his leg the instrument of motion The Sun by his warmth makes the dunghill stink of which stink that that warmth is not the cause appears in that the very same influence draws forth a fragrant savour from a bed of Roses That the dunghill smells is from the Suns drawing forth the vapourâ— but that it smells ill is from the condition of the matter The upper-wheel of a Clock though by its motion it draws along with it an under-wheel that is irregular in its motion yet it is not the cause of that irregularity When a dexterous Pen-man writes upon sinking paper he makes pothooks as we say of children that begin to learn the art of writing blots rather than letters which yet is not his fault but the Papers Twisse Vind. Gr. l. 2. p. 1 a. p. 26. Reply 4. There must needs be a separation and therefore 't is possible to be between actions and the evil of them upon Mr. Howe 's own Hypothesis viz. That God does predetermine to all good actions which in the present state are but imperfectly good Here he must distinguish between the efficiency of God and man as to the same action and ascribe the action and grace of it to God and the evil that adheres to that action to man unless he will ascribe all to God Absit blasphemia verbo If Mr. Howe can extricate himself and not us with the same Answer or rather if he can excogitate any other Answer than by this exsibilated distinction erit mihi magnus Apollo and without an Irony sapientum octavus Reply 2. To the connexion I Answer That it infolds a twofold contradiction 1. For it supposes some actions to be intrinsecally evil and yet by our Hypothesis to be determined i. e. compell'd if Mr. Howe may be admitted our Interpreter whereas that is not sin which is not spontaneous neither is that spontaneous which is necessary i. e. violent or compell'd For violence is a Physical action upon the Patient in which sort of actions vertue or vice hath no place for the will is the principle of moral actions So the learned Camero de Scand p. 98. where note that I presume Camero denies not original sin imputed to be suo modo i. e. in its kind voluntary and so truly sin according to St. Austins sentiments nos omnes eramus ille unus homo i.e. we were all that one man Adam and so sinned in him This to prevent any misapprehension 2. It supposes sin to have an efficient cause whereas 't is a known Rule in Divinity Peccatum qua tale essentialiter est effectus moralis non habet causam Physicam i. e. Sin as such and essentially is a moral effect and hath no Physical cause Reply 3. Having given an Answer to Mr. Howe 's Antecedent and Connexion we shall now proceed to raze the foundation of his Hypothesis by proving that there are no actions of free agents evil in themselves or that no moral evil is positive but only privative which latter are the common terms of Philosophers and Divines in enquiring into the nature of moral evil And I shall borrow one Argument which will be instead of all from the most learned Dr. Barlow the now Renowned Bishop of Lincoln Arg. Every real and positive Being is from God the author and first cause of all Being But moral evil formally taken is not from God the author and first cause of all Being Ergo moral evil formally taken is not a real and positive Being The Minor is evident and acknowledged by the very Heathens in the appellation of Optimus the Best which they apply to their Jupiter together with Maximus the Greatest And will no doubt be owned by Mr. Howe who eo nomine for that very reason rejects Predestination of evil actions because in his apprehension it makes God the author of moral evil The Major let us hear the learned Bishop prove and the rather because it will much confirm our first Argument for Predetermination of all actions as such Proof Because it is impossible that there should be any finite and created Being which does not depend and hath its Being from an infinite and uncreated Being viz. God for it must needs be if there be any Being not caused by God that that Being be independent upon God as the first cause and consequently God shall not be the first cause in respect of that Being whence follow many absurdities c. whereof I shall only take the sum as himself hath given it us with an application to moral evil If moral evil i.e. any sin or breach of Divine Law be a real Being then 1. God shall not be the cause of that Being for of so deformed a birth divine goodness cannot be the Parent 2. This granted it will follow 1. That there is a secondary Being and a Being by participation such as every finite Being is supposed to be which does not partake of or receive its being from the first Being 2. That there is a finite Being independent upon God both as to production and conservation All which things we know and believe are contrary not only to Philosophy but Divinity Thus far the most acute Philosopher and Divine Exercit. metaph 2 a. de natura mali ad calcem Scheib met p. 32 33. Let us take notice of the instances of those sins which are supposed to be evil in themselves or positive Obj. 1. Sins of commission which are evil ex genere objecto whereof two are specially insisted on Adams eating of the forbidden fruit and by Mr. Howe the hatred of God are in themselves evil Answ 1. In general If all sins subsist in some actual motion of the soul body or both and this motion abstractively considered be the material part of every actual sin and hath God for the prime cause in whom we live and move and have our being then no sin can be assigned wherein this material part may not be found So the Learned Davevant sometime Bishop of Sarisbury Animadv on Hoard p. 174 175. Answ 2. As to the instances The first in eating the forbidden fruit the material part of the sin in regard of the Soul was the appetition thereof in regard of the body the mastication chewing and manducation eating and other bodily acts Separate these from the formal part which is modus appetendi the manner of desiring and containeth a repugnancy to Gods command and God was the prime author thereof The act of desiring and eating must of necessity be reduced to God without whom there neither is nor can be any motion of body or soul but the disorderly manner of desiring and eating contrary to the Law of God this is reducible as being a defect only to the defective will of man Davenant ibid. p. 175. As to the second instance hatred of God That the act terminated upon that object in complexo is evil and cannot be otherwise we deny not but then that is true of acts and undue
DE CAVSA DEI OR A VINDICATION Of the Common Doctrine of Protestant DIVINES Concerning Predetermination i. e. The Interest of God as the first Cause in all the Actions as such of all Rational Creatures From the invidious Consequences with which it is burdened by Mr. JOHN HOWE In a late Letter and Postscript of GOD'S PRESCIENCE By T. D. LONDON Printed for R. Roberts and are to be sold by Walter Davis at his House in Amen-Corner 1678. To the Reverend Mr. JOHN HOWE Author of the late Letter and Postscript of God's Prescience SIR WHen I had read the Title-page of your late Letter to the Honourable Mr. Boyle and thereby understood its design and withal observed the smallness of the Bulk I promised my self that it would be Pagella hoc solo nomine redarguenda quod sit tota Gemmea For else I thought it would not be worthy of so great a Moecenas a Master of all sort of Learning and so whose nobility is not only in Parchment as Charron speaks nor of the Author for I was aware of him though he had concealed his name whose parts I well knew and have always had the candor upon all fit occasions to acknowledge were not of the lower size nor yet of so excellent a subject and so needful in these dregs of time which verge so much toward Socinianism And in the perusal of the Letter it self for some time I pleased my self with an apprehension that I had not imposed upon my self nor had my affection to the Author seduced my judgment Fancy and Reason were in so happy a conjunction that I hoped they would never be parted thoroughout the whole Discourse But alas too soon I found my hopes shamefully baffled For beside a corrupt gloss upon Act. 4.28 pag. 28. which I could not digest and divers passages in the process of your after-Discourse not unexceptionable from pag. 32 to 50 to speak my sense freely I found pro thesauro carbones i.e. Coals instead of Treasure shining indeed but black and smutty politeness of stile I mean continued but the series of well-digested thoughts broken and dissevered jejune Answers to Arguments full of sense old Popish Arguments dressed up A-la-mode and many of which militate as much against your assertions as ours and a great deal of good eloquence put to a very ill use and a far worse than it would be to play at Duck and Drake with broad pieces in the Thames and sometimes degenerate eloquence which like painted glass though it was an ornament yet impeded the transmission of the light and which is worst of all the whole design of those Pages I found to be an averment of the old Popish Calumny that by the Protestant Doctrine God is made the Author of sin which I must needs profess was a strange surprisal to me and so much the more because I could not conceive what should induce you aâ— Protestant Divine to make affidavit of a Pontificial accusation nor why in this Discourse For if the end you assigned your self in doing it was the vindication of the blessed God from the imputation of being the cause of moral evil you have certainly lurcht the Reader of his expectation by offering nothing toward it but what he can easily see through viz. that God is not the cause universally of natural good or at least as remote as the Grand-father is of the Grand-child See your own words Let. p. 36. Two causes which might seem probable of your doing it in this Discourse your self has removed out of your Readers way It was not the request of the Honourable Person to whom your Letter is directed but for ought I can collect as the defending God's Predeterminative concourse unto sinful actions was an unenjoined task Let. p. 150. So was the overthrowing it too Nor was it the connexion between Prescience and Predetermination as it lies in the Divine Decree and is the only true ground of the certainty of Divine Prescience for that was not your design to demonstrate Gods Prescience of all whatsoever futurities and consequently of the sins of men but supposing it to shew its reconcileableness with what it seemed not so well to agree as you since tell us Postsc p. 4. which I did easily apprehend before For all the mediums you use for the eviction of this reconcileableness borrow no strength from the denial of Predetermination Sometime after your Letter succeeded a Postscript in the view of which I was more astonished than before obstupui steteruntque comae For whereas I might have hoped that your second thoughts would be better they proved a great deal worse I had such an opinion of your modesty that at least you would recall the hard words you gave the Arguments urged for Predetermination to sinful actions Thin Sophistry Collusive ambiguity Let. p. 41. Vain attempts 38. Dismal conclusions 36. the effects of a Sophistical wit against sense and more against the sense of our souls and most of all against the entire sum and substance of all Morality and Religion at once p. 39 40. and overturning and mingling heaven and earth p. 50. And that reflexion you make upon those who have used the distinction of voluntas signi Beneplaciti that they have only rather concealed a good meaning than expresed by it a bad one p. 106. For take all together and I see not that they amount to a less guilt than of â—rampling upon that venerable dust which was sometimes animated by truly Heroick Souls and bore the names of Zuinglius Calvin Bâ—za Perkins Pemble Davenant Twisse Ames c. than which no cause hath had nor needs greater Patrons But instead of recalling you have avowed them by the addition of others of the same sort a contagion a deadly thing Postsc p. 15. An ill coloured opinion Postsc p. 51. Fearful consequences of that rejected opinion vanity of the subterfuges whereby its assertors think to hide the malignity of it p. 50. Nor was this enough but as if you were Animal gloriae as was said of the Philosophers an animal that lived by the air of vain glory and applause and thought your self another Goliah you cry out I defie the armies of Israel this day give me a man that we may fight together What other interpretation are these words capable of Now I perceive that some persons who had formerly entertained that strange opinion of Gods Predeterminative concurrence to the wickedest actions and not purged their minds of it have been offended with that Letter for not expressing more respect unto it and yet offered nothing themselves which to me seems exceeding strange for the solving of that great difficulty and incumbrance which it infers upon our Religion Postsc p. 7. Or these If I find my self obliged any way further to intermeddle in this matter I reckon the time I have to spend in this world can never be spent to better purpose than in discovering c. the inefficacy of the Arguments brought for it
the terms when they labour under any ambiguity or however fall not under the apprehension of those who are to be instructed for want of skill in that art or science to which they belong or language from which they are borrowed In neither of these respects will it be needless in the Controversie now to be agitated not as to the first because Mr. Howe gives us his sense in various terms and such as seem repugnant to each other one while that which he denies is a Predeterminative concurrence to all actions of the Creatures Let. p. 32. and Postsc p. 3. and Predeterminative concourse Post p. 19. another while 't is Predetermining Influence Post p. 19. and a Determinative influence Let. p. 36. and Efficacious influence Post p. 52. As for the two former phrases which are of the same import they are in effect contradictio in adjecto in their conjunction I appeal to Strangius Mr. H.'s friend but my Adversary in the main Question under consideration Hujusmodi Predeterminationem nonnulli confundunt cum concursu Dei generali quem concursum praevium appellant c. i.e. Some confound this kind of Predetermination with the general concourse of God But they speak very improperly who call Predetermination a previous or Predeterminative concourse or say that God does by concourse determine second causes and he quotes Twisse with approbation saying Concurrere cum agente aliquo modo c. i.e. To concur with an agent some way to the production of an effect is not to determine that agent For the Creature also concurs with God to the production of an effect and yet it does not determine God therefore nor does God concurring with the Creature determine it to act Strang. de Vol. Dei Lib. 2. Cap. 4. p. 161. Strangius does not call the terms a contradiction I confess but the reason out of Twisse gave him as just ground as it does me so to call them As for the latter phrase influence which he makes equipollent with the former concourse in these words I here affect not the curiosity to distinguish these two terms as some do Post p. 29. I had rather he should hear Strangius again than me blaming his not affecting that curiosity of distinction Caeterum nobis operaepretium videtur distinguere inter ista duo vocabula concursum influxum c. i.e. But it seems worth our labour to distinguish between those two words Concourse and Influence which in this matter are often conjoined and confounded For first Influence is of a larger extent than Concourse For the causality of every Cause especially the Efficient is called Influence And therefore in many instances there may be observed an Influence of God when yet there is no concourse as when he acts not making use of any second cause Again although in the concourse of two Causes each of them are considered as having their Influence yet the word Influence is absolute and noting a respect to another cause but the word Concourse is relative to another cause Strang. de Vol. Deil. 1. c. 11. p. 59. As for the term Efficacious it suits us well enough if Mr. H. intends by it an Infallibility of the event or the certain production of those actions which God hath an Influence upon The ambiguity of Mr. H. phrases removed and the sense of them brought to a certainty I assert the contradictory to his Proposition That God doth not by an Efficacious influence universally move and determine men to all their actions even those that are most wicked Post p. 52. Which if we might be allowed the liberty of our own terms we would thus lay down That God does determine or predetermine or move all Creatures to all and each of their actions Strangius fairly enough cites our Thesis lib. 2. cap. 4. pag. 155. The Question then to be discussed is Whether God does determine or predetermine all Creatures to all and each of their actions So Strang. fairly l. 2 c. 4. p. 155. Unless it may seem meet to add that reduplicative particle as such because of Mr. Howe 's addition even those that are most wicked Post p. 52. As to which it is to be noted that we who assert Predetermination of all actions of the Creatures do limit it to the actions considered abstractly from the moral good or evil adhering to them as for instance we hold Gods Predetermination of the natural act whereby David begat a child in Adultery as well as of those whereby he begat children in lawful Matrimony and of the use of his tongue in telling a lie to Abimelech the Priest as well as in praising God Whereas Mr. Howe limits Gods Predetermination only to morally or spiritually good actions as such Posts p. 39. n. 6. Which Predeter nation special we grant but withal assert a general which extends to evil actions In which we consider 1. The subject and as to this we say that sin is in that which is good the nature of man and his faculties and actions and these God excites and guides efficaciously And this subject is called the materiale or substrate matter of sin 2. The end and thus though not the nature yet the existence of sin is good or it is good that sin should be because God draws good out of it and hence God predetermines to the natural actions though he knows sin will adhere to them The grand term then to be explained is Predetermination or as some Divines and Metaphysicians sometimes call it Praecurse and Praemotion of which terms the former which signifies a fore appointment is either from eternity or in time The latter two only in time The former viz. Predetermination is either from eternity and so is an immanent act of Gods that is of his will to produce in time all the actions of his Creatures or in time which is the actual production of all those actions which he had decreed to produce And of this latter only is the Question to be discussed understood and this act of Gods is called Predetermination because it limits the creature to this action rather than to that and 't is called a Precourse or Premotion i.e. a running before or fore motion as I may so speak because in order of nature it is before the action of the creature Again Predetermination or Precourse or Premotion is distinguished into Physical or Moral The latter I grant may be ascribed to God with reference to good actions as such but not with respect to evil actions unless the proposing objects and occasions of sin may as some learned men judg be reduced to the actions of a moral cause But whether the moral acts of God in commanding threatning promising c. may be justly denominated Predetermination will remain dubitable till another doubt be resolved viz. Whether the will do always follow the last practical dictate of the understanding Against the affirmative of which Question to note that obiter the most acute and learned Wallis seems to oppose an
till he hath evinced a specialty in our case which will be somewhat an uneasie task though we should grant him his own option that God predetermines to sinful actions in concreto i.e. to the actions and sinfulness of them too for upon that supposition there is less necessity to imagine that God cannot determine the will in a way agreeable enough to mans corrupt nature because he does but determine it to what it hath an innate propension to of it self and so Gods determination is but as the wind in a mans back which puts him on a little faster in the way he was going before 3. We are at a great loss as to Mr. H's meaning whether it be that it is a detraction from Gods perfection to affirm God was not able to make a Creature that could not act universally without determination or particularly as to forbidden actions the generality of the terms calls for the former sense the conclusion he was to prove for the latter 1. If the former sense be that he will own I seem to my self fairly allowed to infer that then man in his primitive state had not nor have the good Angels at present any Divine determination to good actions because to both unnecessary and unnecessary it must be presumed because it is a detraction from Gods Perfection to conceive he could not make them of such a nature as that they should not need it and because they had no disinclination to be overcome by an efficaciously determinative influence which is the reason Mr. H. gives of the necessity of Predetermination to holy actions in the lapsed state Post p. 35. Which if it be of any force makes it unnecessary to a state of Integrity And if this inference be natural I wonder not that Man fell but that he fell not as soon as he was set upon his legs nor that some of the good Angels turned Rebels so soon to their Soveraign Lord but how the rest persevere in their Loyalty I have hitherto swom with the stream of Protestant Divines not because it was easie but in my apprehension safe who have conceived the good Angels security an effect of a greater degree of determinative influence to borrow Mr. H's Phrase or corroborating grace that is in the terms of the Question now agitated Predetermination than was afforded to the now bad Angels or to speak more strictly of the continuance of that Predetermination to the one which was suspended as to the other which conception of Divines to note that in passage may be easily freed from the imputation of reflecting either upon Gods Holiness Justice or Truth upon the first because God by the suspension of Predetermination was no more the Efficient of the Angels sin than the Sun of the darkness that overspreads the air when it hath withdrawn its rays upon the second for it is a ruled case in the Schools Non datur justitia proprie dicta inter Deum Creaturas i. e. God cannot be properly said to be a debtor to his Creatures no not when he hath passed a promise to them for even then if we will speak strictly he is a debtor to himself namely to his own truth and fidelity not to them and if he should to suppose an impossibility for illustration-sake break his word he would be but Mendax non injurius a Lyar not unjust Not upon his Truth for he was not under the bond of a promise as he is to the part of repaired Mankind whom we denominate Saints to preserve the Angels from Apostacy As for those who take this Doctrine for a blemish upon Gods goodness I turn them over to God himself for a reconciliation of these two seemingly contradictory Propositions contained in his Word and within the verge of our own experience that God is good and yet that he hath permitted a passage for sin which he could have impeded If the latter sense be avowed as a genuine interpretation of Mr. H's mind I know not how it will be able to save its credit if I should charge it with being guilty of this gross absurdity viz. a supposal that God made Man with an ability to do sinful actions in concreto i. e. the natural actions and sin that adheres to them 'T is true God made Man mutable and how could he do otherwise unless he should have made him a God which very terms involve an insufferable contradiction and so in a remote capacity of sinning But Mr. H's words import a next or immediate capacity of acting which the Creature is capable of as soon as it starts out of nothing into something without the intervenient aid of Predetermination I am very averse from thinking this to be Mr. H's meaning and I would offer him a friendly hand if he would accept of it to help him out of the pit he is fallen into by minding him of our distinction between the materiale and formale of sin the natural action that is the subject and the sin that is the inseparable adjunct in our temporary estate which distinction supposed in conjâ—nction with Mr. H's Hypothesis Mr. H's meaning will be freed from the encumbrance now inferred upon it and it will amount to no more than that the power of acting God gave to man suffices to the natural actions since sin adhered to them as well as before without the help of Predetermination But then this friendly hand will prove unfriendly in the issue for though it may clear him of one yet it will entangle him in many absurdities or at least self-contradictions For then 1. How shall he quit himself from the blame of being a Favourer of Durandus Hypothesis for the sense is the same and the words not much different And yet why should he once attempt it seeing that Hypothesis serves his professed design of quitting God of the blame of being the Author of Sin with much officiousness and that he may accept this suggestion the more kindly a most Learned hand shall tender it to him Some are of opinion that God hath no immediate influence but mediate only in respect of voluntary agents And according to this opinion it is easie to clear God from the imputation of being the Author of Sin and yet to acknowledg his concurrence with second Causes in producing their defective effects If the will of the Creature saith Scotus C. 2. Dist 37. Q. 1. were the total and immediate cause of her action and that God had no immediate efficiency but mediate only in respect thereof as some think It were easie according to that opinion to shew how God may be freed from the imputation of being the Author of Sin and yet to acknowledg his concurrence with second Causes for the producing of their effects for whether we speak of that which is material or formal in sin the will only should be the total cause of it and God should no way be a cause of it but mediately in that he caused and produced such a will