Family is gone out the house falls into disorder and so finding it he sentences his servants to their several punishments or may turn them out of doors So God having the liberty to depart from his Creature at his pleasure in this way of Preterition whether Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian there doth upon that spring up from it evil and disorder in the soul contrary to Gods will revealed which he reflecting upon may safely and justly decree to entertain it in his favour no longer but reprobating it adjudge it to the punishment deserved God doth not therefore primarily as some have boldly delivered propound to himself the positive pains and ruine of any Creature no inducement no grounds going before but he may very well in a negative sense be said to reprobate it not affording those preservatives needfull to its security This doth sufficiently appear in the first act of his Reprobation of men and Angels whom without all doubt he could have preserved in their original state but he freely refused and they both freely chose to leave him and expose themselves to his severest judgement which was by this positive Reprobation to bring them under the effects of their sins damnation So that they who deny any cause out of God of his first Reprobation do not deny a cause sufficient of his second and positive but the Devils and those men as are signaliz'd Reprobates are undoubtedly the free and full authors of Gods reprobating them and condemning them in this manner Of the Angels St. Peter and Jude speak expresly rendring 2 Pet. 2. 4. their offences a reason why God proceeded so against them and not the simple will of him God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down to Hell and delivered them to chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment And the same is repeated by St. Jude And when God saith Jude 6. Gen. 2. 17. in hie Covenant with Adam In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye he implyeth the reason of his Decree to punishment to be sin And when the Wise man exhorteth saying Seek not death in the error of your life Wisd 1. 12. and pull not upon your selves destruction with your own hands he doth necessarily imply a direct cause in Man of his own ruine And the words 13. following exempt God from any hand in such things as the Author For God saith he made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living And here come in that in its due place though it were not intended of a spiritual or eternal destruction O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self For though without any supposition taken from the Creature God may pass him over and deny him grace and glory yet doth he not design any man directly to damnation but upon supposition of sin going before And from this state of things may competent reconciliation be made to the seeming oppositions of Scripture and to St. Austin himself The Scriptures say Because thou hast rejected knowledg I will also reject thee And Hos 4. 6. Mat. 23. 37. Luk. 8. 18. by St. Matthew How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not And Whosoever hath not from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have And St. John Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life And in the Joh. 5. 40. Act. 13. 46. Acts Paul and Barnahas It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken unto you but seeing ye put it from you and judge your selves unworthy of everlasting life And St. Peter God is not willing that any 2 pet 3. 9. Isa 5. 3 4. should perish c. And amongst others that of the Prophet Esay must not be forgot And now O Inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah judge I pray you betwixt me and my Vineyard What could I have done more to my Vineyard that I have not done in it All which places and divers more do charge man altogether with his own misery On the other side in that Gen. 1. 26. the Scriptures tell us how God made man according to his own image whereof freedom of will was no small portion And in Deuteronomy Ye Deut. 29. 2. have seen all that the Lord aid before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharoah and unto all his servants and to all Land Yet the Lord hath not 4. given you an heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day And in Jeremy Turn thou me O Lord and I shall be turned And Ezekiel Jer. 31. 18. Lam. 5. 41. Ezek. 36. 26. I will give you a new heart also and a new spirit will I put into you and will take away the stony heart of your flesh and will give you an heart of flesh And St. Matthew All men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it Mat. 19. 11. Joh. 6. 44. Joh. 12. 39 40. is given And Christ in St. John saith No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him And elsewhere Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said again He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts And the whole ninth Chapter to the Romans mightily Rom. 9. 16. favours this side of which the substance seems to be contained in this one Verse So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy And to the Philippians To will and to do is of Phil. 2. 13. God These with others seem to deny liberty of will to man and to ascribe the reason of good and evil to which man is subject to God as the author making man rather passive under both To that of Free-will we may speak by and by To the present case taking in also what St. Austin saith God doth not forsake but where he is forsaken which may ill consist with what he so largely and often delivers on the other side we answer by the help of the former distinction of simple Preterition and direct Reprobation and the effect of it damnation viz. That the foresaid places suppose an evil affection in the parties so rejected by God and are to be interpreted of his just determination to punish sin and hard-heartedness in them But the incapacity of Grace and Conversion and Salvation are meant by the latter Texts proceeding from the sole Preterition of God refusing to prevent the evil and malignity of mens wills which for want of that preventing Grace do certainly tend to evil and are incurable of themselves But upon this I see divers shrewd Objections to arise as First That by this with-holding of Gods Grace his Preterition there is brought a necessity upon mans will to evil and his indifferency to life and death quite taken away as all use of the means of Grace To this
of no personal concurrence to such deformity Yet not so neither but that it justly is denominated Sin from the very nature and effects of it For seeing whatever is in the Will must be good or evil and if the Will be found crooked perverse or averse to that it ought to incline to this is contrary to Gods institution and Law and whence ever this proceeds from an immediate act of our own or by traduction from others seeing it is found in the Will it must needs be contrary and consequently odious to God and in conclusion sinful Again as the fountain poisons and corrupts all streams flowing from thence so the Will being thus corrupt and naturally thus ill inclined all the other defects even in his body as well as soul contracted by this fall are as so many deformities in man which render him deservedly hated of God seeing such disparity and unlikeness to the worse to that which he first fram'd Thirdly Original sin in Man hath this more of disorder in it that it not only is a corruption of the will and thereby a deformity and vitiosity in the inferiour parts and faculties but it is of ill consequence For if this depravation went no farther than that evil born with us if it stand there and wrought no more evil the nature of it had been less sinful and more tolerable but being of an active nature and having taken up the chiefest room in the soul of Man it disposeth and impelleth to more mischief in actual transgressions As a Garrison held by a Rebel doth not only offend Sacred Majesty by standing out against him it self but when it finds it self strong enough and hath opportunity sallies out and makes invasion upon its proper Soveraign and offers actual and active violence against him So by this Original Evil first possessing the Soul doth Concupiscence stir and act by outward practises contrary to the Law and Will of God And therefore when St. Austin saith alledged by the corrupters of this Doctrine of Original Corruption They are born not properly but originally evil he no wayes contradicts his own Doctrine whereby he most of all farther explained and maintained this Original sin being the first that gave the name Original to that Pravity in man For true it is that that only is called properly Original Sin which Adam and Eve in person committed and were not subject to by nature as their Posterity are because it was the first in respect of mankind as well in order of time as nature and causality Again though this be traduced unto us his Off-spring and be the cause and fountain of all other sins actually committed afterward and for the same causes may rightly be called Original yet considering that this Evil thus vitiating our nature had no consent of our personal will we neither understood it nor any wayes affected it it cannot be so properly called sin as others which we act knowingly and willingly our selves For nothing is in strict way a sin which we do not consent unto in some manner either immediately or in its remoter causes And this doth yet farther appear because no man is bound to repent properly of Original sin Proper Repentance being an Act contrarying and reversing so far as in us lyes some evil by us done and not suffered involuntarily But Original sin is rather suffered than acted by the children of Adam Yet though in the severst sense we cannot be said to repent of Original sin we are bound to exercise some Act of Repentance for the same As grief and sorrow of mind and heart for the evil we lye under Confession and Recognition of our sad state before God Imploration of his mercie and favour to remove the same from us and restore us to our pristine innocencie and integrity For this those many places of Scripture describing this Evil do seem to require at our hand And no where doth the Scripture more fully declare this unto us than in the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans which because Socinus and such as plough with his Heifer and are tickled with his pretty phansies in eluding the Apostles meaning and the constant interpretation of the most Ancient and Modern Expositours we shall more particularly consider It is undeniable that St. Paul Rom. 5. amplifying the grace of God and benefits unto mankind even the Gentiles by Christ Jesus doth there make a comparision from the Twelfth verse to the end of the Chapter of the first and second Adam and of the Evil we sustained by the first Man Adam and the benefits we receive by the second Man Christ To this he supposes the ground of his Comparison which is this that By one v. 12. man Sin entred into the world and death by Sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned This is made no more of than that Adam being the first Man in the world and sinning Sin must needs enter first into the world by him if he sinned first and that death followed upon that sin of Adam But if this be all how come the effects to exceed the cause and death to extend farther than sin For it is not only said that death entred into the world in seizing upon that single Malefactour Adam but So death passed upon all men for that all have sinned where two things are to be noted First the note of dependance and consequence So. For if St. Paul had meant that Adam by himself and only for himself introduced death wherefore serves the tearm So which is a certain indication of the manner how death came into the world upon all persons and as much as if it had been said Adam first sinning and bringing death into the world so it was that this death fell upon all men for that all have sinned Now it is certain that all that dye have not sinned personally and therefore Secondly the Note So must also ralate to the Cause of that death which was sin and is as much as Adam sinning his Posterity also sinned and became obnoxious to death For to say as some eminently learned and useful otherwise in their Doctrine of Repentance Death passed upon all i. e. say they Upon all the whole world who were drowned in the floud of Divine vengeance and who did sin after the similitude of Adam is as much as if another Scholiaâ—t like him had said That is upon all Senacheribs Armies before Jerusalem in the dayes of Hezekiah or Upon all the Romans in the battle of Canna with Hannibal For it is certain that all men dye and it is no less certain that all men without exception died not in the floud And therefore what is added upon these words In as much as all have sinned that by them is meant All have sinned upon their own account we have already shown that it is not absolutely true and therefore cannot be St. Pauls meaning For all that dye have not as did Adam or following Adams
which Seneca noted but could give no reason of No man saith he is of a good mind before he is of a bad one we are all prevented And in the same place he saith No body is with difficulty reduced to Nature but he that hath made a defection from it Now supposing that God made all things perfect and instituted the nature of man more inclinable to acts agreeable to that perfection than to the contrary whence can it come that contrariwise Man naturally inclineth to that which is base and unworthy and is hardly taken off that corrupt way of acting contrary to reason and vertue and reduced to a perfection becoming his Institution and End but that the very principle of his nature is hurt and the root corrupt And because nothing can be Author of its own Principles by which it subsists no man can be said by his own act to have corrupted them Indeed we say a Man is of corrupt Principles when he hath contracted some evil habits disposing to wickedness but that is accessorie and not innate to him And if it be farther urged That no man can be guilty by anothers fault nor corrupted by anothers principle it is answered as before so long as it is only that others and not his own in some degree For as Thomas hath distinguished There is a Principle of Nature and a Principle of a Person and a Sin of Nature and a Sin of a Person Adam had not only principles whereby he himself subsisted but also was the principle of all his Successours So that Original sin was as well the sin of the one as the other So that from the depraved will of Adam as the first principle of all came the corruption of the Will of all Whereupon speaking strictly as we have said this Original sin is not properly sin in the Infant but a want of Original Justice seizing him and exposing him to destruction as Thomas and Catharinus also have taught which two are the effects of the sin of Adam upon himself and children but the very formal Reason of sin in his Posterity For where as some say It is natural Concupiscence moving to Evil and others That it is the absence of Divine Justice and Grace they differ rather in the niceties of speech than in the matter it self For to me it seems that the loss of Divine Perfection and Grace superadded to the nature of Man whereby he was abundantly able to secure himself and glorifie God in that state of happiness most neerly expresses the nature of it as in the sons of Adam For in Adam himself it was actual disobedience but Concupiscence inordinate doth rather express the consequence of it For upon that desolation in the soul of Man quickly arose a disorder of the inferiour Affections which by a general name is called Concupiscence or Lust by the Apostle in his Seventh Chapter to the Romans And Natural it is called because as out of the cursed ground sprang up briers thorns weeds and thistles where more useful fruit of the earth was intended so upon this curse of mans soul Evil motions arose to the hurrying him to Actual sin being themselves really sinful Again it is observable for the true resolution of the Question That there is commonly an ambiguity in this tearm Concupiscence it being sometimes taken for the act and exercise of that vitious principle in man fallen and sometimes for the Pravitie and degenerate temper of the soul making it prone to actual sins This latter is that which is properly called Original Sin though more properly Original unholiness or want of that instituted Integrity with which man was at first endowed and in it three things are to be considered First the privation of Supernatural Good Secondly Proneness to unnatural Evil against God Thirdly Odiousness and Culpableness before God who must needs be offended at the sight of so much deformity in his Creature contrary to his first Institution of it and Intention though this evil habitude should never break out into actual Rebellion against him by the exercise or putting it in execution by actual Concupiscence against the Law of God St. James seemeth Jam. 1. 14. to justifie this distinction where he saith Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed This gives us the original Lust or Concupiscence which inclines and moves to sin and to this is it to be imputed that a man so easily is withdrawn from truth and righteousness and noble acts becoming his high nature He goeth on Then when Lust hath conceived it bringeth forth Sin c. that is when the Radical Concupiscence or Concupiscibleness in man becomes impregnated and matured by outward opportunities and occasions of sinning it bringeth forth into outward act sin and the event and consequence of this sin is death So that the innate Lust lurking in the Soul and not actuated by outward occasions either inwardly to effect and desire or outwardly to act sin is not properly sin but metonymically only either as it is the effect of Adams sin or the cause of our sins but it is properly odious to God and exposing us to his heavy wrath so far at least as is seen in the deprivation of that be atitude to which man was at first designed And this exactly agrees with the nature of that sin For as that which was in Adam was actual disobedience in his Posterity is only want of that perfection which was due to their nature So Adam not only incurred the loss of that bliss he was capable of and in the ready way to enjoy but likewise the punishment of Sense answerable to his Sin of Commission and his Posterity was made subject to the punishment and loss of Gods favour and that bliss they were in Adam once ordained unto But when their Sins become Actual they are subject to punishment of Pain and torment for the same And by this the way is well prepared to make answer to that common doubt concerning the effect of Baptism and the state of the Regenerate in reference to Original sin and Concupiscence viz. whether Concupiscence remaining after Baptism in the Regenerate be sin or not Scriptures are alledged with great colour on both sides It is observed by Bishop Davenant that St. Paul calls Original Concupiscence sin in fourteen Davenant Deâ—â—rm â— several places in his sixth seventh and eighth Chapter to the Romans which if so Original sin it self must needs be oftner mentioned in Scripture than will be granted by many For mine own particular I see none of those places so exprest in the description of it that the law of Sin the Body Lex Peccati est violentiâ— consuctudinis qua trabit tenetur etiam invitus animus â—â— merito quo in cam volens illabitur Aug. in Confess Lib 3 c. 5. of Sin the Law of the Members the Lust of the Mind and Flesh and some other expressions to the same effect may not be
understood as well of an evil habit and inveterate custome acquired of sinning which is wont to give Law to the Reason and Mind of Man as of Original sin we now speak of contra-distinct to it were it not that the stream of Ancient and Modern Interpreters hath given another sense not with modesty to be opposed Therefore yielding those many places to be meant of Concupiscence natural we are to distinguish answerable to what is abovesaid with the Bishop between Inhabiting Concupiscence and Actual Concupiscence And herein a little vary from him if he doth mean that those places are to be applyed to Concupiscence resident only and not actuated But of this latter he seems to speak and no doubt so is St. Paul to be understood and not of the other And without all doubt Concupiscence coming to act inwardly in the mind by coveting only inordinately or outwardly by executing the evil purposes of the mind are sin even in the most Regenerate And when this becomes a habit then it is called by St. Paul to the Romans The Old Man and the Body of Sin But when the Rom. 6 6. remains of that inhabiting Concupiscence which only can be properly called Original never come after the death and burial with Christ in baptism as the Apostle speaks often to recover new life and motions by Rom. 6. 3 4. Colos 2. 12. Gal. 3. 27. conceiving new warmth from outward temptations as in Infants dying before they come to be actual sinners and in those of riper years immediately after their baptism it cannot properly be said to be sin or to expose to damnation as all sin properly so called doth St. Austin quoted by that learned Bishop plainly affirmeth thus much saying Tale Aug. lib. 6. c. 5. In Julian tantum malum and such and-so great Evil as that Original only because it is in a man would oblige us to death and drag us to the last death but that its chain was broken in baptism All this we subscribe to and do profess that the hold Original sin had over us is loosed by Baptism Yet we profess with Thomas also quoted that when ever such Concupiscence comes into the Will be it of Regenerate or Unregenerate it puts on the nature of sin But we suppose the remains of that Original Evil to contain themselves where Baptism left them and not to proceed farther For this God certainly hates I mean progress of Concupiscence and as it is well argued God cannot hate any thing but sin But after Regeneration by Baptism or restauration to the vertue and power of Baptism and the benefit thereof by Repentance the Sin in kind as Lust Envie Murder Malice is odious unto God but as it relates to the Person once guilty of it it is no longer odious unto God why because it is covered it is pardoned it is not imputed it is as if it had not been For otherwise it could not be said Blessed is the man whose transgression Psal 32. 1 2. is forgiven whose sin is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile But St. Paul to the Corinthians having recited those notorious sins unto which unmortified and unregenerate men were subject and guilty of adds And such were some 1 Cor. 6. 11. of you but ye are washed but ye are sactified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of his Grace Meaning that upon their conversion unto Christ their washing in Baptism their having received the Holy Ghost they were acquitted from their former sins and judged innocent and pure before him And the Author to the Hebrews tells us Hebr. 9. 26. how Christ as an High Priest once in the end of the world hath appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself And to what end should any man multiply Texts to prove this to them who will affirm that all sin is damnable and grant that the Regenerate are not in a state of Damnation then surely they are not properly sinners or guilty I speak of the state of Remission and Absolution and as such as all Infants baptised are And the grown Christian because he may and is most prone to incur new sins after such absolution and purgation is not therefore to be said not to have been truly absolution and purgation is not therefore to be said not to have been truly freed from the guilt of sin passed before his baptism and thorow repentance For that this may happen experience and the testimony of St Peter witnesseth For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world 2. Pet. 2. 20. through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ they are again entangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning And what do they but in effect come off from their opinion of sinfulness in that Concupiscibleness rather than Concupiscence in the Regenerate who after all plainly grant that there is no guilt remaining in it of it self and thus answer the argument which proveth that it is no such sin as they hold because Original sin is the death of the soul and makes a man an enemy to God but Concupiscence in the Regenerate doth not this thus Original sin doth not cause spiritual death but only as it is linked with guilt but pardon being obtained in Baptism the guilt is taken away and makes not any man lyable to wrath but as he is found in the old Adam so soon as a man is of the number of the Regenerate he is found in the new Adam i. e. in Christ Now would it be known how any thing of the true nature of sin may be separated from guilt which is too hard for me to apprehend they being so intimately coupled together and convertible that as there cannot be conceived any guilt without sin so neither any sin without guilt And if they say the guilt is done away in Baptism or Repentance I will say the sin is done away too and maintain it If they had distinguished between the effects and fruits of Original sin and the sin it self the matter had been much plainer and easier and by their manner of proceeding in this Question it should seem they only drive at this For I grant what they allow that Baptism doth not free from all corruption of Original sin such as are blindness of the Mind and debility of the Will to embrace good entirely and infirmities of the body which by a Metonymie are called sin sometimes but the guilt it must necessarily or do nothing at all but what Calvine and Perkins and Cartwright and many dancing after their Pipe to the scandal of the Sacraments and the Reformation admit us into the outward communion of the Church and signifie the pardon of our sins from all eternity without including Baptism or Repentance which is made no more then a sign too I conclude this
it Chap. V. Of the proper Acts of God Creation and Preservation or Providence What is Creation That God created all things And how Of the Ministers of Gods Providence towards Inferiour Creatures the Angels of God Their nature and office towards man especially Chap. VI. Of the Works of God in this visible World Of the Six dayes work of God All things are good which were made by God Chap. VII Of the Creation of man in particular according to the Image of God Of the Constitution of him and of the Original of his Soul contrary to Philosophers and the Errors of Origen concerning it The Image wherein it consists principally Chap. VIII Of the Second General Act of God towards the Creature especially Man his Providence Aristotles Opinion and Epicurus his rejected What is Providence Three things propounded of Providence And first the Ground of it the knowledge of God How God knoweth all things future as present Of Necessity and Contingencies how they may consist with Gods Omniscience Chap. IX The method of enquiring into the Nature and Attributes of God Vorstius his grounds of distinguishing the Attributes of God from his Nature examined Of the Decrees of God depending on his Understanding and Will Of knowledge of Intelligence Vision and the supposed Middle knowledge The Impertinency of this middle knowledge invented in God How free Agents can be known by God in their uncertain choice Indifferent actions in respect of Man not so in respect of God All vision in God supposes certainty in the thing known Chap. X. Four Doubts cleared concerning the Knowledge and Decrees of God and free Agents and contingent Effects How man that infallibly acts is responsable for his Actions The frivolous Evasion of the said difficulties by them of Dort Chap. XI Of the Execution of Gods Providence in the Predestination and Reprobation of Man How the Decrees and Providence of God are distinguished The Reason and Method of Gods Decrees Righteousness is the effect and not cause of Predestination to Life Predestination diversly taken in Scripture as also Election and Vocation God predestinates no man simply to Death without consideration of Evil foregoing as Calvin and some others would have it Chap. XII Of Gods Providence in the Reprobation and Damnation of Man Preterition is without any cause personal but the corruption of the Mass of Humane Nature Damnation alwayes supposes sin Chap. XIII The occasion of treating of sin here What sin is What Evil Monstrousness in things natural and Evil in moral things illustrate each other Sin no positive or real thing God the direct cause of no evil St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans makes nothing for the contra-Remonstrants literally and primarily taken Chap. XIV Of Sin more particularly And first of the fall of Adam Of Original Sin wherein it consisteth and how it is traduced from Father to Children The Proofs of it The nature and evils of it And that it is cured in Baptism That Natural Concupiscence hath not the nature of Sin after Baptism Chap. XV. Of the Restitution of Man after sin The Means and Motives thereunto In what manner Christs Mediation was necessary to the reconciling of Man to God Socinus his Opinion of Christs mediation refuted That Christ truely and properly satisfied by his Death and Passion for us Chap. XVI Of the Nature and Person of the Mediatour between God and Man In the beginning was the Word proved to be spoken of Christ and that he had a being before he was incarnate The Union of two Natures in Christ explained Christ a Mediatour by his Person and by his Office and this by his Sacrificing himself The Scriptures proving this Chap. XVII How Christ was Mediatour according to both Natures Calvins Opinion and others stated Of the effect of Christs Mediation and the extent thereof Of the Designation and Application of Christs death Of the sufficiencie and efficacie of Christs death How Christs death becomes effectual to all The necessity of Gods Grace to incline the will of man to embrace Christ Of the efficacie as well as sufficiencie of Gods Grace on the Will of Man Several Gradations observed in the Grace of God Chap. XVIII Of the effect and benefit of Christs Mediation in suffering and rising again seen in the Resurrection of Man The necessity of believing a Resurrection The Reasons and Scriptural Testimonies proving a Resurrection Objections against the same answered Chap. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the salvation of man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquity or Scripture for that middle State called Purgatory The Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences The novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first part of this Introduction The Contents of the Second Part c. Chap. I. OF the worship of God wherein the Second Part of Christian Religion consists Of the necessity of worshipping God It is natural to worship God Socinus holding the contrary confuted Of the name of Religion the Nature of Religious worship wherein it consisteth Chap. II. Of the two parts of Divine worship Inward and Outward The Proof of Outward worship as due to God and that it is both due and acceptable to God Several Reasons proving bodily worship of God agreeable to him Wherein this bodily worship chiefly consists Certain Directions for bodily worship Exceptions against it answered Chap. III. Of the second thing considerable in Divine worship viz. The state wherein we serve God What is a state The formal cause of a state Divine Vowes What is a Vow The proper matter of Vows Evangelical Councils That it is lawful and useful to make Vows under the Gospel contrary to Peter Martyr The nature of Vowes explained Chap. IV. Of the matter of Vows in particular And first of the Virginal state that it is both possible and landable And that it is lawful to vow Celibacie or Widowhood No Presidents in the Old Testament favouring Virginity The Virgin Mary vowed not Virginity no Votary before the Annunciation Chap. V. Of the second State of special serving God the Clerical State or Ministerial Of the necessity and liberty of singleness of Life in a Clergy-man The Opinion and custom of Antiquity concerning it That it is in the power of the Church at this day to restrain or permit the marriage of Priests The Conveniences and Inconveniences of wedded Life in Priests Chrysostom's Judgment of Marriage and Virginity recited Chap. VI. Of the third State of serving God a Life Monastical That it is not only lawful but may be profitable also The Exceptions of Mr. Perkins against it examined The abuses of Monastical Life touched That it is lawful to vow such a kind of Life duly regulated Chap. VII Of Religious worship the third thing considerable in it viz. The Exercise of it in the several kinds
but they were the intermediate effects of the stock of Grace treasured up in the Soul and exhorting and improving it self by the continual supplie of the Spirit of Christ according to the * Mat. 25. 16. doctrine of St. Paul to the Corinthians saying Insomuch that we desired Titus that as he had begun so he would also finish in you the same Grace also Therefore as ye abound in every thing in Faith in utterance in knowledge and v. 7. in all diligence and in your love to us see that ye abound in this Grace also Of this influence of Christs Spirit to the augmentation of Grace in the hearts of the true believers speaketh the same Apostle to the Colossians thus The Col. 2. 19. Head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together encreaseth with the encrease of God Sanctification then may be described The Grace of God infused into the Soul of a Sinner and purifying it by Faith as Justification is the reputation and acceptation of a person for Just by almighty God through the intuition of the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ And yet more distinctly to declare their mutual agreement and difference it will conduce much to the due understanding of them both First then Justification and Sanctification agree in their Subject The true believer the same person who is Sanctified being also Justified and he that is Justified being Sanctified also For so saith the prophet Nahum of him The Lord is slow to anger and great in power and will not at all acquit the wicked Nahum 1. 3. And when we find St. Paul affirming the contrary in appearance viz. that God justifieth the ungodly we are to understand him to speak not in Rom. 4. 5. Sensu composito in such manner that he is justified while he is so ungodly but in Sensu diviso a distinct sense and season as if it had been said Him that was once ungodly as he seems to interpret himself in his Epistle to the Corinthians where having spoken of the many abominations men were subject to he saith And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are 1 Cor. 6. 11. Sanctified but ye are Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God Secondly Justification and Sanctification agree in their foundation which is at least inchoate and initial holiness For though no mans inherent holiness arises so high as to denominate him truly Just or holy for its own sake yet both to Sanctification and Justification is necessarily required some preparatorie and imperfect holiness consisting principally in the Conversion of the mind to God from sin Thirdly both Sanctification and Justification are alike owing to Faith as their immediate Cause next under Gods Spirit as may be gathered from the prayer of Christ for his disciples Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is Joh. 17 17. truth That is the doctrine of Faith received To which Faith the effect of Sanctification is ascribed by St. Peter in the Acts whereby the Act. 15. 9. hearts of the Gentile were purified or Sanctified Fourthly they are both equally imputed unto us through the Righteousness of Christ Therefore saith St. Paul to the Corinthians To them that are Sanctified in Christ Jesus And 1 Cor. 1. 2. Heb. 10. 29. to the Hebrews it is said We are Sanctified by the blood of the Covenant So that no less are we Sanctified then Justified by Christs death and merits and the imputation of them But on the other side they are distinct in some formalities such as these may be for First the immediate cause of our Sanctification is in holy Scripture imputed to the operation and influence of the Holy Spirit as our Justification is more properly attributed to Christ the mediator between God and man As appeareth from St. Pauls words to the Thessalonians But we are bound to give thanks alwayes for you brethren beloved of the Lord 2 Thes 2. 13. because God hath from the beginning chosen you to Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth And St. Peter Elect according 1 Pet. 1. 2. to the foreknowledge of God the Father and Sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Thirdly Justification looketh backward being an absolution of the guilty from sins formerly committed and holding him Just but no man is justified actually from sins which hereafter he may fall into But Sanctification relates chiefly to the time future For not only is a sinner by the Spirit of Regeneration and Sanctification purged from the old Leaven of sin and malice but he becometh a New Lump and unleavened 1 Cor. 5. 7. Rom. 6. 13. and whereas he hath yielded his members as Instruments of unrighteousness unto sin he doth yield himself unto God as those that are alive from the dead And old things are done away in him and all things become new And whosoever is 1 Joh. 3. 9. thus born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God Fourthly to the Act of our Justification the will of man doth not necessarily concurr though it dissents not but is rather passive than Active but to our Sanctification is absolutely required the co-operation of the will and affections of man with the Grace of God in all those who have attained unto the use of reason For indeed by baptism Infants are so far Sanctified as to be freed from that hereditarie evil incident unto them which their will concurred not to but to actual Sanctification from those evils our wills did freely consent actual concurrence of our wills is necessary Fifthly Our Justification is entire and absolute at once no man being partly Justified and partly not Justified though he be partly Just and partly unjust or unholy But no man in this Life is so perfectly Sanctified as that there wants not somewhat to consummate the same because Justification being altogether the Act of God and not at all of Man God may and doth wholly and freely remit the guilt of sin to the penitent offendor But Man being also concerned in the Sanctification of himself his acts are imperfect and defective so that the effect it self partakes of the same and so Sanctification continues imperfect And it is not all at once but answerable to our natural man proceedeth by degrees Until we all come Eph 4. 13. in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledg of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ which fulness of stature is that we are to hope for and enjoy only in heaven Lastly to search no farther into this point before Justification there must of necessity goe some degree of Sanctification even in the opinion of such as contend most rigorously for freeness of Justification for to make Justification altogether
autority he had it was for the edification and not destruction 2 Cor. 10. 8. of the Church The argument therefore taken from an Hereditary Right in the Crown of England of being Governour and Defendor of our Church to the apparent ruine and destruction of it we know very well from whence it proceedeth and whether it tendeth but where it will end as yet God only knows This we know that Papists are mad when that scoff and reproach which they have constantly put upon both King and Church from that Title upon due enquiry makes so little to their purpose And therefore they will fight with us with the name only CHAP. XXXII Of the Exercise of the Political power of the Church in Excommunication The grounds and Reasons of Excommunication More things than what is of Faith matter sufficient of Excommunication Two Objections answered Obedience due to Commands not concerning Faith immediately Lay-men though Princes cannot Excommunicate Mr. Selden refuted NAture in all Bodies that have Life casts out of it what ever corrupts afflicts or oppresseth the same and by Struglings and contentions endeavours to deliver it self from such noxious humors as would destroy it And this is the reason men take Vomits Purges and Sudorificks that the deadly humour being expelled the wholesome may prevail and the Whole be preserved There can then be nothing more reasonable or Christian than to put this in practice in Bodies Political or Ecclesiastical We see how Thieves Robbers Murderers and such like malefactors who are enemies to humane Society be denied and that justly the benefit of that Society against which they have so offended by confinement in Prison or deprivation of Life it self forfeited justly in seeking or acting the ruine of another And can any that grants the Communion of Christians to be a Body knit together by its several joints and nerves and consisting of several Members deny but the like Evil may befal in its kind to it what doth happen to others in another viz that some noxious humor of Heresie corrupting the Faith in which as the Scripture saith of the Blood is the life of a Christian and the Church it self may poison it And some violence of Schism may dissolve or dismember it And shall not it be allowed the like remedy or means of Cure which are held necessary in like cases No opinion how heretical or immoral so ever is more pernicious to Christian Society than that which absolutely denyes power to the Church to eject unsound and tainting members out of it and to provide for the security of the Body even by the abscission and destruction of any one Part infesting it For this opinion strikes not at one part of the Body but all neither at one point of Faith but all though not immediately and directly but indirectly and by consequence For as upon the fall of the House the persons within must needs be crusht to death so upon the dissolution of the outward Frame of the Church the Faith itself must of necessity in a short time perish and be reduced to nothing And therefore those men of reason as they would be accounted give us but little cause to think them better men than Christians who affirm rawly and loosely without qualification or due explication of their mind that no man is to be cast out of the Church but for something which is necessary to salvation or which Christ doth not require or forbid absolutely either denying or not considering a man can scarce tell which by their works hereby that Christ and St. Paul and our Creed it self require conservation of the unity of the Church both as a thing admirable in its self and necessary to the Faith it self For any man therefore to broach or publish such an opinion as this That every man may use what Ceremonies he pleases in the publick service of God or if he pleases he may use none and this That the Church hath no power to command or forbid any thing which is not expressed in the Scripture when as Rules general and several Examples in Scripture justify the contrary These I say being contrary not only to some one Church but all even those they would by no means have touched thereby do no less in their consequence mischief to the Church than the denial of the Mystery of the Trinity it self or of Christs incarnation however I grant they in their form are nothing so foul And therefore I presume to conclude them matter of Excommunication and so I judge St. Paul doth where he advises nay commands in the name of the Lord 2 Thes 3. 6. Jesus Christ the Thessalonians to withdraw themselves from every one that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition he received of us These traditions were as it is here implied concerning orders of the Church and manners of Worship which in all probability are most of them lost to us St. Paul therefore requiring that whoever did not walk according to those prescriptions delivered by him should be separated doth not warrant the like proceedings now For t is the very same thing whether the Church withdraws it self or whether it expells another When the Israelites warned by Moses departed from the tents of the wicked Corah Dathan Num. 16. 26 and Abiram who only walked disorderly not erroneously in the matter of worship that we read of and their complices and touched nothing of theirs they Anathematized them no less than if they had set them packing into remoter parts from the Congregation Nay if now-adayes as lately Sectaries should prevail so far as to possess themselves of all the Publick and Lawful places of Worship and eject the true Church they might stand no less legally and Really Excommunicate than if they were thrust formally from thence themselves For'tis not the place but the Cause and the Body from which they are cut that makes the Excommunication just and valid This we are confirmed in by the same Apostle afterward And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man 2 Thes 3. 14. and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Now St. Paul in this Epistle had delivered many things not essential in themselves to salvation And where the company of Christians was not great and their society not formed and their outward power little or nothing as in the beginning of all Churches there it sufficed in liew of Formal excommunication to withdraw themselves from such troublers of the Church And this we read further of in St. Paul to the Romans saying Now I beseech Rom. 16. 17. you brethren mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them St. Paul generally in his Epistles not only insists upon unity of Faith but unity of Charity and outward communion they therefore that were Authors of unnecessary divisions are they whom he would have noted and avoided which when it is done with Publick
of it self it is the sting of the Law and the very entrance into the Pit of Hell Evangelical Contrition is when a repentant sinner is grieved for his sin not so much for fear of Hell or any other punishment as because he hath offended and displeased so good and merciful a God This Contrition is caused by the Ministry of the Gospel c. In this vulgar account of Attrition and Contrition or the two Parts of Contrition Legal and Evangelical is a twofold errour committed not to be passed lightly over The one is a rude and common misapprehension of the state of the Gospel as if it were all made up of Mercy and consisted not at all of Justice and Vengeance to be executed upon sinners breaking the Law of the Gospel but whatever we can reasonably suppose of mercy must be owing altogether to the Gospel but if any threatning and severities of Justice be feared that must be borrowed from the Law And what Law I pray do they mean The Old Law I doubt not But the Law before Christ had its moralities or perpetual Duties and its Mosaicalness which was transient and is now actually ceased as all the Obligations and Penalties belonging thereto It cannot be that then which moves to this Legal Contrition but if any thing the moral and perpetual part consisting of Justice and Equity which are no less an ingredient into the Gospel than into the Law properly so called And because there is nothing more absurd and ridiculous than to have a Law consisting of just and holy Precepts and Rules which shall not also consist of proportionable Rewards of the Observers and Breakers thereof returning as St. Paul teaches us at large in his Epistle Rom. 2. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. to the Romans to the Jew and to the Gentile doing well honour and glory and shame and wrath to the evil doer speaking of the present state of the Gospel And we have before shewed That so far is the Gospel from being made up of all mercy that the judgments and punishments therein decreed against Sinners are more grievous than they in the Law and therefore the Gospel is called a Book of Good tidings or News not because the Sinner impenitent shall sind any more favour or so much as he might under the Old Law but because the Salvation here published is of greater extent comprehending all Nations and states of men which the Law did not And also offering full and free means of Repentance and reconciliation to God through Christ and a treasure of Grace as well to assist in the performing of the condition of the Gospel as to pardon and remit what is committed against it upon humiliation and repentance So that the Gospel has a Legal part as the phrase is and Evangelical And the terrours of the Gospel or Legal Part of it have just influence upon the Consciences of men to humble and affright them though there should be O Soror nulla res sic nos ab omni peccato custodit immunes sicut timor inferni et amor Dei Bern. de modo bene vivend Serm. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys Serm. 7. Antioc◠pag. 512. To. 6 no such thing extant as the Old Testament and therefore the Attrition of a Sinner under the guilt and sense of his sins is much more an effect of the Gospel than of the Law And therefore is not so the entrance into the Pit of Hell as if directly it lead to Hell For 't is security and presumption that lead thither rather then the sorrow of Attrition This is certainly a direct occasion of going to Heaven and is an inferiour degree of more ingenuous sorrow and true contrition For this Legal as it is called Contrition is caused by the ministry of the Gospel too and is an effect of Evangelical Faith whereby a Christian having thorowly assented to and been affected with the severe and holy Doctrine thereof becomes humbled under it and is brought to the sight and admiration and affection of the other Part of it which to the truly broken and penitent offereth Grace and Pardon That which seems to have mislead so many into a false notion of the Gospel is the term Gospel or Evangel it self which sounds nothing so much as mercy though the English or Saxon word we know signifies originally no more than Gods Speech which is indifferent Rom. 4. 15. to Mercy and Justice both And such places as this of St. Paul The Law worketh wrath as if he had meant to say thereby that the Gospel did not work wrath as did the Law but that was far from his purpose intending only to shew the difference between the Law and the Gospel as they stood opposed to be in this That the Law without the Gospel which St. Paul preached wrought wrath without remedy but the Gospel though it propoundeth and threatneth wrath too to the unbelieving and disobedient yet continued in it also a sufficient and proper remedy against all those Evils And thus far of the very intrinsick nature of Repentance Attrition and Contrition which are the two proper Parts of it The two most noted acts or effects for Parts they are not are Confession and Satisfaction And first we shall explain this Confession by these degrees First Out of the Abundance of the heart it must necessarily be that the mouth should speak whether good or evil truth or falshood joy or sorrow How then can it reasonably be supposed that no outward expression should appear of so great anguish of mind as is supposed to affect the soul truly humbled and penitent No sober man much less good Christian can choose but commend such Acts as this of true Repentance For as the comparison of an ancient Father hath it well As it is with him that hath almost surfeited himself with ill digested or unwholesome meat lying heavy upon his stomach must cast it forth before he can well be eased or cured even so he whose soul is oppressed with the filth guilt and weight of his sins must vomit them up by due Confession before he can reasonably expect remedy and forgiveness Many and very pressing are the advises and precepts of Holy Scripture to confess our sins and many promises to such as do confess annexed which not intending at present so much a Paraenetical or hortatory Discourse as Dogmatical for the settlement and information of the Judgment and Consciences I shall pass over as agreed to on all hands in the general But Confession of sins being so variously taken viz. for confession to God and confession to Man for confession private and confession publick for confession to our brother whom we have offended particularly and confession to the Church to which we have given scandal none ever took the boldness on them to deny absolutely the use of Confession Nay I cannot find any seriously and positively denying the lawfulness or usefulness of private or auricular
fishes some were taken in one haven and some in another and eaten of others And again these men that have eaten these fishes which devour'd the man happen to dye in other Countries and that perhaps devoured by wild beasts Such a confusion and dissipation being made how shall that man rise again Who is he that reduces the dust again But why O man dost thou thus speak and patches a long train of tales together and offerest it as insoluble For answer me What if that man doth not go to Sea and be not drownd If no fish eat him nor the fish be afterward eaten of infinite men but that he be laid decently in his Coffin and neither worms nor any thing else molest him How shall that dust and ashes be compacted together again Whence shall that body flourish again Is not this unanswerable If they be Greeks Heathens who doubt of these things We can answer a thousand things But what Because there are some amongst them who put souls into Plants and Fruit-trees and Doggs Tell me which is easier for a soul to recover its own body or another Again there are others who says that fire shall catch them that their garments shall arise and their shooes and no body laughs at them And some introduce Atomes But we have nothing to say to them But to Believers if we may call them believers who thus doubt we shall say with the Apostle All life is subject to corruption all plants all seeds Seest thou not c. Here that eloquent Father expatiates in the mysteries and subtilties of nature shewing how little we understand of them and concludes this point thus But these things humane reason is to seek in But when God works all things yield to him In another place he doubts whether he be an Infidel or Christian who calls in question the Resurrection and the reason hereof is because as the power of God is infinite so infinite wayes there are for his infinite wisdome to bring to pass his own pleasure and to make good his words in which he hath caused his servants to trust CHAP. XIX Of the most perfect effect of Christs Mediation in the Salvation of Man Several senses of Salvation noted That Salvation is immediately after death to them that truly dye in Christ And that there is no grounds in Antiquities or Scripture for that midde state called Purgatory the Proofs answered Of the Consequent of Roman Purgatory Indulgences the novelty groundlesness and gross abuse of them The Conclusion of the first Part of this Introduction SAint Paul where he disputes the manner of Gods free Election of his people to the grace of the Gospel doth also declare unto us the end of such Election to be another Election and that to glory as in these words That he might make known the riches of his glory Rom. 9. 23. of Grace on the vessels of mercy which he had before prepared unto glory This is yet more fully expressed by St. Peter in this order Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection 1 Pet. 1. 3. of Jesus Christ from the dead To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time But before we engage far in this subject of Salvation it is requisite we observe a twofold Salvation frequently mentioned and promised in Scripture A Temporal and Eternal For herein common mistakes have surprised many who willing to amplifie and extend all the promises of Gods deliverance equally to us of this last Age of the Church and to them of the former and Apostolical do willingly interpret many places of Scripture peculiar to them as concerning us to which cannot be literally done though figuratively it may For the Church of Christ being in those first Ages in continual conflicts with her enemies Jewish and Gentile and most violent persecntions harrassing and wasting the tender body of the Infant-Church many weak Christians were of desponding minds and looked upon the same as Job upon natural man as having a short time to live and full of sorrows Which moved the Apostolical Writers to confirm the Hope and Faith of them by the assurances of deliverances and salvation And none can deny this to be the literal meaning of St. Paul in his eighth Chapter to the Romans from whence so many draw an Argument to prove the innumerable purpose of God towards particular persons in predestinating and electing and glorifying them when upon faithful examination nothing more was primarily intended then assurance of Gods temporal preservation of the Church and making it outwardly glorious in despight of all its adversaries so that none should separate the flook of Christ so far from the love of Christ by persecution tribulation distress or famine or nakedness or peril or sword but that at length it should be more than conquerer through him that loved it And that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come c. should cause God to forsake it And no other is the meaning of the same Apostle in his thirteenth Chapter to the Romans where he saith And that knowing the time that now it is high Rom. 13. 11. time for us to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed i. e. having continued thus long in the faith the time now draweth near we should be secured and saved from our enemies And the Salvation to be revealed in the last times spoken of by St. Peter was the Deliverance which at last should be manifested to the Church in constant expectation of which they were kept by Faith and confidence of Gods mercy And if we shall consult the Apocalypse we shall scarce find the word Salvation used in any other sense then that of temporal deliverance Rev. 7. 10. 12 10. 19 1. of Gods Church But withal most certain it is that by Salvation is very often indended by Gods word the deliverance from the miseries of sin and suffering in this world into a state of such perfect bliss as man is capable of in which sense St. Paul saith The Gospel is the power of God unto Rom. 1. 16. salvation And that with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation which salvation was in those dayes the destruction of them that confessed Christ For St. Paul to animate the weak Believers to a stout and resolute profession of Christ against the terrors of death threatning those that were known to be Christians tells them that if they so boldly confessed Christ with their mouth as to dye in that profession they should be saved And when St. Paul advises the Philippians to work out their salvation Phil. 2. 12. with fear and trembling he means without
fruits on Gods part signifying his favour towards such truly penitent Persons by the comfortable testimony of his Spirit of Grace in their Consciences witnessing the remission of sins and reconciliation to God in the face of Jesus Christ The Parts of Repentance are commonly made these three Contrition Confession and Satisfaction which to speak properly cannot so be called For of all these only Contrition is of the very nature of Repentance but Confession and Satisfaction to which we may adde Reformation or Renovation are rather the Effects than Parts of Repentance but these two are never the same in proper language And therefore in vain do they go about to justifie that description as proper of Repentance which both Chrysostome and Ambrose do give us That it is such a change which committeth not the same things again And an act whereby we lament sins passed and commit not sins to be lamented There can be nothing done more indiscreetly against a mans self or injuriously against the Fathers than to make every true saying of theirs a definition or to deny them the liberty of their Rhetorical pen sometimes when they write what is true though not so accurately as the laws of Logick may require If we mistake not this abuse of the Fathers hath done great mischief in the Schoolmens works and especially Thomas's as may appear in his Summes where a bare and secure asseveration of some Father is taken for a very sufficient definition and turns the controversie quite another way then reason according to Scripture would have it go We all know that the Fathers as all other Writers even the Scriptures themselves spake not alwayes Definitions and the Definitions they gave were not alwayes according to the Rules and Practise of Logicians but Rhetoricians with whom it is most frequent to describe a thing from the proper and most commendable effect If a man should say he is a Souldier indeed who never yieldeth till he hath gotten the victory should speak very true but this were no true definition of a Souldier For a Souldier may loose the Victory And so Repentance is that which repeateth not former sins before sorrowed for but this doth not prove that to be no repentance which ceasing a man returns to his former evil course or that repentance persever'd in which was broken off might not have carryed him to heaven For who knows not that all habits moral and graces spiritual such as are Faith and Repentance have their proper seat in the inward man affect the mind and heart immediately and from thence are known primarily and described Outward acts are but the effects and the effects may illustrate but cannot be of the essence of the Cause Therefore Repentance exactly considered is nothing more than a thorow change of the mind and heart from things contrary to Gods will and to the obedience of the same This is true repentance and if it be not effectual it is because it is not that is perseveres not in that good nature It were ridiculous to say A man never went towards London it was no real motion because he turned back again and never came at that place And no less that a man never truly repented because he gave over and reaped not the fruits of Repentance For the nature of Repentance might be the same though vastly different as to the end Once true Grace and alwayes true Grace say they but what word of God what judgment of the wisest and holiest Christians have they to bear witness to their presumptuous assertion Their own authority is too inconsiderable and their argument most vain which is taken from the event and begs the question when they thus talk If it be true Grace it will persevere and if it persevere it is true So that give the highest instance that ever was or any mans mind can imagine possible to be of Grace which failed they answer very safely if as wisely It was not true for it faild But this is no place to argue this point We except not against the things themselves in Repentance Contrition Confession Satisfaction but against the order they are set in though Mr. Bradford that holy and learned man sticks not at that accurateness in his former Sermon speaking thus We say penance hath three parts Contrition if you understand it for an hearty sorrow for sin Confession if ye understand it for faith of free pardon in Gods mercy by Jesus Christ and Satisfaction if you understand it not to Godwards but to Manwards in restitution of things wrongfully and fraudulently gotten of name hindred by our slaunders and in newness of life And Perkins makes our consent with the Roman Perk. Reform Cath. Church to consist in this That Repentance stands especially for practise in Contrition of heart Confession of mouth Satisfaction in work or deed Of these therefore we shall speak briefly and distinctly CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Proper affections of Repentance Compunction Attrition and Contrition Attrition is an Evangelical Grace as well as Contrition Of Confession Its Nature Grounds and Vses How it is abused The Reasons against it answered COmpunction is a general word comprehending Contrition and Attrition the proper parts of Repentance and according to Bernard is an humiliation of the mind proceeding from the remembrance of sin and the fear of Gods Judgment c. But Bernard de modo bene vivendi Serm. 10. if we take Compunction generally it may be rather described An humiliation of mind proceeding from an apprehension of the Evil of sin Now the Evil of sin being twofold doth divide this Compunction into two kinds Contrition and Attrition Contrition being according to the most received distinction of it from Attrition A sincere and hearty sorrow of mind upon the sight and sense of the Evil of sin in it self and the offence thereby committed against Almighty God his goodness chiefly But there is another mischief in sin and that doth principally concern the Offender himself who thereby having violated Gods most just and holy Laws and incurred his displeasure has made him self obnoxious to the curses denounced against the breakers thereof and therefore is a Terrour of Conscience conceived upon the apprehension of Gods wrath justly due to him and impending over him These by some are made not only different as in truth they are but contrary too so that Attrition should be rather an addition to former Guilt than a method of evading Gods wrath and being reconciled unto him and their reason is because it is not done in Faith Hence they distinguish between Legal and Evangelical humiliation Perkins making the former quite distinct from the latter and opposite to it Legal contrition say they which is Attrition is nothing but a remorse of Conscience for sin in regard of the wrath and judgment of God and it is no grace of God at all nor any part or cause of Repentance but only an occasion thereof and that by the mercy of God for