more then probable or likely that the maintainers of this middle and temperate openion doe provide only against this inconvenience that is their way doth indeed provide against this and against no other inconvenience in my opinion to wit least otherwise the sinne of Adam should be said to come to passe God willing it as a meanes conducing to those ends which God intended in predestination from whence it followes as it seemes that it cannot be explicated by any solid reason that God is not made the Authour of sinne All which is delivered by me as my opinion conceiving that others thinke so too namely not that God is hereby made the Authour and principall cause of sinne but that the contrary cannot be explicated by any solid reason Now Cajetan confesseth as much namely that in these mysteries all the distinctions that are used doe not quietare intellectum satisfie the understanding and therefore he doth captivate his owne into the obedience of faith And Alvarez justifies him in this professing herein that he speakes doctissimè piissimè most learned and holyly And in a peculiar disputation he maintaines that the mistery of Gods providence and predestination standing with the liberty of our wills is incomprehensible by us in this world Lastly consider this is delivered only of the first sinne of our first parents which this authour perverts most shamefully when he avoucheth that I should acknowledge our Divines many of them to embrace this way to avoyd the imputation of making God the principall cause not of Adams sinne alone but of sinne in the greatest number of men And to confesse a truth if sinne be made the meanes for the procuring of the ends which God intends in predestination undoubtedly God himselfe should be the authour of sinne For whosoever intends any end he and none but he must be authour in working the meanes which tend to this end Therefore I said only that in this case It seemes that the sinne of Adam was intended by God as the meanes Whereas in truth and upon due consideration it appeares that not the creatures sinne but Gods permission of the creatures sinne is the meanes whereby God brings to passe his glorious ends Yet not the permission of sinne alone but joyned together with the pardoning of it and saving his elect in despight of it is the compleat meanes together with the procuring of Christs merits for the manifestation of Gods glory in the way of mercy And in like manner not the permitting of sinne alone but joyned with the punishment of it is the compleat meanes for the manifestation of Gods glory in the way of justice vindicative which in Scripture phrase is called the declaration of his wrath And whereas I said that hereby it seemed that it could not by any sound reason be manifested that God was not the Authour of sinne by the first way this Authour avoucheth of the defenders of the lower way which seemes most temperate that from their conclusions it followeth evidently that of all the sinnes of Reprobates which are the greatest number by many degrees God is the true and principall Authour Observe this he sayth followeth evidently from their conclusions and forthwith he tells us that he thinks so or to his thinking it doth so And why is he not the Authour of all the sinnes of the elect also whereas originall sinne continues in them also they carry about them a body of death and have cause to complaine of a law in their numbers that rebelleth against the law of their mind and leadeth them captive to the law of sinne Only there is a principle of spirituall life in them that renewes their repentance dayly as their sinnes are renewed but they looke not to be freed from sinne as long as they live in this world But let us examine how well he makes good that which he affirmes of the sinnes of the Reprobate that God is made the Authour of them by our doctrine of Reprobation I find that Cornelius a Lapide a Iesuite shapes Calvines doctrine of election and Reprobation this lower way and imputes unto him that from Reprobation according to his doctrine in Reprobis manat certus necessarius lapsus in peccata quaelibet A certaine and necessary falling into
this asseveration I confidently believe it For he well perceived that this position utterly infatuates the strength of his discourse in this place And I have still looked when these men will come to a plaine denyall of Originall sinne Now if God may justly cast all mankind away for sinne originall and that as touching the inflicting of damnation upon them for it how much more evident is it to be just with God to cast away all mankind for originall sinne as touching the denyall of grace unto them Now let us proceed to that which is here inserted out of Calvin and Maccovius Now Calvin sayth not that God may with as much justice determine men to hell the first way as the latter He speakes not at all of Gods decree of damnation he speaks only of Gods decree that Adam suâ defectione periret by his fall should be obnoxious to destruction And he proves it by their acknowledgment that it was by the counsell of God that all à salute exciderent unius parentis culpâ should incurre the losse of salvation by the fault of one parent Hereupon he demands saying What lets them to grant that of one man which they must grant of all men And a little after It is too absurd that those kind patrons of Gods justice should thus stick at a straw and leap◠over a blocke And whereas Calvin sayth as he relates him that All men are made guilty of Adams sinne by Gods absolute decree alone First This is untrue No where doth he say that this came to passe by Gods absolute decree alone If he had I had thought this Authour would have justifyed him as well as M. Hord who in this very place professeth that Originall sinne is a sinne made ours only by Gods appointment Indeed as M. Hord is now set forth in print this passage is not found but in M. Hord's own copy thus it ranne M. Mason belike hath gelded him Yet that of M. Hord's was accounted the quintessence of M. Mason's strength in this argument and he took upon him the propagating of the manuscripts thereof as my selfe know in some particulars Likewise the involving of men in the guilt of Adam's sinne and of eternall death is M. Hord's phrase in one place as before I have shewed out of the fourth Section of his preface and that by the only decree of God did he expresse in this place The same argument is used by Maccovius applyed to purpose so was not that of Calvin's As for that saying of Maccovius that God may ordaine men to destruction without respect to any sinne of his that is so ordained is not this manifest 1. In the case of annihilation For doth not Arminius confesse that God can annihilate the holiest creature that is 2ly As touching the suffering of hell paines For did not Christ suffer them by the ordinance of his Father Or was this suffering of his for any sinne of his own This have I proved more then once in my Vindiciae to be in the power of God And Medina professeth as much and that ex concordi omnium Theologorum sententiâ And Vasquez the Jesuite concurres with Medina in the same opinion And lately Raynaudus in his justification of Valerianus who proves this to have been the confession of many of the antient Fathers and particularly of Fulgentius in that booke of his De praedestinatione gratiâ which goes under Austin's name And is it not evident by M. Hord's acknowledgment when he saith that men are made guilty of Adam's sin and of eternall death only by God's decree Which passage of M. Hord's this Authour hath razed out and wipeth his lips as if he had done no iniquity with his Index expurgatorius not that he hath changed his opinion as I verily thinke but because he saw what a funestous blow it gave unto his cause in this particular Yet is he magnified as a man unanswerable none daring to take the bucklers against such a Don Quixot But let the judicious consider this his practise well whether he be a man of such authority as deserving that they should pin their faith on his sleeve especially considering that he takes no notice of what I have answered to M. Hord to reply thereupon and that there is scarce any thing in all this which I have not answered in my Vindiciae Yet he continues to clamour still at least by other Jack a Lents whom he sets up but answers nothing but that which is of his own shaping that making his own bed he may lye the more softly But let The Reader seriously consider this that will not be gulled and cheated of his faith as Pope Caelestinus was of his Popedome and remember what Austin sometimes sayd Si lupi concilium fecerunt ut pastoribus non responderent cur oves consilium perdiderunt ut ad luporum speluncas accederent If the wolves have consulted together and resolved not to make answer to the shepheards why have the sheep so farre lost all good counsell as to come to the dens of wolves Pag 67. Sub-Sect 2 concerning God's justice there is a passage inserted out of M. Perkins but it is of no more moment then the rest In the same sub-section the three causes why repobates cannot in justice be bound to believe are much changed from that they were in M. Hord's discourse sent unto his freind which Copy was sent unto me Yet upon better consideration I find it is not so much changed as at first sight I conceived The order of the two first reasons is changed only in the first here some similies of exageration are wanting which are not wanting in the second of M. Hord's The second here is most altered For wheras in M. Hord's first discourse which he tendred to a Freind of his the reason ranne thus Because it is God's will they shall not believe To wit in our opinion it is altered here thus from an affirmative to a negative It is not God's unfeigned will they shall believe Yet himselfe layes the same thing to our charge in an affirmative manner pag 78 treating of God's truth sub-sect 2 the very last words which I answer apart all that page almost not being found in M. Hord's first discourse The words are these Can God speak thus to Reprobates who by his own decree shall never repent c. And in this very place at length he riseth to this affirmative thus It may rather be said it is God's unfeigned will they shall not believe because it is his will they shall want power to believe So that I need not to trouble my selfe with adding any farther answer to this more then I have to M. Hord and to that page 78 concerning God's truth Sub-sect 3. Pag 69 and Sub-sect 4. In dealing on God's attribute of justice After the Authour had proposed his reasons which moved him to thinke that our doctrine of God s absolute decree is repugnant to God's justice he proposeth
is sufficient to disparage his cause with all that are indifferent and judicious The Scripture plainly professeth that faith is the gift of God repentance is the gift of God But as he carrieth the matter nothing lesse appeares then that this is his opinion Yet I know he dares not in plaine termes oppose the cleare evidence of Scripture in this Now if faith be the gift of God withall he gives it without difference to all thē all must believe which is notoriously palpably untrue If he gives it only to some thē all the rest are mocked by God according to this Authours discourse as often as he saith unto them believe and ye shall be saved And to whom he saith this to them he saith also Oh that there were such an heart in them to feare me c. If he saith he gives faith absolutely to none but conditionally and upon the same condition he is ready to give to all this is clearely to confesse that the grace of God is given according to man's workes Againe 't is God that worketh in us both the will and the deed and that according to his good pleasure if according to his good pleasure How can it be said that it is according to the preparation of the creature Then what condition can be devised whereupon God workes in us the will If he say the grace which God gives to all and whereby to believe to repent is made a thing possible unto all For thus we must proceed groaping after his meaning he affecting nothing more then to sculke and earth himselfe in his concealements I answer first The Scripture makes no mention of any such power given to any but to the contrary professeth of all persons unregenerate that they cannot please God that They cannot discerne the things of God 1 Co 2. 14 that They cannot believe that They cannot repent Ro 24 that they are not subject to the law of God nor can be 2ly The Scripture plainly saith that faith is the gift of God repentance is the gift of God It doth not say that the power to believe if they will is the gift of God If he saith by faith is meant such a power whereby a man may believe if he will I prove the contrary then all men should have faith For in this mans opinion all men are indued with this power But the Apostle plainly saith that All men have not faith Againe faith is described to be The faith of God's Elect but a power to believe if we will this Authour makes common to the Elect with Reprobates Moreover if to give power to believe if a man will be to give him faith then in as much as God gives power to sinne if he will he may be said as well that God gives sinne Adde to this that to have power to believe if one will is rather nature then grace For it is no more then posse fidem habere and this is the nature of man as Austin testifies Posse fidem habere naturae est hominum fidem habere gratiae est fidelium 'T is the nature of man that he may have faith but it is of the grace of the faithfull that a man hath faith And indeed if faith given us of God did only inable us to believe if we will it were farre inferiour to a morall vertue which doth not give man power to be vertuous if he will or to performe a vertuous act if he will but makes him vertuous and disposeth the will to vertuous acts only and leaves him not indifferent whether he will performe vertuous acts or no. To returne then if no other grace be required to free God from mocking and deriding his creature surely we are as free as our adversaries from making God to deride and mocke his creature For we are ready to grant that all men may believe if they will repent if they will with Austin l. 1. de Gen cont Man cap 3. De spiritu liter â ad Marcellin cap 32. De praedest in Sanct cap 5. And our reason is this Not to be able to doe that which a man will doe is impotency merely naturall but the impotency that we speake of which is hereditary to all mankind by reason of the fall is impotency morall and resident in the will of man For who doubts but that the will to believe is to believe For credimus si volumus So the will to repent is to repent For repentance in the root thereof is nothing else but the change of the will And Pelagius of three things proposed Posse Velle Agere he willingly granted the first to wit Posse bonum to be from God but he denied the other two to be the works of God but of our free wills which if he had acknowledged to be the workes of God as well as the first Austin tells him that ab Apostolicâ doctrinâ abhorrere non videretur he should not seeme to vary from the doctrine of the Apostles And for ought I see this Authour goes not one step beyond Pelagius He acknowledgeth that God doth perswade and exhort to believe so did Pelagius ibid. cap. 10. He saith also that God doth concurre to the act but so he doth in his opinion to every sinfull act so that this is but a generall concourse and what Pelagian was ever known to deny but that God might have as great an hand in any good act as in any naturall act Now since we acknowledge all this as well as he what colour hath he to impute unto us that we by our doctrine so fashion God's providence as to make him deride and mock miserable people Though the Jebusites did mock David as this Authour gives his word for it though I doe not find that Ribbi David Kimhi or Piscator count it any derision but a plaine representation of their confidence that David was never able to take it such was the strength of the tower◠that the weakest even the blind and the lame were sufficient to defend it Though withall Kimhi acquaints us with a strange story out of the Jews Darashe of a Covenant made between Abraham and King Abimelech and that concerning not him alone but his Son and his Nephew to suffer them quietly to enjoy their own And that the Nephew of that Abimelech was alive at that time when David came to besiege that fort And that therein the Jebusites had erected two Images the one blind to represent I saack who in his old age was blind and the other lame representing Jacob who by wrestling with God became lame and in the mouthes of these Images was kept the Covenant which was made between Abraham and Abimelech The instance he gives of a proclamation which takes up the greatest part of this supplement as a great part of this Authour's discourse is spent in such insicete representations is most incongruous not only to the matter whereunto it is applyed but to
of evill for himselfe But by the way I observe how you mistake the opinion of your opposites as when you say that this decree of manifesting Gods mercy or justice is a decree of working an effect in that subject for this is utterly untrue This were to make the decree of salvation of the one and of damnation of the other to be before the decree of creation And although some such thing may be conceived out of a superficiall apprehension of it as proposed by Beza and Piscator yet both in true account of that opinion in generall and mistaking of it in speciall no such thing is avouched Nay whereas your selfe maintaine that the decree of damnation is before the decree of permission of finall impenitency a point no way congruous to your Tenet about massa corrupta you have often read in my writings that I account the decree of damnation in no moment of time to precede the decree of permission of finall impenitency Then the case of Angells is utterly against this unlesse you maintaine the one to be elected upon the foresight of their obedience the other reprobated upon the foresight of their disobedience which I am perswaded you shall not find any Orthodox Divine in the point of mans election to maintaine 3. Conclusio tertia Gods decree to permit sinne is before his decree to manifest either his mercy in pardoning sinne or his justice in punishing sinne because that is a decree de eventu this a doing of something by occasion of that event Resp 1. To your reason here mentioned I have answered before 2. There is no priority or posteriority in intention but onely in respect of finis and media ad finem 3. It is untrue that the former decree is a decree of an event and the latter of doing something by occasion of this event For what is Gods permission the event you meane If so then Gods working grace may be accounted an event also and so Gods decree of salvation upon his working grace shall follow upon his decree of working grace which is manifestly Arminianisme Is the sinne permitted the event First why should you call it an event is it because you conceive it to fall out besides Gods intention Arminius himselfe professeth the contrary The articles of Ireland professe that God from eternity did by his unchangeable counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe your selfe acknowledge that Gods decree of permitting sinne is a decree de eventu your selfe acknowledge that God did foresee that man would sinne in case he did permit him to sinne which is as much as to say stice food did intend that sinne should come to passe by his permission which is 〈…〉 and expresse profession of Austin where he saith Non ergo aliquid fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo so that whether things come to passe Deo faciente as good things or Deo sinente as evill things still they came to passe Deo volente as Austin professeth Now this sinne is apparently the cause of the damnation of many thousands for as much as many thousand infants are damned onely for sinne originall And therefore like as upon this sin existent God doth not take an occasion onely but a cause of damning many thousands so if the decree of permitting this be presupposed before the decree of damnation you may say as well that God upon the foresight of this sinne doth not onely take occasion but a cause also of decreeing their damnation And this may be applyed to the reprobation not onely of infants but of all that are damned forasmuch as all that are damned are damned for originall sinne onely here is the difference such reprobates as dye in their infancy are damned onely for originall sinne but others are damned not only for originall sinne but for their actuall sinnes also Againe it is manifest that the decree of permitting sinne originall is no more a decree de eventu and Gods decree to manifest his mercy in pardoning it is a decree of doing something by occasion of that event than Gods decree of permitting all actuall sinnes of his elect from the first to the last is a decree de eventu and Gods decree to manifest his mercy in pardoning actuall sinnes is a decree of working something by occasion of that event and I cannot but wonder this being againe and againe put to your consideration that you doe not take notice of the equipollency of these whence it manifestly followeth that the decree of pardoning sinnes shall presuppose massam corruptam as well with actuall sinnes as sinnes originall Againe if Gods decree of shewing justice in punishing sinne is but a decree of taking occasion of doing something then Gods decree of damnation for mens actuall sinnes is but a decree of taking occasion of doing something and consequently by what reason the decree of punishing sinne presupposeth the decree of permitting sinne originall by the same reason the decree of damnation shall presuppose the decree of permitting not onely sinne originall but all actuall sinnes also By the same reason the decree of salvation is but a decree of doing something upon the occasion of faith repentance and good workes For if sinne deserve not to be accounted a cause moving God to resolve to punish a man with damnation but rather an event by occasion where of he resolves to punish with damnation much lesse shall faith repentance and good workes be accounted a cause moving God to decree to save any man but onely an event by occasion whereof God doth decree some mens salvation Yet looke by what reason the decree of punishing with damnation doth presuppose the decree of permitting sinne by occasion of which event punishment by damnation is decreed by the same reason the decree of salvation doth presuppose the decree of giving faith repentance and good workes by occasion of which events salvation is decreed for why should not faith and good workes be accounted an occasion of the decree of salvation as well as sinnes are the occasion of the decree of damnation 4. The fourth conclusion is this Gods decree to produce the person of Peter is before his decree to manifest his mercy in Peter by the reason aforesaid Thes 8. Resp That eighth Thesis aforesaid made no mention of priority in decree or intention but onely of priority in execution by vertue of Gods decree for the words of that eighth Thesis are these God decreeth first to produce that subject and afterwards to worke such an effect thereupon Not that God did first decree to produce the subject but onely that God did decree first to produce the subject manifesting hereby that your intent is onely to reason from the order of execution and therehence to inferre the like order in intention which is the ordinary course of Arminians at this day And you signifie your meaning to be this in that eighth Thesis though in the issue you faile of
body or the decree of advancing a subject by way of reward doth presuppose his service or the decree of a Patron to present his sonne to a benefice doth presuppose his fitnesse for it or the decree of Solomon to bring Shimei his gray haires unto the grave in bloud did presuppose the offence for which this was brought to passe but rather from these decrees and intentions each Author in his kind proceedeth to bring to passe every thing that is required to the accomplishment of that end which he requires As I prove by instance in every particular 1. I have knowne one that to shew the power of his balme hath wounded his owne flesh and pouring his balme into it hath cured it in the space of twenty foure houres Aske wherefore he wounded his flesh every one seeth that both he wounded it and healed it with his balme to make the vertue of his balme knowne So that his intention of manifesting the vertue of his balme did not presuppose the wound but drew after it both the making of the wound and the pouring of balme into it as the meanes tending to the demonstration of the power of the balme 2. So we have knowne another to take poyson and afterward his cordiall against it both the one and the other joyntly tending to the manifestation of the vertue of his cordiall 3. A King intending to promote a favourite but withall to doe it without envy of the Nobility may resolve to doe it by way of reward which purpose presupposeth not good service but rather hereupon he will imploy him in service as in some honourable Embassage or in the Warres to the end that he may have occasion to advance him upon his service without envy of the Nobles 4. A Patron having a young sonne may entertaine a resolution to bestow a living upon him when time serves This intention doth not presuppose his fitnesse without which he cannot be admitted but because he hath a purpose to preferre him thereunto therefore he will take order to bring him up like a Schollar and send him to the University to make him fit 5. Last of all Solomon you know upon Davids admonition on his death bed entertained an intention to bring Shimei to his grave in bloud yet not for his cursing of David but for a new transgression therefore he takes a course to ensnare him and bids him to build him an house in Jerusalem and not to passe over the Brooke Kidron upon paine of death Now it was not indeed in Solomons power effectually to ensnare him and so certainely to bring upon him the execution of death But this is in the power of God For let him but expose any creature unto temptation and derelinquish him therein without giving him his grace to support him that creature shall certainely fall into sinne otherwise if any creature can keepe himselfe from sinne without Gods grace then Gods grace shall not have the prerogative of being the cause of every good action But this prerogative of Gods grace must and by Gods grace shall be maintained unto the end And upon this foundation the prerogative of his soveraigne power also over his creatures in disposing of them as he thinkes good and making some vessells of mercy and some of wrath which Arminius himselfe professeth he dares not deny to be in the power of God to wit to make vessells of mercy and vessells of wrath and that ex massa nondum condita in his Analysis of the ninth to the Romans But I proceed to the forme of your Syllogisme 1. The reason you say may be laid downe Syllogistically thus 1. God could not intend to pardon any without supposition of that which is necessarily required to make them capable of pardon But sinne is necessarily required to make them capable of pardon therefore God could not intend to pardon any without supposition of sinne 2. God could not intend to punish any without consideration of that which is in justice required to make them punishable But sinne is required in justice to make any person punishable therefore God could not intend to punish any without consideration of sinne Resp 1. In both Syllogismes the Minor we grant the Major we deny as being in effect the very same proposition which is in question and all the evidence it carryeth with it consisteth in the parts which have a shew of an Enthymeme thus 1. Sinne is necessarily prerequired to the pardoning of sinne therefore it is necessarily prerequired to the decree of pardoning sinne 2. Sinne in justice is prerequired unto punishing Ergo 'tis in justice prerequired to the decree of punishing Now this is the very proofe which formerly I laboured to disprove by shewing the inconsequence thereof yet the proposition whereon you rely either must depend upon this proofe or upon none at all But I will proceed with you a little farther upon these Syllogismes you propose 2. Sinne you say and that truly is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon And this generall truth brancheth it selfe into two specialls 1. Sinne originall is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon for sinne originall 2. Sinne actuall is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon for sinne actuall Now because God doth intend to pardon all the sinnes of his elect not onely originall but actuall committed throughout the whole course of his life it followeth that God could not intend to pardon these actuall sinnes without the presupposition of them 3. By the same reason of yours I dispute thus 1. God could not intend to bestow salvation upon any man by way of reward without supposition of that which is necessarily required to make him capable of reward But the obedience of faith repentance and good workes is necessarily required to make a man capable of reward Ergo God could not intend to bestow salvation on any man by way of reward without supposition of faith repentance and good workes 2. As God cannot intend to punish any without consideration of that which in justice is required to make him punishable so God cannot intend to punish any in such a degree without that which is required in justice to make him punishable in such a degree Now not onely sinne originall but all actuall sinnes of every Reprobate together with their finall impenitency therein is required in justice to make every one of them punishable in such a degree Ergo could not God intend to punish any Reprobate in such a degree without consideration of all their actuall sins And as mens actuall sinnes are the meritorious causes of their damnation so the consideration of them shall be the meritorious cause of their reprobation or at least of that decree whereby God doth decree to inflict damnation upon them in such a degree And by just proportion of reason like as faith repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto salvation so the consideration of faith repentance and good workes shall be the
disposing causes of their election unto salvation But you proceed and I am content to go along with you 3. And this reason especially for the latter part of it which concernes the manifestation of Gods glory per mâ—dum justitiae punientis may be farther confirmed thus That which tends not to Gods glory simply but onely upon supposition if sinne be could not be intended by him simply but onely upon that supposition For so farre and no farther doth God intend any thing as it makes for his glory But to punish men or any other creatures is a thing that tends not to Gods glory simply but onely upon supposition if sinne be Ergo it could not be intended by God simply but onely upon that supposition Resp You need not have mentioned the tending of this to Gods glory your argument is in force and greater force without it For I hold that to punish without supposition of sinne implyeth contradiction paena being properly opposed to praemium and as reward formally hath a respect to obedience going before so hath punishment unto sinne 1. Now first to follow you in your owne course I reason thus That which tends to Gods glory not simply but onely upon supposition of obedience in faith repentance and good workes cannot be intended by him simply but upon that supposition but to reward with salvation and everlasting life tends not to Gods glory simply but onely upon supposition of faith repentance and good workes Ergo it could ot be intended by God simply but onely upon faith and repentance 2. But to your Major I answer No man saith that God doth intend to punish any man but for sinne Now hereupon many not onely Arminians but some Orthodox also are apt to be deceived and to thinke that these words but for sinne are to be referred to the Antecedent removed which is Gods intention But it is not so those words are onely to be referred to the Antecedent next before which is to punish And I prove it thus When any man saith God intends to punish man for his sinne the meaning can be no other than if he had said God doth intend that punishment shall be inflicted on man for his sinne where it is manifest that sinne is noted onely as going before the punishment not as going before Gods intention But as soone as this confusion of sense is opened by distinction then they flye to this kind of argument sinne goeth before the execution of punishment therefore the consideration of sinne goeth before the intention of punishment which is the argument I formerly proposed and the inconsequence whereof I presume you doe manifestly perceive Now to that which followeth 4. Although the reason which you alledge on our behalfe be inconsequent as you have framed it yet I suppose it may be reduced to a true Syllogisme thus The decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne election is the decree of liberation from sinne Ergo election presupposeth sinne If you deny the Major I prove it thus That which presupposeth sinners presupposeth sinne The decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinners Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne you will perhaps yet deny the Minor but I prove it thus The decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth some that have need to be delivered for else it were vaine and to no purpose Onely sinners have need to be delivered from sinne Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinners The like argument and in the like forme may be framed touching the decree of dereliction in sinne Or if you take reprobation for the decree of damnation it may be said thus The decree of damnation presupposeth some persons justly damnable for otherwise it were either an unjust or at least and unwisean indeliberate decree But onely sinners are justly damnable Ergo the decree of damnation presupposeth sinners and conse quently sinne For peccatum is de formali ratione peccatoris qua peccator est as you know Resp Every one indeed knowes that peccatum is de formali ratione peccatoris and hereupon it is manifest that the second Syllogisme gives no mite of proofe unto the first For seeing formalis ratio of any thing cannot be separated from the thing it selfe and consequently neither peccatum from peccator you may easily perceive that when we deny that the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne we must therewithall necessarily deny that it presupposeth sinners Your third Syllogisme addeth as little force unto the former being meerly identica probatio For every man knoweth that to be a sinner and to have need to be delivered from sinne is all one in such sort as whatsoever is denyed of a sinner must be denyed of him that hath need to be delivered from sinne forasmuch as every sinner hath need to be delivered from sinne Thus while you decline that proofe which in my observation alone hath course and the implication whereof in the Major proposition is all the evidence of it you fall upon no sound proofe at all The truth is if you observe you may perceive your Major proposition involves this Enthymeme Liberation from sinne presupposeth sinne sinners such as have need to be delivered from sinne Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne presupposeth both sinne and sinners and such as need to be delivered from sinne Of any other force of proofe that you give I am not conscious 2. If the argument formed touching the decree of dereliction in sinne be of the like forme it will admit no doubt the same answer 3. The Major of the last Syllogisme hath a clause annexed unto it as a reason of it thus else it were in vaine and to no purpose If this reason pleased you you might have relyed upon it in the first Syllogisme of the three whereas now you may perceive they containe no proofe but identicall 2. Your course of argumentation tends to prove that it is impossible it should be otherwise than you conceive which is more than to say it were otherwise onely vaine and to no purpose Thirdly I answer that which is vaine and to no purpose is either to no end or to no good end But the decree of liberation from sinne whether it presuppose sinne as you say or not presuppose sinne as I say still it tends to the same end and that a good end to wit the manifestation of Gods mercy But I erre your meaning seemeth to be this it is vaine in respect that it cannot obtaine the end it aimes at unlesse it presuppose sinne But how doe you prove that Gods decree of liberation from sinne cannot take effect except it presuppose sinne you have no meanes to prove it but this Liberation from sinne cannot take effect without it presuppose sinne Ergo the decree of liberation from sinne cannot take effect without it presuppose sinne And while you decline this way of proofe you light upon no proofe at all 4. Touching your last Syllogisme
by the other his commandement which is without him performed usually by the Ministry of the creature and therefore not his will properly so called I utterly deny the consequence of your argument and how just and reasonable this my denyall thereof is will appeare if you please to reduce your Enthymeme into a Categoricall Syllogisme for then you will find the proofe of its consequence to depend on this That whatsoever acts are differenced and distinguished by their objects doe digladiate and one fight against the other and this is a proposition so grossely false as that I am very confident you cannot back it with so much as one either testimony or reason That acts are differenced and distinguished by their objects is a common and received rule but that all acts are opposite whose objects are repugnant is an assertion that as yet I never so much as read or heard of in any either Philosopher or Divine and 't is this alone will serve your turne to conclude a digladiation or repugnancy between the Decree and the Command of God from the opposition that D. Twisse admitteth to be between the things Decreed and the things Commanded 2. If we take opposition and repugnancy as the Ramists who divide it into disparation and contrariety we may safely say that Gods decree and his commandement are things opposite for they are disparate but this will no wise prejudice D. Twisse who speakes in the language of the followers of Aristotle neither will it any waies advantage you for the opposition or repugnancy that is between things disparate is only as touching an essentiall predication one of another we cannot say that Grammar is Logick or that temperance in a man is fortitude and so we cannot say that Gods decree is his commandement or his commandement is his decree not of a denominative or concretive predication of the same subject the same man may be valiant and temperate a Grammarian and a Logician See Scheibler Top. cap. 14. n. 7. cap. 15. n. 19. MR GOODWIN IT is impossible that I should inwardly and seriously will or desire the death of my Child and yet at the same time seriously also will and injoyne the Physitian to doe his best to recover him IEANES IF you would hereby insinuate that we affirme that God doth inwardly and seriously will or desire the death or damnation of his Children and yet at the same time also seriously injoyne his Ministers who are spirituall Physitians to doe their best to recover them out of the snare of the Divell you doe wonderfully misconceive and misreport our opinion for we say that unto none hath he given power right or priviledge to be his Sonnes but unto such as believe on his name and all those who believe he hath ordained unto eternall life and will keepe by his power unto salvation but of this see our Author In the first Book of this Treatise p. 133. 134. 137. What hath been said is sufficient to convince him that will not wilfully and obstinately shut his eyes against the light that the command of all who heare the Gospell to believe and repent and the purpose of God to deny faith and repentance unto many are not contradictory I shall before I discharge my selfe of this Section evince as much briefly concerning this latter purpose and that purpose or decree out of which the command proceedeth and which is signified thereby Here we must premise that the commandement of God doth signify a decree or decreeing will of God though not such a decree or will as the Arminians usually shape for themselves 1. It signifieth the decree of God concerning the commandement it selfe 2. Concerning the thing commanded First then the command of God signifieth Gods will or decree of the commandement it selfe of the externall transient act of commanding Eph. 1. 11. God worketh all things after the Counsell of his own will Gods commanding then of things in time is a signe that from everlasting he did decree to command them But secondly It signifieth a will or decree of God also concerning the thing commanded viz as touching the obligation to it not as touching the existence or non-existence of it it signifieth that God from everlasting did decree that the thing commanded should be mans duty should be a thing Morally good but it doth not signify or reveale that the thing commanded should actually exist and be performed by every one unto whom the command is propounded Indeed the obedience of the elect for whose salvation only the commands of God are given was both commanded and decreed or determined by God Ezek. 36. 26 27. And hence we may inferre that the command of faith repentance obedience c. all which God hath determined to be necessary unto salvation doe imply and reveale in a generall and indefinite way that God from eternity did purpose to worke faith repentance and obedience in those whom he had designed to salvation But this concession will not satisfy Arminians who will be contented with nothing unlesse we will grant them that God willeth and desireth the faith repentance obedience and salvation of Reprobates which we cannot doe but withall we must renounce and disclaime Gods omnipotency and immutability These things thus briefely premised That Gods purpose or decree of commanding faith and repentance unto all that heare the Gospel and his purpose or decree to deny faith and repentance unto many are not contradictory is manifest because Gods purpose or decree of commanding faith and repentance referres unto the thing commanded faith and repentance only as concerning the obligation to them not as touching the existence of them now to decree and purpose to bind and oblige all to faith and repentance and to decree and purpose that some yet shall never actually believe and repent cannot be proved by any rules of Logick to be contradictory Before I proceed unto the consideration of your next and last passage against D. Twisse I shall only represent unto you that our Author whom you take to be one of the greatest patrons of that cause which you account adverse doth dislike the accommodation of that distinction of voluntas signi and beneplaciti or a secret and revealed will unto 1 Tim. 2. 4. the place which you have under debate as well as you though I confesse upon different grounds In his Booke against Jackson pag. 534. he informeth us that neither Calvin embraceth it nor Beza nor Piscator but all concurre upon that interpretation which Austin gave many hundred years agoe Peter Martyr proposeth it saith he amongst diverse others but embraceth it not neither doe I know any Divine of ours that embraceth it Cajetan indeed embraceth it and Cornelius de Lapide and Aquinas amongst other interpretations If you take saith he speaking to D. Jackson a liberty to put upon us the opinions and accommodations of distinctions used by Papists you may in the next place make doubt whether we have not subscribed to the Councell of
I shall proceed by degrees proving first that it cannot be gathered out of the Text that Christ prayed universally for all that crucified him Secondly That the contrary may be cleared from the Text both considered in it selfe and compared with other places of Scripture as also by reason Thirdly That those of his persecutors for whom he prayed were such as belonged unto the election of grace First All the Logick in the World though racked never so much cannot inferre out of the Text that Christ prayed universally for the pardon of all his Crucifyers for out of an indefinite terme a universall cannot be concluded saith our Author in defence of Moulin his denyall that Christ prayed for all without exception Vindic. l. 1. part 2. Digres 7. p. 136. Secondly That Christ prayed not for all his Crucifiers without exception may be cleared from the Text both considered in it selfe and compared with other places of Scripture as also by reason First From the Text considered in it selfe Father forgive them for they know not what they doe Here Moulin from the reason adjoyned to the Petition concludes That he prayed not for all that had a hand in Crucifying him but only for those who did it out of ignorance and in all probability some of them especially some of the rulers did it out of pure malice And whereas Corvinus objecteth out of Acts 3. 17. against Moulin That even the Rulers did it through ignorance Doctor Twisse upbraideth him with his unskilfullnesse in framing consequences and making an indefinite proposition equivalent unto an universall It doth not follow saith he The Rulers did this through ignorance therefore all the Rulers did it through ignorance That some did is certain from that place and so it is that some of them were converted and obedient to the Faith Act. 6. 7. Besides he addes that the Rulers in all likelyhood did it out of affected ignorance resisting the evidence of the holy Ghost speaking in and by Christ and bearing witnesse to the divine Authority of his Doctrine by miracles Whereas 't is possible that Christ might pray for the executioners that assisted and acted in his crucifying perhaps not out of malice but meerely in the simplicity of their hearts in obedience to their Superiours not knowing any thing Tum vero ad ignorantiam istam quod attinet quam populo Iudaico primoribus populi vitio vertit Apostolus quid obstat quo minus affectata fuerit in multis resistendo scilicet evidentiae Spiritus sancti per Christum loquentis per miracula doctrinae ipsius testimonium ferentis praesertim in primoribus Qui vero ipsum in crucem egerunt pro quibus etiam oravit erant illi ministri superiorum mandatis ex officio inserviebant poterat ergo Christus orasse pro iis qui non malitia pulsi Sed cordis simplicitate in Superiorum obsequium ducti Christum in crucem sustulerunt He also addeth that he prayed only for them that were present at his Death and 't is probable that the Rulers at least such of them as were not afterwards converted were not present at his Death Esto vero non fuerint conversi sed nihilo minus probabile est primores istos non adstitisse presentes Christo qui crucifixionem ipsius promoverent pro quibus tamen solis oravit Christus in cruce Secondly that Christ prayed not for all and every one of his crucifyers D. Ames confirmeth from comparison of this text with other places of Scripture Coron Art 2. c. 9. Art 5. c. 5. Amongst these his enemies there might be some that had committed that great and unpardonable sinne against the holy Ghost Math. 12. 24 31 32. There were some by the confession of Arminius himselfe that were finally impenitent and finall impenitency in generall and the sinne against the holy Ghost which formally includes finall impenitency are sinnes unto death for the pardon of which if knowne prayer is not lawfull 1 Iohn 5. 16. And therefore saith Austin if Gods Church knew who were predestinated to be sent into eternall fire with the Divell and his Angells they would no more pray for such then they would pray for the Divell himselfe Now Christ knew who had committed the sinne against the holy Ghost and who would be finally impenitent for he himselfe knew full well what was in man Ioh. 2. 28. Yea he knew from the begining who they were that believed not Ioh. 6. 64. See the Learned and reverend M. Owen in his Treatise of Universall Redemption p. 44. 45. Thirdly that Christ prayed not for all his crucifyers may be confirmed by an argument shaped in imitation of that which Doctor Twisse urgeth against a common and generall intercession which Corvinus ascribeth unto Christ If Christ prayed that all who crucified him should be forgiven then it was either that they should be forgiven absolutely or conditionally not absolutely for then all of them were pardoned if conditionally upon condition then this condition was either on Gods part or else to be performed on his crucifyers part it could not be on Gods part modo scilicet ipsi visum fuerit for then all of them should be pardoned according to your opinion for you hold that God truly and unfainedly desires the salvation and justification of all and every one of the Sonnes of Men If you say that 't is a condition on the part of his crucifyers why this condition can be nothing else but faith and repentance and then I demand whether he prayed for their faith and repentance or no If you answer that he did not pray for the Faith and Repentance of all and every one of them then say I neither did he pray for their pardon for he that truly and sincerely prayeth for any thing prayeth also by just undeniable consequence for all the necessary antecedents and consequents causes and meanes fruits and effects thereof If you hold that he prayed for the faith and repentance of all and every one of his crucifyers then the argument may be renewed as in the begining for I aske you againe whether he prayed for their faith and repentance absolutely or conditionally if absolutely then all and every one of them did believe and repent which the Remonstrants themselves deny if conditionally then this condition is either on Gods part or else on the part of the crucifyers of Christ if upon condition on the part of God it can be nothing but this if he will or please and then all of them should believe and repent for as Arminians glosse that text 1 Tim. 2. 4 God will have not only all sorts and kinds of men but also all and every individuall man to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth if it be a condition on the part of those who crucified him then pray doe you assigne that condition and either I shall drive you upon the same rock of absurdity upon which Doctor Twisse
he hath prevailed so with them we have no reason to conceive that it is an easy matter for him to perswade us that we are absolute Reprobates no nor then neither considering that we make no such rules but rather conceive them to be the fancies of crackt or crazed braines And the Devill had need be more wise then so if he practice to prevaile with us which undoubtedly so long as God be pleased by his grace to keepe us in our right wits he never shall Certainly if they desire to bring this rule into our faith they must first manifest that the Devill hath so prevailed with them to make them conceive themselues to be Reprobates otherwise it cannot be they should conceive so easy a matter for the Devill to perswade any of us upon so sorry a ground as this that we are absolute Reprobates As for them that are fallen to prosecute that distinction this Authour gives according to the parts of it which the Authour himselfe doth not Christians fallen may be understood two manner of wayes either as fallen from the state of grace or as fallen only into sinne but still standing in the state of grace As touching the first we acknowledge no such falling away St John professing of certaine Apostates saying They went out from us but they were not of us for had they beene of us they had continued with us As for such as fall into sinne we that maintaine absolute election and reprobation doe withall maintaine with King James in the conference at Hampton Court that all such shall arise againe by repentance And therfore there is no reason we should conceive upon the committing of any such sinne that we are Reprobates least of all upon so base grounds as here are specified by this Authour Now I come to his proofe of this by his three testimonies 1. The first whereof is the testimony of Calvin whereto I answer first in generall That not one of these Authours here mentioned take any notice of the ground whereupon this Authour builds namely of the paucity of the elect in comparison to Reprobates therehence to conclude That it is an easy matter for the Devill to perswade them that they are Reprobates if they should have beene sure to have received so much from the pen of this Authour More particularly I acknowledge the words of Calvin here alledged namely that the Devill doth not assault the believer with a temptation more dangerous But why doth not this Authour goe on to tell what the temptation is which as it were in a breath Calvin sets downe thus Quam dum ipsos suae electionis dubitatione inquietans simul prava ejus extra viam inquirendae cupitate solicitat It consists of two parts The first is disquieting of them with doubting of their election The second is his solliciting of them with an ill desire of inquiring about it after a wrong way Both these Calvin so compounds as to make up but one tentation In the next place Calvin shewes what it is for a man to inquire of his election a wrong way Extra viam inquirere voco ubi in abditos divinae sapientiae recessus perrumpere homuncio conatur quo intelligat quid de se sit constitutum apud Dei tribunal ad supremam usque aeternitatem penetrare To inquire after it out of the way is when a vile man endeavoureth to breake into the secrets of divine wisdome and to pierce into the highest eternity to know what God hath ordained of him there This he sayeth is for a man to cast himselfe into a deep to be swallowed up of a bottomlesse gulfe and to throw himselfe into innumerable snares such as he can never wind himselfe out off And to this he sayeth we are very prone and hereupon comes in the next sentence alledged by this Authour Rarissimus enim est few there be whose minds are not taken up with this contemplation Whence doth Salvation come unto thee but from Gods election Now what revelation hast thou of thine election And if these thoughts doe once take hold of a man either in cruell manner it torments miserable man continually or makes him altogether stand astonished All this is delivered by Calvin of them who enquire about their election a wrong way the very same way being condemned also by King James in the conference at Hampton Court or that which he there delivereth much at one And all this this Authour very judiciously conceales thinking such a dog-trick well becomes his free will and his grace also But then Calvin discovereth also another way in ea lustranda that is in discovering a mans election and such as wherein tuta est pacata addo etiam jucunda navigatio a man may saile safely peaceably and sweetly and that they who search after their election in a due order as it is contained in Gods Word they are like to reape thence singular consolation eximium inde referent consolationis fructtum Then he shewes what this way is and that we must beginne from our vocation to wit unto faith and unto repentance and thence ascend to our election in this way he professeth no uncomfortable condition but most comfortable is likely to accrue unto him The wrong way he warnes us to avoyd carefully but withall professeth that no rocke at all is likely to be met withall in this right way By this I desire every indifferent person will judge aright of this Authours carriage 2. The next is Bucer in 8. ad Rom q de praedest Now Bucers discourse as it is related by this Authour himselfe appeares to tend to no other end but this that Christians should not disquiet themselues with doubting whether they are predestinate or no but rather without doubt perswade themselues that they are of the number of those whom God hath predestinate And by this I perceive what is his meaning here in which formerly I understood not when this of Bucer was alleadged by this Authour to an other purpose And his meaning seemes to be this whosoever is called and believes in Christ ought to believe that he is predestinate For indeed faith in his opinion is the fruit of our election and from the like in the Thessal Paul was perswaded of their election 1 Thess 1. 3 4. Remembring the worke of your faith and labour of your love knowing that you are elected of God Now shall others hereby be drawne to be confident of our election and shall not we our selves who alone are privy to the secret passages of our hearts when others are not Now I pray consider whether this be so much as to intimate that it is a farre easier matter for a man to be perswaded that he is a Reprobate then that he is of the number of Gods elect 3. By this I perceive the meaning of Zanchy also in saying That every Christian is bound to believe that he is elect Let us in the name of God examine our faith whether it be
true faith or no but surely so farre as we are perswaded of the truth of our faith so farre have we no cause to doubt of our election But this of Zanchius is no more to the purpose whereunto this Authour alleadgeth it than that of Bucers 4. In the last place I come to the relation of Georgius Major of a certaine Schoole-Master in Hungary Petrus Hosuanus by name for so I find him called in Dietricus though this Authour calls him Ilosuanus mistaking belike the copy which he transcribed Now Dietricus relates it as out of Georgius Major as this Author doth But I wonder not a little that Osiander in his last Century makes no mention of it that I can find though I have searched after it as the Woman in the Gospell did after her lost groat Whether he gave any credit to Georgius Major his relation I know not or whether any thing came to his knowledge afterwards as touching the unfaithfullnesse thereof But take we it as it lyes in this Authours relation 1. That he professed himselfe of Calvins and Austins opinion I hope this makes no more against Calvin and us then it doth against Austin and all those that tooke part with him against the Pelagians in his dayes and the remnants of them afterwards But if his opinion was that men are not dealt withall secundum bona or mala opera but that there are occultiores causae of mens Eternall conditions will any sober Arminian impute this unto us Doe we say that God damnes any man but for sinne or that God rewards any man of ripe yeares with Salvation but by way of reward of theire faith repentance and good-workes When the Remonstrants at the Hague conference proposed their doctrine of predestination and reprobation after this manner namely That God from eternity did ordaine to save believers and to damne unbelievers to this effect Did any of the Contra-Remonstrants or any of the Synod of Dort except against the truth of this But whereas the Remonstrants and Arminians did acknowledge this to be the whole decree of predestination and reprobation Against this exception was tooke both in the Hague conference and in the Synod of Dort and Theses also by divers forraine Divines laid downe against it particularly by our Brittayne Divines amongst others All of them maintaining that there was an other decree concerning the giving of the grace of regeneration of the grace of faith and repentance unto some and denying it unto others And this decree we willingly maintain proceeds not no not in the execution thereof according to mens workes good or evill whatsoever be the end of any that maintaine it The contrary namely that grace is given according unto workes being a doctrine generally condemned in the Church from the yeare 415 at that time it was condemned in the Synod of Palestine and Pelagius himselfe driven to subcribe unto it otherwise himself had been anathematized But this Authour delivers it as the opinion of Hosuanus concerning mens Eternall conditions whereby I take to be meant Salvation and Damnation And indeed as here the doctrine is expressed it is more agreable with the doctrine of the Predestinarians as Sigebert relates it then with the doctrine either of Austin or Calvin and the same Sigebert writes not that it was Austins doctrine but that it rose out of the misunderstanding of Austins writings Yet I confesse that Tyro Prosper before Sigebert spares not to professe of that Predestinarian hereby that it rose from Austin as Dr Vsher observeth But this was a meere practice of the Semi-Pelagians corrupting the doctrine of Austin the better to expose it to obloquy and reproach 2. As for the second that he was one of the woefull company of absolute castawayes Herein the Author of this discourse accomodates himselfe to his own stage Throughout Dietricus his relation I find no mention of any such distinction as of reprobates and absolute reprobates but an acknowledgement certum esse numerum salvandorum praedestinatorum vel ad vitam vel ad mortem And of himselfe that he was ex numero damnatorum but I doe not find the word absolute throughout That his life was none of the worst himselfe was no competent judge yet I confesse there are degrees of prophanenesse and hypocrisy and the very reprobates are not equall in sinne And withall a morall life is esteemed in the world in respect of their conversation towards men but we know that to deny Gods truth and to oppose it against the light of conscience is of an higher nature in the sight of God and usually is of more fearfull consequence Of Francis Spira I find no complaints made in respect of his morality towards men but he laid unto his own charge That he had sinned against the holy Ghost Yet neither this Hosuanus nor Spira doe I find to have broken forth into any blasphemy against Gods justice in reprobating them Nay this latter was heard strangely to discourse of the justice of God without any murmuring against his power And in our time we have heard of strange examples of some that have gone soberly on to the destroying of themselves in a very devout acknowledgement of Gods justice in giving them over 3. As touching the dreadfull apprehensions of Gods wrath I nothing doubt but when God gives men over to the power of Satan they may be so improved by him as to make a man weary of his life though I find not this specified in Dietricus who yet relates this story out of Georgius Major But I read the like in Goulartius his collections of a desperate man in his time dying that said among many other horrible speeches that he wished to be already in Hell And being demanded the cause of so wicked a desire For that said he the apprehension of torments which doe attend me cause me presently to feele a double Hell when I shall feele it at the full I shall not exspect it any more But no mention throughout of any opinion of his concerning Divine reprobation that moved him thereunto The words here alleadged Discedo ad lacus infernales Deo vos commendo cujus misericordia mihi negata est These I say and the matter of these alone I find in Dietericus his relation out of Georgius Major on 2 Tym. c. 2. p. 59. 6. It runs thus Ait in Hungaria multis aliis locis notissimum esse de homine quodam Calviniano Petro Hosuano Rectore Scholae Gengerinae qui ex desperatione sibi ipsi laqueo injecto vitam finivit Anno 1562. die 22. Julii relicto manuscripto in quo praeter alia haec exstitere O me infaelicissimum omnium quia satius fuisset me nunquam natum Verum est certum esse numerum salvandorum hoc ex me sed quid ad me Hoc ità necessariò fieri debuit Nemo igitur argumentetur Deus omnes vocat longe secùs se res habet Calvini sententiam de certo praedestinatorum numero item
It may be thou maist have experience of the same power of divine grace to bring thee to faith also and to repentance therefore seeing Gods Word is the only meanes to worke faith waite daily at his Gates and give attendance at the posts of his doores and doe not prescribe unto him or say with Joram Shall I wait upon the Lord any longer though it be longere he calls thee yet it may goe never a whit the worse with thee for that for sometimes it falleth out that the last are first and the first last and the commendation that Austin makes of the Theef's faith upon the Crosse is remarkeable De orig animae lib. 1. cap. 9. Tanto pondere appensum est tantumque valuit ap ud eum qui haec novit appendere quod confessus est dominum crucifixum quantum si fuisset pro Domino crucifixus Tunc enim fides ejus de ligno floruit quando discipulorum marcuit nisi cujus mortis terrore marcuerunt ejus resurrectione reviresceret Illi enim desperaverunt de moriente ille speravit in commorientem Refugerunt illi authorem vitae rogavit ille consortem poenae Doluerunt illi tanquam homines mortem credidit ille regnaturum esse post mortem Deseruerunt illi sponsorem salutis honoravit ille socium crucis Inventa est in eo mensura Martyris qui tunc in Christum credidit quando defecerunt qui futuri erant Martyres 2. From the Comedy I come to the Tragedy I meane the story of Spira Sleidan saith of him that Incredibili ardore caepit complecti puriorem doctrinam cum indies magis magisque proficeret non domi tantum apud amicos quid sentiret de singulis dogmatis verum etiam passim apud omnes explicabat Tidings hereof coming to the Popes Legat then at Venice John Casa Arch-Bishop of Beneventum he convents Spira who confesseth his errour before him intreats pardon and promiseth obedience for time to come The Legat not contented with this commands him to goe home and publiquely to revoke his errour Sleidan writes no more here of but this Accipit ille conditionem licet etiam tum inciperet ipsum paenitere facti tamen urgentibus amicis qui non ipsius modo sed conjugis etiam liberorum facultatum ipsius spem totam in eo positam dicerent obtemperavit Osiander writes that pessimo consilio obsecutus abnegando veritatem caelestem perrexit eamque publice ut haeresin blasphemavit abjuravit The distresse of conscience which overtooke him hereupon is notorious the issue whereof was to end his woefull dayes more woefully in despaire But nothing more strange then his discourses and meditations in the midst of this his desperate condition As for the particulars following 1 Touching the greatnesse of his sinne and that he was taken off from that by the example of Peter I find no such thing neither in Sleidan nor Osiander nor in Goulartius but rather in this latter who makes the largest relation thereof taken out of the discourse of one Henry Scringer a learned Lawyer who was then at Padua who did see and many times talke with this poore Spira I find that which makes to the contrary namely that the sinne which he laid to his owne charge was the sinne against the Holy Ghost And no example I trust neither of Peter nor any other was sufficient to take him off from despaire in such a case 2. And as for the discourse here suggested of his absolute reprobation which he opposed against their comforts ministred unto him no mention thereof neither in Sleidan nor in Osiander nay Osiander writes that he was wish'd to revoke doctrinam Lutheranam and this was it which he did as he sayeth blaspheme as an heresy and abjure Goulartius indeed relates how he conceived himselfe to be reprobated of God as justly he might in case he judged himselfe to have sinned against the Holy Ghost And as for that which is here set down in Latin of him that is a Reprobate namely that necessario condemnabitur though his sins be small few that nihil interest multa an pauca magna an parva sint quando nec Dei misericordia nec Christi sanguis quicquam ad eos pertinet Neither Sleidan nor Osiander nor Goulartius makes any mention of it And therefore I wonder not that he neither followeth Sleidan nor Osiander much lesse that he followes not Goulartius He cites Caelius secundus and Calvin as his Authours and some others that wrot thereof to their friends but names them not as neither where it is that Caelius secundus makes mention of it or in what booke of Calvin it is found I imagined it might be in his Epistles I have spent some houres in searching therein from the yeare 1545 to the yeare 1663 and can find nothing concerning it Now Goulartius wrote since Caelius secundus and Calvin and Sleidan and his relation is large and it semes he inquired in to it somewhat better then they that went before him And thus he relates it out of the discourse of Henry Scringer a Lawyer of Padua who saw Spira at that time and divers times spake with him In a small towne of the territory of Padua called Civitelle there was a Learned Lawyer and advocat a wise and very rich man and an honourable father of a family called Francis Spira who having sayd and done divers things against his conscience to maintaine himselfe and his charge observe by the way he delivers the cause only in generall concealing the speciality it being so strang a testimony and evidence against the Romish Religion being returned to his house he could never rest an houre not a minut nor have any ease of his continuall anguish And even from that night he was so terrified and had such horrour of his actions as he held himselfe for lost For as he himselfe did afterward confesse he did set plainely before his eyes all the torments all the paines of the damned and in his soule did heare the fearfull sentences being drawne before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ a fearfull example to all Apostates The next day and so following he was not seene to resume any courage but his spirits were strangely troubled and the terrour tooke from him all rest and appetite This accident was so greivous to his friends as some repented them much that they had beene the cause of so great an inconvenience by their intreaties Others thinking it did proceed from some cholerick or melancholy humour were of opinion to send him to Padova to be Physicked by the Learned Physitians revived by honorable company and setled by the coference of Learned men there to some of which he was well knowne His Wife and Children with some of his familiar friends did accompany him and he was lodged in one of the chiefe houses Frisimilega Bellocat and Crassus famous Physitians did visit him and give him Physicke with singular