for me includes many things as the benefits which arise unto me by the death of Christ may be conceived to be many But let these benefits be distinguished and we shall readily answer to the question made and that perhaps differently as namely affirmatively to some negatively to others as thus Doe you speak of Christs dying for me that is for the pardon of my sins and for the salvation of my soule I answer affirmatively and say I am bound to believe that Christ died for the procuring of these benefits unto me in such manner as God hath ordained to wit not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case I doe believe and repent For God hath not otherwise ordained that I should reap the benefit of pardon and salvation by vertue of Christs Death and Passion unlesse I believe in him and repent But if question be made whether I am bound to believe that Christ died for me to procure faith and repentance unto me I doe not say that I am bound or that every one who hears the Gospel is bound to believe this Nay the Remonstrants now a daies deny in expresse tearmes that Christ merited this for any at all I am not of their opinion in this but I see clearly a reason manifesting that Christ merited not this for all no not for all and every one that hears the Gospel For if he had then either he hath merited it for them absolutely or conditionally Not absolutely for then all and every one of them should believe de facto which is untrue for the Apostle saith Fides non est Omnium Nor conditionally for what condition I pray can be devised upon the performance whereof God for Christs sake should give us faith and repentance In like sort if I am demanded whether God did decree of the meer pleasure of his will to refuse to give grace and glory unto some and to inflict upon them damnation To this I cannot answer at once there being a Fallacy in the demand But distinguish them I answer and say that as touching the poynt of denying grace God doth that of his meer pleasure but as touching the denyall of glory and the inflicting of damnation he doth not decree to doe these of meer pleasure but rather meerly for sin to wit for their infidelity and impenitency and all the bitter fruits that shall proceed from them So that Reprobation according to our Tenent rightly stated is the decree of God partly to deny unto some and that of his meer pleasure the grace of Faith and Repentance for the curing of that infidelity and hardnes of heart which is naturall unto all and partly to deprive them of glory and to inflict damnation upon them not of his meer pleasure but meerly for their finall continuance in sin to wit in infidelity and impenitency and all the fruits that proceed therehence 2. Now as for the cause of this decree as likewise of all the decrees of God when any of our Divines say that it is the meer pleasure of God as in some places it is expressed of some decrees let them be understood aright not as if they distinguished between the decree of God and the good pleasure of his will for we know full well that the decree of God is the good pleasure of his Will what decree soever it be but hereby we only exclude all causes from without moving God to make any such decree like as when it is said Deuteron 7. 7. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor chuse you because ye were more in number then any people but because the Lord loved you as much as to say The Lord loved you because he loved you Where we cannot soberly devise any distinction between love and love as between the cause and the effect only hereby is excluded all cause from without Now we are ready with open face to professe that of the Will and decree of God there neither is nor can be any cause from without all things from without being temporall and the Will of God being eternall and the Will of God quoad actum Volentis being the very Essence of God For God is a pure Act and that indivisibly One whereby he is said to Bee whatsoever he is as wee doe conceive variety of perfections in God yet all these are but one indivisible Act in God and by this one indivisible Act he both knowes all that he knowes and willeth and decreeth all that he willeth and decreeth Man when he willeth any thing as likewise an Angel when he willeth ought they produce an act of willing passing upon this or that object but it is not so with God in whom there is no accident And therefore Aquinas was bold to professe that never any man was so mad as to professe that merits were the cause of Predestination as touching the act of God predestinating and why so why surely upon this ground because predestination is the will of God and like as nothing can be the cause of the will of God as touching the act of willing so nothing can be the cause of divine predestination as touching the act of God predestinating His words are these in the same place Sic inquirenda est ratio praedestinationis sicut inquiritur ratio divinae voluntatis dictum est autem suprà quod non est assignare causam divinae voluntatis ex parte actus volendi But because like as the love of God is sometime taken for the good thing which God bestowes like as Jansenius interprets that place Iohn 14. 21. He that loveth me shall be beloved of my Father to wit of the effect of the Fathers love and we commonly say that Passions are attributed unto God not quoad Affectum but quoad Effectum in like sort the Will of God is taken for the thing willed as 1 Thes 4. 3. This is the will of God even your sanctification that is this is willed by him Therefore Aquinas distinguisheth a double consideration in the will of God one quoad actum volentis and so it hath no cause from without another quoad res volitas and so it may have a cause So likewise in predestination as considering it either quoad actum Praedestinantis and so it hath no cause or quoad effectum Praedestinationis and so it may have a cause as there he professeth both touching the will of God in generall and touching Predestination in speciall Of the will of God in generall thus Non est assignare causam voluntatis divinae ex parte actus volendi sed potest assignari ratio ex parte volitorum in quantum scilicet Deus vult esse aliquid propter aliud And of predestination in speciall thus Sed hoc sub quaestione vertitur utrum ex parte effectus praedestinatio habeat aliquam causam hoc est quaerere utrum Deus praeordinaverit se daturum effectum praedestinationis alicui propter aliqua merita Now thus
save it being no way fit that a temporall thing should be made the condition of a thing eternall such as is Gods will to save And this is more apparent by the reading of Vossius himselfe Histor Pelag l 7. treating of Gods will to save all Now if we speake thus of Gods will quoad res volitas as touching the things willed these things willed being very different wee have reason to consider them distinctly also Now these things are either grace or glory cōmonly called Salvation And as touching grace to wit the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentannee we willingly confesse that Gods will to conferre them is so absolute that he hath determined to conferre them according to the meere pleasure of his will not according to mans workes which is plaine Pelagianisme and condemned in the Synod of Palestine above 1200 yeares agoe and as he gives them to whom he will so he denyes them to whom he will according to that Rom. 9. 18. He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth But as touching Salvation or damnation in which respect this Author usually speakes of the absolute or conditionall will of God we uttererly deny that God in the dispensation or administration or execution of these proceeds or ever did decree to proceed according to the meere pleasure of his owne will but altogether according to theire workes For albeit God hath made no law according whereto he meanes to proceed in giving or denying grace yet hath he made a law according whereto he proceeds in bestowing Salvation and inflicting damnation And the law is this Whosever believeth shall be Saved Whosoever believeth not shall bedamned 2 Cor. 5. 10. We must all appeare before the Judgement Seate of Christ that every man may receive the things which are done in his body according to that he hath done whether good or evill So that according to that sence wherein this Author usually speakes of the absolute and conditionall will of God we utterly deny that God doth absolutely elect any man to Salvation or reject any man unto damnation though he doth absolutely elect some unto grace that is to the grace of regeneration to the grace of faith and repentance and absolutely reject others there from For as much as he bestowes these graces on some and denies them unto others not according to their workes but according to the meere pleasure of his owne will but he doth not inflict damnaton or bestow Salvation according to the meere pleasure of his will but according unto mans works And as he carrieth himselfe in the execution of Salvation and damnation after the same manner he did from everlasting decree to carry himselfe namely to Save no man of ripe yeares but by way of reward of their faith repentance and good workes so to damne none but for their infidelity impenitency and evill works As for the manifestation of Gods will of election and reprobation unto any we say that ordinarily man may be assured of his election For the spirit of God is given to this very end even to shed the love of God in our hearts that is Gods love towards us Rom 5. 5. And what is the shedding therefore in our hearts but his working in us a sense and feeling thereof especially considering that the sence of Gods love to us is the cause of our love to wards God according to that 1 John 4. 19. We love him because he loved us first and accordingly the spirit is sayd to testifie unto our spirits that we are the sonnes Rom. 8. And if sonnes then heyres even heyres of God and heyres annexed with Christ And the Apostle S t Peter exhorts us to give diligence te make our election vocation sure implying manifestly that men may be sure of their election otherwise why should our Saviour wish his Disciples to rejoyce not in this that Divells were subdued unto them but that their names were writen in Heaven And by what meanes may a man be assured hereof but either immediatly by the testimony of the spirit or mediatly by the fruits of the spirit as the fruits of our election one where of is faith plainly so signified Act 13. 48. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting Life And Act. 2. last God added daily to the Church such as should be Saved And repentance is another Act. 11. 18. Then hath God unto the Gentiles also given repentance unto life Giving to understand that as many as to whom God giveth repentance he hath ordained them unto life And indeed by the worke of our faith and labour of our love and the patience of our hope others come to be assured of our election how much more our selves no man knowing the things of mā so as the spirit of man 1 Cor 2. Thus S t Paul professeth his assurance of the election of the Thessalonians 1 Thess 1. 3 4. We remember the worke of your faith and the labour of your love c. Knowing beloved bretheren that ye are elect of God And hereupon he proceeds to assure them that Antichrist by all his deceiveablenesse of unrighteousnesse shall never prevaile over them in as much as he prevailes only over them that perish 2 Thess 2. 10. But as for them they are the elect of God And how doth he know that Surely by their faith and sanctification which were visible in them v 13. But we ought to give God thankes allwayes for you bretheren beloved of the Lord because that God hath from the begining chosen you unto Salvation by sanctification of the spirit and faith of the truth But as for reprobation we say that no man can by any ordinary way be assured thereof seing nothing but finall perseverance in infidelity or impenitency is the infallible signe thereof whence it followes that no way of desperation is open to one but the way of assurance and abundance of consolation is opened to the other and thereby encouragement to proceed cheerefully in the wayes of Godlinesse being assured that the more holy they are the greater shall be their reward And surely if certainty of salvation were a meanes of licentiousnesse the Apostle S. Peter would never have exhorted us to give diligence to make our calling and election sure And we manifestly seem to perceive strength of encouragement hereby unto Godlinesse as being assured that Christ dyed for us to the end we might live unto him And God receives us as Sonnes and Daughters to this end that we should purge our selves from all pollutions of flesh and spirit and perfect holinesse in the feare of God As also being assured that God will not lay our infirmities and sinnes unto our charge and will be ready to keepe us from presumptuous sinnes and however it fares with us Yet sinne shall not have dominion over us and consequently we shall have the victory over it either by obedience or by repentance because we are not under the
consolation which hath his course not only with the Devills but even with them that are already under the torments of Hell fire But let not the authority of the booke of Wisdome with thee weigh up and elevate the authority of Scriptures nor Philo the Jew be preferred before S t Paul or the Prophet Malachy by whom wee are taught that as God loved Jacob before he was borne so he hated Esau and before they were borne what difference was there betweene them Yet this passage out of the booke of Wisdome is in a Collect of the Papists Liturgy I conceive a good sence may be made thereof without any prejudice to absolute reprobation for of Papists we ate sayd to have learnt it and are reproached for it And what is that good sense they make of it Take it if thou wilt from Aquinas 1. q 23. art 3 ad 1. Dicendum quod Deus omnes homines diligit etiam omnes creaturas in quantum omnibus vult aliquod bonum non tamen quodcunque bonum vult omnibus In quantum igitur quibusdam non vult hoc bonum quod est vita aeterna dicitur eos habere odio vel reprobare Now if we take this Colect from them let us take also their good meaning with it and if we can let us make it better and not worse We commonly say that passions are attributed to God not quoad affectum but quoad effectum Now the effect of hatred is either the denyall of grace or the denyall of glory or the inflicting of damnation The two latter are executed only according to mens sinnes but the first to wit the denyall of grace proceeds meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will like as the giving of grace as the Apostle not Philo signifies that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Now to shew mercy is to bring a man to faith Rom. 11. 30. And if grace be not given according to the meere pleasure of Gods will it must be given according unto workes which is as much as to say in the phrase of the ancients according unto merits which all along hath been condemned in the Church of God as meere Pelagianisme Yet hitherto tends all the consolation that Arminianisme can reach forth unto thee which is to afford thee no better consolation then can be afforded to a Reprobate 2. As for Adams transgression let not that affright thee who art borne within the pale of the Church and of Christian parents for the children of such are holy 1 Cor. 7. when all others are uncleane Yet why should any man find it strange that some of them who are guilty of eternall death should suffer eternall death And this Author hath formerly confessed that Adams sinne hath made all his posterity guilty of eternall death Now albeit God hates many whether as involved in Adams transgression or no what matters that to thy discomfort if he hate not thee And what ground hast thou to conceive that thou art in the number of them whom he hates rather then of those whom he loves He is no good Physitian that lookes not into the cause of the desease to remoove that nor he any good comforter that lookes not into the cause of thy discomfort to remoove them It is to be thought that such an one desires rather to feed thy discomfort then to cure it Such is the practice of this comforter otherwise he should not apply his arguments of comfort which he magnifies as the strongest with as much art and cunning as can be But understand him aright this art and cunning tends not to the furtherance of thy consolation but to the advantage of his owne Arminian cause and to this end I confesse he doth apply them with as much art and cunning as he can 2. And God hath a two-fold love a generall love which puts forth it selfe in outward and temporall blessings only and with this he loves all men And a speciall by which he provides everlasting life for men and with this only he loves a very few which out of his alone will and pleasure he singled from the rest Under this generall love am I not the speciall CONSIDERATION 1. As touching the distinction hold thee to it least otherwise thou never proove capable of more comfort then a Reprobate is capable of No Arminian hath the face to deny that God saves but a very few And the reason is because very few doe believe and repent in this we all agree Againe no Arminian denies that very few doe believe and repent and finally persevere therein Againe no Arminian denies faith and repentance to be the gift of God and that hereby alone men are singled out from the rest Now the question is Whether God singleth out some men from the rest by giving them faith and repentance according to the meere pleasure of his will or according to their workes We say according to the meere pleasure of Gods will for he hath mercy on whom he will Rom 9. 18. Arminians say according to mens workes and hereupon in the issue comes all their consolations to be grounded that is upon a notorious Heresy condemned above 1200 yeare agoe 2. But as touching the accommodation of this distinction unto thy selfe saing thou art under Gods generall love not under his speciall I pray the tell me what ground thou hast for that what one of Gods elect while they were in the state of nature had not as greate cause to be as uncomfortable as thy selfe and why maist not thou be in Gods good time in as comfortable a condition as any of them and to say as John doth see what love the father hath shewed us that we should be called the sonnes of God dost thou mourne for thy sinne or no if thou dost not Why shouldest thou looke to be partaker of those comforts which are peculiar to them that mourne If thou dost thy Saviour hath said Blessed are they that mourne for they shall be comforted Dost thou hunger and thirst after the favour of God and to be made partaker of the righteousnesse of Christ which alone can give thee assurance of thine election If thou doest not hunger and thirst after this why shouldest thou be cast downe because thou hast not this assurance If thou doest desire this assurance and to that purpose hast an hungry appetite after the righteousnesse of Christ thy Saviour saith Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for they shall be filled Or hast thou a desire to have thy sinnes pardoned and thy soule saved but not any desire that thy soule may be sanctified what comfort shouldest thou or any such expect at the hands of God Thou wouldest serve the Devill but thou wouldest not goe to hell with the Devill But I tell thee God hath decreed the contrary namely that all such shall have this doome Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angells Yet
commiserant grace hath not as yet raised you But if there be any not yet called whom God hath predestinated to be elected by his grace or whom his grace hath predestinated to be elected ye shall receive the same grace whereby to will and be Elect. And as for those that doe obey if you are not predestinated to be Elect the strength of obedience shall be withdrawne that you may cease to obey Thus farre the objection Austin's answer followeth thus When these things are said they ought not to to deterre us from confessing God's grace to wit which is not given according unto workes and from confessing predestination according thereunto like as we are not terrified from confessing God's foreknowledge if a man should discourse thereof in this manner before the people whether now ye live well or not well such shall ye be hereafter as God foresees ye will be either good if he foresees ye will be good or evill if he foresees he will be evill for what if upon the hearing hereof some give themselves to sloth and from labour prone to lust goe after their concupisences shall we therefore conceive that to be false which was delivered concerning God's foreknowledge And so he proceeds to justifie the truth of this doctrine which was objected against him by way of Crimination I say to justifie it as touching the substance of it though as touching the manner of proposing it he confesseth that to be unreasonably harsh in some particulars and shewes how that may be proposed in a more decent manner still holding up the same truth Thus Austine was able to answere for himselfe whilest he was living Now let us consider how Prosper answers for him after he was dead And first let us consider the objection it selfe now it is this That they who are not predestinate unto life although they live piously and righteously it shall nothing profit them but they shall be reserved so long untill they perish Now this is painely a part of the objection made by the Massilienses and they were Galli whom Prosper answereth for the objection proposed to Austine was that strength of obedience should be taken from them But in the objection of the Galli whom Prosper answeres it is set dowe in a milder manner thus They shall be reserved untill they perish Now Austine himselfe accomodates his answer hereunto in particular De bono Perseverantiae cap. 22. 1 For shewing the unreasonable harshnessein this manner of proposing it I wonder saith he if any weak man in a Christian people can by any meanes heare with patience that which followes as namely when it is said unto them yee that doe obey if ye be predestinated to be rejected the strength of obedience shall be withdrawne from you that you may cease to obey For thus to speake what seemeth it to be other then to curse or to prophesie evill after a sort Then he proceeds to she whow the same truth may be delivered in a fairer manner still holding up the truth of the doctrine of predestination If saith he a man thinke good to speake something of such as doe not persevere and need be so to doe What failes of the truth of this sentence if it be delivered thus But if some doe obey that are not predestinated unto the kingdome and to glorie they are temporarie ones and shall not persevere in the same obedience unto the end Then he proceeds to shew how the same objection may be framed against God's praescience thus Et si qui obeditis si praesciti estis rejiciendi obedire cessabtis If any of you doe obey if with all ye are foreseen to be rejected ye shall cease to obey whereby ye may observe how Austine in framing the objection leaves out the Phrase of withdrawing the strength of obedience as containing a calumnious imputation and such as Austine had nothing to doe with in the course of his opinion concerning predestination Thus Austine hath plainely answered for himselfe and needs noe other to answer for him and his answer proceeds without all colour of prejudice to his owne doctrine concerning the absolutenesse of predestination By this let the Reajudge of the ingenuitie of this Authour who conceales all this from his Reader bearing him in hand that Austine speakes in Prosper making answere to his objection whereas indeed there is a vast difference between Prosper's answer for Austine and Austin's answer for himselfe But like enough Prosper was willing to condescend to the Galli * and to gratifie them with an answer that in his judgment might be more acceptable and satisfactorie unto them To the consideration whereof I now proceed and therein to consider Prosper not Austin's mind concerning predestination as which he hath sufficiently manifested in answer to the same objection as I have shewed Therefore saith Prosper They are not predestinated because they were foreseen to be such hereafter by their voluntarie praevarication what will follow herence That foresight of sinnes was the cause why they were not predestinated unto life I answere first by denying this consequence for it may as well follow that the Creatours love is the cause why sinnes are forgiven him for the Gospell saith of the woman Luk the 7. Therefore many sinnes are forgiven her because she loved much such illations are not alwaies causall but very often merely rationall Secondly let it be causall and that foresight of sinne is the cause of non predestination unto life and accordingly of predestination unto damnation yet here I have a double answer First it is the most generall opinion that reprobation as it signifies a purpose to damne and accordingly to exclude from heaven presupposeth the prescience of sinne M. Perkins expresly professeth as much and other Divines at the Synod of Dort yet this hinders not the absolutenesse of reprobation which appeares in the purpose of God to deny grace and that absolutely to some like as he bestowes it upon others I meane the grace of faith and regeneration otherwise grace should be given according to workes Now let any passage be produced out of Prosper or any other Orthodox writer among'st the Antients to shew that God in distributing these graces unto some and denying them unto others did not proceed absolutely but according unto workes and according to this doctrine it is well knowne that Austine shaped his doctrine concerning predestination as it hath been shewed at large in the answer to M. Hord in the first section secondly that there may be a cause of predestination and reprobation Aquinas doth not deny but how quoad res volitas as touching things willed or praedestinatione reprobatione praepartas by predestination and reprobation prepared and in this sense Aquinas himselfe confesseth that foresight of sinne is the cause of reprobation the nineth to the Romans see how he explicates himselfe his wordes are these Lect 3. praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis ex parte poenae quae
rather a fiction of the remnants of the Pelagians wherewithall to reproach the doctrine of S. Austin in the poynt of Predestination Thus have I examined this Authors pretence of the Novelty of our Tenent I come to the consideration of that which followes DISCOURSE The Second Motive IT S unwillingnesse to abide the Tryall I find that the Authors and Abettors of it have been very backward to bring it to the Standard not only when they have been called upon by their Adversaries to have been weighed but also when they have been intreated thereto by their chief Magistrates who might have commanded them A shrewd argument mee thinks that it is too light In the Disputation at Mompelgard Anno 1586 held between Beza and Jacobus Andreas with some Seconds on both sides Beza and his company having disputed with the Lutherans about the person of Christ the Lords Supper c. When they came to this Point did decline the sifting of it and gave this reason among others that it could not then possibly be disputed of sine gravi eorum offendiculo qui tanti mysterii capaces non sunt without the great scandall and hurt of the ignorant and unacquainted with these high mysteries The Contra-Remonstrants also in their Conference with their Adversaries at the Hague in the year 1611 could not be drawn to dispute with them about this point but delivered a Petition to the States of Holland and Westfrizland that they might not be urged to it resolving rather to break off the Conference then to meddle with it In the Synod likewise of Dort in the year 1618 and 1619. the Remonstrants were warned by the President of the Synod ut de Electione potius quà m de odiosâ Reprobations materiâ agerent that they should rather dispute of the point of Election then the odious point of Reprobation Can this Doctrine be a truth and yet blush at the light which makes all thing manifest especially considering these things 1. That Reprobation is a principall Head of Practicall divinity by the ill or well stating of which the glory of God and good of Religion is much promoted or hindered 2. That there is such a necessary connexion between the points of Election and Reprobation both being parts of predestination that the one cannot well be handled without the other 3. That Reprobation was the chief cause of all the uproares in the Church at that time 4. That it was accused with open mouth and challenged of falshood and therefore bound in justice to purge it selfe of the crimination 5. That it may easily be defended if as some say it be such an apparent truth for Nihil est ad defendendum puritate tutius nihil ad dicendum veritate facilius saith S. Hierom. The striving to lye close and hide it selfe though perhaps it be not so infallible yet it is a very probable argument of a bad cause Truth covets no corners but is willing to abide the tryall whether in men or in doctrines David knowing his heart to be without guile offers himselfe ready to the Lords tryall Search me o God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me And our Saviour tells us that Every one that doth evill hates the light and comes not to the light least his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God As S. Paul saith of an Heretick he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 selfe condemned and so may we say of Heresy and untruth it condemnes it selfe and by nothing more then by refusing the Touch-stone He is to be thought an empty Scholler who is loath to be opposed and his gold to be light and counterfeit that will not have it touched and weighed and these Opinions to be but errours which would so willingly walk in a mist and dwell in silence when it concernes the peace of the Church so much to have them examined TWISSE Consideration VVHo are these Authors of this Doctrine who here are said to have been backward to bring it to the standard Is Beza those Authors whereof was he the Author Was it the doctrine of predestination as proceeding of the meer pleasure of God and not upon foresight of mans faith and works Is it not apparent that this was the doctrine of Austin 1200 years agoe and that in opposition to the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians Or was it the doctrine of reprobation as not proceeding upon the foresight of sinne but of the meer pleasure of God Is this Author so ignorant as not to know what are the conclusions of Alvarez in the question Whether there be any cause of reprobation on mans part Lib. 10. de Auxil disc 110. pag. 866. 1. His first Conclusion is this Reprobation whereby God decreed not to give unto some everlasting life and to permit their sinne is not conditionate but absolute neither doth it presuppose in God foresight of the deserts of reprobates or of their perseverance in sinne unto the last period of their life 2. His next Conclusion is In the Angells that fell there is no cause of their reprobation on their part as touching the whole effect thereof but before any foresight of their future sinne God pro sua Voluntate of his meer will did reprobate some of them and suffered them to fall into sinne 3. The third Infants departing in Originall sinne alone there is no cause on their part of reprobation if they be considered in comparison with others which are not reprobated and the like is to be said proportionably of men of ripe years 4. The fourth Not only comparatively but absolutely there is no cause of reprobation Therefore neither sinne actuall nor originall nor both of them foreseen by God was indeed the meritorious and motive cause of the reprobation of any as touching all the effects thereof and the proofe hereof he prosecutes at large 5. Reprobation as touching the last effect thereof presupposeth in signo rationis the foresight of sinne originall or actuall for which a reprobate is damned Marke it well He does not say as the cause for which God decrees his damnation but as the cause for which a reprobate is damned And Aquinas whose followers the Dominicans are expresseth this doctrine in this manner and that more Scholastically and accurately then Alvarez Praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis ex parte paenae quae praeparatur reprobatis in quantum scilicet Deus proponit se puniturum malos propter peccata c. in Ad Rom. 9. Sect. 2. in fine that is Prescience of sinnes may be some reason of reprobation on the part of punishment to wit in as much as God purposeth to punish wicked men for their sinnes Where sinne is evidently made the cause of damnation and that by vertue of Gods purpose but by no means the cause of the
same nature with the naturall faculties of man As for the graces of Gods spirit what are these but the three Theologicall vertues all other are but Morall vertues sanctified by these Now shew me what Faith there is in God of the same nature with our Faith differing only in degree What hope there is in God of the same nature with our hope differing only in degree what charity there is in God of the same nature with our Charity differing only in degree These indeed being of all other the most peculiar fruits of regeneration whereby we are renewed after the image of God as touching the adventitious qualification of our natures should have Attributes divine answerable unto them if any of the same nature with them differing only in degree Yet herein as I conceive consists not so much our participation of the Divine Nature as in that the Spirit of God the Father and God the Sonne is communicated unto us given unto us to be the immediate fountain of all actions and motions spirituall in us 3. And albeit these Attributes which in common doe denominate God and man are one thing in God and in man another yet this nothing derogates from our imitation of God and striving to be perfect and holy in our kind as creatures like as God is perfect and holy in his kind as Creator And that I may represent some authority for my discourse whereas this Author represents none for his it is a poynt generally received in the Schooles that in this weaknesse of our understanding we come to know what God is by negation rather then by affirmation Capreolus upon the first of the Sentences Dist 2. Quest 1. rehearseth diverse passages out of Aquinas to this purpose as out of 1. Contra Gentes cap. 14. In consideratione Divinae substantiae praecipue utendum est via remotionis Nam Divina substantia omnem formam quam intellectus noster attingit suâ excedit immensitate Et sic ipsam apprehendere non pessumus cognoscendo quid est sed aliqualiter ejus notitiam habemus cognoscendo quid non est tantóque ejus notitiae magis appropinquamus quanto plura per intellectum nostrum poterimus ab eo removere Tanto enim unumquodque perfectiùs cognoscitur quanto differentias ejus ab alio pleniùs intuemur Quià in consideratione Divinae substantiae non possumus accipere quid quasi genus nec distinctionem ab aliis rebus per differentias affirmativas accipere possumus eam oportet accipere per differentias Negativas Id. 3. Contra gentes cap. 47. Per effectus Dei pertingere possumus ut cognoscamus de Deo quia est quod causa aliorum est aliis supereminens ab omnibus remotus hoc est ultimum perfectissimum nostrae cognitionis in hac vitâ ut Dionysius dixit lib. de Mysticâ Theologiâ Cum Deo quasi ignoto conjungimur quod quidem contingit cùm de Deo quid non sit cognoscimus quid vero sit penitùs manet ignotum unde ad hujusmodi sublimissimae cognitionis ignorantiam demonstrandam dicitur de Mose Exod 20. quod accessit ad caliginem in qua Deus er at In the consideration of the Divine Essence we must chiefly use the way of negation for the Divine Essence through its immensity doth exceed every forme that our understanding can conceive So that we cannot apprehend it by knowing what it is but after a sort we have the knowledge thereof by knowing what it is not And so much nearer doe we approach to the knowledge thereof the more we are able to remove from the nature of God For every thing is known so much the more perfectly by how much the more at full we doe behold how it differeth from other things Now in the consideration of the Divine essence we cannot take any thing as the Genus thereof neither can we apprehend its distinction from other things by differences affirmative and therefore we must apprehend it by differences negative The same Thomas in his Third Book Contra Gent. cap. 47. By the effects of God saith he we may attain to know that God is and that he is the cause of other things eminent above them and removed from them all and this is the last and most perfect degree of our knowledge in this life as saith Dionysius in his Book of Mysticall Divinity We are conjoyned with God as unknown which verily comes to passe when we know of God what he is not but what he is it remains utterly unknown unto us and therefore to demonstrate our ignorance of this most sublime knowledge it is said of Moses Exod. 20. that he came unto the darknesse where God was The same Capreolus proceeds to shew out of Aquinas in 1 Sent. Dist 8. q. 1. art 1. ad 4. How we must make progresse in our knowledge of God by way of remotion or negation Quando inquit in divinis procedimus per viam remotionis primò negamus corporalia Secundò intellectualia secundum quod inveniuntur in creaturis ut bonitas sapientia tunc remanet in intellectu Quod est nihil amplius unde est sicut in quadam confusione When saith he we proceed by way of remotion or negation in searching out the Divine nature first we deny of him all corporall things and secondly we deny of him all intellectuall things after such a sort as they are found in the creatures as godnesse and wisdome mark this well for these and such like are the vertues which this Author saith are of the same nature in God and man differing only in degree and then there remains in the understanding id quod est as much as to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ens and nothing more and hence the understanding remains as in a certain confusion And indeed the notion of entity is most generall most abstract and if any notion signifies one and the same nature such as may be affirmed of God and the creature surely this is it Now observe Aquinas his judgement concerning this out of the same Capreolus in these words Ad ultimum autem Essentiam ipsam secundum quod est in creatur is ab ipso removemus tunc remanet intellectus noster in quadam tenegrâ ignorantiae secundum quam ignorantiam quantum ad statum viae pertinet optime Deo conjungimur ut Dionysius dicit haec est caligo in qua Deus habitare dicitur To the last I answer the very entity or existence in the creatures we remove from God and then our understanding remains in the darknesse of ignorance according to which ignorance so farre forth as it pertains to our condition as Viatores and in the way we are conjoyned with God in the best manner as Denis saith and this is the darknes wherein God is said to dwell By this let any man judge whether this Authors discourse be not as opposite to the discourse of
nature then all things must be acknowledged to come to passe by necessity of their owne nature which is to deny God But if things be of their owne nature meerly possible and indifferent to become either future or non-future then there must be acknowledged some cause whereby they are brought out of the condition of things meerly possible into the condition of things future And this cause must exist from everlasting otherwise it should not be so ancient as the effect thereof for it is well knowne that all things future have been future from everlasting otherwise God could not have foreknown them from everlasting but all confesse that God from everlasting foreknew every future thing Therefore the cause making them to passe out of the condition of things meerely possible such as they were of their owne nature into the condition of things future was also from everlasting Now consider where was this cause to be found Not without God for nothing without God either was or is everlasting without beginning therefore is it to be found within God or no where Consider in the next place what is that within God which is fit to be the cause hereof We say 't is his decree but this Author cannot away with that Therefore Si quid novisti rectius isto candidus imperti Certainly the knowledge of God cannot be the cause for as Aquinas saith that causeth nothing but as joyned with Gods will and therefore it is commonly conceived that foreknowledge doth rather presuppose things future than make them so nothing then remaines to be the cause hereof but the essence of God Now the essence of God may be considered two waies either as working necessarily or as working freely if it be the cause of things future as working necessarily then it followeth that God shall produce them by necessity of nature which utterly overthrowes Divine providence What remaines then but that we must be driven to confesse that Divine essence makes them future as working freely which is as much as to professe that Gods will and decree is that alone which maketh things to passe out of the condition of things meerly possible in to the condition of things future And I challenge the whole Nation of Arminians and Jesuites to answer this argument Yet this decree we willingly acknowledge is a permissive decree but look that we understand that aright also thus God decreeth this or that evill to come to passe by his permission like as good things he decreeth shall come to passe by his effection and that upon Gods permission it is necessary that that which he permits shal come to passe is acknowledged not only by our Divines but by Vorstius by Arminians by Navarettus the Dominican as I have quoted thē in my Vinditiae gratiae Dei which yet they deliver without clear expressing how which I perform thus look what God decrees to permit it is necessary that it should come to passe but how Not necessarily but contingently freely And the Scripture is expresse as before expressed that the most barbarous actions cōmited against Christ by Herod Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and people of Israell in their contumelious usages of him were all predetermined by the hand and counsell of God Marke the issue of this Authors most frivolous discourses for this will whereof he speakes whereby God is pretended gratiously to will mans Salvation conditionall as much as to say 't is Gods will that a man shall be Saved in case he believe in Christ now what Christian was ever known to deny this Secondly consider whether this deserves to be called a will to save more than a will to damne for like as 't is certaine a man shall be saved if he believe in Christ so it is most certaine a man shall be damned if he believe not and withall consider to which of these the nature of man is most prone whether to faith or to infidelity DISCOURSE SECT VII BUt by this opinion the gifts of nature and grace have another end either God doth not meane them unto those that perish albeit they doe enjoy them because they are mingled in the world with the elect to whom only they are directed or if he doe he meaneth they shall have them and by them be lifted up above the common rank of men ut lapsu graviore ruant that their fall may be the greater for how can God intend that those men should receive them or any good by any of them whom he hath by an absolute decree cut off and rejected utterly from grace and glory More particularly by this doctrine 1. Christ came not into the world to procure the Salvation of them that perish because they were inevitably preordained to perish 2. The word is not sent to them or if it be it is that they might slight it or contemne it and increase their damnation by the contempt of it and so these inconveniences will arise 1. That God is a meere deceiver of miserable men whom he calls to Salvation in the name of his Sonne by the preaching of his word because he fully intends to most men the contrary to that which he fairly pretends 2. That Ministers are but false witnesses because in their Ministry they offer Salvation conditionally to many who are determined to damnation absolutely 3. The Ministry of the Word canot leave men inexcusable for Reprobates may have this just plea Lord dost thou punish for not believing in thy Sonne when thou didest call us to believe by the preaching of thy Word thou didest decree to leave us woefull men in Adams sinne to leave us neither power to believe nor a Christ to believe in how canst thou justly charge us with sinne or encrease our punishment for not believing in him whom thou didest resolve before the world was that we should never believe in That Ministry gives men a faire excuse which is given to no other end than to leave them without excuse 4. The Sacraments by this opinion signify nothing seale up conferre nothing to such as are not Saved but are meere blankes and empty ordinances unto them not through the fault of men but by the primary and absolute will of God 5. Lastly other gifts bestowed upon men of what nature soever they be are to the most that receive them in Gods absolute intention 1. Unprofitable such as shall never doe them good in reference to their finall condition 2. Dangerous and hurtfull given them not of love but extreame hatred not that they might use them well and be Blessed in so doeing but that they might use them ill and by ill using of them procure unto themselves the greater damnation God lifts them up as the Divell did Christ to the pinacle of the Temple that they might fall and loades them with knowledge and other goodly indowments that with the weight of them he might sink them into Hell and so by good consequence Gods chiefest gifts are intended and laid as snares
to entrap mens Soules Men that have them have little cause to be proud of them for they are the more unhappy because they have them or small reason to be thankfull for them or to love the giver of them but to hate rather because they are but giftlesse gifts no better than an usurers bounty Jaells courtesie Souls bestowing Michal to David or a bayte for a proud fish which he swallowes with an hooke to boore TWISSE Consideration VVEE have hitherto received a poore and hungry discourse but now in the accommodation of it he thunders lightneth as his manner is both the Master and the Disciple would have it in their owne power to make themselves elect otherwise it seemes they have little comfort and therefore they discharge a great noise of thunder against our Doctrine of reprobation as if they would awe God to give them liberty to elect themselves otherwise they will powder his absolutenesse in taking upon him to Reprobate whom he list Me thinkes these Arminians talke in the spirit of Dr Story as if they would scould us out of our faith I will not say God out of his Throne but he is able to plead his own we are unworthy to plead for him yet thus farre he is pleased to honour us as to admit us to plead for him like as he is the God that pleades the cause of his people I have shewed how absurdly this Author makes the salvation of reprobates to be intended by God which yet in the issue is but after a conditionall manner which is no more to intend their salvation then their condemnation well let us see the quality of these absurdities he fastens upon us The first is that God doth not meane the gifts of nature and grace unto those that perish where to I answer That as touching the gifts of nature there is no colour for this for they as the Author sets them downe are these creation sustentation preservation health beauty wisdome now let any sober man consider whether it be possible that it should not be Gods meaning for as many as doe enjoy them to enjoy them As for the gifts of grace these he divides into graces purchasing Salvation and graces applying Salvation after it is purchased the grace purchasing Salvation is Christ now we say that Salvation is purchased to be conferred upon every man of ripe yeares conditionall only namly in case he believes and on all that doe believe for our Saviour hath said that whosoever believes shall be saved whosoever believes not shall be damned as for the purchasing the grace of faith that we say is so purchased to be conferred absolutly and not upon condition of any worke for that is manifest Pelagianisme and therefore Christ dyed not to procure that for all for then all should believe de facto be saved therefore we say he dyed to procure this only for his elect But the Arminians doe now openly professe to the world that Christ merited not faith and regeneration for any so that God meant not that Christ should be given to any for the purchasing of faith for him So that herein certainly they are more to blame than we by this Authors rules As for the graces of applying Salvation these are the Ministry of the word and Sacraments the long suffering of God the illumination of mens understandings the plantation of many exellent vertues in their hearts I will answer particularly concerning thē all leaving those many more which he conceales to his owne enjoying the contemplation of them And first as touching the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments we willingly professe that we find no monument of the Americans enjoying of them before the discovery of that westerne world by Columbus Vesputius and Magellan no nor to this day in the terra incognita Australi whereof relation is made by Ferdenando de Quir but herein I confesse the Arminians goe beyond us in there spirituall discoveries for by the Catoptricke glasse of their owne fancy they tell us that though Christ hath not been preached amongst them by man yet it may be he hath been preacht amongst them by Angells and deliver it for certaine that having universall grace given them if they use that well as many as use it well shall have the Gospell preached unto them if not by men yet by Angells but as for the administration of the Sacraments by Angells also they have discovered nothing unto us hitherunto that I know And as for Gods patience undoubtedly they enjoy it as much as we if they be as long lived as we And I know nothing to the contrary as touching illumination naturall that I doubt is not meant to be comprehended under the graces aplying Salvation purchased by Christ yet why not as well as fortitude liberality temperance humility chastity and truly herein I doe not find them any whit inferiour unto Christians in some they went beyond us apparently if we goe beyond them in any thing I for my part take it to be in gace rather than nature As for illumination spirituall huhumane I know none they had and as for Angelicall Revelation that is a dish of Lettice for Arminian lippes I want faith to give me any stomach to it I come to those exellent vertues which this Author pretendes to have been planted in their hearts had he spared faith and repentance I could willingly have acknowledged the rest amongst heathens and that according to Gods meaning but what soever and in whome soever they are found he thinks too hardly of us when he saith that God according to our opinion doth not meane them to those that enjoy them and if he doth meane them unto such surely they are directed unto them how is it possible it should be otherwise especially as touching vertues yea and the Ministry of the Word also for he commanded them to Preach the Gospell to every creature to wit where they came only we willingly confesse then he doth not meane any of those shall bring any of them that perish unto Salvation Secondly as touching the lifting up of them up a bove the common ranke of men by these giftes heare is a miserable confused discourse so many things being put together to make up one tearme in a proposition but it is beneficiall to some to fish in troubled waters and if my answer savour of the like confusion it is nothing strange for he that walkes in the Sunne must needs be coloured But I think I may say looke what gifts men have caeteris paribus they are above the ranke of those that have them not but that they are given ut lapsu graviore cadant That their fall may be the greater This deserves to be particularly considered First in generall I say whosoever doth by occasion of those gifts here spoken of fall the more grievously which in many particulars is a mystery to me to the consideration whereof I purpose to descend in the next place God did both intend that
God that is not yet regenerated but yet neverthelesse they may be in good time Yet here also there is some defect for want of cleare explication of this truth For will you conclude hence that non-regeneration is the cause of infidelity as some doe in effect Why but this is either notoriously false or if true it is true in such a sense as whereby God is no more the cause thereof then a Physitian is the cause of a disease because he will not cure it For infidelity is a naturall fruit of mans hereditary corruption and God alone can cure it but if he will not God is not to be said to be the cause of any disobedience issuing therefrom otherwise then per modum non removentis by way of not removing the cause of it or per modum non dantis quod prohiberet by way of not curing the cause that is by not giving faith Now what harshnesse there is in this to as many as doe not concurre with the Pelagians so as in plain termes to professe that Grace is given according to mens works And the objection framed against Austin and grounded upon that doctrine which he acknowledged ranne thus Caeteri qui in peccatorum delectatione remoramini ideo nondum surrexistis quia nec dum vos adjutorium gratiae miserantis erexit Therefore you are not risen out of that delight you took in sinne because the succour of Gods grace hath not raised you not as Calvin expresseth it Therefore you believe not because ye are ordained to destruction And this very doctrine as formerly I said our Saviour spares not to apply to some particular persons and Preach it to their faces like as Moses Preacheth the very same doctrine to the Children of Israel Deut. 29. 2 3 4. Yet Austin to prevent harshnesse doth not like this manner of proposing it so well seeing it may be and it is fit it should be delivered coveniently thus Si qui autem ad huc in peccatorum damnabilium delectatione remoramini apprehenditis saluberrimam disciplinam Quod tamen cum feceritis nolite extolli quasi de operibus vestris aut gloriari quasi non acceperitis If any of you doe yet continue in the delightfull course of damnable sinnes take hold of wholesome discipline which when you have done be not proud thereof as of your own work or Glory as if you had not received this grace of God Now what advantagious service this first witnesse hath done him I am well content the indifferent may judge I come to his second witnesse that is of the Land-grave of Turing reported by Hesterbachius as I remember it is about the Twelfth Century of yeares since our Saviours incarnation This man being admonished by his friends of his dangerous and vitious courses made this answer Si praedestinatus sum nulla peccata poterunt mihi Regnum Caelorum auferre Si praescitus nulla bona mihi illud valebunt conferre It is not the first time I have met with this story not in Vossius only but in an Arminian Manuscript it seems they make some account of it yet I see no cause they should make any such account thereof It is the common voyce of prophane persons corrupting the doctrine of Predestination to serve their own turnes My selfe remember an instance of it in my minority when I was little more then a child and I remember both the Person whom and the place where it was delivered and it was accounted as a signe of a prophane heart yet this Vossius makes use of as an instance forsooth of a Predestination Heretique And I wonder why they doe not devise as well a Praescientiarian Heresy and that by as good an instance as this of one of Austins Monkes who being reproved by his brethren made the like answer as touching Gods praescience but yet with more sobriety saying Whatsoever I am now I shall be such as God foreseeth I will be Yet herein as Austin professeth he spake nothing but truth but the saying of the Landgrave implyes a notorious untruth namely that if he were predestinated he should be Saved though he continued in his sinfull courses Now this I say is a grosse untruth For predestination is the preparation of Grace as Austin desineth it and consequently such as are predestinated shall be taken off from their sinfull courses in good time and by Grace be brought unto Salvation In like sort he supposeth a Reprobate may be truly righteous whereas Austin professeth of such as are not predestinate that God brings none of them to wholsome and spirituall repentance whereby man is reconciled unto God in Christ what patience soever he affords them Contr. Jul. Pelag. l. 5. c. 4. Nay this kind of Argumentation drawn from destiny Stoicall wherewith our adversaries doe usually reproach our doctrine of Predestination like as the Pelagians did in the same manner reproach Saint Austins doctrine concerning Predestination I say this argument was in course and profligated in the daies of Cicero and censured as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an idle argumentation as before I mentioned and it is to be seen in Cicero his book De Fato and thereupon they distinguished of some things which they called Fatalia as victory and some things which they called Confatalia as all necessary meanes requisite to the getting of the victory And Origen though he be accounted a favourer of our adversaries Doctrine in his writings yet he shewes the vanitie of this Argument applyed to fate wherby undoubtedly he meanes providence divine For he proposeth such a kind of objection as if a sicke man should dispute himself from taking Physick after this maner Either by destiny is it appointed I shall recover or no If my destiny be to recover I shall recover though I use no Physicke if my destiny be not to recover all the Physitians in the world shal doe me no good And the vanity of this is represented by the like argument in another manner thus If it be thy desteny to beget children whether thou usest the company of Woemen or no thou shalt beget children And concludes thus Ut enim hic si fieri non potest ut quis procreat nisi cum muliere concubuerit sic si valetudinis recuperatio medicinae via efficitur necessariò adhibetur medicus The Greeke of Origen is set downe at large by Turnebus in his disputation upon Cicero his book De Fato against Ramus Now judge you I pray what colour of detriment to Religion hath he produced from our doctrine of absolute Reprobation and whether his discourse herein is any better then the imagination of a vaine thing DISCOURSE SECT IV. BUt there are two things chiefly which are said for the vindicating of this opinion from this crimination 1. First that many of them which believe and defend this opinion are Godly and holy men and therefore it doth not of it selfe open a way to liberty but through the wickednesse of men who pervert the
puritate tutius nihil ad discendum veritate facilius p 77. l. 4. or any p 78. l 46. conciliare p 80. l 12. but by p 82. l 39. worthily p 84. l 15. of other ib. l 17. of any p 89. l. 50. or to Beza and his brethren accusing Lutherans of those errours p. 92. l. ult libero p 93. l. 6 7. facite p 94. l 1. necessarily p 95. l 8. resolves it p 97. l 41. vessells on p 98. l 41. à Zenone p 99. l. 2. scio p. 108. l. 20. po sit l. 32. addition p 109. l. 33. distinguish p. 110. l. 20. the two p. 112. l 59. voluisse p. 117. l. 7. patientiam p 119. l 5. or the. p. 136. l 7. then he p 140. l. 30. non omnipotent p 142. l. 4. quiddam l. 13. nasceretur l. 39. Supralapsarian p 143. l 5. stroake p 147. l 52. as Lord. p. 151. l 5. more largely p. 162. l 2. conceited p 199. l. 26. this belike p 201. l. 20. filth p. 202. l. 12. patientiam p 244. l 51. apostatarum p 207. l. 27. definition of p 210. l 50. it doth end in a will conditionall p. 211. l. 39. poore fish p 221. l 27. by this have all the godly at all times encouraged themselves to well doing as we may see generally Phil. 3. 20. Colloss 1. 5. Tit. 2. 12 13. and particularly Heb. 11. Abraham c p 223. l. 31. lame post p 224. l 1. good waies p 229 l 10. absolutely l 59. histrionicall p. 230. l 11. quosdam l. 31. law of p. 233. l 1. burning of l. 14. imployed p. 234. l 12. yet his l 30. was it p 236. l 52. premises p. 237. l. 36. vel accepta perseverantia l 49. dele its l. 54. ista cum p. 240. l 5. is there p 242. l 21. a certain l 22. there he gives and workes faith in that one and not in another p 243. l 48. praecepta p. 248. l. 58. proposeth this p. 249. l. 9. is this p 253. l 30. fatum p. 254. l. 4. morietur p. 256. l. 14. and persovere l. 23. indifferent p. 259. l. 23 if they had we p. 260. l. ult heresie p 264. l 17. dele them p 270. l. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 273. l 39. purposeth thus p. 275. l. 3. marcuerat p. 277. l 11. did rest p. 282. l. 6. if it l 15. from Breame l. 42. change of p. 287. l 57. upon what p. 291. l. 34. dele who p. 292. l. 36. externall p. 298. l. 7. comforter and that all the consolation which he ministers is in Christ and if l 30. we cannot p. 299. l. 19. not that THE SECOND BOOK BEING AN EXAMINATION OF Certaine passages inserted into M r HORD'S discourse formerly answered by an Author that conceales his name but was supposed to be M r MASON Rector of Saint Andrews Vndershaft in LONDON OXFORD Printed by H. HALL for TH. ROBINSON 1653. TO THE READER THe Authour of this Treatise was perswaded to Pen the reasons of his opinion against absolute Reprobation that he might satisfie a worthy friend of his who required it VVhat satisfaction that learned Gentleman his friend hath received by these reasons I know not but sure I am they have given good content to some others who have read them and doe still desire a Copie of them for their farther use To ease whose paines in transcribing this Treatise it doth now appeare in this forme If any of contrary opinion shall undertake to answer or refute it I wish he would set downe his opinion and reasons with that perspicuitie and modestie that our Authour hath set downe his Such a course of disputing will gaine more credit to himselfe and his cause then voluminous Vagaries about impertinent things If any shall use railing speeches or unnecessary diversions from the cause I shall ever interpret that to be a strong signe of a weake cause or at least I shall think it to be an argument of an obstinate minde who neither knoweth how to yeeld to the Truth nor to defend his errour I hope the Reader who loveth his owne salvation will be a more indifferent Iudge in a question which concerneth him so nearely And so I leave him to God's blessing THE PREFACE WHen first I lighted upon a treatise intituled God's love to mankind and read a little way in it I had reason to be acquainted with it though the Authors face I had never seen Upon the first relation of the change of his opinion in certaine controversies as he pretended I was intreated to conferre with him thereupon by word of mouth My answer was that it was more fit to conferre in writing and if he would be drawne to communicate the reasons of his pretended change I should willingly take them into consideration This motion was made in the yeare 1631. being then at London the yeare following in the month of July as I remember was the discourse of M r Hord's sent unto me and I was urged upon my former promise to make answer thereunto At that time I had another businesse under my hand which I could not dispatch in lesse then two months space or more but I was wished to take my owne time As soone as I was free from my former taske I set hand to this and returned my answere thereunto unto the Gentleman that set me on worke about the end of Hillary terme Anno Dom 1632. But observing the bulke of the treatise now in print twice as bigge as that in manuscript or more I expected a reply to my former answer but upon perusall I found nothing lesse whereat I wondred not a little having never heard of any such treatise untill the last sommer 1635 for surely they had time enough to answer it To helpe the credit of their cause in this it seemed good unto them to raise a mist that their absurd carriage might not be discovered to witt by antedating the print thereof which yet was but newly found creeping in corners Another devise there is by a large interpolation and addition here and there foysted into the body of the former discourse and yet not all at once but by pathes a great part of it being but lumber and the adding of more testimonies as if the matter were to be carried by number and not by weight or as if the Author of them were willing to make ostentation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and fullnesse of his common place booke Only the upper way of our Divines maintayning the absolutenesse of God's decrees is here inpugned at large with the Authors best strength I doubt not which taske was omitted by Mr Hord And besides there is one Divine attribute more here mentioned in contradiction whereunto the Doctrine of our Divines is pretended to proceed and the prosecution hereof amongst the rest is here set downe by way of superfaetation upon the former not only that so the argument might be the more compleat but also
him to be of the same mind with Raynold the Fox who having lost his owne tayle in a Ginne afterwards he endevours very composedly to perswade his fellowes to cut of their tayles also And to that purpose suffered his wit to exuberate in representing and amplifying the incommodious condition of such a member Railing speeches I know no reason why any man should feare from his adversary for such Hierome hath taught me doe defile the Railer only not him that is railed on And if any man be pleased to spit in my face that way though I am naturally very melancholly yet I am perswaded he shall find little melancholly predominant in my answering him As for unnecessarie divisions for the cause which he doth seriously and wisely admonish his Adversary to beware of I willingly professe I love to have Sea roome and not to be confined unto straights by any sullen rules of my Adversarie and truly I perscribe to none but as I find him so I frame my selfe to grapple with him as congruously as I can If God be on my side why should I be afraid of any colours Let the Divell and all his Angels of Darknesse lye in camp against me I shall not budge But here is danger mentioned which I professe I did not project and that is the dashing of my selfe upon the rocks of my Adversaries displeasure And his interpretation of my courses to my displeasure For if I doe not conforme to his sullen rules of Stoicall moralitie he shall ever interpret it I marke well the Phrase he comes not willingly on to make harsh interpratations but he shall doe it as much as to say the uprightnesse of his judgment and the justice of his disposition will urge him hereunto namely to interpret it As a strong signe of a weake cause or at least an Argument of an obstinate minde But soft and faire who made my Adversary my Judge by whose interpretations I am to stand or fall How Imperiously doth he carry himselfe in this as if he were some Bugbeare or dreadfull Adversary doe I say or Magistrate rather see the poverty of my wit and of my Spirit too the one was never so inventious of any such trick nor the other so audacious or immodest if I may be so bold soe to speak as to serve my selfe therewith to scarre my Adversary desparing by faire waies to overcome him and make him yeild or else his obstinacy knowne to the world for who seeth not that I have as much authoritie to threaten him with the sharpnesse of my interpretations of him as he to threaten me not with the like austerenesse of his I am willingly content the world may judge between us both of the cause debated and of our carriage therein throughout and who hath the truth on his side and shews most learning and honesty in the maintayning of that he undertakes I willingly confesse the five points controverted are tender points and the knowledge of the truth herein meerly concerning a mans salvation But this Author deales only upon the halfe of one of them and that most needlesse also And the resolution of the Doctrine of Election depends upon the resolution of the doctrine of Election depends upon the resolution of an other point namely whether Grace be conferred freely or according to mens workes That it is conferred freely and not according to workes hereupon it is that Austin builds the absolutenesse of predestination and election wherence it followeth evidently that as many as doe maintaine the Decree of predestination to be conditionall must also in Austin's judgment maintaine that Grace is given according unto workes which was of old condemned in the Synod of Palaestine and all along in divers Synods and Provinciall Councells against the Pelagians Now if Predestination be absolute and not conditionall it followes that Reprobation also is absolute and not conditionall which consequence I presume the Author of these additions will not deny But as there is a great deale of craft in dawbing so these craftie Crowders are apt to worke upon generalities and in distinctions Reprobation we know is as well from Grace as from glory and God's reprobation from glory is joyned with a purpose to inflict damnation Now as touching Reprobation from grace we readily professe that God hath both ordained to deny grace unto some of his meere pleasure like as he hath ordained to bestow that upon others of his meere pleasure and also of his meere pleasure hath made such a decree And these Authors dare not mainifestly oppose us in this argument lest the sower leaven of their Pelagian Tenet manifest it selfe to the whole world namely in maintaining that grace is conferred according to workes But as touching reprobation from Glory and God's purpose to inflict Damnation These Juglers so carry the matter as if they would make the world believe our Doctrine is that God decreed to deny men Glory and to inflict Damnation not for their sinnes but meerely because it is his pleasure so to doe a most unshamefast crimination For albeit that God hath made no law according whereunto he proceeds in giving grace unto some and denying it unto others but herein proceeds meerely according unto his pleasure and not according to men's workes it being manifest Pelagianisme to affirme the contrary yet we openly willingly profes And all the Christian world knowes it to be true That God hath made a law whereunto according he proceeds in the distribution of rewards and Punishments namely these Whosoever believeth shall be saved whosoever believeth not shall be damned And according to this law God hath decreed from everlasting to proceed in pronouncing the sentence of Salvation and Damnation on mankind namely to bestow Salvation not of his meere pleasure without all respect of the workes of men but as a reward of their faith repentance and good workes and to inflict damnation not of his owne meere pleasure without any respect to the workes of men but as a due reward for their sinnes never broken of by repentance Only this decree thus to proceed in the execution of rewards and punishments we professe God hath made according to the meere pleasure of his will whereby it is apparent that these men play the part of notable Impostours when they abuse the world's credulitie in making them believe that we maintaine any such absurd decrees or executions of decrees which they obtrude upon us and to this purpose these are willing to take the benefit and advantage of Confusion for it is most profitable for some to fish in troubled waters and to walke in the darke But when the light of distinction comes this madd's them to see their impostures discovered and their sophistications made to appeare in their proper colours The eye of the Adulterer saith Iob waiteth for the twilight and saieth no eye shall see me and disguiseth his face They dig through houses in the darke which they marked for themselves in the day they know not
be such a God A Morall efficient is twofold being only of a moveing nature to move others to doe somewhat as namely either by perswading or by meriting or deserving He that perswades moves an other to doe some what he that meriteth thereby moves another either to reward him or punish him Now to walke in the light of this distinction and not to please our selves by walking in darknesse though God be the prime principall and invincible cause of man's damnation in the kind of a cause efficient physicall which should not seeme strange to an ordinary Christian who knowes full well that vengeance is God's peculiar worke as the Iudge of all the world and that he delights in the execution thereof yet this hinders not but that man may be the cause of his own damnation in the way of a meritorious cause justly deserving it Omnis poena Deum habet Authorem All punishment hath God for the Authour of it This is a principle acknowledged both by the Arminians and Vasquez the Jesuite but never is punishment inflicted on any by the hands of God save on those who formerly have deserved it Consider we farther as touching the severall kinds of causes formerly mentioned if the question be which is the principall Aristotle answereth that this is not confined to any one kind of them somtimes the materiall cause somtimes the formall cause somtimes the efficient somtimes the finall cause is the demonstrative cause the cause propter quam the cause by vertue where of the effect hath its existence but this peculiar and speciall cause is described thus It is that whereby satisfactory answer is made to the question demanding why such a thing is Now in execution of punishment or condigne vengeance this satisfactory answer is made by representing the meritorious cause never by representing the efficient cause as for example if it be demanded why such a malefactor is executed upon the gallowes no sober man will answer because the Sheriffe cōmanded it to be so or because the Judge would have it so but because he robd upon the high way or committed some criminall fact or other which is capitall by the lawes of our land and to be punished with hanging upon the gallowes In like sort if question be made why devills or wicked men are damned is it our doctrine to referre the cause hereof to the mere pleasure of God Doe not all confesse that God inflicts damnation upon thē merely for their sinnes and transgressions wherein they have continued unto death without repentance Yet we acknowledge that God could have taken them off from their sinnes while they lived if he would by giving them repentance as he hath dealt with us and that merely of his free grace For we willingly confes that our sinnes are our owne but our faith is not our repentance is not When I say our owne I meane in respect that they are of our selves otherwise we acknowledge both faith and repentance to be our owne accipiendo in asmuch as we receive them but they are God's gifts and so they are his dando in asmuch as he gives them as Remigius speaketh Now what is become of this Authours pompous discourse Is it not the like the cracking of thornes in the fire making a great noise but the light of distinction like fire sets an end unto it and makes it appeare in its owne likenesse and proves nothing but a squib For albeit God in his decree makes the damnation of reprobates to be necessary and unavoidable yet seeing he makes it not to fall on any but for their sinnes what colour of dishonour unto God in ordaining that Iudas shall necessarily and unavoidably be damned for betraying the Sonne of God and afterwards most desperatly murthering himselfe If hereupon he could no more avoid his damnation then Astionax could the breaking of his neck when the Grecians tumbled him downe from the tower of Troy will any man that is not bereaved of common sense make strange of this It is true God did appoint both Iudas and all other wicked persons that never break off their sinnes by repentance unto destructiō of his own voluntary disposition For God workes all things according to the counsaile of his will and if it pleased him he could annihilate them upon the fresh foot of any sin or after they have suffered the vengeance of hell fire as many yeares in hell as they lived here in sinne yea and the devills in hell as Origen was of opinion and the Jewes at this day are of the same by Sir Edwin Sandes his relation whether this Author be of the same or not I know not And lastly we willingly confesse that the decree of God was antecedent to the deserts of men for reprobation is as antient as election and election was made before the foundation of the world if we believe Saint Paul rather then any other who either by word or deed doth manifest himselfe to be of a contrary opinion Still damnation is inflicted by God only for sinne and in degree answerable unto their sinnes and only because of their sinnes as a meritorious cause thereof though God makes use of it to his owne ends and the manifestation of his owne glory as Solomon professeth namely that God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill And Saint Paul tells that as the Lord suffereth with long patience the vessells of wrath prepared to destruction that he might shew his wrath and make his power known So likewise another reason hereof he specifies to be this That he might declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory For when we shall behold the unspeakable misery brought upon others by reason of their sinnes how rich will God's glory appeare unto us when we consider that had it not been for his free grace delivering us from sinne we had been swallowed up of the same sorrowes And thus Alvarez writeth disput III. The glory of God's mercy in his elect and in like manner the manifestation of divine justice on Reprobates is truely and properly the finall cause why God did permit sinnes both in Reprobates and Angells And he proves it out of this passage of Saint Paul So Aquin 1 p. pag. 23. art 5. This is the reason saith he why God hath chosen some and Reprobated others that representation might be made of Gods goodnesse towards the Elect in the way of mercy pardoning them and on the Reprobates in the way of justice punishing them And Alphonsus Mendoza a Scotist concurres with them in this and we see they make Saint Pauls doctrine their foundation And indeed albeit at the day of judgment there will be found a vast difference between the Elect and Reprobates the one having departed this life in the state of faith repentance the other in infidelitie and impenitency in such sort as God will bestow on his elect
Agents by whom they are acted to doe otherwise Yet there is another difference according to the morall condition of these actions For if they are good and so farre as they are goood they come to passe by Gods working of them but if they are evill and so farre as they are evill they come to passe onely by Gods permitting according to that of Austin Non aliquid sit nisi omnipotēs fieri velit vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo Not any thing comes to passe but God willing it either by suffering it to wit in case it be evill or himselfe working it to wit in case it be good And according to that eleventh Article of Religion agreed upon by the Arch-Bishop and Bishops and the rest of the Clergy in Ireland which is this God from all eternity did by his unchangeable counsell ordaine whatsoever should come to passe in time yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures and neither the liberty nor the contingency of the second causes is taken away but established rather Farther consider it is confessed by all that God concurres in producing the act of sinne as an efficient cause thereof not morall but naturall And Aquinas himselfe though he denyes that Voluntas Dei est malorum Because indeed as Hugo de Sancto Victore observes by the will of God is commonly understood in this case Voluntas approbans his will approving it and loving it And so it is justly denyed that God doth will evill things speaking of the evill of sinne Yet Aquinas professeth and disputes and proves that Actus peccati est a Deo the Act of sinne is from God Like as the Act of walking is from the soule though the lamenes in walking ariseth from some disease in the legge Now the Devill concurres not in this manner to any act of sin neither is the efficient cause thereof in the Kinde of a Naturall efficient but onely Morall by tempting and perswading What therefore shall we conclude as this Authour doth without feare or witt or honesty that by the confession of all men God is hereby made worse then the Devill To what abominable courses do the wilde witts and profane hearts of these men expose them The greatest works of Satan in moving men to sin are comprehended under blinding and hardening of them Now these operations are also attributed to God And like enough he doth usually performe them not by the ministry of his holy Angells but by the Ministry of Satan and his Angells of Darkenesse as we read 1. Kings 22. v. 21. 22. 23. Ioh 13. 27. Acts 5. 3. What then shall the Devill so farre possesse our hearts as to break forth into such intolerable blasphemyes as to conclude hereupon that God is bad or worse then the Devill The providence of God I willingly confesse is wonderfull and mysterious in this like unto the Nature of God to be adored rather then pryed into So this providence to be dreaded rather then for satisfaction to every wanton and wild witt to be searched into Yet all confesse that the Lord could hinder all this if it pleased him and rebuke Satan and restraine the power and stop the course of sin and prevent occasions leading thereunto but he will not and why But because he knowes it becomes his allmighty power and wisdome infinite rather exmalis bene facere quà m malum esse non sinere To worke good out of evill then not at all to suffer evill Lastly what meanes this Authour to carry himselfe so as to betray so strange ignorance in mitigating Satans operation in tempting unto sin as if this were not sufficient to make him the Authour of sin Especially considering the reason that moves him hereunto which is meerely the delight that he takes in dishonouring God and being a desperate spirit himselfe to make as many as he can partakers of the same desperate condition For cupiunt perditi perdere sayth Cyprian cum sint ipsi paenales quaerunt sibi ad poenam comites being damned themselves they desire to damne as many as they can And being bound in chaines and kept to the judgement of the great day they desire to have as many companions as they can in drinking of that cup of trembling and sucking the very dreggs of that cup of trembling and wringing them out For as the Historian observes Maligna est calamitas cum suo supplicio crucietur acquiescit alieno Calamity makes a man of a spightfull nature and when himselfe is tormented he takes content in this that others suffer with him And as the Oratour observes Nullum adversarium magis metuas quà m qui non potest vivere potest occidere No adversary more to be feared then he who cannot live himselfe yet can kill another This makes a coward resolute when he must needs dye he will fight like a mad man and kill all he can I say what meanes this Authour to carry the matter hand over head as if it were without question That he is not the Authour of sinne who onely is a Morall cause thereof but rather he that is the naturall efficient whereas great Divines carry it to the contrary As namely Dominicus Soto in his first booke of nature and grace chap 18. Although sayth he there are many that thinke it hard to explicate how in the hatred of God which hath an inward and indivisible malignity God can be the cause of the entity but not of the fault Yet this is not so hard to be understood Then he proceeds to shew how this may be First laying for his ground what it is to be the cause of sinne thus In morall actions he is altogether and is judged to be the cause who by a law or help or counsell or favour or perswasion moves any one either to good or evill Observe I pray the doctrine of this School-Divine directly contrary to that which this Authour supposeth without all proofe For in the judgement of Dominicus Soto he onely is to be accounted the cause of another mans sinne who is the morall cause thereof as by tempting counselling perswading thereunto And upon this ground he proceeds to free God from being the Authour of it after this manner But as for God he by all these wayes moves his creatures to that which is good and honest and none at all to evill Neither is the doctrine of Dominicus Soto alone but the common doctrine of the Divines of Salamancha as Molina confesseth in his disputation 23. And albeit Molina the Jesuite were of another opinion Yet Vasquius the Jesuite professeth that he was ever of the same minde with Dominicus Soto and the Divines of Salamancha in this In his 129 disputation upon the first part of his Summes As for Prosper he hath no such argument But first observe the Objection whereunto he answereth was made against the Doctrine of Austin as the Authour acknowledgeth Whence it followeth that looke
willed by him but only on some things Divina volunt as non omnibus sed quibusdam necessitatem imponit And in the body of that question thus he writes The distinction of things necessary and contingent proceeds from the distinction of God's will For when a cause is effectuall and powerfull to worke the effect followeth the cause not only so farre as to be brought to passe but also as touching the manner of its coming to passe Therefore seing the will of God is most effectuall it not only followeth that those things come to passe which God will have come to passe but that they come to passe after the same manner also after which he will have them come to passe Now God will have some things come to passe necessarily and some things contingently that there may be an order in things for the perfection of the world And therefore for the producing of some effects he hath fitted causes necessary which cannot faile by which effects are brought forth necessarily And for the producing of other effects he hath fitted causes contingent such as may faile in working from which effects are brought to passe contingently So that upon suspicion that God doth will a thing that thing shall certainly and infallibly come to passe but how Not allwaies necessarily or contingently And that certaine and infallible eveniency of things is called also necessity in the Schooles but not necessity simply but only upon suspicion which may well consist with absolute contingency But to make the point yet more cleare Let us distinctly consider the things decreed For they that have an evill cause delight in confusion and feare nothing more then the light of distinction Now the things decreed by Reprobation are either deniall of Grace which is joyned with the permission of sinne Or damnation for sinne according to that on Aquinas Reprobation includes the will of permitting sinne inflicting damnation for sinne Now both the permission of sinne and damnation of God's part are his free acts and therefore come to passe freely But upon supposition that God will deny a man Grace it is impossible that such a man should have grace Secondly secluding grace there is noe actuall transgression for which a man is damned but may be avoided man having power for that naturally though naturally he have noe power to performe every good act The reason is because amongst good acts some are supernaturall as the acts of the three Theologicall vertues Faith Hope and Charity But noe sinfull act is supernaturall all such are naturall Now it is confest on all hands that notwithstanding man's corruption by reason of originall sinne yet he hath still power and free will to performe any naturall act and accordingly he hath free power to abstaine from it So that Iudas had free will to abstaine from betraying his Master After he had betrayed him he had free power to abstaine from destroying himselfe so that as these sinnes of his for which he was damned were avoidable by him in like manner his damnation for these sinnes was avoidable And allbeit God had determined that Iudas by Divine permission should betray his Master and destroy himselfe according to to that of Austin Iudas electus est ad prodendum sanguinem Domini Iudas was ordained to betray his master And that of the Apostles jointly Of a truth against thy holy Son Iesus both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered to doe what thy hand and thy counsell had before determined to be done Acts 4. 28. Yet herehence it followes only that it was necessary to wit upon this supposition namely of the Divine ordinance that these things should come to passe namely both Iudas his betraying of Christ and Herods mocking of him and Pilates condemning him and the peoples crying out away with him together with their preferring of Barrabas a murtherer before him and the Souldiers crucifying him But how came it to passe Not necessarily but contingently that is in this Authours phrase evitably and avoidably inas much as it was joyned with an absolute possibility to come to passe otherwise Nor with a possibility only but with a free power in the agents to have forborne all these contumelious carriages of theirs towards the son of God For both Iudas had free will to abstaine from betraying him and Herod with his Herodians could have abstained from their contumelious handling of him and Pilate from condemning him and the Preists and people from conspiring against him and the Souldiers from crucifying him only they had no power to abstaine from all or any of these vile actions in an holy manner as no man else hath power to abstaine from any evill in a gracious manner without grace Yea without the Grace of regeneration which alone plants in us both faith in God and a love of God to the very contempt of our selves and no performance of any good or abstinence from any evill is acceptable with God unto eternall life unlesse it proceed from this faith and this love That which is here produced out of Marlorate is a strange speech and such as I never read or heard from any before and such as whereof I can give no tolerable construction And is it fit that every extravagant passage that is found in any Writer of ours should be brought forth to charge our doctrine with It were a fitter speech for a Papist who maintaining the absolutenesse of Reprobation doth withall maintaine an apostacy from grace which we do not If Marlorate had any such opiniō he sings therein to himself to his own Muses What Divine of ours maintains that God hath decreed to damne any man otherwaies then by way of punishment for sin continued in unto death without repentance Had he spoken of Good works morall only it is true any hypocrite is capable of them and none taste deeper of Damnation then hypocrites But as for the worke of true faith true repentance it is the generall profession of our Divines that as faith and the spirit of repentance once given never faile so they shall infallibly bring a man unto everlasting life and free him from condemnation But any thing serves this Authors turn to vent his stomack And I am perswaded there is not one more of all our Divines that he can shew to concurre with Marlorat in this And if there were is it fit their improvident inconsiderate expressions should be cast in their teeth that avouch them not but rather conceive them to be void of all sobriety Brentius apud Marloratum in illud Ioh. 15. 2. Omnem palmitem in me non ferentem fructum tollet c. Caeterum haec sententia occurrit curiositati carnis quae solet argutè magis quà m reverenter de praedestinatione disserere pro suo ingenio colligere nullum à Domino ad vitam aeternam electum posse damnari etiamsi pessimè vivat Nullum item à Domino
ad ignem aeternum deputatum posse salvari etiamsi optimè vivat se itaque velle pro suâ libidine vivere Ut ut enim sollicite lahoret non tamen posse decretum Dei infringere Respondet hic Christus Omnem palmitem c. qnod dicitur Quid ad te de occultâ Dei praedestinatione Hoc tu videris ut tu in me maneas fructum feras reliquae dispensationi prudentiae Dei committenda sunt Nam etiamsi videar is ad aeternam salutem praedestinatus non tamen fructum feras abjicieris in ignem tanquam infructuosus palmes He instances in Saul then whom there was not a better man in Israel That which is here cited out of Marlorat his Expositio Ecclesiastica it is set down as in Calvin's Commentary but no such thing is found in Calvin And it may be that is the fault of the Printers mistaking And Marlorat's own exposition succeeds in a few words thus Quae ideò dicuntur non ut fideles inde ansam arripiant de suâ salute dubitandi sed ut carnalis securitas ignavia ab hominibus tollatur And the next sentence whence this question is taken seems to cohere with this though a great C. as if it were Calvin's comes in between and it begins thus Certum est enim dècretum Dei à nemine infirmari posse quia Deus non est ut homo qui poenitentiam agat retractet sententiam semel decretam Then followes the passage here alleadged and at the heels of it these words Time igitur in solam Domini eligentis manum respice ut salutem per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum assequaris Undoubtedly Marlorat approves of Brentius his exposition otherwise he would not have placed it in his Expositio Ecclesiastica Now Brentius brings in the very saying for which Maldonat is criminated as the objection of some carnall person Therefore when Marlorat seems to justifie such a saying it must be in another sense and that either of good workes in shew of which Brentius also observed that such might have been found in Saul Or of workes in distinction from faith And accordingly he concludes with exhortation feare that is not to be secure how good soever his workes are but to have an eye to God and trust only to him that so he may obtain salvation through Jesus Christ Calvin in Ioh. 15. 6. Arescere dicuntur instar emortua sarmenta quae à Christo resecta sūt quia sicuti initiū vigoris ab ipso est ita continuus tenor Non quòd ex electis aliquem contingat unquam execari sed quia multae hypocritae in speciem ad tempus florent virent qui postea in reddendo fructu spem domini frustrantur They are said to to wither like a branch cut off such as are cut off from Christ because like as the beginning of their vigour is from him so also their continuance Not that at any time it falleth out that any of Gods Elect is cut off but because many Hypocrites carry a faire shew for a time as if they were green and flourishing who afterwards in rendring fruit make void the Lords Expectation 2. The decree of Reprobation as touching one part of it cannot be executed without sin For it is a decree of inflicting damnation for sin so that there is no place for damnation where sinne and that as a meritorious cause preceeds not I had thought this Authour needed not to runne out to Piscator and Maccovius for proofe of this neither Arminius nor the Authour is of any other opinion I am confident then that the decree of damnation cannot be executed on any without the precedency of sin in the party who is to be damned But there is another part of Reprobation For as Aquinas speakes it includes the will of permitting sin Now the execution of this decree which consists in the permitting of sin doth not require the precedency of sinne For when God first permitted the Angels to fall this permission of his did not require any precedency of sinne in them nor the permission of Adam to fall it cannot be said without manifest contradiction that it did For before the first sinne there was no sinne Piscator saith that God created men for this very purpose that they might fall he saith hoc consilio which is as much as to say with this purpose not for this purpose to wit to permit them to fall And God purposing this purposed that they should fall by his permission For Arminius confesseth that in case God permits a man to will this or that Necesse est ut nullo argumentorū genere persuadeatur ad nolendum It must needs be that no argument shall perswade him to will that which God permits him to will And that it is good that evill should come to passe by God's permission both Austine hath affirmed Bellarmine subscribed And shall it not be lawfull for God to will that which is good Undoubtedly neither justice punishing nor mercy pardoning can be manifested without sin either to be punished or pardoned or both neither is it credible to me that this Authour thinks otherwise And is not the manifestatiō of God's mercy on some and his justice on others the supreme end of God's providence towards mankind and consequently by the most received rules of Schooles first intended even before the permisson of sinne For if the permission of sinne were first intended then by the same rule of Schooles it should be in the last place executed that is God should first manifest his mercy and justice in pardoning some and punishing others and afterwards suffer them to sinne such is the learning and judgments of these Divines And as for the foresight of sin it is apparent that it presupposeth God's purpose to permit it and more then that it presupposeth the fruition of it Now it is well knowne that sinne in its own nature is meerly possible How comes it to passe that from the condition of a thing meerly possible it hath passed into the condition of a thing future This cannot be done without a cause and that cause must be eternall for the effect was eternall For from everlasting sinne was future for from everlasting God knew it to be future Now there is nothing everlasting but God himselfe therefore he must needs be the cause of this transition whereby a thing meerly possible in its own nature became future And therefore either by his knowledge he was the cause thereof or by his will and decree Not by his knowledge for that rather supposeth thē to be future then makes them such It remaines therefore that the will of God and that alone makes every future thing to passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the condition of a thing future and that from everlasting Let this Authour satisfie this argument and I will ease him of all further paines and lay down the bucklers before
words ye therefore heare them not because ye are not of God now what reasonable mā can deny but that it is a sin not to heare God's words then doth not our Saviour plainly professe that the true cause hereof is because they are not of God Now if to be of God in this place doth signifie God's Election then the cause of their sinnes hereby is made God 's not electing of them But if this phrase To be of God signifie God's regenerating of them as I thinke it doth then God's not regenerating of them is made the cause of this their disobedience in not hearing God's word 's and indeed the evill of sinne hath noe efficient cause but deficient only as Austine hath delivered long agoe And God is not bound to any either to elect him or regenerate him so that in failing to regenerate mā he doth not deficere or faile in any culpable mā ner now let every indifferent Reader judge whether here be not Dignus vindice nodus a knot worthy to be loosed it will require some worth of learning in him that solves it And is it decent for this Authour to censure a man for a conclusion made by him out of the word of God without shewing the faultinesse either of his interpretation thereof or of his consequence framed therehence So that this Author's wit cunning is more to be cōmended in not specifying the place where Piscator delivers this doctrine then either his learning or his honesty He was loath to raise spirits afterwards to prove unable to lay them Therefore thus I answer in behalfe of Piscator though God her by me made the cause why sōe heare not God's words to wit in as much as he doth not regenerate thē nor give the eies to see nor eares to heare an heart to perceive according to that of Moses Yet he doth not make God any culpable cause neither indeed is he any culpable cause while he failes to performe so gracious a worke towards thē the reason whereof is this He and he alone is a culpable cause who failes in doing that which he ought to do ut God all be it he doth not regenerate a man yet he failes not of doing that which he ought to doe For it is no duty of his to regenerate any man for he is bound to none Now to be the Authour of sinne is not only to be the cause thereof but to be a culpable cause thereof Undoubtedly God could preserve any man from sinne if it pleased him and if he doth not he is nothing faulty Secondly I answere that in true account God is only the cause why our naturall infidelity is not healed our corruption not cured Like as a Physitian may be said to be the cause why such a man continues sicke in as much as he could cure him but will not Soe God could cure the infidelitie of all but will not Only here is the difference the Physitian may be a culpable cause as who is bound to love his neighbour as himselfe but God being bound to none is no culpable cause of man's continuance in sinne and in the hardnesse of his heart albeit he can cure him but will not As for Piscator's saying here mentioned Reprobates are appointed precisely to this double evill to be punished everlastingly and to sinne and therefore to sinne that they may be justly punished Hereing are two things charged upon Piscator 1. That Reprobates are precisely appointed by God to perish everlastingly To this I answer that noe Arminiā that I know denies Reprobates to be appoinby God to everlasting damnation All the question is about the manner of appointing them namely whether this appointment of God proceeds meerly according to his meer pleasure or upon the foresight of sinne We say it proceeds meerly according to the good pleasure of God and not upon the foresight of sinne preceding And this we not only say but prove thus If reprobation proceed upon the foresight of sinne then it were of men's evill workes Now looke upon what grounds the Apostle proves that election is not of good workes upon the same ground it is evident that reprobation is not of evill works for the argumēt for the one is this Before Iacob Esau were borne or had done good or evill it was said to Rebekah the elder shall serve the younger therfore election is not of good works In like manner thus I reason concerning Reprobation Before Iacob and Esau were borne or had done good or evill it was said to Rebekah the elder shall serve the younger therefore reprobation is not of evill workes 2. If God doth ordaine any man to damnation upon foresight of sin then this sin foreseen is the cause of the Divine ordinance but sin foreseen cannot be the cause why God ordained man to damnation as I prove thus If it be the cause then either by the necessity of nature or by the ordinance of God not by necessity of nature For undoubtedly God if it pleased him could ordaine to annihilate them for their sinnes instead of punishing them with eternall fire Nor can it be the cause of any such decree by the free ordinance of God For if it were marke what intolerable absurdityes would follow namely this That God did ordaine that upon the foresight of sinne he would ordaine men unto damnation whereby God's eternall ordination is made the object of God's ordination whereas all know that the Objects of God's decrees which are all one with his ordinations are things temporall not things eternall 3. If the foresight of sinne goes before the decree of damnation then the decree of permitting sinne goes before the decree of damning for sin that is the permission of sinne was first in intention and consequently it ought to be last in execution that is First man should be damned for sin and not till afterwards permitted to sinne The second thing charged upon Piscator is this that Reprobates are precisely appointed to sin Now here the crimination grates not upō the manner of being appointed thereunto otherwise a way could be opened for a progresse in infinitum Now why should it be any more a fault in Piscator to say of some that they are appointed to sinne then in Peter to say of some that they are appointed to disobedience or in all the Apostles to professe that all the outrages committed by Herod and Pilate by the Gentiles and people of Israell were such as Gods hand his counsell had before determined to be done or why doth Piscator make God to be the Authour of sinne in this more then Peter and all the Apostles And considering this man's unconscionable carriage in this let the Reader take heed how he suffers himselfe to be gull'd by this Authour and drawne to censure such speeches in Piscator as making God the Authour of sinne when hereby he is drawne ere he is aware to passe the like censure on the Apostles And the
his own hand still and hereby occasions and opportunities are offered from time to time for a man to advantage himselfe in sinfull courses either in the way of profit or satisfying his unclean lusts And Arminius confesseth that the administration of Arguments and occasions which provoke to such an act as cannot be committed by the creature without sinne if not by Gods intention yet at least according to the creatures affection and often according to the events that arise therehence This administration I say Arminius confesseth doth belong to the Divine providence And these arguments he saith are objected ther to the mind of man or to his senses outward or inward and that either by the mediate worke of the creatures comming between or by God's immediate action And that the end of this Divine administration is to make tryall whether the creature will abstaine from sinne even then when it is provoked thereunto As for the triall of David was Bathsheba going â—oâ—th to wash her selfe objected to David whereupon he was inflamed with lusts Ioseph was not though farre more strongly sollicited by the temptations of his wanton Mistris Secondly to necessitate the will or determine the will are noe phrases of our Divines The first is used only by Bradwardine as at present I remember sometimes Arch-Bishop elect of Canterbury The other is that phrase of the Dominicans Now they are of age and able to answer for themselves Why doth not this Authour answer a chapter or two in Bradwardine a chapter or two in Alvarez where they dispute this and resolve the question affirmatively Surely hereby he should performe a worke more worthy of a Scholasticall Divine then by so hungry a discourse as this Secondly consider neither Bradwardine maintaines that God necessitates nor Alvarez that God determines the will to sinne but to every naturall act in which kind of acts sinne is to be found Why then should this Auhour carry himselfe thus in his crimination We know sin is meerly privative in the formall notion thereof an obliquitie such as concerning which Austine hath long agoe deliverd that it hath noe efficient cause but deficient only And divers waies Divines have shewed how God may be the authour of the act yet not the Authour oâ— the sin and illustrated it by various similitudes As of a man riding upon a lame horse he makes him goe but doth not make him halt The sun shining upon a dung-mixton makes it evaporate but doth not make it stinke The sun makes flowers to evaporate and send forth their favours as well as a dung-mixton but that the one evaporates a sweet odour the other an unsavory is froÌ„ the nature of things themselves on which the sun beates In like sort the Sun by the heat thereof provokes all things to engender according to their kinds even frogs and toades snakes as well as other creatures profitable for the use of man in the way of food yea of vipers flesh good use is made in the way of physicke And God knowes how to make good use even of the sinnes of men and of the rage and malice of Satan If an underw-heele being out of his place the upper wheele in a jacke or clocke will set him going in a wrong way as well as all the rest in a right way his motion is from the upper whele his irregular motion from himselfe A good Scribe meeting with moist paper will make but sorry worke The writing is from himselfe the blurring from the moistnesse of the paper on this very question whether the act of sinne be from God Aquinas maintaining the affirmative illustrates it by a distinction of the halting motion of a lame legge the motion saith he is from the soule the 〈◊〉 is froÌ„ the imperfection of the Organ the infirmitie of the legge Yet this Authour carrieth it hand over head as if to be the Authour of the action were to be the sinne not considering that himselfe maintaines that God is the Authour of the action and that in the kind of a cause efficient naturall Thirdly when Bradwardine maintaines that God necessitates the will to every good act thereof he withall professeth that he necessitates it ad liberum actum suum that is to worke every act thereof freely Soe when Alvarerz maintaines that God determinates the will to every act thereof he withall maintaines that God determines the will to worke free ye and so Aquinas For when he workes upon contingent causes he moves theÌ„ to bring forth their effects contingently like as when he workes upon necessary causes he moves them to produce their effects necessarily And like as to move contingent causes to produce their effects contingently is to move them to produce their effects with a possibility to the contrary Soe to move free causes to produce their effects freely is to move them to produce their effects with an active power to the contrary But to proceed whereas he saith that sinne must needs follow the determination it is as true 1. In this Authour's judgment that it must needs follow upon God's coÌ„currence to this act If he say that this concurreÌ„ce is necessary to every act I answer it is necessary to the substance of every act but not at all required to the sinne though this Authour carieth it blindfold after this manner Secondly so say we is determination required to the substance of every act And Gods concourse with the creature is not coordinate like as one man concurres with another in moving a timber logge which is the expression of the Jesuites thereby manifesting the vilenesse of their opinion as we can demonstrate and that more waies then one by evident demonstration as I have allready shewed in my Vindiciae Let this Authour answer those digressions if he can I am confident he will never answer them while his head is hot nor all the Rabble of the Arminians We know God is the first cause and all other are but second causes in comparison to him Yet we willingly confesse that the providence of God is wonderfull and of a mysterious nature in this but such as whereunto the Scripture gives pregnant testimonie as scarce to any thing more So jealous he is least his providence should be denied in evill wherein indeed it is most wonderfull and he takes unto himselfe the hardning of men's hearts and blinding of their mindes and prostituting them to abominable courses even to vile affections and thereby to punish sinne with sin as Rom 1. Therein saith the Apostle they received the recompence of their errour This hath Austine also by Scripture suggestion testified at large in his book De gratiâ Libero arbitrio in two large chap likewise in his fifth book against Iulian the Pelagian third chap this also the Adversaries have been driven to confesse in a strange manner as to give instance first in Bellarmine whose words are these God saith he praesidet ipsis voluntatibus easque regit
is in his power or when he hath authority to forbid 't is as if he should command the committing of that sin Now this is only in such a case where the necessitie respects the person who is the deficient cause as namely in case he be bound in duty to afford help and succour to him that cannot keepe himselfe from sinning without the succour of an other not otherwise And therefore it reacheth not to God who is not bound to preserve any man or creature from sinning Least of all is he bound to regenerate a man that is borne in sinne Adam was created in all sufficiency that the reasonable creature was capable of without any pronenes unto evill but rather in a morall propension to that which was good And his fall hath brought this corruption upon all mankind even a necessitie of sinning as Arminius and Corvinus confesse He wanted no power to doe that which was good or to abstaine from sin but ever since his fall impotency to that which is good pronenesse unto that which is evill hath been the naturall inheritance of all mankind And as for the permission of Adam's fall his sin was in a thing naturally indifferent the holines of his nature not inclining him more to abstain from that fruit any more then to partake of it Neither doe we say that God did withhold from Adam any grace that these our adversaries maintaine to be necessary for the avoiding of that sinne which was committed by him How Adam himselfe was brought by Eve to eate of that fruit is not expressed As for Eve the temptation which Satan used with her which did prevaile is expressed He allured her with the representation of the powerfull nature of that to make them as Gods knowing good and evill he made this seem credible by the very denomination which God gave unto the Tree the Tree of knowledge of good and evill It seemes not likely that she knew who it was that spake unto her in the Serpent nor that she was acquainted with the fall of Angells Then againe the desire of knowledge is no evill thing it selfe or stands in any contradiction to the integrity of a reasonable creature Nay nothing more agreeable to the nature of the best it brings such a perfection with it Only the errour was in affecting it this way God did not keep the Devill off nor reveale unto her who it was that spake unto her much lesse his apostaticall condition least of all his project to supplant them Neither did he quicken that holy feare which he had inspired into her to resist it at the first to goe to her husband to acquaint him with it She might thinke that the knowledge of good and evill might make her more fit for the service of God then unfit All which considered her will being moved to seek this perfection by tasting of such a fruit there was no cause or reason to hinder her from tasting it save only the consideration of God's prohibition For the will of every reasonable creature is naturally apt to affect that which is good and though that good may prove evill in some circumstance yet if that circumstance be not considered the will proceeds to affect it How long the Devill was exercised in this temptation we know not Inconsideration is conceived by Durandus to be the originall of that sinne of theirs and God was not bound to maintaine this consideration quick in her and of the danger of such a transgression In fine she came to a will resolution to tast of it to the producing of this act as a naturall thing the Lord concurred as all confesse namely to the substance of the act The question is whether he concurred to the effecting of it absolutely or conditionally It was as true of Adam and Eve that in him they lived and moved and had their being as it is of us We say God as a first cause moves every second cause but agreeably to their natures Necessary agents to worke every thing they worke necessarily Free agents to doe every thing they doe freely But to say that God made them velle modo vellent to will in case they would will is so absurd as nothing more The act of willing being hereby made the condition of it selfe and consequently both before and after it selfe See what I have delivered concerning this in my Vindiciae lib. 2. Digr 3. and Digr 6. of the nature of permission more at large where unto this Authour is content to answer just nothing Sect 7. There are two things say they in every ill act First the materiall part which is the substance of the action Secondly the formall part which is the evill or obliquitie of it God is the Authour of the action it selfe but not of the obliquitie and evill that cleaveth to it as he that causeth a lame horse to goe is the cause of his going but not of his lame going And therefore it followeth not from their opinion that God is the Authour of sinne First all sinnes receive not this distinction because of many sins the acts themselves are sinfull as of the eating of the forbidden fruit and Saul's sparing of Agag and the fat beasts of the Amalekites Secondly It is not true that they make the decree of God only of actions not of their aberrations For they make it to be the cause of all those meanes that lead to damnation and therefore of sinfull actions as sinfull and not as bare actions For actions deserve damnation not as actions but as trangressions of Gods law 3. To this simile I say that the Rider or Master that shall resolve first to flea his horse or knock him on the head and then to make him lame that for his halting he may kill him is undoubtedly the cause of his halting And so God if he determine to cast men into hell and then to bring them into a state of sinne that for their sinnes he may bring them to ruine we cannot conceive him to be lesse then the Authour as well of their sins as of those actions to which they doe inseperably adhere and that out of Gods intention to destroy them This distinction of that which is materiall and that which is formall in sinne is commonly used by Aquinas 1. secun q 71. art 6 in corp Augustinus in definitione peccati posuit duo Unum quod pertinet ad substantiam actûs humani quod est quasi materiale in peccato cum dicit dictum vel factum vel concupitum Aliud autem quod pertinet ad rationem mali quod est quasi formale in peccato cum dixit contra legem aeternam So then the substance of the act is the materiall part in sinne And the opposition of this act to the law of God is the formall part of it both according to Aquinas and according to Austin also And q 75. art 1. corp He defineth sinne to be Actus inordinatus
That which necessitateth the will to sinne is as truly the cause of sinne as that which forceth it because it maketh the sinne to be inevitably committed which otherwise might be avoided and therefore if the Divine decree necessitate man's will to sinne it is as truly the cause of sinne as if it did inforce it 3. That which necessitates the will to sinne is more truly the cause of the sinne then the will is because it overruleth the will and beareth all the stroke taketh from it ' its true liberty by which it should be Lord of it selfe and disporser of ' its own acts and in respect of which it hath been usually called by Philosophers and Fathers too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power which is under the insuperable check and controule of no Lord but it selfe It overruleth I say maketh it become but a servile instrument irresistably subject to superiour command and determination And therefore is a truer cause of all such acts and sins as proceed from the will so determined then the will is For when two Causes concurre to the producing of an effect the one a principle overruling cause the other but instrumentall and wholly at the Devotion of the principall then is the effect in all reason to be imputed to the principall which by the force of ' its influxe and impression produceth it rather then to the subordinate and instrumentall which is but a mere servant in the production of it We shall find it ordinary in Scripture to ascribe the effect to the principall Agent It is not ye that speak saith Christ but the Spirit of my Father that speaketh in you I laboured more abundantly then they all yet not I but the grace of God which was in me And I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me saith St. Paul Gal 2. 20. In these and many other places the effect or work spoken of is taken from the instrument and given to the principall agent Which being so though man's will worke with God's decree in the commission of sinne and willeth the sin which it doth yet seing what the will doth it doth by the commanding power of God's Allmighty decree and so it doth that otherwise it cannot doe the sin committed cannot so rightly be ascribed to man's will the inferiour as to God's necessitating decree the superiour cause 4. That which makes a man sinne by way of necessitie that is with and not against his will is the cause of sin in a worse manner then that which constraineth him to sinne against his will As he which by powerfull perswasions drawes a man to stab to hang to poison himselfe is in a grosser manner the cause of that evill and unnaturall action then he that by force compells him because he maketh him to consent to his own death And so if Gods decree doe not only make men sin but sin willingly too not only cause that they shall malè agere doe evill but malè velle will evill it hath the deeper hand in the sinne God determines the will to sinne by necessitie though not by compulsion this he obtrudes upon our Devines as their opinion but quotes none is it likely that he who quotes Beza to shew that in his opinion God doth not only permit sinne but will sinne And Calvin to shew that a man's mind is blinded volente jubente Deo would not quote some or other of our Divines to prove that which he obtrudes upon them If his common place booke could afford him any such quotation out of any one of them to shew who they be and where they say that God determines the will to sinne by necessity though not by compulsion Was there ever the like crimination made against any without naming them that say so and the place where and their own words Or hath this man or any of his spirit deserved any credit to be trusted this way The very phrase of determining in Latine is no word of course with our Divines in this argument It is the phrase of the Dominicans But doe they say that God determines the will to sinne I doe not thinke he can produce one of them that expresseth himselfe so unscholastically so absurdly Alvarez saith that God by his effectuall decree predetermineth second causes to worke He saith that God doth predetermine the will to the act of sinne as it is an act That the first root of contingency is the will of God Then to what doth God determine the will in their opinion Is it to the act only and not to the manner of its production Namely to produce it voluntarily and freely Nothing lesse though this Authour counts it his wisdome to conceale this God by his omnipotency doth cause that man whose heart he moves to will and will freely Againe God's generall concourse is a divine immediate influence into second causes whereby they are foremoved applyed and determined to worke every one according to the condition of its nature The naturall cause naturally the free cause freely as I have professedly delivered Disput 18. 23. And that in such sort freely as they can choose to doe otherwise if they will and that in the very instant wherin they doe what they doe But come we to consider his answer 1. Touching that which he saith of the Ancients he gives us his bare word for it as touching the confounding of necessitie and compulsion yet Bernard I confesse willingly in talking of liberty from necessity understands by necessity coaction He saith farther that those Ancients did deny that God did necessitate men to sinne least they should grant thereby that God is the Authour of sinne But I doe not thinke he can shew this phrase of necessitating the will any way to be found among the Ancients what he hath touched before I have considered what he shall intimate hereafter I hope I shall not let it passe unsaluted And the truth is to necessitate hath such an Emphasis with it as to perswade that whatsoever a man is necessitated to do that he doth by constraint against his will And it is a rule commonly received that Voluntas non potest cogi The will cannot be forced which is most true as touching Actus eliciti the acts of the will inward and immediate and not so of actus imperati acts outward and commanded But Bradwardine who alone useth this phrase among'st School-Divines takes it in no such sense but only for an effectuall operation of God upon the will moving it to worke this or that not necessarily but freely which this Authour most judiciously dissembleth all along for desparing to prevaile by true and substantiall information of the understanding perturbundis affectibus suffuratur by a corrupt proposition of his Adversaries tenet hopes to worke distast upon the Readers affections Bradwardines position is this God can after a sort necessitate every created will to ' its free act and to a free cessation vacation from act and
men devise God and man to move to the producing of the same act as two men in lifting a timber logge most indecently And to free this concurrence from chance they say sometimes that God workes this or that act in us modo velimus that is upon condition that we will But when they consider that God workes the act of willing as well as ought else are demanded to answer upon what condition he workes this what condition will they devise of this will he say modo velimus provided that we will As much as to say God will produce the act of willing provided that it be produced already by us Others say that God foreseeing that the will of man at such a time will produce such an act of willing in case God be pleased to concurre to the producing of it hereupon he resolves to concurre to the producing of it whereby the finall resolution is rather into the will of God then into the will of the creature I say the finall resolution of every sinfull act committed by the creature Secondly here is devised a thing future without all ground For whereas the act of willing as for example in Iudas the act of willing to betray his Master is it in ' its own nature merely possible not future how then did it passe into the condition of a thing future and that from everlasting For from everlasting God knew it as a thing future this could not be done without a cause And what cause could there be of an eternall effect but an eternall cause which is God alone And in God nothing can be devised to be the cause thereof but his will or decree Therefore to avoid this they must be driven to conclude that all future things became future by necessitie of nature if not of their own nature yet at least by the necessitie of God's nature he producing them all not freely but by necessitie of nature This is that Atheisticall necessitie whereupon our Adversaries are cast while they oppose such a necessitie as depends upon God's decree ordaining all things to come to passe agreably to their natures necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently and accordingly ordaining necessary causes working necessarily for the producing of the one and contingent causes working contingently for the producing of the other as Aquinas discourseth 1. pag q. 19 in the Article whose title is this Utrum divina voluntas necessitatem rebus imponat whether the will of God imposeth a necessitie on things that come to passe in the world The reason this Authour brings is a mere Socysme saying the same over and over againe As when he saith For when two causes concurre to the producing of an effect the one principall overruling cause the other but an instrumentall wholly at the devotion of the principall then is the effect in all reason to be imputed to the principall which by the force of ' its influxe and impression produceth it rather then to the subordinate and instrumentall which is but a mere servant in the production of it To which I answer that which he calls overruling I have often shewed how absurdly it is imputed unto us For how can that be called overruling which workes not the will contrary to ' its nature but moves it only agreably to the nature thereof As for the cause principall what Scholar of any braines ever denyed God to be the cause principall in any action to the producing whereof he concurres For is he not the first cause and the first Agent Are not all other second causes and second Agents But this Authour hopes his Reader will understand this in reference only to the sinne not to the naturall act under it whereas God as touching the sinfullnesse of it is no Agent at all much lesse a prime Agent no cause at all much lesse a prime cause Then secondly let God never so effectually work any creature to the producing of an act connaturall thereunto yet if he works the creature therunto agreably to its nature that is if it be an necessary Agent moues it to worke necessarily if it be a contingent agent moves it to worke contingently if it be a free agent moves it to worke freely then by Arminius his confesion our cause is gained For God shall be found free from blame and the creature void of excuse Now this is clearly our doctrine and in effect the doctrine of all them who say that God determines the will as the Dominicans or that God necessitates the will as Bradwardine For they all acknowledge hereby that God moves the creature to worke freely in such sort that in the very act of working they might doe otherwise if they would They confesse this providence of God is a great mystery and not sufficiently comprehensible by humane reason Cajetan professeth thus much as before alleadged and Alvarez maintaines it in a set disputation And supposing God's concourse as necessarily required to every act of the creature they are able to prove by evident demonstration that no other concourse can be admitted then this whereby God moves every creature and that effectually to every act thereof but agreably to ' its nature and condition And this is farther demonstrated by God's fore knowledge of things future Another Arminian with whom I have had to deale in this argument being pressed with this reason drawen from God's foreknowledge and urged to shew how things possible became future that from everlasting for from everlasting they were known to God as future had no way to helpe selfe but by flying to the actuall existence of all things in eternity And I have good ground for strong presumption that this Authour with whom now I deale had his hand in that Pye which was above foure yeares agoe See the desperate issue of these mens discourses who are drawen to take hold of such a Tenet to helpe themselves withall which their best freinds the Jesuites the Authours of Scientia media doe utterly disclaime And on the other side the Dominicans who embrace the actuall existence of all things in eternity are utterly repugnant to the doctrine of Scientia media So that when the Jesuites are reconciled to the Dominicans in the point of actuall existence of all things in eternity And the Dominicans to the Jesuites in the point of Scientia media then these men with whom I deale are like to prevaile which I doubt will hardly be before Elias comes Thirdly consider if when one cause is principall overruling the other the effect must be imputed rather to the principall then to the other It followes evidently that when the causes doe equally concurre without any such overruling of one the other then the effect is equally imputable unto each consequently the sin For such is this Authour's language in this Argument is equally imputable to both to God as well as man And he is to be accounted the Author of it as well as man I appeale to every man's
Synod of Palestine 1200. yeares agoe to this day The difference of opinions here feigned by him about the point of Reprobation amongst our Divines is like the feigning of a knot in a bulrush For what is a peremptory denying of grace and glory to some men lying in the fall other then a denyall of that grace and glory which is prepared in the decree of election to the sonnes of God though indeed neither of them make it a denyall which is done in time but rather Gods decree to deny it For do not the latter Divines maintaine it to be peremptory as well as the former For what difference doth he devise between a flat denyall and a peremptory denyall and as for the latter decree belonging to reprobation here mentioned namely a preordination of the man thus left to the torments of hell do not the latter Divines acknowledge this decree to belong to Reprobation also Only they professe that God preordaines none to eternall torments in hell but for their sinnes actuall as well as originall of as many as live to ripenesse of age Now I would faine know what Divine of ours maintaines the contrary 1. Our Divines in saying Reprobation is Decretum quo statuit non misereri do manifest that not denying grace but the decree of denying it is Reprobation Walaeus speaketh of no common endowments though that be a truth which here is attributed unto them else how should they be called common endowments 2. If he decrees to leave Reprobates without grace and consequently under that necessity of sinning into which all are cast by the sinne of Adam it is nothing strange I thinke that God should accordingly leave them therein though in a different manner the Lord prostituting some to their own lost's and to the power of Satan more then others and making some even by the ministery of the Gospell proficere ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quo mitius puniantur as Austin some where speaketh If Gods decree cannot be frustrated as here is avouched I wonder he should charge us with teaching that God decreeth this or that immutably For if he should change any of his decrees they should undoubtedly be frustrated Indeed we do not say that God decrees Hypothetically to give grace to wit upon condition that men will make themselves fit for it and for failing herein to deny them grace And I am very glad to observe so good correspondence in the suffrages of Protestant Divines in the Synod of Dort and our English also with them Sect 3. 3. God both decreeth and executeth this leaving of men to themselves of his alone absolute will and pleasure This is the third branch 1 That they say so witnesse the suffrage of our English Divines We affirme that this non election is founded in the most free pleasure of God And that no man lying in the fall is past over by the meere will of God is numbred by the same Divines among the heterodox positions To this purpose also speake The Palatinate Ministers The cause of Reprobation is the most free and just will of God That God passeth over some and denyeth them the grace of the Gospell the cause is the same free pleasure of God Thus the Divines of Hessen God decreed to leave some in the fall of his own good pleasure The proofe of this they fetch from the execution of this decree in time God doth in time leave some of mankind fallen and doth not bestow upon them meanes necessary to beleive c. and this out of his most free pleasure This they joyntly affirme and prove it by this reason especially All men were lookt on as sinners If sinne therefore were the cause that moved God to reprobate he should have reprobated or rejected all But he did not Reprobate all therefore for sinne he reprobated none but for his owne pleasure in which we must rest wthout seeking any other cause 1. Now from these two things layd together viz. 1. That God did bring men into a necessity of sinning 2. That he hath left the Reprobates under this necessity it will follow that he is the Authour of the reprobates sinnes 1. Because Causae causae est causa causati the Cause of a cause is the cause of its effect if there be a necessary subordination betweene the causes and the effect whether it be a cause by acts negative or positive But God is the cheife or sole cause by their doctrine of that which is the necessary and immediate cause of the sinnes of reprobates namely their impotency and want of supernaturall grace therefore he is by the same doctrine the true and proper cause of their sinnes 2. Because Removens prohibens that which withdraweth and withholdeth a thing which being present would hinder an event is the cause of that event As for example he that cutteth a string in which a stone hangs is the cause of the falling of that stone And he that withdraweth a pillar which being put to uphold a house is the true cause in mens account of the falling of that house But God by their opinion withholdeth from reprobates that power which being granted them might keep thē from falling into sinne therefore he becometh a true morall cause of their sinnes In whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done sayth Tertullian In cuius manu est quid ne fiat ei deputatur cum iam fit It will not suffice to say that God by withholding grace from reprobates becometh only an accidentall not a proper and direct cause of their sinnes For a cause is then only accidentall in relation to the effect when the effect is beside the intention and expectation of the cause For example Digging in a feild is then an accidentall cause of the finding a bag of gold when that event is neither expected not intended by the husbandman in digging But when the event is lookt for and aymed at then the cause though it be the cause only by withholding the impediment is not accidentall As a Pilot who withholdeth his care and skill from a ship in a storme foreseeing that by his neglect the ship will be drowned is not to be reputed an accidentall but a direct and proper cause of the losse of this ship This being so it followeth that God by this act and decree of removing and detaining grace necessary to the avoyding of sinne from reprobates not as one ignorant and carelesse what will or shall follow but knowing infallibly what mischeife will follow and determining precisely that which doth follow viz their impenitency and damnation becomes the proper and direct cause of their sinnes That God of his meere pleasure sheweth mercy on some and hardeneth others is the expresse word of God Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Now to shew mercy is to give the grace of faith and obedience as appeares
by the opposition of it to obduration which is such as whereupon followeth disobedience as appeares by the objection following hereupon Thou wilt say then why doth yet cōplaine For who hath resisted his will Now God complaineth of nothing but disobedience Againe to give faith is to shew mercy For to have faith is to obtaine mercy Heretofore ye have not believed but now have obtained mercy through their unbeliefe Where to believe to obtaine mercy are made equipollent of the same signification And in reason if God did deny faith because of some unpreparednesse in the creature then God did expect that the creature should first prepare himselfe and make himselfe fit for faith that so God might bestow it upon him so grace should be conferr'd according to workes which is contradictious to expresse testimony of holy scripture testifying that God hath saved us called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace all along hath beene condened in the Church of God for Pelagianisme Thus we have beene entertained with a discourse containing nothing but the opinion of our Divines which none of us deny Yet in the proposing hereof he hath wasted a whole leafe and more Now he comes to his argument drawen from these two layd together 1. That God did bring men into a necessity of sinning 2. That he hath left the reprobates under this necessity Hence he concludes that God is the Author of the reprobates sins But this we utterly deny Therefore this he undertakes to prove by two reasons 1. Because the cause of the cause is the cause of its effect if there be a necessary subordination betweene the causes and the effect But God is the cheife or sole cause by their doctrine of that which is the necessary and immediate cause of the sinnes of Reprobates namely their impotency and want of supernaturall grace For answer whereunto I say first begining with the minor 1. That the want of supernaturall grace is not the immediate cause of the sinnes of Reprobates nor the cheife cause much lesse the sole cause And I prove it evidently Let instance be given in any sinne committed by a Reprobate let it be the sinne of murther or of fornication or of theft or of lying For if it were then every reprobate should be guilty of murther of fornication of lying of stealing For positâ causâ principali immediatâ ponitur effectus Where a principall and immediate cause doth exist there the effect must needs exist But it is apparent that albeit every reprobate doth want supernaturall grace yet every reprobate is not guilty of murther of fornication lying and stealing Secondly If the want of supernaturall grace were the immediate and principall cause of all the sinnes of reprobates then not only every Reprobate should be guilty of committing all the sinnes formerly mentioned but at all times every one of these sinnes should be committed by them Because at all times they want supernaturall grace And the truth is every one of these sinnes may be abstained from without supernaturall grace and for carnall respects Only without supernaturall grace they cannot be abstained from in a gracious manner as namely out of faith in God and love to God He that hath neither faith nor love cannot abstaine from these vile courses out of faith and love In like sort heathen men in their generations have beene exceeding vertuous according to the worlds account of vertue in moderating their passions and ordering their conversation aright one towards another and all this hath beene performed by them without supernaturall grace Thirdly The immediate cause of all their sinnes rather of the two is their naturall corruption whereby they are habitually turned away from God and converted unto the creature in an inordinate manner Like as the immediate cause actionis laesae of a naturall function of the body imperfect is the disease or infirmity that hath seised upon some part of the body And the Physitian who is able to cure it and will not is the cause why it continueth uncured But no wise man will say he is the cause why this or that member in a sicke mans body doth not performe its operation as it should In like manner as touching the vicious actions of the soule the want of supernaturall grace is the cause why those vicious actions continue uncured because God alone by his grace can cure them but no sober man that is well in his wits should say that is the cause of vicious actions but acknowledge rather the corruption thereof to be the cause of these vicious actions And indeed all morall philosophy referres the cause of every vicious action unto the vicious habit depraving the will and inclining it to vicious courses Fourthly Yet farther to represent the wildnesse of this Authours discourse The vicious habit it selfe is not the sole cause no nor the principall and immediate cause of a vicious action in particular For if it were then that particular vicious action should alwayes be committed by it So that an impure person should alwayes commit fornication a Lyar should alwayes lye a Theife should alwayes steale a Murtheret should alwayes commit murther For it is a rule generally received that the immediate and principall cause being existent the effect must needs exist also And indeed albeit habits whether good or evill do worke after the manner of nature inclining and swaying the will to the accomplishment of them Yet the will of man being a free and not necessary Agent proceeds not to worke but according unto judgement and occasions and opportunityes from without And albeit a purser that maintaine himselfe by robbery hath a faire opportunity offered him to advantage himselfe to take a purse yet if upon consideration he finds himselfe too weake to goe through with it or that he cannot do it safely he will forbeare For albeit a vicious habit doth naturally and necessarily incline him to a naughty end yet in the choice of the meanes conducing to this end he is free How much more plainely doth it appeare that the want of supernaturall grace is farre off from being either the sole cause or the immediate or the principall cause of any sinne committed by a Reprobate Rather of the two the intestine corruption of the Reprobate is the cause of his sinnes and the want of grace is the cause why this corruption is not cured Now albeit a Physitian may sinne in not curing a sicke person when it lyes in his power to cure him For we are in charity bound to do to others as we would have others do unto us yet God is bound to none I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion 2. Observe how sluttishly he carryeth himselfe in the next reason taken from removens prohibens His rule proceeds both of withdrawing and withholding a thing which being
privatio cui non possit etiam competere habitus And therefore we call not any thing deafe blind or dumbe but what is capable of hearing sight and speech In like manner no outward action can properly be permitted unto a man but what he may be hindered and restrayned from but now a man cannot be hindered or restrayned from the performance of an outward action unto which he hath no propension or inclination of which he hath no purpose or desire no more than he can be constrayned unto that from which he is not averse therefore neither can such an action be permitted unto him if we take permission properly as Bannes saith as it is not nuda negatio sed privatio By this time the Reader I suppose is satisfied that God doth not permit every man to murther or destroy the life of every one that cometh in his way and therefore consequently he hath not decreed or intended any such permission As for the limitation which you bring to qualify your assertion it nothing mends the matter for I have prooved the assertion to be false in it selfe by arguments that feare not the light of your tryall or examination and false assertions cannot be made good by any limitations whatsoever so much I learned when I was a Boy from Keckerm System Log. lib. 2. cap. 4. Quicquid subjecto limitativè tribuitur id verè tribuitur But suppose this assertion were justifiable by some limitation or other yet not by this which you bring because this naturall power to doe the execution as you speake is insufficient to denominate the permission of murther because 't is consistent with the opposite of such a permission restraint from murther c. First because 't is insufficient to denominate the permission of murther A naturall power to performe an action is essentially requisite unto the permission thereof but it is not only the essentiall requisite thereunto and therefore an insufficient ground for the affirmation of it If it be lawfull to affirme a predicate of a subject in respect of the presence of one essentiall requisite unto the said predicate when there are wanting any other things essentially required thereunto also as absurd propositions as are imagineable will be hence justified As that beasts and plants are men and Men beasts for of beasts and plants there are affirmed diverse things which doe agree unto man essentially and so on the other side diverse things are predicated of men essentially which are also essentiall unto beasts and plants Secondly a naturall power to destroy the life of another is consistent with the opposite of such a permission to wit restraint from the murther of him a power to produce an act may be hindered majoris aut aequalis saltem potentiae oppositione saith your Arminius by opposall of a greater or at least an equall power though a man have not only a power but a will a desire and purpose to take away the life of another yet he may be restrained not only by feare of punishment dictates of a naturall conscience within but also by opposition of a greater or equall power without Now permission and restraint are privatively opposed and therefore we cannot say that an action is permitted in regard of that which is common unto both permission and restraint and may be found as well when an action is restrained as when it is permitted If I should say that a blind man sees in respect of the first naturall power of seeing that a deafe man hears in respect of the first naturall power of hearing you would say that my limitation were absurd and ridiculous because this naturall first power of seeing is found both in the blind and the seeing and we may say the same of the first power of hearing Yet this limitation is as justifiable as yours for the naturall power you speake of to doe the execution is found as well in the restraint as in the permission of murther MR GOODWIN GOD permitted Adam to eate of every tree in the Garden of Eden the tree of knowledge of Good and evill only excepted Gen. 2. 16 17. and therefore certainly had decreed or intended this permission yet was not Adam any waies necessitated by any vertue or influence of this decree upon him to eate of every one of these trees nor is it in the least degree credible that ever he did eate of every of them nor yet of any one of them but only that which was prohibited unto him his ejection out of this Garden following so suddainly after this patent or permission granted unto him IEANES THE permission spoken of Gen. 2. 16. was Morall or Legall in genere officii not naturall or Physicall in genere facti and therefore nothing at all to the purpose Mr GOODWIN NEither doth any such decree in God suppose a futurity of such a concurrence of causes simply requisite and necessary for the bringing of things so decreed to passe which will actually bring them to passe though God hath decreed that a sparke or coale of fire falling i. e. in case it shall fall into a barrell of Gunpowder shall fire it yet it doth not follow from hence that he hath decreed that any such sparke or coale shall fall into it without which notwithstanding the effect decreed viz. the firing of this Powder will not come to passe IEANES FIrst Arminius tells you that the absence of one necessary cause is sufficient to denominate a restraint Ad productionem effecti requiritur causa integra sufficiente ad ejus impedimentum unius causae necessariae absentiâ And if this be true then permission doth imply a concurrence of causes simply requisite and necessary for the bringing of things so permitted to passe which will actually bring them to passe if they be not hindered and consequently a permissive decree doth though not suppose that 's not our language yet inferre the futurity of such a presence of all requisite and necessary causes Besides Secondly Scheibler Met. lib. 1. c. 14. t. 2. p. 2. n. 44. out of Zabarell acquaints us how restraint is sometimes taken privatively pro privatione actionis inferendae and absence not only of one requisite and necessary cause but also of one necessary condition is sufficient to denominate such a restraint Sic distantia loci saith he impedit ne ignis calefaciat aliquod corpus non quasi distantia illa habeat efficientiam vel influxum aliquem sed solum distantia illa dicit privationem actionis in igne passionis in calefactibili In regard of this acception of restraint fire cannot be said to be permitted to burne combustible matter unlesse there be an approximation of the fire unto the said combustible matter for distance of place hinders the fire from burning distance of place between fire and a barrell of Gunpowder doth hinder the fire from firing or blowing up that barrell of Gunpowder if you take hinderance or restraint in such a sence as Scheibler speakes of