whilest both of them say according to what I represent p. 44. that in the matters debated about Predestination Election Free will the common man doth judge better by his reason which in that place can be no other then his natural Mother-wit and his senses viz. his five senses than some literate men meaning as Mr. T. P. interprets the matter p. 106. than Calvin and all who hold with him in so saying they must both of them needs oppose both the ancient and modern Church who ever thought these matters too high for natural reason or the five senses 2. That the Plerique or the most in Felic Turp his Text should even whilest he is a reproving me not to understand the Latine Tongue p. 106. be translated by only a few I do not conceive proceeds in him from want of Latin but either out of inadvertency or it may be for any thing I know to the contrary from want of honesty 5ly and lastly Although neither my self nor any opiniated as I am in the debateable matters need we are confident to be afraid of any thing which can be produced against out cause from any valuable Tradition or truly so called Right Reason yet would to God Mr. T. P. would perswade himself and his faction seriously to peruse what John Dallaeus quoted as making for him by himself p. 15. hath wrote about the use of Fathers in reference to the Controversies of our times and if they would but mind John Vedeliâ— his Rationale Theologicum and so keep within the bounds of truly Right Reason I make no question but these following and divers other Scriptures Rom. 8. 30 31. 9. 6. 11. Act. 15. 18. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Ephes 2. 10. Isa 59. 21. Joh. 13. 1. 17. 9. Heb. 13. 21. Phil. 2. 13. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Phil. 1. 6. Ephes 2. 8. 2 Thes 2. 13. and just consequences drawn from them would quickly determine the main matters in debate betwixt us If therefore he or any of his confident and most daring bragging party will needs be appearing again let them not fetch such terrible Cirquedroes as they do from the Antient Fathers before Austin and all after the Canonical Writers and from some crasie Reasons which they urge against plain Scriptures which serve for little but for the tyring of Writers Readers and Printers and I durst give them my word for it they shall meet with Answers to any thing they can say out of Holy Divine Writ though I should resolve to string up my pen verbum non amplius addere Let them try their valour and pelt us with no stones but what are taken from the Vallies of the Sanctuary and we will not by Gods Grace turn tayl to the stoutest of our Antagonists or fear that the head of our cause will ever be broken by them § 11. To his voluminous but monstrous § 28. About the Eternal Cause of punishment sins positive entity its having an Efficient Cause c. on which later he expounds himself from p. 110. to 121. but Contracts himself Chap. 4. p. 20 21. 33. § 1. Answ 1. As to the Title stuck up in the front of this § 28. p. 108 109. and again in the Reare of it from p. 118. to 121. our quarrel about it would quickly be at an end if by eternal punishment he would understand damnation of a finally sinful Creature and by the sole cause of it he would likewise with the Divines Bishop Hall and Bishop Davenant which he quotes p. 107. understand the sole meritorious Cause of its execution but if as may be justly suspected he do by the cause of punishment eternal understand the cause of Gods internal and eternal Decree of punishing men for their sins then first he speaks monstrously and absurdly whilest he would make Sin which sure is no older then man nay not so old and so not existing but in time to be the cause of Gods eternal Decree August Nihil majus voluntate Dei non ergo causa ejus quaerenda est Ench. ad Laur. c. 96. 2. He would make sin eternally foreseen but only potentially then existing to be more efficacious and causal then when it actually exists in time for this latter can only be the cause of Gods executing his decree of damnation but the former is the cause of his purposing or intendâ—ng of it A greater thing it is to be the cause of Gods purpose then to be the cause of the execution of that purpose 3. He spills all that Logick p. 64. which he doth pretend to when he saith that he had never so little Logick as to say That any thing in man could be the cause of Gods Decree 4. He must conclude That it was necessary for all us mortalls to be damned because from eternity the Lord could not but foresee that we should all be either Originally or actually sinful § 2. Though p. 107. he do stoutly deny that his Chap. 3. wherein he grants that every Reprobate is praedetermined to eternall punishment is at any Daggers drawing with his almost whole Chap. 2. where he strenuously disputes that God determines none to punishment yet 1. the thing is most evident for in his p. 17. Chap. 2. of his Correct Copy he saith expresly without any the least colour of limitation of that his saying that man himself is the sole efficient cause of his eternal punishment and again p. 21. that there can be no greater blasphemy then to bring Gods providence into the pedegree of death Secondly As for the only Salve which he hath for this sore Phil. p. 107. viz. that I leave out the terme respectively which he brings in lagging Correct Copy p. 32. First He should have brought it in sooner if he would have had me to have taken some more than ordinary notice of it and not have been so impudent as to write that he never said in his life that God determines none to punishment there makâ—ng a stop as M. B. doth when as in his Chap. 2. he saith nothing else without any stop 2. He should upon provocation have showed which I put him upon p. 135. of my Corrept Correct how the conditionality or absoluteness of it alters the case especially as to sin 's being the condition of Gods eternal Decree when as neither that or any other Conditions could ever be without Gods either decreeing to effect them in time or voluntary permitting that in time they should be wrought by others § 3. As for his vilifying of my Logick which he spends full two pages more upon p. 108 109. and ushers in with this lowd sounding I might almost say lowd lying expression that I will be tampering in matters to which in all likelihood and appearance I was never trained up First Possibly since my training up in that Art I may have lost more learning then yet it appeares that ever he had or was master of Secondly That forsooth our great Logician may appear a very great School-man
A Necessary Vindication Of the Doctrine of PREDESTINATION Formerly asserted TOGETHER With a full Abstersion of all Calumnies cast upon the late Correptory Correction by one who highly pretends to Philanthropie whilest he doth most inhumanely and barbarously traduce his Neighbour as also most Reformed Authours By William Barlee Rector of Brock-hole in Northamptonshire August de orig animae L. 2. C. 2. Valde sunt noxia prava diserta quia hominibus minus eruditis eo quod diserta sint videantur esse vera Idem Serm. ad fratres in Eremo Propter nos Conscientia nostra sufficit nobis propter vos fama nostra non pollui sed polleri debet in vobis Tenete quod dico atque distinguite Duae sunt res Conscientia Fama Conscientia necessaria est tibi Fama proximo tuo Qui fidens Conscientiae suae negligit Famam suam crudelis est maxime in loco isto positus de quo dâ—cit Apostolus scriâ—ens ad dâ—scipulum suum Circa omnâ—s teipsum bonorum operum praebe exemplum LONDON Printed for George Sawbridge at the Bible on Ludgate-Hill 1658. To the very Reverend my much Honoured Friend John Conant D. D. Dr. of the Chair in Oxford and the most worthy Rector of Exeter Colledge there SIR I Have thus long purposely forborn to give you particular thanks for your most respective incouraging Letters with which you were pleased to grace me whilest I was labouring in this my work because I thought it to be my bounden duty for to do it by offering in a more open way the whole of it unto you so soon as ever it should be finished You stooped exceedingly low when you thought any of my former labours extremely vilified by some worth your perusal but much lower when you could find any thing in them worth your Commendation It is easie to be discerned that the altitude of your parts and place which latter is not so much an honour to you as it is honoured by you have not made you supercilious against those of a far lower form both in gifts and station Most modest Sir let him without your indignation say it and be believed in it who yet was never so sordidly unhappy and trusts never shall be as for self-ends to be a Spaniel to the gallantest of men that I hardly know any mere individual alive upon the face of the Earth unto whom under God I would more desire to approve all my Travaiâ—s or by whom I would more willingly be censured for any of my miscarriages about them than by your self and that because of those transcendent excellencies of vast Learning of unfaigned piety of graceful gravity mixt with sweet moderation which every one who knowes you will blesse God for appearing to be in you far sooner than with any the least ostentation you will own them to be in your self Upon this account and score alone it is that I make it my humble and earnest request unto you that you would take full liberty most freely and boldly to censure whatsoever you shall in this or in any former work find enormiously peccant against either the grounds of true learning or against the holiness or goodness of the cause defended by me or so much as all circumstances duly pondered cast up against the parts place or person of my Adversary The more severe Critick you shall prove against me in case of my demerits the more I will promise perpetual thankfulness unto you and upon a clear discovery amendment of all faults to the utmost of what my Antagonist by way of satisfaction can wish for from my hands Indeed by the exuberancies of my passions against him here and there and as yet I think not without just cause it may easily be discerned that I am not much transported with that vulgarly taking Opinion that now adayes English Hereticks are only to be killed with kindness but if any but from a too obvious and facile a mistake of my style shall so far mistake the Temper of my affections towards any thing that is commendable and extremely gallant as many things are in the parts of my Adversary he puts a foul Sophism upon himself and miserably mistakes me I should be full sorrowful if any should value more what is prayse-worthy in him then my self or any be more solicitous of every thing he ought to set a prise upon as upon his soul his fame his very outward safety than my self All my grief about him the Lord he knowes I speak truth â—n it is that being what he is as to dâ—vers rare excellencies he should in the imploying of them be so little Christ's and in him Ours Let him but once I will not say by a number of holy â—alis cumsit utinam noster esset humble learned unbiassed Orthodox Divines but even by one such be declared to be free from being a back-friend to true Religion in tâ—e purity and power of it to be no studious Calumniator of the greatest Luminaries in the Church to be no underminer of necessary Reformation and then I will promise him to make if need be upon my knees an open penance for all the wrongs which it shall appear I have done him Till then I must think it no unreasonable thing to beg of strangers that they would allow me to know my Adversary neer hand better then others can do at a distance and to call to my mind what I have long since learned Amicus Plato amicus Socrates sed magis amica veritas I am sory that in this 2d reply by his fierce appearing against almost all sorts of Reformers antient and modern he hath enforced me more largely to appear against him in my Apologetical first part of the work than at first I had projected If the present age do not I wish after ages never may feel how necessary it was for me so to do Sure I am some very Learned and good men have thought it worth their pains elaborately to lay open the designs of such as are of his party and whose steps he is ambitious to follow in the loading of the best Reformers with foul Calumnies If any be otherwise minded by an easie Transition from the first part Hippol. Fronto contra commentat H. Grotii Sam. Maresius contra eundem multis voluminibus to the second which are therefore purposely kept distinct they may relieve themselves from any thing the present use whereof they may not know In the second part of this my work which is purely Doctrinal I trust you will find some care taken in the management of the truth in the making good of all former Charges brought in against the Adversary in the answering of any thing considerably material and Argumentative If all be not done so exactly as I could have wished it or as the Gravity of the Cause doth require I cannot be blamed for want of endeavours to do it but for want of skill and power In magnis voluisse
too p. 108. he quotes out of Biel Soncinas Scot Gabriel what any fresh man of a moneths standing in either University would and could as judiciously have quoted out of his greasie Jack-Seton Ramus Schibler Crucius Elementa Burgersdicii or any the most vulgar Logician 3. If it be an Adaequate definition of a Cause in general that it is that cujus vi res est then sure it cannot be very inadaequate to the efficient cause which hath as much if not more of causality in it in reference to the effect than any other cause can have which all derive their causality from the first efficient Cause 4. It savours of no great Logick or Metaphysicks either that in all his whole Discourse he seems not yet to have learned that there is a vast difference betwixt a Physical real working cause of any thing which I did therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminency call the Efficient Cause and a morally metaphorical working or Efficient Cause which in distinction from the former I did therefore call the meritorious Cause of punishment I never denyed man to be the meritorious efficient Cause of his punishment but I maintained God to be the chief Authour of his punishment as the Decreer of it the inflicter of it which his Chap. 2. Correct Copy plainly denies 5. Dr. Twisse sure may be allowed to have bin trained up to some Logick and Metaphysicks and not to have been the meanest Proficient in either yet there be upon several occasions divers places wherein he commits as great Solacisms in Logick as my self when he distinguisheth betwixt the Efficient and meritorious Cause But perchance I ought to remember that the greater Logician and Metaphysician Mr. T. P. owes the Doctor a reckoning for using a Logical Maxim Philan. Chap. 3. p. 67. after so ignorant a manner as if he learned Mr. T. P. Aquila non Captat muscas (a) Doctor Twisse Lib. Vindic. p. 273. Sit remissio pecatorum etiam Sancti Spiritus effectio sed in genere causae efficientis quod tamen nihil obstat quominus statuatur remissionem peccatorum esse propriam mortis Christi effectionem in genere causae meritoriae Sit Paulo post c. Quemadmod in eandem fermè sententiam Lib. 1. p. 26. Irrogatio paenarum pendet à Deo tanquam à causa efficiente Physica sed quis dubitat pendere etiam à peccatis creaturarum tanquam à causis efficientibus moralibus alioqui neque Salus nostra pendere dicetur à Christo quaterus est causa ejus meritoria Lib. 2. p. 62. de hoc ipso argumento Licet peccatum quà peccatum duntaxat à creatura sit hoc tamen nihil impedit quó minus Deus concurrat ad actum peccati idque determinando Creaturae voluntatem ad agendum c. Ruina exitii paenae ex Creatura est tanquam à causa meritoria à Deo veró tanquam à causa efficiente had but so used it when he was but a raw Sophister he had been hissed out of the Schools and no doubt the Doctor shall be well payed the next time Mr. T. P. comes from France unto which belike he did at first go as his Journies end before his thoughts did so much as run upon that Country till he took shipping at Dover § 4. § 4. But I must travail from this to what followes next at large about sins having a proper efficient Cause and a true positive entity p. 110 111. Chap. 4. 20 21. 33. In the handling of which I think it will abundantly be made evident that he is forsaken by all sound Divinity and Divines as well as of all true Logick and Philosophy if not to all common honesty in the misrepresenting the known Judgement of his adversaries In which that we may proceed the more distinctly not only because the matter is to admiration and astonishment by all confessed to be most abstruse to the most quick piercing eyes b but also because it is the last rotten guilded Pillar upon which all the rest in this gawdy flourishing Pamphlet doth rest I will walk in this method First I 'le represent what was that which he takes as an occasion for all this Discourse (b) Salvian de Gubernat Dei Lib. 3. Si quis ad omnes humanae rationis quaestiunculas responsum expectet audiat Salvian Possum quidem rationabiliter satis constanter dâ—cere Nescio secretum consilium divinitatis ignoro Sufficit mihi ad causae hujus probationem dicti Caelestis oraculum Deus á se omnia dicit aspici omnia regi omnia judicari Si scire vis quid tenendum sit habes literas sacras Perfecta ratio est hoc teâ—ere quod legeris Qua causa autem Deus haec de quibus loquimur ita faciat nolo à me requiras Homo sum non intelligo secreta Dei investigare non audeo ideo etiam attentare formido quia hoc ipsum genus Sacrilegae temeritatis est si plus scire cupias quam sinaris Sufficiat tibi quod Deus à se agi ac dispensari cuncta testatur August in Psal 148. Si nos non intelligimus quid quare fiat demus hoc providentiae ipsius quia non sit sine causa non blasphemabimus Quum enim caeperimus disputare dâ— operibus Dei quare hoc quare illud non debuit sic facere male fecit hoc ubi est laus Dei perdâ—disti Halle-luia Omnia sic considera quo modo placeas Deo laudes artificem Quia si intrares in officinam fortè fabri ferrarii non auderes reprehendere folles incudes malleos Da imperitum hominem nescientem quid quare fit omnia reprehendit Sed si non habeat peritiam artificis habent saltem considerationem hominis quid sibi dicit non sine causa hoc loco folles positi sunt Artifex novit quare et si ego non novi In officina non audet vituperare fabrum audet reprehendere in hoc mundo Deum Secondly I 'le show what the Opinion of the best reformed Churches and of her most eminent Doctors is in this matter and particularly what Dr. Twisse understands by Efficax decretum in the matter of sins permission Thirdly Evidence how horridly wicked abâ—urd and foolish M. T. P's Opinion is which in this Section and else-where he doth maintain Fourthly I will by Gods help take off the Objections which make him so insolent and scornful against the Orthodox § 1. About the occasion taken for his Scriblings from p. 110. and up and down elsewhere about Gods agency in or about sin the positiveness or privativeness of it its efficacious permission c. All this long talk which fills up by far more than half of all that which is upon any just account argumentative in this his Philanthropy was occasioned by what Correct Copy p. 14. he talks of Gods permitting of sin only