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A26883 Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,; Catholick theologie Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1675 (1675) Wing B1209; ESTC R14583 1,054,813 754

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he will have all condemned whom he doth condemn But then it must be understood that this distinction i● not applyed to the Will of God as he is meerly an Absolute Proprietary or Benefactor but as he is the King or Rector of the world and so his Legislation is his Antecedent Will and his Judgment is his Consequent Will And no man of Religion can deny either that Gods Law is the signification of his Will or his Will signifyed or that his Judgment and ●●cution is his Will declared or that Gods Law of Grace doth conditionally give pardon and salvation to all antecedently to man's performance or rejection of the condition or that God condemneth Infidels consequently to their Infidelity The Law Antecedently to Mans part acted saith He that believeth shall be saved and the Sentence consequently to his fact saith Judas an unbeliever or impenitent shall perish And thus the distinction hath no doubt or difficulty 103. God by commanding faith and repentance and making the● necessary conditions of Justification and by commanding perseverance and threatning the Justified and Sanctified with damnation if they f●● away and making perseverance a condition of Salvation doth thereby provide a convenient means for the performance of his own Decree of giving Faith and Repentance and perseverance to his Elect For he effecteth his ends by suitable moral means and such is this Law and Covenant to provoke man to due fear and care and obedience that he may be wrought on as a man 104. To be justifyed by Faith in general agreeth to the ages before Of Justification by Faith c. Christ's Incarnation and those since But so doth not the special kind of faith by which they are justifyed For much more is Essential to that faith which we must be justifyed by to them that are under the last edition of the Covenant of Grace than was or is to them that were under the first alone Abraham believed not all our essential Articles of faith 105. To be justified by faith in Paul's sence is all one as to be justified What that Faith is by becoming Christians To be a Believer a Disciple and a Christian are all one in the Gospel sence 106. The faith by which we are justified as is aforesaid is best understood The Controversie between the Papists and us about Justification is agitated i● vain till we agree of the sence of the words Justification and Remission As I said elsewhere they take not only Justification for a qualitative change such as we call Sanctification but Remission of Sin for they know not what themselves most of them talk as if it were a putting away the Sin in its essence which can be meant of nothing but the Habit for the fact cannot be infectum Others seem to take it for remitting the punishment also with that change Malderus most plainly in 1. 2. q. 113. a. 1. and p. 567. saith that Remission of Sin is Ablatio Reatus culpae At esse longe aliud quam Nolle illud punire non enim tantum facit Hominem non puniri sed etiam non esse Poena dignum Minus tamen est quam in amicitiam recipi though yet no man is in a middle state neque D●i amicus neque inimicus yet cogitations possunt seterari Peccata Remittere idem est quod non imputare si hoc non accipias pro dissimulare sed pro desinere esse offensum cum per Remissionem Deo non imputante est quasi non fuerit By this you may see that these Papists hold the same with those Protestants whom they seem most to resist and cannot hide it But 1. It will be true to eternity that Peter sinned 2. To say so is to blame him 3 His sin deserv'd death 4. The Law and the nature of sin past are the same after pardon as before 5. God doth not change his mind of sin 6. Gods offence or displeasure is not a passion or mutable but his essence as denomina ed from the object to be his Velle punire and Justice that must punish 7. For God to be appeased and no more offended is but his Nolle punire peccatorem and not to be obliged in Justice to punish him but by his Covenant related to him as one that will not punish 8. This change is in the sinner becoming not punishable 9. That is not worthy of it in the Gospel-sence though worthy by the Law of Innocency 10. All this is but that the Reatus p●na culpae quantum ad poenam is remitted but not the Reatus culpae simpliciter in se And thus we are all agreed by the Baptismal Covenant and is essentially a Believing Fiducial consent to our Covenant relation to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as our Reconciled Creator and Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer connoting the forsaking of all inconsistents For it must needs be the same faith by which we have right to the benefits of that Covenant and by which we are justified because we have our remission and justification by the Instrumental donation of the Covenant it being one of the benefits given by it But Practical Faith or Believing-consent is our condition of receiving our Covenant right to all the benefits in general therefore to Justification in particular 107. The Phrases of Justifying faith and Faith justifying us are humane and not Scriptural at all And though they may be well used with explicatory caution as being well meant yet they are more lyable to mislead men than the Scripture phrase that we are justified by Faith Because the former phrases are apter to insinuate an Efficiency than the other whereas faith is no efficient cause of our Justification nor any other act of Man And the Scripture that speaketh of Justification by Faith sometime useth the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which no more signifyeth any Instrumental efficiency of Justification than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex operibus And though sometime 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be used it is to signifie no more than that God hath appointed it to be the Medium of our Justification as a condition but not as any efficient cause 108. The Faith by which we are justified as I touched before hath God the Father for its object as essentially as Christ the Saviour as the said Baptismal Covenant sheweth and that not only secondarily as Christ being the Mediator and way to the Father our faith in Christ connoteth the final object but also directly and primarily as the Father is the first in Trinity and as Creator first related to us and as the end is first in our intention Joh. 17. 3. This is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou bast sent Joh. 13. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled you believe in God believe also in me 109. And as essential is it to this Faith to believe in Christ as the Purchaser of Holiness and Heaven as to
and the Collation is according to the order of his Will though the Things Given have their intrinsick difference 115. All men confess that this Moral Reception is an Act and therefore hath an object which Physical Reception is not And that thus to Receive doth suppose a Moral Gift which Gift maketh not the thing ours necessarily as physical operation doth but on supposition of our voluntary Reception or Consent And all confess that Gods Donation is by his Covenant Testament or Promise and this Covenant hath its proper nature and mode that is the Condition as imposed antecedent to our Receiving Therefore as the thing Given is made ours by the Donation so according to the order appointed by it and our Consent no otherwise maketh it ours than as the Condition of the Gift performed But Gods Covenant doth Give us Christ and Life that is Justification Sanctification and Glorification in tithe or right in one Gift to be Accepted by one entire faith as the Condition not making at all the order of the Gifts and faiths respect to them in that order to be any of the Ratio proprietatis 116. This will be plainer by humane instances A Servants Relation is founded in his consent to be a Servant a Wifes Relation is founded in her Marriage-consent to be a Wife and to take that man for her Husband simply without any more adoe Now if the Master of that Servant or the Husband of that Wife be a noble man a rich man a wise man a good man and they knew all this and by knowing it were induced to consent and are to have their proportionable benefits by his Nobility Riches Wisdom Goodness yet their title to these benefits ariseth not from the act of their consent as it respected these benefits severally and distinctly but meerly by consent to their Relation as being his Condition of Collation The Wife is made Noble by her Husbands Nobility she is made Rich by his Riches she is instructed by his Wisdom c. But she hath no more Right to his Riches for marrying him in the notion of Rich or for consenting to him for Riches than for marrying him in the notion or thought of his wisdom or goodness On her part it was not consent to be Rich by him that gave her right to his Riches and consent to be Noble by him that gave her right to Nobility but consent simply to be his Wife that gave her right to all 117. This is yet fullyer evident in that most usually men make consent to one thing to be the condition of their Receiving or Right to another And usually that which one is most backward to is made the condition of their Right to that which they are most forward or willing to have The Master doth not say If thou wilt have thy wages thou shalt have right to it But if thou wilt do my work thou shalt have thy wages The condition of Marriage is conjugal Love and fidelity q. d. I will be thy Husband and give thee right to all that I have if thou wilt be and do what is essential to a Wife and not if thou wilt have my Riches c. If a Father give a Child a free gift on any condition it will likely be If thou wilt be a thankful and obedient Child and not If thou wilt have it Or if meer consent to have it be put it is usually when it is some gift which it is supposed that the person is not very willing to have As if a Sick man will have Physick if an ungodly man will have Teaching Books or Godliness it self But to this usually they are induced by the Promise of somewhat else which they are willing of As to the Sick If thou wilt take this Physick thou shalt have health To the ungodly If thou wilt have Christ and holiness thou shalt have pardon and happiness Now in the sence of Physical Receiving He that receiveth Physick hath Physick and He that receiveth health hath health c. But in the moral sence of Receiving which is Accepting as it is the condition of a gift so He that receiveth the Physick shall have the health and He that receiveth Christ and his sanctifying Spirit shall have Pardon Justification and Salvation Not that his willingness to have pardon and happiness is the chief or only condition of his pardon and happiness But his Accepting Christ and his Spirit which men are naturally unwilling of is the condition of that pardon and happiness which men would have By all which it appeareth that to say Faith justifyeth me as it is the Receiving of Christs Righteousness and not as it is the Receiving of Christ as a Teacher Ruler c. is a confounding or seducing saying For 1. If it intimate that Faith Justifyeth us as an efficient cause principal o● Instrumental it is false * * * Unless by Justifying they mean the acts of Love Hope Obedience called H●●iness 2. If it mean that Faith is the Condition of Justification quatenus as it receiveth Christs Righteousness only it hath either one or two falshoods 1. If it mean that Faith 's receiving act is the formalis ratio Conditionis or that it justifyeth not qua conditio d●●ationis but quae Receptio Justitiae Christi it is false Therefore qua here can signifie nothing but the Aptitude of faith to be made the condition and so Qua Quae here are all one 2. And then that only the Accepting of Righteousness justifyeth us that is Is the condition of our Justification is a falshood 118. Therefore our consent to be a Holy and obedient people or to take Christ for our Teacher Exemplar Ruler Sanctifier by his Word and Spirit and Judge hath at least as great a hand in our justification being principally the Condition of the Promise as our belief in our acceptance of Christ's Righteousness hath SECT VIII Of Justification by Christ's Righteousness imputed 119. Christ's personal Righteousness Divine or Humane habitual active How little the Papists differ from the Imputation which they quarrel with See in Bellarm. words cited and approved by Davenant de Justit And Pet. a S. Joseph Theol. Speculat l. 4. c. 10. saith Obj. P●ccatum remitti non potest quamdiu homo manet conversus ad creaturam aversus a Deo At semper aversus erit a Deo nisi mutatur Resp Sufficere mutationem moralem quae per solam Dei condonationem fieri potest ut jam homo non dicatur aversus a Deo This is Antinomianism and false As if God called not him averse who is really averse Obj. 2. Si peccatum remitti potest sine actu aut habitu per solam imputationem erit quae est ●aereticorum sententia Resp Haereticos loqui de facto non de imputatione peccati remanentis vere non remissi nos de possibili de ver● remissione qua peccatum tollatur See how the case is turned and wranglers
the least degree or first of true saving Grace is sometimes lost finally and such perish But 2. That they who obtain confirming Grace by a greater degree do never lose it For so the Angels and Adam fell from the first degrees for want of Confirmation And many think though it is not proved that had they overcome in the first or some more tryal they should have had confirming Grace for a reward And the good Angels are confirmed whether by reward or meer gift or nature we know not 2. This would save Christians from that uncomfortable thought I must go further th●● ever such and such a one did who fell away and had lived strictly and suffered patiently or else I cannot be saved For if this be true a man may be saved who goeth no further or not so far as some have done that sell away 3. This will keep men from security and presumption in a state of weakness and keep them in a necessary fear of falling away that they may avoid it 4. And yet it provideth a certainty of perseverance and Salvation for strong Christians who are and perhaps they only fit for it and capable of it 5. And it tendeth thereby to make men long for and press towards a strong confirmed state I only say that if this Doctrine be or were true it hath or would have these conveniencies 331. And I will boldly say that as I before said The weakest Christians are not ordinarily capable of present certainty of Salvation so the weakest or worst sort of true Christians are morally unfit for it 1. He that sinneth as much as ever will stand with Grace and as ever he dare for fear of losing all is under so great obligations and necessity to be humbled to fear to be penitent and deeply sensible of his great ingratitude that he is not fit for the joy of Assurance of Salvation and therefore not fit for assurance it self He that is certain to be saved must rationally be full of Joy which is unseasonable to one that must lye in the tears of deep humiliation 2. And such a one that loveth God and Christ and Goodness in the weakest measure consistent with Salvation must have all other Graces and comforts proportioned hereto or else there will be a monstrous inequality But certainty of Salvation is a degree of applicatory Hope quite above that very little Faith and Love and Obedience of such a one 3. And this certainty must be the effect and product of other Graces Faith and Love c. And a feeble Cause will not bring forth an effect so much stronger than it self 4. Gods Wisdom in Government will not encourage even a child in fits of contempt neglects or disobedience by such Assurance How can he more Reward and Encourage the best And if every true Christian should have certainty of Salvation when he sinneth as fouly as frequently as grosly and liveth as slothfully as ever will stand with sincerity it would tempt such to go on in Sin and be no better 5. God hath his castigatory punishments for sinful Children Even to death it self sometimes and much desertion And who should have such corrections but the worst of his Children But the certainty of their their Salvation useth not to suit with such correction and desertion or at least is forfeited in such a case Lastly experience telleth us that it is not Gods will that the worst of his Children no nor any but the better sort should have such Assurance For 1. De facto they have it not 2. And in the nature of the thing it is quite out of their reach SECT XXIII More necessary Concessions 332. But yet all this is not enough to prove that any of the justified do totally or finally fall away The controversie must not be decided by arguments from convenience but by Scripture assertion where the difficulty is very great because no small number of Texts seem to favour both the opinions the reconciling of which is not the work of every ordinary understanding Those that are brought for the certain Perseverance of all the justified may be seen in Zanchy's Disputes with Marbachius the first hot and high agitation of this controversie as a matter of great moment and necessary determination which I remember to have found among us And those on the other side Bertius Thompson and the Arminians commonly have collected My own opinion about it I have so largely shewed in a Book called My present Thoughts of Perseverance before-mentioned that I need not here again deliver it Though between that and this last opinion as wise a man as I may be in doubt when he hath done his best for a satisfactory resolution 333. I take Augustine's opinion so far as it is for Perseverance to be a certain Truth viz. That All the Elect shall certainly persevere and that the Grace of Perseverance is the consequent of Election and not Election the consequent of foreseen Perseverance unless you mean only that part of Election which determineth of Glorifying and exclude that which decreeth to give Perseverance But the difficulty is about the non-elect And it is most probable that where God decreeth Perseverance he decreeth to give Grace suitable thereto As when he decreeth the Immortality of the Soul he giveth it a Nature apt for Immortality And therefore that such have Confirming Grace But the controversie is whether all true Grace do so confirm 334. That an Argument cannot be fetcht for Perseverance from the meer Nature of the Grace received seemeth plain by Adam's fall and probable from the Angels 335. Some * * * Vid. Mr. George Walker of the Sabbath to avoid this deny Adam to have been Holy and suppose him only Innocent and Neutral and capable of Holiness worse than those Papists † † † Petavius in Elench Ther. Vincent Len●s c. 23. p. 97. Saith that Adam had 1. Exteriour Grace viz. his outward blessings 2. Interiour And that 1. Permanent which was Bona Voluntas vel Justitia Originalis ex omnium virtutum fidei spei Charitatis tum caeterarum quae in mente aut Voluntate resident concursu concentuque colle●ta 2. Transient that is Actual influx or inspirations But whereas he bitterly censureth Vincent for saying that Grace was in some respect natural it is but de nomine that he quarrelleth And it is as if we disputed whether Health and Food were natural to Adam They were not essential to his nature but the rectitude of it concreated with nature and given by the Creator for nature And yet of Grace because sine merito though not as now contra meritum God made all very good In illa ●um secerat qui fecerat rectum August ab ipso citat who feign his Holiness to be a supernatural addition to his natural state thereby preparing men to believe that man was not made Naturally with an Immortal Soul for Immortal happiness But 1. If Adam had an immediate Moral
* * * Such as are most of the sober Heathens in the world For the most religious and sober of them are Pythagorears to this day Lege Varenium de divers Relig. post Hist Jap●n Bless Lord thy own reconciling Truths to the healing of thy Churches or at least of some dis-joynted minds And teach me with patience to bear the Obloquy and Reproach of mistaken zealous Consurers And forgive them that know not what they say or do And wherein I err forgive and rectifie me and better inform both the Reader and me The Third Part OF God's Gracious Operations ON MANS SOUL Their DIFFERENCE and the OPERATIONS OF MANS WILL. For the fuller Decision of the Controversies about EFFECTUAL and DIFFERENCING GRACE By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed by Robert VVhite for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in S t. Pauls Church-yard MDCLXXV THE CONTENTS THE Preface Pag. 1. Sect. 1. The Presupposed Principles briefly repeated p. 7 Sect. 2. The Order of Divine Operations p. 9. Sect. 3. Of the Operations and Principles as compared p. 12. Sect. 4. How far God useth Means p. 16. Sect. 5. Of the Causes of the different Effects of Grace and Means p. 18. Sect. 6. Of the Limitations of Gods Operations on the Soul p. 20. Sect. 7. Of the Resistibility of Grace p. 21. Sect. 8. What is that Operation of God on the Soul enquired of in many following Questions And whether searchable by man p. 22. Sect. 9. Whether Gods Operation be equal on all p. 31. Sect. 10. Whether it be Physical or Moral p. 32. Sect. 11. What Free-will man hath to Spiritual Good p. 35. Sect. 12. More of Predetermination by Physical Premotion p. 37. Sect. 13. More of Mans Power Natural and Moral p. 43. Sect. 14. Whether the giving of Faith be an act of Omnipotency and a Creation and a Miracle p. 46. Sect. 15. Of the Sufficiency and Efficacy of Grace p. 48. Sect. 16. Of Infused Habits and the Holy Ghost even special Grace p. 53. Sect. 17. Whether Man be meerly Passive as to the first Grace p. 55. Sect. 18. Whether the first Grace and the New and Soft Heart or Faith it self be Promised or Given absolutely or on any Condition to be performed by man ibid. Sect. 19. How God may be said to Cause the Acts of Sin p. 57. Sect. 20. How far God and how far man himself is the Cause of Hell and other punishments p. 62. The Conclusion § 1. The Concessions of the Synod of Dort specially the Brittish Divines More of Divine Motion or Impress p. 67. § 2. The Epitome of Alvarez de Auxil drawn up by himself in Epilogo in Twenty Conclusions considered p. 70. § 3. A Censure of the other three wayes described by him viz. 1. The Jesuits de Scientia Media p. 75. § 4. 2. Durandus's Way p. 76. § 5. 3. That of the Scotists and Nominals Of Gods partial Ca●sality p. 79. § 6. The true face and Scheme of the Dominican Predeterminant way in the Sense and Consequents in Fifty Propositions and the Reasons of my preferring any before this p. 80. A Summary of all to satisfie sober minds p. 100. Additional Animadversions on Mr. Peter Sterrey's Book of Free-will making God the Author of Good and Evil as he is of Light and Darkness p. 106. The Third Part OF GOD'S GRACIOUS OPERATIONS ON MANS SOUL AND THE SUB-OPERATIONS OF MANS WILL. For the Ending the Contentions about Sufficient and Effectual Common and Special Grace and Free-VVill The Preface THE first Part of this Treatise though largest and fullest of mens contentious Questions and opinions is furthest from the true point of the difference and difficulty which troubleth the Church And is made large by accident by way of disquisition and detection of the many ens●aring questions and vain or hurtful wranglings of the Schoolmen The Second Part cometh nearer our chief Controversies and resolveth many other on the by and containeth the summ of that part of Theologie which is most clear and sure and necessary This Third Part which cometh up to the main Controversie is short and troubleth you less with other mens opinions and Schoolmens Wranglings about Grace and Free-will Partly because you had enough of them by the way before And chiefly because I would not by tediousness and recitation of Contentions obscure that which I most desire to make plain nor discourage the Reader by the length I think if I can manifest that there is no real or considerable difference among the Learned and Moderate on each side such as are the Synod of Dort on one side and even Bellarmine Suarez Ruiz c. on the other besides the moderate Lutherans and Arminians who may be ashamed if they go farther from us than the Jesuites besides abundance of Schoolmen that are of a middle strain between the Dominicans and Jesuites few understanding Divines would then think that there were any considerable difference remaining about Predestination or the universality of Redemption Those differences being but respective unto this But about Perseverance I confess that there doth a real difference remain But that it is of less moment than most on both sides say and such as is no way fit to quench Christian Love or alienate Christians from each other or hinder their liberties or peaceable communion I have fully proved in the Second Part and formerly in a peculiar Treatise entituled My Thoughts of Perseverance If therefore I can truly disprove our pretended difference about the ●●●rations of Grace or at least prove it to be but as it is no greater not more intolerable than that of Perseverance I shall think that all is done that is thus necessary The main difference seeming or real is about the Power of Mans Will Of which I have spoken much in the First Part and purposely leave much to the Reconciling Praxis in the Second Book which shall dissipate the cloud of ambiguous words Till then it shall here suffice to manifest 1. That we are agreed with them whose conciliation I endeavour that ●● is not the natural Powers essential to a man which we are deprived of 2. But that these Powers have by our common corruption a sinful Disposition unfitting them for a due exercise for God and against sin 3. And that all men at least at age are not depraved in the same degree 4. That this Ill disposition is called a Moral Impotency when it is such as while it remaineth the sinful Act is ever done or the commanded act is never done There is then no Moral Power 5. That the vitious sinful impotency of the will and its Habitual or dispositive unwillingness to good and proneness to things forbidden is all one 6. That he is Morally Able who without any other grace than he hath can do the thing commanded or forbear the thing forbidden 7. That there is no Power but of God 8. That Nature common grace and special grace give several powers or dispositions 9. That a moral power
can do no more than this nor this but by the Power given him of God § 7. Vainly therefore do the Dominicans pretend that it is a Deifying of the Will of man to say that God can enable it to Cause the various ORDER of mans Actions by meer moral helps without Gods predetermining premotion to that order For this is to cause no Real being And he that is moved to the Act in genere needeth no more premotion from God to the disorder and sinfulness of the Act. § 8. And they that will call the production of faith a Creation in the strict and proper sense do not understand that Creatio est Rerum non ORDINIS rerum jam creatarum vel existentium An Act is of it self improperly said to be created in a pre-existent Agent That is not called created which is educed è potentia materiae nor that which is produced by the Potentia Activa prae-existentis forma Faith is an Act of the same Natural Power or faculty which we had before And Grace or rather Nature usually suscitateth that faculty to the Act as an Act in genere And Grace doth cause us to ORDER that act aright as to the due object and other circumstances But if any will call it a Creation I contend not about the name § 9. But the whole state of the Man Habitual Relative and Practical set together is called in Scripture a New Creature and the New Man tropically but not unfitly Partly because we are really new though not by another Humanity or Species of Natural Essence yet by many Accidents And partly because those Accidents are so great and make so great a change of our state as that they emulate a natural Essence and we use to say in common things that when an unlearned man is made learned and a poor man a Prince and a dying man healthful he is another man § 10. Though God be one and the same and Christ the same and the Law and Word and many Antecedent means the same to many on whom they have different effects This difference may be caused many wayes The Causes of difference As 1. By the diversity of other inferiour or concomitant second causes 2. By the diverse Disposition of the Receivers a common cause of varieties in the World 3. By the diversity of Impediments and temptations And many other wayes § 11. * * * I know that Bradwardine li. 2. c. 32. Cor. p. 612. saith that Deum non dare scientiam eratiam aut perseverantiam seu quodlibet munus suum creatur● capaci est causa quare ipsa non accipit non habet non è contra Et p. 614. Quicquid obex dicatur potest illa resp●nsio corripi cum nullus possit hunc obicem tollere nisi Deus vel per Deum prius praetollentem si ipse cum voluerit tollere irresistibiliter tollitur Auferam cor lapideum c. The great question is How far the diversity of Receptive Dispositions is from God Answ 1. God made all equal at first in Adam 2. All were equal in sin by his fall 3. Cain and Abel differed from several causes and not one alone Abel differed from Cain in faith and obedience by Gods grace as the chief cause and his own will and agency as the second cause Cain differed from Abel by unbelief and sin by his own will and Satans temptations 4. The sins of later parents as of Cain Cham Esau Achan Gehezi c. make a further difference by depriving their posterity of some means helps or grace which else they had been equally capable of with others 5. It is certain that man hath much to do about his own heart by which he is to be the second cause of his own Receptive disposition and if he fail is the only cause of his indisposition § 12. Difference is but Dissimilitude And an alteration of one of the subjects which soever will make it dissimile or to differ from the other When the good Angels stood and the evil fell if you ask Who made the difference It was the Devils by forsaking their first estate Though Constitutively both their sin and the Angels obedience made the dissimilitude If you suppose Cain and Abel equally under grace at first and ask Who made the difference I answer Constitutively Cains sin and Abels righteousness maketh or is the difference But as to Reputative efficiency Cain made the difference by rejecting grace So if you should suppose two equally qualified with common grace and one of them to lose it the efficience of the difference is Imputable to him But if you suppose two equally lost in sin and one converted and not the other the Constitutive Causes of the difference are ones sin and the others repentance But the Imputable efficiency is Gods grace and mans repentance or will that is recovered § 13. But when Paul doth ask Who made thee to differ he meaneth Who gave thee that good by which thou differest and expoundeth it by What hast thou which thou hast not received And no doubt but all good is received from God And this would have held true if God had by equal operation done as much on the other which had been uneffectual by his indisposition or rejection § 14. Nature and Scripture perswade us that the same measure of help or influx is not enough to make one repent or believe which is enough to make another For the difference of souls and temptations and impediments plainly prove it The same strength will not move a Mountain which will move a Feather nor the same Teaching make an ignorant Sot to understand which serveth a prepared person § 15. Bodily aptitude or ineptitude do much to vary receptivities which are usually Gods punishments or rewards for Parents actions And oft-times for mens own Some by fornication gluttony drunkenness sports and idleness make themselves even next to Brutes § 16. But we have great Reason from Scripture to believe that though Gods Laws be equal and his Judgements where men do not make an inequality yet as a free Lord and Benefactor he dealeth not equally with all that are of equal merit Though he do no man wrong nor deny any what he promised in his Word but keep perfect Justice as a Governour yet he may do with his own as he list and he will be specially good to some though others see it with an evil eye § 17. Whether all that are elect have at first a greater measure of the Divine help and impress than any that are not converted no man can say of which more anon But certainly all the elect were fore-decreed by Gods will to that certain conversion which others were not so decreed to SECT VI. Of the Limitations of Gods Operations on the Soul § 1. THat which sticks in the minds of many is that God being Omnipotent all his operations must be equally unresistible and efficacious because none can conquer God But they must
is oft not Actually effectual for want of that Voluntary Reception and self-excitation § 27. As to the various effects of Grace fore-mentioned 1. As to the preparation of Means and Gracious medicine Christ the Covenant c. Grace is efficient of it self and doth it 2. As to the first Impulse or Impress on the soul God certainly effecteth it in some degree wherever his spirit worketh on the soul 3. Some Urgency and some degree of disposition to the act is constantly contained in this Impulse And usually it giveth a moral power to the Immediate Act-required 4. The Act of faith sometimes followeth this Impulse through its invincible force And sometime it followeth it through its sufficient force and the due Reception * * * Omne agens requirit de necessitate aliquam dispositionem in suo passo Maximè si illud pàssum habeat dispositiones action● illius agentis contrarias ut patet de igne c. Ergo cum Gratia non sit minus inmo magis quam naturalis forma Certum est quod Gratia requirit majorem dispositionem in passo Et voco illam dispositionem Libertatem arbitrii sui Deo submittere se ad alteram partem declinare scilicet ad volendum Gratiam recipere dolere de culpa commissa voluntarie libere per attritionem Brianson in 4. q. 8. cor 3. fol. 152. This is just the doctrine of our Protestant Preachers supposing that Common Grace must make this preparation which the Papists grant of the subject And sometimes it followeth it not at all through the Recipients indisposition 5. The Habit of faith ever followeth a special Act through the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost But usually it goeth not before the Act Man hath not a fixed Habit to promptitude and facility of believing before he believeth but after 6. The Habit ordinarily procureth following acts by the way of Inclination but not necessarily nor alwayes For by strong temptations Habits are oft born down § 28. If the question then be Whence Gods Grace is Aptitudinally and Potentially efficacious able and fit to effect It is because God is God that he is Able and his Impulse is such because he maketh it such And if the question be Whence Grace is Actually efficient of its first effect the Impulse It is because God will so do and his will hath no Cause being the first Cause And if the question be Whence Grace is Actually efficient of mans faith It is by its Impelling man to believe But if you ask Whence faith it self is or of what cause is it an effect I answer of God as the first cause and the Means as his Instrument and of the Believer as a free second Cause And if the question be Why sufficient Grace which is Effectual ad Posse is not effectual ad agere It is because being but sufficient mans Indisposition and wilful neglect or opposition maketh him an unfit Receiver § 29. There being nothing then but Gods essence and the means antecedent to the first effect on the soul and that effect ever following where God worketh and the second effect being the effect both of God by the first and of man as a free agent the questions unde efficatia Gratiae and unde effectus are thus healingly answered § 30. Obj. But the will of God is the first differencing and effectual Cause And that not as it is his essence but as it is terminated on the Creature and decreeth such an effect Answ 1. It is no will but his essence which is so terminated or decretive 2. That termination maketh no difference at all that 's real in the will of God but only in the effect or object 3. What is the difference then between Gods will simply in it self and as willing from eternity a thing not yet existent None really at all And that which is not yet being Nothing what Relative Connotative and Denominative difference such Nothings can make on the will of God besides the variety of imperfect notions in mans frail Intellect let the wise consider § 31. From whence it is that School-divines after Augustine say that with God there is no futurum velpraeteritum no fore-knowledge or fore-decrees properly because no difference of time but only knowledge and will of things as present § 32. Yet Gods Vital Activity Knowledge and Will as he himself is the object of them have a Greater distinction because to be self-living self-knowing and self-loving are his Essential Acts on himself the eternal object which made many Ancients account them the Trinity of persons And also to Will an existent Creature is an extrinsick denomination from existence But to will that which is not that man shall be that he shall believe hereafter c. as it is nothing really different from Gods essence so it is but an extrinsick denomination of his essence from nothing SECT XVI Of Infused Habits and the Holy Ghost Given us The Schoolmen that speak most for the necessity of Infused Habits cannot agree what use they are for Aureolus supposeth chiefly for the right circumstantiating of Acts rather than for promptitude to them and pleasure in them And when all is said they give men but small comfort from them saying as Aureolus Brianson c. that no man can be sure that he hath them seeing acquired Habits may do the same things that Infused do Utrum Beatitudo supernaturalis hujus vitae sit magis in Habitibus quam in operationibus vid. Suarez Metaph. disp 44. sect 8. n. 18. Molina 1. p. q. 12. ar 5. disp 2. ar 2. pro habitibus Sed contra inquit Aegid de Sancta Praesentatione Li. 4. de beatit q. 5. a. 3. p● 471. His non obstantibus oppositum affirmant omnes Theologi qui bac de re scripserunt nec videtur posse de hoc dubitari And yet Alens 2. p. q. 104. m. 3. Aquin. 1. 2. q. 51. a. 2. ad 3. q. 63. a. 2. ad 3. Valenti●● To. disp 4. q. 3. punct 2. c. are for preferring Habits Idem Aegid de Praesentat li. 4. p. 443 444. tells us that by Grace God is Present in the soul as his Temple otherwise than by Immensity and sustentation But his praesentia Amicitia can mean nothing but the special effects of Gods Love Nostrâ tempestate non solum est temerarium periculosum sed ferè hareticum habitus insusos negare Nam Concil Vienens c. universi Theologi uno consensu affirmant dari habitus insusos Medina in 1. 2. q. 51. a. 4. 282. But Soto li. 2. de nat grat c. 17 18. saith that the Concil Trid. purposely forbore to define the case of infused habits Let the Reader note that Jansenius proveth that Pelagius himself asserted infused Habits given in baptism and that without merit Jans Aug. To. 1. li. 5. c. 22. p. 126. § 1. EVery operation of the Holy Ghost is not the Giving
What man can do further opened p. 114. Crim. 3. Holding free will to good p. 121. A manifold Liberty evinced by many Questions p. 122. Whether any that use it not have liberty to believe p. 124 125. Crim. 4. That men are not dead in sin p. 125. Crim. 5. That man is not meerly passive in his first conversion p. 126. Crim 6. None damned for Adam's sin only p. 128. The seventh days Conference Of Sufficient and Effectual Grace Crim. 1. Of the Armin. Denying sufficient Grace they damn men for meer Impossibilities p. 130. Had Adam sufficient Grace p. 132. Of the 13th Artic. of the Church of England p. 133. How God willeth mens Salvation p. 134. Crim. 2. Making Grace unresistible p. 136. How far they do so The eighth days Conference Crim. 1. Of the Calv. They assert universal sufficient Grace p. 139. Queries evincing Common Grace p. 139. The greatness of their error that deny it p. 141. Doth this satisfie while God that can save men will not p. 143. What Grace and what sufficient Grace is p. 145. Whether the same measure of Grace called meerly sufficient be ever effectual p. 148. What the Grace in that question is Whether a vis impressa Of determination by God and by the Intellect p. 151 152 153. Crim. 2. By Grace they mean Nature as Pelagius p. 156. What Nature is Grace how far supernatural p. 158. Crim. 3. Making Grace but a Moral swasion p. 160. Physical operation what p. 162. Crim. 4. They hold faith to be acquired and not infused p. 162. What acquired and infused means p. 163. Dr. Twisse about this noted p. 167 c. Crim. 5. They hold Grace given according to works or preparation p. 169. Crim. 6. They make the Will to have no sin or Grace p. 171. Crim. 7. They make Grace resistible p. 172. The case further opened p. 173 174 c. Is there any universal second cause of Grace under God as the Sun in Nature which worketh resistibly and God by it ad modum recipientis p. 177. Christ how far such ib. Crim. 8. They make mans Will to make himself to differ c. p. 180. What differing is what the causes as to believing ib. How far God worketh by universal Grace p. 185. Who made thee to differ opened p. 186. Crim. 9. Man's will maketh Gods Grace effectual and not Gods p. 186. Whence Grace is effectual p. 189. Differencing Grace what p. 192. It not all the question of the Divine Impress p. 193 194. The case summarily opened p. 196. The ninth days Conference Of Perseverance The Arm. Crim. 1. They make fear and care to be folly p. 198. Crim. 2. They cherish all sin p. 200. Crim. 3. Their Doctrine is uncomfortable on pretence of confuting p. 200 201. Both sides charge each other thus A middle way about Perseverance avoiding both p. 204. Crim. 4. They dishonour Gods Image making heinous sin consistent with it p. 204. Crim. 5. Immodesty and singularity contradicting all the ancient Church p. 206. Crim. 6. Contradicting express Scripture p. 207. The tenth days Conference The Calv. Criminations about Perseverance Crim. 1. They overthrow the comfort of believers that deny Perseverance p. 208. What comfort may be had by such p. 211. Crim. 2. and 3. They make God or his Covenant mutable p. 212. Crim. 4. They deny the Promise of Perseverance p. 213. Crim. 5. They infer a second Regeneration p. 214. Crim. 6. They go against the Doctrine of Augustine c. p. 215. The just extenuation of this last controversie p. 215. The eleventh days Conference with a Libertine called Antinomian vindicating sound Doctrine against divers accusations Chap. 1. Whether we must call men to come to Christ without Preparation p. 220. Chap. 2. Of denying our own Righteousness p. 223. Personal Righteousness necessary p. 224. Of Reward and worthiness or Merit p. 225. The truth largely opened about merit and reward p. 230. Reasons for it p. 232 c. Ch. 3. Whether our own Righteousness conduce to our Justification Or we are any way justified by it p. 238. Ch. 4. Whether the Gospel be a Law of Christ p. 243. Ch. 5. Whether Christ and not we be the only party in Covenant with God p. 245. Ch. 6. Whether the new Covenant have conditions p. 247. Ch. 7. Whether justifying faith be a believing in Christ as Teacher Ruler c. or only a receiving his Righteousness p. 251. Ch. 8. Of Faiths Justifying Instrumentally p. 251. Ch. 9. Whether Faith it self be Imputed for Righteousness p. 252. Ch. 10. Whether it be a change in God to justifie the before unjustified p. 256. Ch. 11. Whether a justified man should fear becoming unjustified ibid. Ch. 12. Of mans power to believe and our calling the unregenerate to Duty p. 258. Ch. 13. Of the witness of the Spirit and of Evidences of Justification p. 261. The Conclusion The twelfth days Conference with a learned Lutherane Whether the difference among Christians about Merit be as great as some think it p. 263. Some Protestants and the late Lecturers Reasons against Merit proposed p. 265. and the case opened Of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent p. 266 c. Of condignity p. 267. The Doctrine of Vega Scotus Waldensis Eckius Marsilius Bellarmine Greg. Armin. Durand Brugens Cusanus Stapleton Bradwardine Soto Bonaventure st Clara and all the Schoolmen as he judgeth Carthus Cassander p. 270. Holiness and Glory a greater gift than Glory without holiness p. 271. Aquinas judgment His confusion occasioned by his opinion that the new Law is that which is in the heart and not written viz. the Spirit as the Quakers hold ib. Vasquez denyeth Commutative Justice in God with all the School Doctors 17 of them cited He confuteth it even as to Christ He denyeth proper Distributive Justice also in God citing Bonavent Scotus Durand Palud Gabriel Alexand. Aquin. c. p. 272 c. Aquinas sense in Carbo's words p. 275. Many Schoolmen deny as much as Legal or Governing Justice in God Ruiz citeth for this Argent Bassol Suarez Pesant Suarez saith God's promises are but naked Assertions declaring his Will Durand that promises signifie not obligation Greg. Armin. That the Crown is no Debt but of free Ordination Marsil That God is no Debtor but free Giver Scotus Major Ricard deny God to be a Debtor by his promise but hold that Merits are such by Promise Ruiz saith against Suarez That Promises are more than Assertions but that God's obligation is to himself p. 276. Medina against Meriting Remission p. 277. Against Preparation p. 277. Contarenus judgment Fisher's of Rochester p. 278. The words of Tolet p. 280. The thirteenth days Conference with a Sectary Of the great errors sin and danger which many Ignorant Professors fall into on the pretence of abhorring and avoiding Popery p. 283. The sins of such as Calumniate sound Teachers as favouring Popery p. 285. Errors vended by some Protestants through an injudicious opposition to
commonest observation 3. All other Habits follow the Acts and therefore we have little reason to say it is otherwise here C. Doth the Soul believe before it is inclined or disposed to it B. Inclination is a hard word and belongeth both to Natural Inclination such as we have to Felicity and to Habits and to meer Dispositions And a pre-disposition we grant As when you spur your Horse you make him first the patient of your act and by suscitating his natural faculty you dispose him to a speedy motion though the similitude doth not quadrare per omnia because Gods influx is on the whole Soul it self But this Disposition to the present act is far less than a proper Habit or it 's another thing C. When I spur my Horse or whip my Dog I do but stir up a former faculty or slothful power But God giveth a new life and power to them that were dead in sin B. Yet I cannot take words for matter 1. It 's nothing but the natural faculty or power which you suscitate in the beast And hath not an unbeliever the Natural faculties or power Is he not a man Why do you not bury him if he be not alive 2. Death in sin is relative or real The Relative is Reatus mortis which denominateth men filios mortis and is done away by pardon The real is the Privation of a holy disposition to the act of Faith and Repentance c. or of the Act it self or of the Habit. You can name no other Now 1. the death which consisteth in the privation of the first disposition to act supposing all natural dispositions is taken away by the first influx or suscitation of the Holy Ghost 2. And by the same in secunda instanti is caused the Act and the death gone that lay in its privation 3. And in the third instant or afterward by degrees is taken away the death which lieth in the privation of the Habit. And this giving the Habit is called in Scripture and by Divines Sanctification as following Vocation and it is wrought in us by degrees and not all at once and that by the Spirits power with and by our exercised Acts. In my youth I was so prematurely confident of the contrary that the first Controversie that ever I wrote on was a Confutation of Bishop Downam Amesius Medall de Vocat Mr. Tho. Hooker c. in Defence of Pemble herein but riper thoughts made me burn that Script C. But the spur or rod putteth no new power at all into your Horse but Gods Spirit putteth a new Power into us B. I have talkt long enough to you about Power before and therefore would not turn back needlesly to say it over again Gods Spirit putteth no such thing into us as we call a faculty or natural power For that is the form or essence of the Soul and our Species is not chang'd by Grace But he giveth us that which is called a Moral Power which consisteth conjunctly in the concurrence of means and objects and the disposition of our faculties to the act Hear Dr. Twisse against Hord pag. 12. lib. 2. He secretly maintaineth that every man hath such a power by Grace by which he may repent if he will Concerning which Tenet of his we nothing doubt but every man hath such a power but we say it is nature rather Page 18. Truly I see no cause to deny this that even the wicked could do good if they would We may safely say with Austin Omnes possunt Deo credere ab amore rerum temporalium ad Divina praecepta servanda se convertere si velint Here is posse se convertere id est velte si velit But saith Twisse pag. 170. l. 1. But such is the shameful issue of them that confound impotency moral with impotence natural as if there were no difference which he oft sheweth is but the want of actual and dispositive willingness Now the rod or spur may cause both a present disposition and an act of will C. But is this all the new Life and Spirit and Divine Nature that is given us Sure it is much more B. No doubt but it is much more But that Spirit Life and Nature is promised and given to Believers and is promised on condition of our accepting Christ in whom is our life And therefore it is that habitual Grace which followeth the first act of Faith and is a nobler disposition to the following acts C. Will one act of ours cause a Habit B. Not as ours only But when the Spirit will work by it it will But even that Habit I told you is weak at first and increased by degrees But proceed and tell me Quest 7. Are you sure that in the Acquisition of Habits there is no immediate operation of God on the Soul that causeth them C. We all hold an immediate Influx necessary to the Being and Action of every Creature natural and free but not an immediate Infusion B. What 's the difference between Influx and Infusion C. The first is an universal operation the other a particular B. Do you mean that the difference of the acts or operations is at all ex parte agentis sen act us ut est agentis antecedent to the effect or only in the effect it self C. I dare not say that there is any difference in God for it is against his simplicity and his very will and act as in himself is his Essence though vario●sly related and denominated by cannotation Therefore I must needs confess that the diversity is only in the effect B. Do you not see then what a delusory and troublesome stir men make for and about meer words What 's the Crimination come to then about Acquired and Infused Habits when the difference is only in the effects You confess that all proper Habits Infused are by our cogitation and use of means and so are also acquired And you confes that all Acquired Aabits are wrought besides our cogitation and use of means by an immediate influx of God so that as to the Causes you can name no difference And yet the words Acquired and Infused signifie a difference in the Causes and their operation and not in the Effect by their notation Is not this deceit then C. Tell me what you take to be the difference your self B. 1. I suppose that ab uno omnia God without diversity causeth all diversity which is only in the Creatures and not in him 2. I suppose that God hath appointed natural means and second causes for common natural effects and his Will is that they shall operate according to their aptitude And that he hath appointed extraordinary means even Christ and supernatural Revelation for the production of saving Faith And it is his will that they shall work usually according to their aptitude 3. It is his command that we use these several means natural and supernatural accordingly 4. As these means are special extraordinary and for a special end
before No man can deny but that God usually prepareth the Soul fer Conversion by a common sort of Grace And though he may do what he list with his own and extraordinarily may in an instant convert the most unprepared malignant obdurate person yet that is not his usual way And some that think otherwise are led into the mistake by thinking that a man is converted when he hath suddenly some terrifying humbling preparation which endeth in conversion Whether he convert all that are brought to the very highest and nearest degree of preparation I know not nor perhaps you neither But that usually he converteth all such we have very great reason to think probable And that he hath not commanded men to seek his special Grace in vain So that whether it be a proper promise on Gods part or only an encouragement short of proper promise I told you before is a hard question But we maintain that it is not that proper mutual Covenant which maketh a Christian and is celebrated in Baptism and giveth Salvation If one of old John Rogers's Thomas Hooker's or Robert Bolton's hearers when they were vehemently urging preparatory humiliation desire endeavour c. should have said to them Sir you play the Arminian and contradict St. Paul who saith that Grace is not given according to Ista ●●●dia nemini Deus dest●●●● propter vel secundum morita ipsius sed ex pura puta Gratia Nemini etiam denegat nisi juste propter gracedentia peecata Armin. Disp Privat Thes 41. Sect. 10. Adrian VI. Quodl 3. q. 1. fol. 21. expoundeth Habenti dabitur thus Qui habet verbi Dei amorem ut illuc mentis intuitum dirigat dabitur ei sensus intelligendi qui non habet verbi Dei amorem auferetur ab eo naturalis capacitas intelligend c Works Therefore God will give it me never the more for such preparations what would you have said to him The truth is practical Preachers in these practical cases are carried with full sail into that truth which Disputers would wrangle out of Doors But as for any work● meritorious in point of commutative Justice y●a or of any full and proper Covenant of God giving a proper Right to the Sinner upon which he may claim special Grace as his due I know of none such before true Conversion though Gods commands and general promises give men sufficient encouragement C. But what say you to Rom. 9. It is not in him that willeth or runneth c. B. I do not love to expound hard Texts unsatisfactorily by scraps I will give you God willing a Paraphrase of the Chapter together by it self I suppose you have read John Goodwin's and Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase At present it may suffice to say 1. That the meaning is not that he that would have Christ and Grace and Holiness is no fitter for it than he that would not have them nor that he that seeketh them is no fitter for them than he that rejecteth them●nor that he that believeth is no fitter for Justification than ●n I●fidel nor he that is holy any fitter for Heaven than the unholy nor yet that he that heareth meditateth prayeth a● he can and attaineth the highest degree of common Grace is no fitter or likelier for Faith or special Grace than he that despiseth it and the means of it 2. But the meaning is that God of his free mercy c●lled the Gentiles that were further from him than the Jews and may give both the Gospel and the Grace of the Gospel to one and take it from or not give it to another when both of them are equally unworthy of it by their sin So that the first and principal cause that difference●ha Jacob from an Esau is not that Jacob before Gods Grace did will and r●n de●ire and seek Grace but that Mercy begun with him and gave him though as unworthy as Esau both commonner and special Grace which caused him to will and run And yet for all that both are supposed to have forfeited mercy by sinning against it and it is in him that willeth not and runneth not that the cause of his misery and privation of mercy is to be found Yea in many an instance where mercy and helps are given by an equality a wicked man may make himself to differ by his sin and wilfully become worse than others C. At least you must here confess that de facto we do really differ from each other in this point B. All they that hold all that Doctrine of Preparation for Conversion which you find in the suffrages of the British Divines in the Synod of Dort do not that I know of differ from many of the Lutherans and Jesuites nor from many of the Arminians herein while by the name of merit of Congruity used by some and Preparation by the other no more is meant than they there assert And as to the question of a promise or no promise I shew'd you before how small the difference is yea with some it is but de nomine while one calleth that a Promise which another calleth but a half promise with Mr. Cotton or a precept to use means with sufficient encouragement when perhaps in the description of the thing they agree So that among the most and sober practical Preachers I yet see no real difference in sense at all about the necessity of preparatory Grace The sixth Crimination C. For ought I can understand some of them acknowledge no Corruption nor Grace in the Will as having no Habits but meer Indifferency or Liberty but think that the illuminating of the understanding is enough to change the will * The Remonstrants say Synod circ art 3. 4 p. 15. Voluntatem i●super Deus in obsequium suum fle ctit ad actu● fidei obedienti● ita inclinat per spiritum suum sanctum verbo utentem ut voluntas per illam operationem non solum possit obedire ●ed obediat quoties obedit non ex se an● per se aut a se B. 1. These are a few odd persons that differ from the generality of your Adversaries and I am not to justifie all that every man writeth 2. But even of these I suppose the meaning of the most is but this that sin began inthe Intellect and there Grace must begin and that God worketh on the will but mediante Intellectu And these Camero held as well as they and so do many more And these seem to differ not about the necessity of Grace but the manner of its conveyance to the will whether it be only by the intellect 3. And as the wind bloweth where it listeth and we hear its sound but know not whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit We know that the will is vitiated as ill as the understanding and needeth Grace as much as it and that God is as near to the one in his operations as to the
I see more than ever I before observed that God indeed hath set up a Sun an universal medium a Christ who in our nature is a Creature to be the Donor and Convey or of all Recovering Grace to man and to give out the Spirit in that stated order and measure as is suitable to his design and Subjects And as on earth he gave out much light and help which was resisted and rejected I now less wonder that it is so now he is in heaven even as to his Spirit as well as his Word When I consider that though God be Infinite his Grace is given out to mankind finitely by a finite Creature Christ as man even as God shineth to us not immediately but by the Sun I will no more then account it an injury to God that he should be said to give limited and resistible degrees of Grace by Christ but repent that I have so much grieved and resisted the Spirit of Christ my self B. Proceed now to your other accusation The eighth Crimination C. They make mans Free-will and not Gods differencing Grace to be the cause that one man by Faith doth differ from another that hath Remonstr Synod ubi supra Si quaeratur quae sit causa cur hic convertitur non autem ille Respondemus hic conv●rtitur quia Deus bunc non apponentem novam contumaciam convertit Ille non convertitur quia novam contumaciam opponit Quaeres cur hic opponit novam contumaciam alter nons Respondemus Hic opponit quia oppo●ere vult Ille non opponit quia a gratia movetur ne opponere velit Quaeres annon ille qui non opponit novam contumaciam per consequens convertitur majorem ●abebat gratiam quam qui opponit per consequens non convertitur Respondemus Antecedentem praevenientem gratiam aequalem esse posse sed coopelantem hab●t prior non posterior no Faith Contrary to Paul's supposition who made thee to differ Tilenus could not answer Camero to this charge B. I doubt here again is a Controversie about words I will speak to you as to one that would know the truth 1. De re as to the Controversie 2. As to the meaning of the Text. I. Let us here consider 1. What it is to Differ 2. What are the causes of such difference I. To DIFFER is nothing but to be dissimile unlike Dissimilitude or Difference is a Relation This Relation as Ockam truly and largely sheweth is nothing extra intellectum besides its fundamentum subjectum terminus the Absoluta II. Difference then being a Relation is the dissimilitude of divers persons compared Here the natural numerical difference of persons and abundance of other differences are presupposed And it is the Difference between a Believer and an Unbeliever the Penitent and Impenitent as such that we have to consider of Now here are two Subjects differing and in each one if not two differences from the other So that here are two if not four several Relations of dissimilitude between them 1. Paul is a Believer by which he differeth 1. From Nero as a Privative Unbeliever 2. As a Positive Unbeliever On the other side Nero 1. as a privative Unbeliever 2. and a positive differeth from Paul Now every one of these Differences or dissimilitudes have a several cause 1. The fundamentum of both Paul's differences from Nero are hi● own Faith and the Termini are Nero's Privative and Positive unbelief 2. The fundamenta of Nero's difference from Paul are his Privative and Positive unbelief and the Termini are Paul's Faith to both Now if the question be what doth Constitutive make Paul differ from Nero it must be answered Paul's Faith and Nero's unbelief For dissimilitude resulteth from the one compared with the other And if both had been Believers there had been no difference And so were this the question there were no difficulty in it at all But the meaning of the question is not of the constitutive cause of the dissimilitude or the fundamentum but of the efficient cause of that fundamentum or else of the diversifying Dispositiv Receptiva Now supposing that Faith and Unbelief are the constitutive differencing causes the efficient causes of both must be sought as the Ratio discriminis and not of one only Quest 1. What is the cause efficient of Nero's unbelief Ans His own will or wicked heart Quest 2. What is the efficient cause of Paul's Faith Ans 1. The Principal efficient is God by his Spirit 2. The meritorious cause is Christ 3. The chief ministerial efficient is Christ as giving the Spirit to work it 4. The Instrumental efficient is the Gospel 5. The Immediate efficient is Paul For it is he that believeth and not God Is there any one that denieth any of this C. I doubt they think that mans will is more the cause than the Spirit because they suspend the Spirits success upon mans will B. Accuse not men by suspicions and doubts without proof yea contrary to their own professions Your crime of uncharitableness is not theirs nor doth it follow that they are faulty because you are suspicious * Alliac Camer ● ● q. 12. B. D●us nullum praedestinavit ant praedestinat accipiendo predestinationem secundo modo propter aliquod bonum aut aliqu●m causam praevisam in praedestinato quia non stat aliquem noviter aliquod bonum habere quin Deus prius voluerit a●●terno c. You may read Corvinus to Tilenus expresly assigning the efficiency of all that Grace that maketh us to differ principally unto God Some of them only say man cannot effect or convert himself but he can resist and so require no more of man to his conversion but not to resist yea not to resist in an obstinacy and high degree Others of them require of man also an actual concurse of his will by his power received with the concurse of God But they make God here incomparably the chief efficient not only as to Priority of operation but as to his causation of the effect And they use to illustrate it some time as Scotus by the similitude of two drawing at a Ship sometime by a Father that should bid his Son lift at a heavy weight and resolveth to put to 900 degrees of the force himself if his Son will but endeavour and put forth one degree In this case if the Son will not put forth that one which he can do and so the event fail it is not by the Impotency nor absolute unwillingness of the Father And if the child do put forth that one degree will you say that he doth more to the effect than the Father that doth 900 parts and that only because that the Father would not do all himself But this carrieth us from the matter in hand and is after to be spoken to C. But if you make so many things go to make the difference the question who made thee to differ must have
Whether God Actually in his mind thus Compare men and prefer one before another and say I will cause this man to believe rather than that I answer 1. There is no Act in God but his Essence which is invariable and indivisible 2. But because his operations as terminated and productive ad extra are various and have objective material causes of their diversity in the recipients therefore we usually thence denominate Gods volitions as various And so when we see that one man hath Grace given him to believe when another hath not we hence say that God mentally and by Decree preferreth one before the other when the difference is not at all in God not his Act ex parte agentis but only of and by God in the Recipients C. But come yet nearer the heart of the case and tell me plainly 1. Whether the difference of Effects be more from the will and action of God or from mens different Receptive dispositions And 2. Whether all these different Receptivities be not of God B. Order bids me begin with the latter 1. The different Dispositions are of two sorts Good and Bad. God is not the cause of the Indisposition or illdisposition of any And as to the good disposition or Preparation of Souls no doubt but he is the principal Cause of it all but not the sole Cause nor always at least the necessitating Cause but oft giveth men that necessary help by which they might have been prepared for more when yet they are not through their wilful resistance or neglect For few men will deny that men have sufficient uneffectual Grace for some preparatory acts though not for faith Ad. Q. 2. I told you that the difference in the effects resulteth from the Causes in both Subjects and not in one only That which maketh one a believer and the other an unbeliever maketh them differ And I have told you what these Causes are But further I suppose as aforesaid a certain established order and degree of universal help external and internal by Christ to the Soul as the Sun affordeth to inferior Bodies This stablished order of Grace universally affordeth such a degree of Divine Influx and help as will cause faith in a prepared Soul and will not cause it in some much unprepared Souls For if as little help would serve the unprepared as the prepared to what use is preparation quomodo recipitur ad modum recipientis In this case now the efficient of Grace is God and not Man but * That even Jesuits confess in their way of scientia media that the Ratio discriminis why one person rather than another hath Grace is from God initially and principally and not from any beginning in man See Ruiz proving it at large in all his Tract 3. Disp 18. 19. De Praedest exordio So that this is no difference between us Yea more he maintaineth that ante fidem ni●il est dispositionis meriti aut impetrationis Sect. 3. Disp 19. 24. And one would think that this should satisfie even the Antinomians But he meaneth only that this disposition is not always necessary He that will in brief see what the Schoolmen say of preparative Grace may find abundance of them cited by Ruiz ibid. d. 21. per totam and what nature can do in preparation Greg. Armin in 2. d. 28. q. 1. a. 1. speaketh most like the Reformed Aug. de bono persever c. 8. Sed cur Gratia Dei non secundum merita hominum datur Resp Quia deus miserecors est Cur ergo non omnibus Et hic respondeo Quoniam Deu● justus Judex est the Ratio proxima of the difference in the event and effects is the Diverse disposition of the Recipients But here mark well that it is not the good disposition or preparation of one party that is the only and I think not the chief reason of the difference but the Privative and Positive indisposition of the other party is as much if not the chiefest reason If one man shut his eyes against the light when another doth not the Ratio discriminis why one man differeth from another in seeing and not seeing is on both parts but principally on his part that shutteth his eyes because the other doth but what he was made to do and all living creatures should do But the other absurdly crosseth nature So that under an universal Influx and help the said Influx is the efficient of the action or effect but the disposition of the Recipients are the Occasions and Reasons to be assigned of the various effects but especially the incapacity of the defective party As the reason why the Sun doth make a Tree bear fruit and not a dead stock is because the Tree is an apt recipient of its influx but the stock or stone is not 2. But Note that in case that God operate not by such an universal Influx only but also by superadded special or extraordinary degrees of particular Grace which by a difference from the universal Influx or degree is peculiarly apt to procure the effects here the ratio discriminis is principally to be ascribed to that special Grace and not to the preparations on the Soul C. Tell me then what you think whether God works by such an universal Grace or by such a special Grace 1. How far doth he work by universal Grace 2. Is that universal Grace ever effectual of it self on prepared Souls 3. How far doth he also use the special particular Grace which you mentioned B. I. To your first Qu. I answer 1. God in the beginning made mankind upright in Adam and Eve and made no difference as to the present case 2. Eve having first sinned did make a difference between her self and Adam which God made not nor altered first his universal Grace 3. Adam next without Gods alteration by Sin did difference himself from himself as he was before 4. God then set up a new universal Grace even Christ with the new Covenant and Recovering means to give out universal help suited to his Covenant and means to be the Giver of the Spirit and the Light of the world we cannot have time now to open the difference between Christ's administrations before and after his Incarnation There was at first an universal sufficiency in this Recovering help of Grace 5. Cain that could have done otherwise wilfully sinned against this universal Grace and Covenant and so made a difference between him and the rest of mankind when God made none 6. Whether Abel did offer his acceptable Sacrifice by this same universal Help alone or by any special extraordinary Grace ex parte mediorum vel Influxus primi recepti is a thing unknown to us because unrevealed 7. The Posterity of Cain as of Adam at first because Seminally in him and personally from his very guilty essence were justly deprived of some of that Grace both Subjective and Objective which Cain had deprived himself of Their natures were more vitiated and so
they were made less Receptive and more disposed as to the universal means and Influx And by his secession from the holy seed he was deprived of much outward means And having forfeited the Spirit he had less also of its helping Influx And thus he and his posterity made themselves to differ as if a Generation of Sinners should be born bl●nd while the Sun shineth as it did before 8. The Holy seed that 's not yet Apostate have great subjective and objective Grace 9. The seed of Cain are still under the same Law of Grace and universal conditional promise that If they will believe and repent they shall be saved And they have some Means and some Help of Grace yet left them which have an aptitude by degrees to bring them back again to God And if they will not use that lower degree of Grace by returning as they can they forfeit that and further help 10. But yet God hath besides this Universal Grace some special and extraordinary ways and degrees of Grace for some according to his Good pleasure But this with the answer to your other two questions will come in better anon under the next head C. Having spoke to the matter now speak of the sense of the Text 1 Cor. 4. 7. and Rom. 12. 6. For who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou didst not receive Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it B. It is most evident that Paul speaketh of the Gifts or Excellencies themselves primarily and of Differing from others but as a resultancy from those Gifts And he medleth not here with the question why others have not those Gifts as well as they and so why others differ from them q. d. Are not all those things of which you glory the free gifts of God And is it not by those free gifts that you differ as more excellent than others And should you boast of that which is Gods free Gift of which you are but Receivers To pass by the common answer that Paul speaketh of Ministerial Gifts and not of special Grace what Arminian can deny any of this about the Grace of faith it self 1. He must confess that we have no Grace to cause faith but what we have received For the Act which we performed is no otherwise to be said to be received but as we receive the gracious operation which causeth it 2. He cannot deny that by this Received Grace and Faith the believer in excellency differeth from unbelievers 3. Nor that such a Receiver hath no cause of boasting as if he had not received it Who will deny this C. But they leave him to boast that by his better preparation and disposition he was a fitter Recipient than another And so all boasting is not excluded B. 1. In Paul's Case of extraordinary Ministerial gifts there is less room for that much because they are not given so much according to preparations as saving Grace is For even ungodly men may have them 2. The boasting which is excluded is a boasting of our selves as against or without the glory of Grace as if we had some excellency which we had not received But our very Receptive disposition was received by Gods Grace even from his common preparing Grace And that common Grace was freely given 3. If by boasting you would mean an acknowledgment of Gods grace then all thanksgiving is boasting Or if a Rejoycing in the effects of that Grace as Received and improved by us then Paul so boasted often yea and to the death rejoyced in this testimony of his Conscience that in simplicity and Godly sincerity and not in fleshly wisdom he had had his conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1. 12. And that he tamed his body and that he suffered for Christ and that he had fought a good fight 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. If praising Gods grace in his Servants and that holy use of it in wisdom faith love obedience and patience be boasting God so boasteth of them and praiseth them even at judgment Math. 25. Well done good and faithful Servant And Scripture throughout so boasteth of them And we that must honour those that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. must so boast of them also But this is not the forbidden boasting And as to Rom. 12. 6. 1 Cor. 12. Eph. 1. 6 7 8. and such like its past question that God freely diversifyeth Offices and such Gifts as he pleaseth and we know of no praedisposition to which even ordinarily he tyeth himself as to many of them But saving Grace is given more under a Law and stablished course of means in the use of which we must be fit Recipients The ninth Crimination C. They make the Grace of God to be Effectual not from the Will of the Giver nor from the proper force of the Grace it self so much as from the will of man concurring For they think that Gods Grace is but universal and indifferent and leaveth it to mans will whether it shall produce the act of faith or not so that the posse Credere velle is of God but the actu credere velle is of our selves This is the grand difference which I have reserved to the last and as Dr. Twisse oft no●eth the question Unde Gratia fit Efficax is it which they are loath to be brought to answer B. I know that this is cryed up as the great difference And where-ever things are mysterious and hard there will be variety of Conceptions and words from whence it will be easie to pretend real differences and make them seem great But because order befriendeth Truth we must be agreed first of the subject of the question what Grace is it whose Efficacy you dispute of I take it for granted that it is such as is to work in genere Causae Efficientis But tell me first whether you Arminius confesseth Gods infallible operation thus Nihil mali caveri posse nist Deo impediente certum est Sed de modo impediendi disputatur an ille sit ex Omnipotent● Dei actione in voluntatem hominis agente secundum modum naturae unde impeditionis existit Necessitas an vero ex tali actione quae ag●t in Voluntatem secundum modum voluntatis qu● liber● est unde impeditionis infallibilitas Armin. Exam Perkins pag 501. Note by Necessity Arminius doth mean Necessity consequentis vel effecti and confesseth necessity Consequenti● which here he calleth ●nfallibility And Dr. Twisse professeth that he and all the Schoolmen hold no other And note the unde that he maketh the Infallibility to result from the operation of God and not from his fore-kno●ledge only confess or not that there is such a thing as Universal Grace or Help of the Spirit fixedly or ordinarily accompanying or working by the means of Grace which operateth as the Sun ad modum recipientis and will not produce the same effect on one receiver as on another C. I
made a Janizary A third the Parents dying leave to such as educate them vitiously And some the Parents apostatizing educate in Heresie or unpiety themselves 3. He oft casteth their lot under different means for their Edification One is set Apprentice to a Godly Master and another to an ungodly one One is cast under a Holy able Minister and another under an ignorant Seducer One is cast among Godly Companions and another among lewd Seducers idle wanton voluptuous unclean malignant scornful or other such tempting persons as that a great deal more grace or help is necessary to their preservation 4. One for ought we see of equal commerit is impelled or occasioned to go to Church just when an apt Sermon is prepared for him and another occasioned to be absent A Minister or Friend is sent as Philip to the Eunuch though by ordinary means to meet with one and speak suitably to his case and not to the other 5. One falleth under some great affliction which taketh him down and awakeneth him to seriousness and another swimmeth down the violent and dangerous stream of prosperity and constant health 6. One seeth some notable Judgments on others or some convincing Providences or hath some strange deliverance himself which another never hath 7. One Nation or Kingdom of equal ill desert hath the Gospel and powerful Preachers sent to them while others are left as the most of the world without it yea as the poor Islanders Laplanders Brasilians Soldanians and Canibals A thousand ways God hath to fulfil his Will which we know not of But besides all these in point of Means we see that under the same Means or Sermon or Family helps there is not the same success Not only because the unbelievers make the difference by sinning against sufficient universal Grace but because God doth especially touch the hearts of some by such Grace as he giveth not to others Thus did he open the heart of Lidia Act. 16. C. Methinks you should lay all on this Internal changing Grace and not on the difference of means B. Certain Experience telleth us that most usually God giveth extraordinary differing means where his Grace shall work different effects Christ himself who was to bestow extraordinary Grace after his Incarnation was himself to be an extraordinary means He must work Miracles raise the Dead rise from the Dead c. as the Means The Apostles that were to do extraordinary things in calling the unbelieving world to Christ were to do it by miracles and extraordinary means The 3000 Act. 2. must have the Apostles miraculous gift of tongues to be the means of their Conversion Cornelius must have both an Angel and Peter Paul must be strucken down and blind and hear Christ speak from Heaven and after have Ananias's Ministry The Eunuch must have Philip. The Jaylor Act. 16. must have an Earthquake and so of others And to this day we see how little God doth where there is no Ministry or Means And how much the success of able holy skilful Ministers doth differ from that of wicked or Ignorant sots And how usually in all the world the success goeth according to the means and that the instances of contrary are unusual rarities Therefore separate not what the wisdom of God hath conjoyned C. But do you think that God ever ascertaineth the Effect meerly by such Moral Differencing helps or means annexed to his universal Gracious Efflux or aid without a special degree of that Immediate Efflux it self on the Soul B. 1. We little know when God worketh Immediately and how far His Efflux or Action ex parte agentis I oft tell you hath no degrees being himself The degrees are in the Received Impress on the Soul And it 's like this special differencing Grace consisteth in a special degree of Impress But when that Impress is made by the Spirit without the Instrumentality of Means we know not God can make our own Imagination and spirit and inward temperament a means undiscernably to us 2. If I have proved to you that even the universal Grace it self with common means may attain the effect and doth in many who dare question whether All yea One extraordinary or special Means added by God to that Common Influx with a will of success may ascertain the effect It were Blasphemy to say that God hath not Wisdom enough thus to attain his ends by a series of adapted means in conjunction with that Grace C. But methinks you spin too fine a thred when you talk of an Impress of the Spirit on the Soul as the first Effect of God alone or God and the Means antecedent to faith or the Act of man as the second effect of God and Man together I find not that our Curiousest School Wits do talk much of such an Impress B. 1. You will find the same sence in the Thomists and many of the Schoolmen And methinks it is clear in it self The Act of Faith is done by us Our Souls have need of some Grace to be the Cause or it The Cause goeth before the Effect This Cause must not be out of us but within us Grace therefore must be first within us as a Cause before it is within us as the effect of it Yea Action being nothing but Modus Agentis is not a fit recipient it self immediately of a vis impressa It is the Soul or faculty that must Act and to say that Gods Influx is not on the Soul or faculty as the recipient but on the Act of that faculty aloue seemeth to be unintelligible if not absurd It is our Act or our Soul that needeth help or Grace If not the Soul but the Act then we have need of none at all For the Act is yet future that is is no act and nothing and so hath no need 2. But if really you will hold to the opinion that our Act it self is the first Effect of Gods Influx or Will then take notice that all our controversie here between you and the Arminians what Grace is sufficient and what effectual is at an end And it is on your part and for the truth that I spin that thred which you account too fine C. How do you manifest that B. Most plainly For if we have nothing to enquire after between Gods agency ex parte sui and the Act of Faith it is a ridiculous question to ask what Grace is sufficient and what effectual and what difference between the one and the other and what is that which maketh efficiently the difference For either your Question is of the Cause or the Effect If of the Cause it is besides the second Causes nothing but Gods Essence even his essential Activity Wisdom and Will And do you think that Gods essence is diversifyed as little and great more or less sufficient and effectual Do you enquire for Diversity in simple unity That which worketh all effects in the world is one Cause that hath in it self no real difference of parts kinds
faith mentioned so oft in Scripture that is Upon and by believing we are first made just by free-given pardon and right to life and true sanctification with it and we are sentenced just because so first made just But this is not without our Faith and Repentance 2. And that Faith and Repentance are a Righteousness Evangelical that is a performance of the conditions on which the Covenant of Grace doth freely give us right to Christ pardon and life and so are the Constitutive causes of that subordinate Justification Lib. But your subordinate Righteousness hath no hand in our Justification P. This is but singing over the old Song by one that will not consider what is answered Have you thought on all the Texts even now cited Hath faith no hand in our Justification Hath the performance of a Condition and the Moral Disposition of the Receiver no hand in the Reception of a Gift What think you is the meaning of Christs words Matth. 12. By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned What meaneth St. James that a man is justified by works and not by faith only Are men justified by that which hath no hand in their Justification Lib. Christ meaneth before men and so doth James and not before God P. This is notoriously false as contrary to the plain Text Christ speaketh of the Account to be given of our words in the day of Judgement vers 36. And James speaketh of that which men are saved by vers 14. and that Justification which Abraham had and that in an instance where Man did not justifie him and of that which was faiths life and perfection vers 17 22. and of Gods imputing faith for righteousness as to a friend of God vers 23. And is this nothing but Justification before men Lib. This is not the justifying of the man but of his faith P. 1. You contradict the Text which saith Abraham Rahab A man is justified by Works 2. You contradict your self For if the faith be justified the man is justified to be a true believer For how could a man that fulfilled the Law as Christ and Angels did be justified but by justifying his actions And how can he that fulfilleth the Gospel conditions be justified in that point but by justifying that he fulfilled them Lib. At least I may say that this is not the great and notable Justification which is only by Christs Righteousness P. We are not contending for its preheminence but its truth and necessity in a subordinate place Indeed we have one Justification by our Judges sentence which hath many parts and causes God as Donor is one cause and God as Judge another And Christ as meriting is the only meritorious cause of the Justifying Gift and Covenant and Christ as Intercessor another cause and Christ as Judge another And our Righteousness as it is our Right to Impunity and life another and our faith and Repentance are conditions All this is sure Lib. But the Justification by faith is our Universal Justification and that can be only by Christs Righteousness And we are not to trust to a Righteousness mixt of Christs and ours nor doth Christs Righteousness need to be patcht up with our menstruous rags P. 1. No question but Christs Righteousness is perfect and ours imperfect and ours is no patch or supplement to Christs He is not made righteous by our righteousness but we by his 2. But that which is perfect in him is not made perfectly ours nor formally ours in it self as distinct from its merited effects It is not ours as it is Christs Christ that is our Righteousness is also made of God to us wisdom and sanctification And will you say therefore that we are not to be Wise or Holy by any Wisdom or Holiness of our own for fear of adding our patch to Christs 3. You use to say that Christs Righteousness is ours as Adams sin is ours and say some as Adams Righteousness would have been had he persevered But 1. Adams Righteousness would have indeed made an Infant initially just by propagation that is the innocent Child of an innocent Parent But as soon as that Infant had the use of Reason and Choice he must also have a Righteousness of his own or perish And this is no patch to Adams righteousness And indeed in his Infancy he must have a seminal Holiness of his own to justifie him as well as the relation of a Son of Adam 2. So also though we are guilty of Adams sin by propagation yet we have with that guilt 1. An inherent pravity of our own 2. And at age our actual sin And both these are our unrighteousness as well as Adams sin imputed to us Even so Christ the second Adam is a Root of a righteous seed Our Contract by faith is as to him what our Natural propagation is as to Adam that is the Condition of our Interest in his merits We have as believers an initial righteousness in our relation to Christ But we have also from him 1. Inherent habitual righteousness 2. The actual righteousness of faith and true obedience and love And these have their proper use and office without which we must perish 4. And I must tell you that the word Universal is too big to be properly given to any mans justification or righteousness but Christs Properly he only is Universally justified or righteous who hath no unrighteousness at all imputable to him and is justifyable in all things But the best believer 1. Was once a sinner originally 2. Did oft sin actually 3. Hath still sin in him 4. And for some sin may be punished by the Magistrate 5. And for sin is judged and punished by chastisements and death by God 6. And the earth still cursed for our sake 7. Yea which is worst of all we are still under the pena●ty of some privations alas how great of Gods Spirit and its Grace and our Communion with God And all this must be confessed And such a one is not Universally justified or just Lib. But still our own Righteousness doth but make us such as thankful persons must be for their Justification by Christ and is no part of that Justification by faith For if faith it self be that Righteousness we have not faith by faith and faith is not imputed to faith but Christs Righteousness is it that is imputed P. Of Imputation in due place 1. What need you talk against that which none of us assert Do we not all hold that our personal Gospel-Righteousness is subordinate to Christs and is by his Gift as ou● Wisdom and Sanctisication is Who dreameth that our faith is any part of Christs Righteousness But why do you waste time in vain cavilling against plain certain truth Is there any thing in Name or Thing asserted by us that you can deny or question Quest 1. Do you deny that Scripture commandeth us to Believe that we may be justified Lib. No. P. Quest 2. Or
against those things which their ignorance misrepresenteth to themselves And so Gods ordinances are made a snare to souls which are appointed for their salvation and the man that can kindle in his hearers a transporting passion against this or that opinion or form as Popish is cryed up for an excellent preacher and seemeth to edifie the people while he destroveth them 11. And by this means you seem to justifie the Papists lyes and calumnies against the Protestants by doing as they do They belye Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza c. with just such intentions and such a kind of zeal as some over doing Sectaries belye them And is it bad in them and good in you 12. You teach the people a dangerous and perverse way of reasoning à minùs notis which will let in almost any errours From a dark text in the Revelations or Daniel or from the supposition that the Pope is the Antichrist and all Papists have received the mark of the beast you gather conclusions against the notorious duties of Love and peace which the light of nature doth commend to all Not that I am perswading you that the Pope is not Antichrist but that all things be received but according to their proper degree of evidence S. Now you open your self indeed All that revolt to Popery begin there with questioning whether the Pope be the Antichrist and telling men of the darkness of the Book of Revelations P. I tell you I will abate no certainty that you have but increase my own and yours if I could but I would not have any falsly to pretend that they are certainer of any thing than they are And no certainty can go beyond the ascertaining evidence And if all Scriptures be equally plain St. Peter was deceived that tells us of many things hard to be understood which the unlearned wrest as other Scriptures to their own destruction And if the Revelations be not one of the hardest I crave your answer to these questions 1. Why are five Expositors usually of four opinions in the expounding of it when it is those that have spent much of their lives in studying it as Napier Brightman c. who are the Expositors 2. Why will none of you that find it so easie at last write one certain Commentary which may assure which of all the former if any one of them was in the right 3. Why did Calvin take it to be too hard for him and durst not venture to expound it 4. And if you take it to be so necessary as you pretend tell me whether it was so necessary and so taken by all those Churches that for a long time received it not as Canonical Scripture Surely they were saved without believing it Though no doubt but the book of Revelation is a great mercy to the Church and all men should understand as much of it as they can But all that I blame you for here is the perverting of the order of proof in arguing à minùs notis 13. And these over-doers that run things into the contrary extreams do most injuriously weaken the Protestant cause by disabling themselves and all men of their principles to defend it and arming the Papists against it by their errors When it cometh to an open dispute by Word or Writing one of these mens errors is like a wound that lets out blood and spirits and puts words of triumph into the adversaries mouth A cunning Papist will presently drive the ignorant disputant to resolve his cause into his mistake and then will open the falshood of that and thence inferr the falshood of all the rest And what an injury is that to the souls of the auditors who may be betrayed by it and to the cause it self For instance If one of our over-doers hold that we are reputed to have kept all the Law of Innocency and merited salvation our selves by Christ or that no act of faith is Justifying but the accepting of his righteousness or that faith Justifieth only as the efficient instrumental cause or that we have no righteousness which hath any thing to do in our Justification but only Christs imputed Merits or that mans faith Love or obedience are not rewardable c. how easily will a Papist open the falshood of such an opinion to the hearers and then tell them that they may see by this who is in the right And alas what work would one Learned Papist make in London by publick disputing if we had no wiser men to deal with him than these over-doers They may call Truth and Sobriety Antichristian and talk nonsence as against Popery successfully to their own party but I hope never to see the cause managed by their publick disputes lest half the Congregation turn Papists on it at once If Chillingworth had not been abler to confute a Papist than those that used to calumniate him as Popish or Socinian he had done less service of that kind than he did 14. And it is an odious injury that these Over-doers do to the ancient and the universal Church while in many cases they ignorantly or wilfully reproach and condemn them as if they were all the favourers of Popery and call their ancient doctrine and practice Antichristian Some of them ignorantly falsifie the Fathers doctrine and upon trust from their Leaders aver● that they held that which they plainly contradict and that which they held indeed they cry out against as Popery Such an instance we have newly in a Souldier Major Danvers an Anabaptist which I have detected And will Christ take it well to have almost all his Church condemned as Antichristian 15. And hereby what an honour is done to Popery and what a dishonour to the Reformed Churches when it shall be concluded that all the Churches heretofore even next after the age of the Apostles and almost all the present Churches were and are against the doctrine of the Protestants and on the Papists side And yet how many do us this injury and the Roman Church this honour About the nature of Justifying faith and its office to Justification and about the nature of Justification it self and Imputation of Righteousness and free-will and mans Works and Merits and about assurance of salvation and perseverance how many do call that Popery which the whole current of Greek and Latine Fathers do assert and all the ancient Churches owned and most of all the present Churches in the world And those that call all forms of prayer Popery or the English Liturgie at least when almost all the Christian world have forms and most such as are much worse do but tell men that the Christian world is on the side that they oppose and against their way 16. And it is a crime of infamy to be taken for Separatists from the universal Church And in doctrines and forms of Worship not only to avoid what we take to have been a common weakness but also to condemn them as Antichristian or as holding pernicious errours is but
hurt to the Christian World than the most bloody Wars of Princes And I must reduce the Causes to these three Heads I. The Abuse of POWER II. Of WISDOM III. Of GOODNESS or of the Names of these the three great Principles of Humanity That is I. By Clergie TYRANNY II. By OPINIONISTS or Dogmatists III. By SUPERSTITION and HYPOCRISIE or PRACTICAL BLIND ZEAL But among all these sorts selfish PRIDE IGNORANCE and UNCHARITABLENESS or want of LOVE are the great effectual Causes And departing from CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY in Doctrine Worship Church-government and Conversation is the grand instrumental means of most of our Schisms Distractions and Calamities I. Only by Pride cometh Contention Prov. 13. 10. The Church-TYRANT is Proud of his Superiority and Wealth The OPINIONIST is Proud of his supposed Knowledge and Theological Wisdom on which account the Gnosticks troubled the Church of old The HYPOCRITE and the honester ignorant Zealot is Proud of his supposed Holiness or Goodness And for an eminency and precedency and praise in each of these they all conspire while they disagree among themselves to trouble the Church of Christ In a word Selfishness Ignorance and want of Love are the Causes of mens personal ruine and damnation and the same are the Causes of the Churches divisions and all the miseries of the World II. And that IGNORANCE is a Common cause even in the Gnostick Dogmatists that cry down Ignorance Error and Heresie needs no other proof than the diversity of Opinions which such contend for Every side pretend that it is ORTHODOXNESS FAITH or the Great Truths of God which they defend And in one Countrey or with one Party one thing is Orthodoxness and the Truth and another thing in another Countrey or Party and another thing with a third c. And did they all but know what is Truth and the Will of God indeed they would cease their Contentions and all the Sects would meet in Unity III. And did men but LOVE their neighbours as themselves and were as easily perswaded to think well of and deal gently with their neighbours as themselves and as hardly drawn to condemn hate hurt or injure them I need not tell you how easily quickly and universally we should be healed But before I speak of the Instrumental Means I will fullier open the three forementioned Causes I. Religious Clergie-TYRANNY hath so notoriously so long and so greatly made havock both of Piety and Peace that he that is not an utter stranger to Church-History cannot be ignorant of it I need not tell any Learned man how many even moderate Papists much more Protestants have thought that Constantine and other Emperours that over-exalted the Clergie poured out Poyson into the Church making great preferments a bait to invite all the worst of men to be seekers and invaders of Church Offices and Power and to corrupt those that otherwise would have been useful men especially when Christians having first made them their Arbitrators in obedience to St. Pauls counsel they were made the Legal Judges of the Causes of all contentious Christians and so set up Secular Magistratical Courts I need not tell them what work almost every General Council as those of one Empire were called did make what work even the first at Nice had made had not Constantine burnt their Bills of accusation against each other and personally lamented their divisions and driven them on to peace what work was made in that at Chalcedon and that at Ephesus and so of others what a horrid scandal the case of John and Dioscorus was and the murder of Flavianus and many others nor yet how the controversies against the Nestorians Eutychians and Monothelites were managed I need not tell them how soon Victor began at Rome nor what Socrates and others say of Cyril and Theophilus at Alexandria nor yet how Nazianzene was used at Constantinople nor how copiously and vehemently he accuseth the Bishops and wisheth that there were no such inequalities among them as gave them advantage to do hurt nor what he saith against their Councils nor yet of the quarrels of Basil and Anthymius nor of Basils sharp complaints of the Roman and other Western Prelates I need not tell them of the Usage of Chrysostome even by such men as Theophilus Epiphanius and their partakers nor of the dividing of the Constantinopolitan Christians thereupon nor how the violent Prelates made Separatists and Non-conformists of Chrysostoms adherents by the name of Joannites and how unlikely that Schism was to have been healed had not wiser Bishops succeeded who restored Concord by honouring Chrysostoms Name and Bones and dealing kindly with his followers I need not tell them of the sad work made at Ariminum and Syrmium and oft at Rome Constantinople and every great Episcopal Seat nor of the bloodshed between Competitors at the Election of Damasus nor of the separation of St. Martin from the Synod of Bishops led by Ithacius and Idacius nor of the difference of him and Ambrose from the rest about the complyances with Maximus The World knoweth of the doleful Rupture that hath continued between the Roman and the Greek Church about a thousand years And of the many Schisms at Rome by various Anti-Popes even at once above forty years together And of the reason of the calling of the Councils of Constance and Basil to end them And how the King of Rome keeps up his Kingdom to this day what work he hath made with Frederick the Henries and other German Emperours what divisions this caused among the Clergie what blood he caused to be shed for Jerusalem and how many thousands of the Waldenses have at divers times been slaughtered what work the Inquisition hath made in Spain and Belgia and elsewhere and the flames of Persecution in England and almost in all Christian Lands what work the Holy League did make in France and the English Bishops in many a War with their Kings besides the case of Becket and such others By whose instigation two hundred thousand Protestants were lately murdered in Ireland and many again in Piedmont I say to tell such things as these to those that are acquainted with Church History is vain And I would those that yet think cruelty the best way to set up themselves or Religion if that must bear the name and to repress their adversaries or Schisms would but among many others read the Epistle of great Thuanus before his Works to Henry King of France But is it only the old Bishops Greeks and Papists that have made such havock in the Churches Even those that pretended to moderation did by the German Interim make many hundred Churches desolate And the ten years imprisonment of Caspar Peucer vid. Histor Carcer and the silencing of many and many faithful Ministers and the banishment of many doth shew with what Spirit many of the Lutherans carryed on their work And doubtless had the Calvinists in Belgia been as wise and peaceable as the English Delegates were at
Head and of Pardon and Salvation 8. It is Christ's stated Constitution that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and be that believeth not shall be damned Mar. 16. 16. That if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth Christ's resurrection unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation Rom 10. That except you repent you shall all perish Luke 13. 3 5. That men must repent and be baptized for the remission of sins Acts 2. 38. And repent and be converted that their sins may be blotted out Acts 3. 19. So Rev. 22. 14. Matt. 6. 14 15. Ezek. 33. 14 16. 1 Tim. 4. 8. Godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the Life that now is and of that which is to come Call these Laws or Covenants or what you will we are agreed that all this is the word of God 9. These terms of life and death are the rule of our practices and our expectations by which we must live and by which we shall be judged and therefore we may truly say that they are Christ's Law And they are God's signified determination of the conditions of life and death and his donation of our right to Christ Pardon and Life is contained herein and therefore this may truly be called Christ's Testament and Covenant in several respects 10. Though all duties be prescribed by God's Law and so each Precept is a material part yet formally or specifically the Laws to which these material parts belong must be distinguished by the distinct conditions of life and death 11. God hath made more Promises Donations and Covenants than one or two which must not be confounded 1. His Law and Covenant made to and with man in innocency is one 2. And his Law and Covenant made to and with Christ as Mediator is another 3. And his absolute promise of a Saviour to the World with the conditional promise or Law of Grace conjunct was the first edition of another And the Gospel as after the incarnation promulgate was a more perfect edition of it to pass by Abraham's Covenant of Peculiarity and the Mosaical Law as such 12. Though Christ be promised in one of these and be God's antecedent gift he may nevertheless be the Author of another and so far the foundation as well as the meritorious cause 13. That may be of free Grace which is merited by Christ yea and that which is annexed to the Evangelical worthiness of a believer 14. That may be a condition required of us to be done by the help of Grace which yet is the effect of that Grace and given us by God 15. It is a true Covenant between God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and man which is solemnly entred into in Baptism And this is a Covenant of Grace even that proceedeth purely from Grace and of Grace as given by God and by us accepted He that will confound these various Covenants Promises and Laws on pretence of their unity though there is doubtless a wonderful unity of all the parts both of God's moral signal means and his physical works shall confound much of Theology 16. The Law made to Adam never said either thou or another for thee shall obey but it bound man to perfect perpetual personal obedience 17. Therefore that Law as it obliged us is not fulfilled by the obedience of Christ but only as far as it obliged him nor can any man be justified by it as a fulfiller of it by himself or by another nor did Christ fulfil it in any other mans person though in his stead so far as is aforesaid 18. The Law doth not command any man since Adam perfect personal obedience as the means or condition of life nor promise any life on such a condition as is now naturally impossible but though it be not repealed by God is so far ceased by the cessation of the subjects capacity to be so obliged 19. The Laws obligation of us to punishment is dispenced with and dissolved by a pardon purchased by our Mediator 20. Christ's righteousness is nevertheless the meritorious cause of our righteousness or justification though he justify us by the instrumentality of his donative Covenant as giving us right to our Union and Justification and Life and though our Faith and Repentance be the condition of our Title 21. We accept two Concessions as containing that truth which sheweth that we do not much differ de re could we more happily order our organical conceptions 1. That Christ's righteousness is not the formal cause of our Justification 2. p. 596. Seeing the satisfaction was not made IN THE PERSON of the offender but his substitute it was necessary that THE BENEFIT of ANOTHERS satisfaction should be communicated in such a way as might best please that God whose Grace was the only motive to his acceptation of a substitute It is the undoubted priviledge of the Giver to dispose of his own gifts in his own way And it was absolutely and indispensibly necessary that the sinner should be duly qualified to receive such transcendent favours purchased at so dear a rate and fitted to return the glory to a Redeemer which an unhumbled unbelieving unconverted and unsanctified sinner could not possibly be He that writeth this cannot sure much differ from me hereabouts But he is charitably uncharitable when he saith Never any man in his wits affirmed it so that the righteousness of Christ is the formal cause of our Justification It 's too charitable to hide that which cannot be hid of so great a number whom it seems he never read for all his Commission from all the Systematical Divines of Germany c. p. 696. And it 's too uncharitable to judge so many excellent men out of their wits The truth is so many speak so that I have been doubtful I should be smartly censured for saying otherwise Forma qua justificamur est misericordia Patris perfecta Justitia filii saith Ant. Fayus in his Accurate Theses Th. 60. p. 280. And by misericordia Patris being the form you may see how he understood Imputation The number that thus speak are too great here to be recited so that even the most judicious Davenant lest he should go out of the road was fain to make this the Theses to be proved by him Imputatam Christi obedientiam esse causam formalem justificationis nostrae probatur Cap. 28. p. 362. c. de Instit habit But let none turn this to our reproach nor take all these for mad for it is but an unapt name and by him and many others soundly meant for the greater part of these Divines say but that Imputatio Justitiae Christi Remissio peccatorum are the form not of Justification as in us but as it is Actus Justificantis as Altingius Maresius Sharpius Bucanus Spanhemius Nigrinus Sohnius
rationis ad utrumlibet agendum vel non agendum agendum unum vel alterum which Rivet resteth in and fitteth the doctrine of necessitation but I think expresseth not Liberty strictly taken It may be ad utrumlibet if Satan had a power to move it as I move my pen. Bellarmine's is lib. arb est libera potestas ex his quae ad finem aliquem conducunt unum prae alio eligendi aut unum idem respuendi vel acceptandi pro arbitrio nostro ad magnam Dei gloridm concessa which Paraeus dissenteth not from But all defining is vain ●ill the ambiguous word Freedom be distinguished and the sense accordingly variously stated yet is this description only of Liberty and constraint too common with some 168. But if this were so then ☞ 1. The suspension of the will might be nevertheless by force or restraint which is a non velle And so when they say Voluntatem ab ipso Deo non cogi posse because when it acteth it acteth willingly that is when it willeth it willeth the consequence holdeth not because it may be forced from all action unless they mean that it cannot nolle non agere at once 2. And if this were so then either they mean that God cannot naturally necessitate the will to act or that such a natural necessitation consisteth with its Liberty If the first they destroy their doctrine of Predetermination For what is that but Gods Physical irresistible efficacious premotion determining the will to act And what is natural necessitation if this be not If the latter then they contradict their own definition of Liberty which they oft give us that it is Liberty from natural necessity which Twiss calleth Libertas naturae distinct from Libertas conditionis vel civilis And what more natural necessity than that which refulteth from that premotion of God as the first cause of all action without which no agent natural or free can act and which none can resist 169. Their opinion of Liberty also leaveth no difference between bruitish appetite or spontaneity and free-will save only that this doth follow reason which indeed is a difference of Guides but not of Liberty 170. And according to this opinion if God gave Satan power to move any mans will to sin by as true a physical motion and as unresistible as I move my pen it were no constraint nor loss of natural Liberty because it is moved to be Willing 171. And if they lay all on the Acts congruity to the Habit or Inclination then if Satan could infuse unresistibly into the Will an Inclination to hate God or to any sin and then physically determine it according to that inclination it were no force or loss of natural liberty 172. But I think he that by irresistible efficiency makes a mans will wicked both in its Inclination and Acts doth incomparably more against him and his liberty than he that could force his tongue or hand against his will or he that only tempted and perswaded him 173. The grand Reasons why we cannot receive the Dominicans doctrine of predetermining premotion are elsewhere given I now name but these three 1. Because whatever vain talk is used to blind men it maketh God the sole-total-first-necessitating cause of all the sin that is committed in the world or can be 2. It unavoidably destroyeth the Christian faith For if God be really the said determining Cause of all lyes and other sins in the world then his Veracity which is the formal object of faith is gone And no mortal man can tell whether Prophets and Apostles are predetermined to speak true or false nor when God moveth them to the one or the other For to Call their motion by the name of Inspiration will satisfie no man that Gods Inspiration can do any more at least to interest himself in the act than his necessary physical premoving determination 3. Because it feigneth God to damn most of the world for not-conquering God who insuperably predetermined them to the forbidden act that is for not being Gods or greater than God And that he sent Christ to die only for those sins which he thus pre-moved us to irresistibly and it was as impossible to forbear as to touch the Moon 174. In the issue of all these Controversies the sharpest contenders seem agreed whether they will or no Arminius granteth that all events of sin or damnation are from eternity necessary necessitate consequentiae * * * Bonavent in 1. d. 38. q. 1. Resol Praescientia Dei rebus praescitis necessitatem non imponit cum ●o modo res cognoscat quo futurae sunt Duplex est necessitas Absoluta quae opponitur Contingentiae dicitur necessitas consequentis Respectiva dicitur necessitas consequentiae haec non opponitur contingentiaeut si ambulat movetur In praescito non est necessitas absoluta sed solum consequentiae Nicol. D'Orbellis 1. d. 38. dub 1. Duplex est necessitas Consequentiae consequentis Bene sequitur necessitate consequentiae Deus novit me cras sessurum ergo sedebo consequens tamen est contingens ut homo currit ergo movetur Nos concedimus Liberum arbitrium in ●o quod agit liberum esse ab omni necessitate ut proprie non possit necessario agere quoad exercitium sui actus quamvis respectu Divinae ordinationis certo infallibiliter agat Ames Bellarm Enervat To. 4. l. 4. c. 1. He meaneth it of a caused physical necessity no doubt which is as is said but a Logical necessity in ordine probandi that is It is a good consequence This God fore-knoweth ergo it will come to pass And it is only the necessitas consequentis which he denyeth which Rob. Baronius Metaph. calleth necessitas causata and I had rather call necessitas effecti which is in ordine productionis And Dr. Twiss doth sharply reprehend him for feigning that he or any others do assert any more than necessitas consequentiae And bringeth in the testimony of many Schoolmen professing concordantly that there is no more than this which also fore-knowledge it self will inferr It 's worth the reciting Vindic. Grat. Li. 2. p. 1. Digres 5. Quid quod ab eruditis eadem statuitur necessitas ab utraque profluens tam à praescientia Dei quam ab ipsius Voluntate Nam licet Arminius voluerit necessitatem à Dei voluntate profectam esse necessitatem Consequentis à praescientia verò promanantem duntaxat Consequentiae aliter tamen visum est magnis Theologis Sic enim Durandus Non bene dicunt illi qui dicunt quod omnia de necessitate eveniant per comparationem ad Voluntatem divinam quia omnia respectu Voluntatis Divinae eveniunt libere ideo absolute loquendo possunt non evenire Expressius Bonaventura Dei voluntatem absolutam necesse est impleri conditionalem verò minime sed advertendum quod est necessitas consequentiae sicut praedictum est
every Man his Right and Due is included 338. It is not Gods will without the sign as is said nor the sign without his will but the sign as notifying and his will as notified that is a Law and Jus the Effect Gods will is the principal Cause and quasi Anima Legis and the sign is the instrumental Cause and quasi Corpus 339. The Sign re●pecteth these things 1. The matter due 2. The dueness or right 3. The will of God concerning or constituting it 4. The mind and will of man to whom this is signified Or 1. Gods will as the Efficient of Right 2. The matter and form of Right as Constituted 3. The mind and will of man as the terminus 340. These signs of Gods will are 1. Natural called the Law of Nature which is the Natura ordo rerum especially ipsius hominis as before described 2. By extraordinary Revelation The latter have the great advantage of plainness significandi rem praeceptam The former hath the fuller evidence of its Author and Original that it is indeed of God Both are his Laws to man 341. La● Judgement and execution the three parts of Government differ in that 1. Law maketh the Debitum or Jus 2. Judgement determineth It is of great use for a Divine who handleth Gods Laws to understand the nature of Laws in genere as Suarez in praes de Legib. sheweth which Book is one of the best on that Subject that is extant among us of it by dec●sive application 3. Execution distributeth according to it 342. The Jus vel Debitum instituted by the Law is twofold 1. A Subditis What shall be Due from the Subjects the Debitum Officii 2. Subditis what shall be Due to the Subjects viz. 1. Antecedently to their merits which is 1. The act of our Governing Benefactor 2. Or a Divider such was the Law for dividing the Israelites inheritances 2. Consequently which is by the Retributive part of the Law commonly called the Sanction which is 1. By the Premiant part what Reward shall be due 2. By the Penal what Punishment 343. Accordingly Laws have several parts 1. Precept and Prohibition making Duty 2. Retributive 1. Premiant 2. Penal called Gods Promises and Threats 3. And subservient or accidental 1. Narratives Historical Chronological c. 2. Pure Donations 3. Prophesies 4. Doctrinal 5. Exhortatory 6. Reprehensive c. 344. Though Debitum vel Jus facere be the formal operation of a Law which is to be Fundamentum Relationis yet the Act of the chief parts preceptive or penal is commonly called Obligation And so many say that obligare aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam is all the action of a Law But Obligare is a Metaphor and therefore in dispute to be laid by or to give place to the proper terms And the Premiant act is not properly called obligation nor the penal act save in a secondary notion as he is ●bligatus ad poenam ferendam if judged who is first Reus poenae or to whom it is made Due by the Law 345. The ●bligation aut ad obedientiam aut ad poenam is not of equality in the disjunctive As if God were indifferent which we chose But it is primarily ad obedientiam and but subserviently ad poenam as a means against future disobedience and a securing the ends of Government in case of sin 346. But the Preceptive and the Premiant parts are each chief or final in several respects God Commandeth us a Course of Duty or Right action to this end that we may be Happy in his Love And he promiseth us first and giveth us after in foretaste this Happiness to draw us to Duty 347. But here is a wonderful inseparable twist and in the main an Identity God Ruleth us as a Father or Regent Benefactor All his Benefits are Free-gifts as to the Thing and Value But given 1. In an Order 2. And the rest as means to the ultimate In which respects they are a Reward or means to it His very Law is a Gift and a great Benefit Duty is the means to keep his first Gifts and to receive more The very doing of the duty is a receiving of the Reward the object of duty being felicitating As if feasting or accepting offered wealth or honour were our work Holiness is happiness in a great part And in our End or state of perfection all will be one To Love God Rejoice in Him and praise him will be both our duty and felicity means and end as it were in one 348. Whereas some say that if there were no Law sin would deserve punishment it is an errour For it is due only by Law But it 's true Of all the following distinctions note these words of Bonavent in 1. d. 4● a. 1. q. 1. Volunt●●em D●i Antecedentem s●● Conditionalem possibl●e ●●●● non impleri at consequentem absolutam nequ●●uam S●●un●um Da●●sc Voluntas ben●p●aciti ●t ●apl Antecedens seu Conditionales consequous qua vult quantum in s● est omnium salutem alsoluta sive consequens qu● determinate vult aliquid q●●d no●it certitudin 〈…〉 Intelligendum ●●● n●llam Dei Voluntatem p●sse superari aut cassari Aliquam tamen posse non imp●eri ●t antecedentem Aliq●●m ut consequentem impossibile ●sse no● impleri ●●● impedi●i Non ●tiam possibil● est Voluntatem Dei cassari Nam cassam di●itur aliquid dum pri●●tur e●●ectu p●●●●io ad quem est Voluntas aut●● nullo privatur esseciu ad qu●m est p●●p●ie Nam quod dicitur quod Deus vult omnes homi●●s salvos fieri quant●m in s● est haec Voluntas non connotat salutem nec proprie est ad effectum salut●s sed connotat ordinatio●●m naturae sive natur●m ordinabil●n ad salut●n ●●●● ni●il plus est di●●re Deus vult istum sal●●● fieri quantum in se est q●●m De● placuit dare isti ●●●●ram per quam posset p●●●●●ire ad sa●u●em quod Deus para●●● esset ju●●re ita quod salus non deficit prop●er dese●tum à p●nte Dei Therefore it connoteth also all the helps which God affordeth men that it 's due by the meer Law of Nature without any superadded Positive Laws 349. Gods will called Legislative or Governing is ever fulfilled in strict sence that is So much as is Gods part and the Laws part to do is ever done e. g. God saith Perfect obedience c. shall be Adams duty and it is done It is his Duty whether he will or not He saith To steal shall be sin and it is sin He saith He that believeth shall have right to Justification and Glory and he that believeth not shall be Filius mortis that is Death and Hell shall be his Due and so it is Thus strictly all Gods Will is done 350. But in the secondary remote sence every sin violateth the Will of God by breaking his Law For when he saith Obedience shall
Holiness The Holiness of Christs Humane Nature and of Angels and Saints in Heaven is as much the Creators as is his Works of Mercy and Justice And Gods glory shineth as much in them And it is the glory of his Goodness if not of Mercy which preventeth sin and misery yea and of Mercy too For though mercy relate to misery it is as well to possible misery prevented as to existe●● misery removed And if he speak not of Subjects but Proprietors the Bo●um Creaturae is also Creatoris SECT XIX The same doctrine in Rutherford de providentia confuted 625. I Have been too long in confuting this Digression of Dr. Twisse which is contrary to the commonest doctrine of Protestants and The summ of their opinion I think soundeth not well in Christians ears The summ of which is this Neither God nor Devil do will sin as it is evil but God is the first willer of its existence because it is in its own nature summe unice conducibile to the manifestation of his Justice and mercy And willing and Loving being all one in God he thus singularly Loveth the existence of sin above its contrary holiness for this end And by Predetermining premotion which he much more largely writeth for elsewhere he causeth as the first total Cause all that man Causeth But it is sin in man because forbidden him but not in God because not forbidden him And therefore God is not to be said to cause sin though he cause all that is caused but to permit it because he causeth it not in himself nor is he to be called a Deficient cause of our omissions because he is not bound to Actuate us but man is to be called the efficient and deficient cause because he is under an obliging Law Though God made that Law And though he can no more than a stone act without physical predetermination nor forbear acting when so acted yet he is to be called free because he is actually willing or his will doth act and because he is predetermined by none but God This is the true sence of their opinion as opened by themselves I shall now briefly consider what Rutherford saith to the same sence 626. Cap. 15. pag. 186. To Annatus charging Twisse as denying Gods permission of sin because he maketh him the * * * Nec omnino negari potest Voluntatem Dei esse Causam rerum omnium quas fieri velit Twiss recitante etiam Rutherf de Prov. c. 15. p. 186. See all their Reasons for Gods causing sin or willing its existence answered by Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 26. p. 262 263 264 265. As also against Gods predetermining to the immediate materiale peccati disp 27. p. 270 c. disp 28 29 30 c. usque ad p. 580. As to the common saying that God willeth not sin as sin all men will confess Dr. Twiss often that neither doth a wicked man do so Peccans ut sic non intendit peccatum quoad illud quod est formale in peccato seu carentiam conformitatis sed intendit actum ut est in genere moris inquit Aureolus in 2. d. 42. a. 3. pag. 319. I will not conceal a more difficult argument than most of theirs which may occurr to others God caused e. g. in Nathana●l Peter c. this act of saith before Christs coming the Messiah is to come hereafter When Christ was come this was false and so evil God still caused the faith which he gave them Therefore he caused an untrue belief and evil and that supernaturally But I answ 1. God caused the habit of their faith and the act The nature of the habit was in general A belief of all divine revelations and in special A belief in the promised Messiah The termination of the act on the Messiah as future rather than as Incarnate required nothing positive in the Habit The same Habit served to both acts unless the latter being for the nobler act had some addition but the former needed none 2. And that this Habit might bring forth the act in that circumstance no more was necessary but 1. Gods word Christus venturus est 2. And Gods influx on the habited faculty to cause it to act according to that habit So that when God had reversed that word Christus venturus est he was no longer the cause determining the mind to believe that word but only the cause that the habit of faith was still towards Christ But not at all sub ratione venturi For the determining word was called in and it was an imperfection not to know so much where it was not a sin Cause of the Act the Liberty and the Prohibition and to Cause is not to Permit he hath no better answer than to say that God doth not permit the Act nor the Evil of the Act but he permitteth the evil act and 2. To say that the Dominicans and Jesuits hold the same as he Which is to jest with holy things and not to argue As if he said God made neither the soul nor the body and yet he made the man What! is it as it 's said that non animased unio est vita so Doth God permit the Union of Actum and Mal●m No that he pretendeth not 627. To prove that God willeth the existence of sin he bringeth the instance of Joseph's case Gen. 45. To which I say that the text saith not at all that God willed the Will or Act or Sin of Joseph's brethren but only the Venditio passiva or effect and the consequents Nay only the consequents are mentioned in the Texts His replyes to the answers prove no more than the five things which I before asserted about sin Nothing so much deceiveth them as not distinguishing between the sinful act and the effect or passion when they are called by the same name as Selling Killing c. 628. His next instance is of Christs death of which I said enough before But 1. He understandeth his adversaries as ascribing only the Consequents of Crucifixion to Gods will which is his mistake It is Crucifixion it self passivè sumpta which they ascribe to it some of them at least And let men too wise against God deride it as much as they will God can will and Love that Christ be Crucified and yet hate and not will the will and act of the Crucifiers but only foresee it as aforesaid And let them jeer God as Idle or asleep if he neither will nor effectually nill the sin we will believe it to be his perfection and liberty which they so deride 2. And whereas he addeth that Active Verbs are used as Gen. 45. Misit me Deus Isa 53. Deus voluit eum conterere Zech. 13. Ego percutiam Pastorem and God delivered Christ to death I answer It is too too gross to perswade us hence that any of these Texts say that God willeth the sinners will or Act. God sent me speaketh Gods act that is his disposal
case 661. I intreat the Reader that is inclining to any extreams but to read ●over first those short answers of Prosper ad Capitul● Gallorum and ad Objectiones Vincent And most of the Sententiae de Capit. I shall think it worthy my labour to recite to force them on the Readers observation and let him see the highest old Doctrine of Gods Decrees Sent. 1. Whoever saith that by Gods Predestination as by fatal necessity men compelled into sins are constrained to death is not a Catholick For Gods Predestination doth by no means make men bad nor is the cause of any mans sin Sent. sup 2. He that saith that the Grace of Baptism received doth not take away Original sin from them that are not predestinated to life is not a Catholick For the Sacrament of Baptism by which all sins He meaneth that those that sincerely covenanted with God in Baptism were truly pardoned though he thought some of them fell away and perished are blotted out is true even in them who will not remain in the truth and for them that are not predestinated unto life Sent. sup 3. He that saith that they that are not predestinated to life though they were in Christ regenerated by Baptism and have lived piously and justly it profitteth them nothing but they are so long reserved till they fall to ruine and they are not taken out of this life till this happen to them as if the ruine of such men were to be referred to Gods constitution is not a Catholick For God doth not therefore prolong the time of any mans age that by long living he should fall to ruine and in his long living fall from the right ●aith seeing long life is to be numbered with the gifts of God by which a man should be better and not worse Sent. sup 4. He that saith that all are not called to Grace if he speak of such as Christ is not declared to is not to be reprehended Sent. sup 5. He that saith that they that are called are not equally called but some that they might believe and some that they might not believe as if to any man the Vocation were the cause of his not believing saith not right For though faith be not but by Gods Gift and Mans Will yet Infidelity is by mans will alone Sent. 6. He that saith that Pree-will in Man is Nothing but it 's Gods predestination which worketh in men whether it be to good or to evil is not a Catholick For Gods Grace doth not abolish mans choice or free-will but perfecteth it and revoketh and reduceth it into the way from error that that which was bad by its own liberty may by the operation of Gods Spirit be made right And Gods predestination is alwayes in Good which knoweth how either to pardon with the praise of mercy or punish with the praise of Justice the sin which is committed by mans will alone Sent. 7. He that saith that God for this cause giveth not Perseverance to some of his Children whom he regenerated in Christ to whom he gave faith hope and Love because by Gods fore-knowledge and predestination they were not differenced from the mass of perdition If he mean that God endowed these men in Goodness but would not have them remain in it and that he was the cause of their t●rning away he judgeth contrary to the Justice of God For though Gods Omnipotence could have given the grace of standing to them that will fall yet his grace doth not first forsake them before they have forsaken it And because he foresaw that they would do this by a Voluntary desertion therefore he had them not in the Election of Predestination Sent. 8. He that saith that God would not have all men saved but a certain number that are predestinate speaketh hardlier of the altitude of Gods unsearchable grace than he should speak Who would have all men to be saved and to come to the acknowledgement of the truth and fulfilleth the purpose of his will on them whom being foreknown he predestinated and being predestinate he called being called he justified and being justified he glorified Losing nothing of the fulness of the Gentiles and of all the seed of Israel for whom the eternal Kingdom was prepared in Christ before the foundation of the World For all the World is chosen out of all the World And out of all men all men are adopted So that they that are saved are therefore saved because God would have them saved and they that perish do perish because they deserve to perish Sent. 9. He that saith that our Saviour was not Crucified for the Redemption of the whole World looketh not to the Virtue of the Sacrament that is Sacrifice but to the part or participation of the unbelievers When as the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Price of the whole World From which Price they are Aliens who being either delighted in their Captivity will not be redeemed or when they are redeemed return again to the same Captivity For the Word of the Lord falleth not nor is the redemption of the World evacuated For though the World in the vessels of wrath knew not God yet the World in the vessels of mercy knew him Which God without their preceding Merits took out of the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of the Son of his Love Sent. 10. He that saith that God substracteth from some the preaching of the Gospel lest perceiving the preaching of the Gospel they should be saved may decline the envy of the objection by the pa●●onage of our Saviour himself who would not work Miracles with some that he saith would have believed had they seen them And he forbad his Apostles to preach to some people and now suffereth some Nations to live without his Grace Sent. 11. He that saith that God by his Power compelleth men to sin is deservedly reprehended For God who is the Author of Justice and Goodness and all whose Statutes and Commands are against sin is not to be thought to compell any to sin and precipitate them from innocency into crimes But if there be any of so profound impiety as that they are reckoned to be beyond the remedy of correction they receive not an increase of their iniquity from God but are made ●●●● by themselves because they deserved to be left of God and given up to themselves and to deceivers for their former sins that so their sin should be a punishment of their sin Sent. 12. He that saith that obedience is withdrawn from some that are called and live piously and righteously that they may cease to obey doth think ill of Gods Goodness and Justice as seeming to constrain the godly to ungodliness and to take away good mens innocency from them When as He is the Giver and Keeper of godliness and innocency He therefore that adhereth to God is acted by the Spirit of God but he that departeth from God doth fall from his obedience
at his left hand shall be damned because he executed not Gods will but his own Obj. 11. When incest is committed between Fathers and their Daughters Mothers and their Sons it is therefore done because so God fore-decreed that it should be done or come to pass Resp † † † Let the Dominicans not● this If it were objected to the Devil himself that he is the author and incenter of such villanies I think that with some reason he might discharge himself of the envy and overcome the committer of such wickedness by his own willing of them Because though he be delighted with the madness of sinners he can yet prove that he forced them not to sin With what folly and madness then is that ascribed to God which may not be wholly ascribed to the Devil who is but the adjutor of the baits of sin and not the Causer Generater of the Will God then fore-decreed not that any such businesses should be done nor prepared that soul to any such end who will live wickedly and filthily But he was not ignorant that it would be such and he fore-knew that he would justly judge of such So that to his fore-decree nothing else can be referred but either 1. That which belongeth to the due retribution of Justice 2. Or to the not due bestowing of grace Obj. 12. That by Gods fore-decree men are made of Children of God to be Children of the Devil and of Temples of the Holy Ghost the Temples of Devils and of members of Christ members of a Harlot Resp Gods Predestination though to us while we are in the perils of this life it be uncertain with him is unchangeable But those of whom it is said They went out from us because they were not of us did willingly go out and willingly fall away And because they were foreknown to be such as would fall away they were not predestinate But they had been Predestinated if they had been such as would have returned and remained in holiness and truth So that Gods fore-decree is to many a cause of standing and to none a cause of falling Obj. 13. That all those faithful and Saints who are fore-decreed to eternal death when they return to their vomit seem indeed to do it by their own vice but the cause of that vice is the fore-decree of God which secretly withdraweth from them good wills Resp Indeed to all that relapse from faith to infidelity from Holiness to filthiness and are not purged by emendation before the end of their lives nothing but eternal death is due But it is wickedness to ascribe the cause of such ruines to God who though he foreknow by his eternal knowledge what reward he will give to every mans deserts yet this his Impossibility of being deceived doth not bring into any man either a necessity or a will * * * Note this you that are for his first predetermining all forbidden Volitions and acts of sinning If therefore any man fall from Godliness he is carryed headlong by his own will he is drawn by his own concupiscence he is deceived by his own perswasion There the Father doth nothing the Son doth nothing the Holy Ghost doth nothing nor doth any thing of the will of God intervene in such a business by whose help we know many are kept from falling but none impelled to fall Obj. 14. That this great part of Christian faithful Catholicks and Saints who are fore-decreed to ruine and perdition if they beg of God perseverance in Holiness shall not obtain it Because Gods decree cannot be changed by which he fore-ordained prepared and fitted them to fall away Resp To the breach of the Law to the neglect of Religion to the corrupting of discipline to the forsaking of the faith to the perpetrating of any sin whatever there is no predestination or fore-decree of God at all Nor can it be that men should fall into such evils by him by whom men rise out of such If therefore men live in holiness if they profit in virtue if they remain in good studies it is the manifest gift of God without whom the fruit of no good work is acquired But if men fall away from these and pass over to vice and sin God there sendeth them no evil temptation nor doth he forsake him that will fall away before he be forsaken by him And for the most part he keepeth men from forsaking him or if they depart doth cause them to return But why he upholdeth one and not another it is neither possible to comprehend † † † N. B. nor lawful to search seeing it may suffice to know both that it is of him that men stand and it is not of him that they fall away Obj. 15. That all the faithful and Saints who are predestinated to eternal death when they fall are so disposed of by God that they neither can nor will be delivered by repentance Resp Falsly said and foolishly For they that fall away from faith and holiness as they fell by their Wills so by their Wills they rise not But God taketh the way of amendment from none not depriveth any of the possibility of good For he that turneth himself from God taketh from himself both the will and the power of good It 's no good consequence as the Objecters think that God taketh away repentance from men because he giveth it them not and that he casteth down those that he taketh not up For it is one thing to act the innocent into a crime which God cannot do and another not to pardon the Criminal which is the desert of sin Obj. 16. That this great part of the faithful and holy which is fore-decreed to eternal death when they pray to God in the Lords prayer Let thy will be done do only pray against themselves viz. that they may fall and be ruined because it is the will of God that they perish by eternal death Resp The Truth saith not this that it is the will of God that the faithful and Saints do fall from faith and innocency and perish But Truth saith This is the will of the Father that sent me that of all that he hath given me I should lose none But if by the generality of Vocation and the abundance of Gods goodness even those that will not persevere are mixt with the persevering when these fall away from Godliness they fall not or are not forsaken of Gods help but of their own wills nor are impelled to fall nor cast off that they may forsake but yet are fore-known to fall away by Him that cannot be deceived And when they pray Thy will be done they pray not that they may fall Which God will not do or Cause any way by any means For this by their own naughtiness their own liberty will do But this they pray against themselves which doubtless is Gods will that when the Son of man shall come in his Majesty c. they that will not
by two sort● of Doing Principally by the Merit of Christ's perfect Righteousness and subordinately by our fulfilling the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace which Baptism celebrateth 4. Gods Will approveth of all that is good so far as it is good It approveth of habitual Holiness in Adam and would have done in his Infants had he stood and doth so in all Christians now And I will believe that Christ before he actually obeyed was under Gods approving Will. But not as one that had merited by Obedience For God doth not suppose any to do that which they do not nor oblige them to do to-morrows work to-day § 44. M. S. The issue in a word is 1. Suffering for Sin is not doing nor equivalent in point of Justification 2. Nor can God having satisfaction for what was done cross to his Law lay aside that in order to the conveying of Life and substitute believing instead of it Therefore Faith justifieth ratione objecti only Now we Do in another Christ instead of doing in our own persons An. I doubt this is another Gospel than the Apostles delivered us though I hope that practically we meet in one 1. To the first I answer It 's true but you do ill to intimate that we think otherwise Suffering by the Sinner never satisfieth because it must be everlasting Suffering by Christ satisfieth not meerly as suffering but as the voluntary suffering of God-Man aptly glorifying Justice and Love and securing the ends of Government This Satisfaction is not equivalent to doing in Justification For Doing all required would have justified us against this Charge Thou art a Sinner by Omission and Commission and thou hast deserved Death and hast not deserved Life according to the Law of Works Against this Charge I look for no Justification but confess it is all true But Christ's Satisfaction justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee by paine of loss and sense or else he is not just because thou hast deserved it And Christ's perfect Righteousness also justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee and deny thee life because thou didst not merit it by perfect Obedience The Justifier says No because Christ's Merit in Doing and Suffering hath glorified the Law and Justice of God instead of my Merit and hath procured us Pardon and Life given by the New Covenant 2. To the second I answer 1. God did not lay aside his first Covenant but man by sin did lay it aside by making the Condition impossible 2. You overturn the Gospel too much by thinking that the Law is not laid aside as a Covenant or Promise though I grant that the Precept as a Rule of Life continues To say that the sense of Adam's Law was Thou or another Christ for thee shalt obey And that we are justified by that Law is to confound Law and Gospel and make a Gospel of that Law and make the Covenant of Works not to condemn us or both to condemn and justifie and to feign man to live and be judged by the Covenant that is ceased God saith now to no man living Be innocent and so merit life that thou maist live And God doth not repute us innocent at all 3. To the third I answer It is notoriously untrue that Faith justifieth only ratione objecti unless you mean that efficiently it justifieth not at all which is true For we are justified by it also ratione foederis because that which is materially Faith in Christ a justifying Saviour and so connoteth its Object as the meritorious Cause of the free Gift and Pardon is by reason of this aptitude made the Condition of that New Covenant or Gift which is its nearest interest or reason of our being justified by it And it is the Law of Grace by which we must be judged and justified And at that Bar the question which Life or Death dependeth on will be supposing Christ's Merits whether we are penitent Believers or impenitent Unbelievers and so have part in Christ or not And if Satan accuse us as being impenitent Unbelievers and the question be whether we have true Faith or not my Opinion is that we cannot be herein justified by pleading the Object when the Act is questioned and saying That Christ fulfilled that Law unless you could prove that he justifieth impenitent Infidels and as Saltmarsh said repented and believed for us But the grand Case remaineth Whether we are justified by the Law of Innocency by fulfilling it and meriting in another without any sort of doing of our own by our selves Mr. Wotton Mr. Gataker and abundance more have long ago said much to confute your Error besides Mr. Bradshaw whom you name But I add I. I have before proved that by the deeds or sentence of the Law of Adam or Moses no man can be justified 1. He that hath sinned against it cannot be justified as not having sinned For factum infectum fieri is impossible to God himself 2. The Law that condemneth us doth not justifie us 3. What Paul Rom. 3. 4. frequently saith against Justification by the Law of Moses will hold here a fortiori And Christ keeping Moses Law as far as he was capable of Obligation that also would else have been imputed and so we should have been justified by that Law also which the Scripture copiously denieth He that saith He hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a lyar and the truth is not in him And the Law of Adam justifieth no man that hath sin II. We did not fulfil it and merit in Christ But Christ did in the Person of a Mediator voluntarily undertaking it on his Fathers terms and not as our Instrument or in our Persons I have else-where given abundance of Arguments against that which I must not here repeat This Author took notice of my Objection that he that is reputed perfectly Innocent and Obedient is uncapable of Pardon and needeth no satisfaction or remitting or rewarding Covenant besides that which he kept but answereth it not This subverteth the Gospel and Religion Quer. If there be no Reward nor Life but of Justice and no Reward but for Christ's Merits and all Believers equally merited in Christ as fulfilling all the Law 1. Whence cometh the inequality of Grace and Glory 2. How come any Believers to be left long under sins and weakness of Grace and temporal punishments III. The Merits of Christ have procured us the New Covenant sealed in Baptism by which we have a new Rule offiicii judicii for such is every Law Christ is not the only Subject of God He made us not lawless or Rebels God still ruleth the Church by a Law or Covenant This is the Law or Covenant of Grace Deny this Covenant and you deny the Gospel This Covenant or Law obligeth us to Duty And it promiseth and giveth Pardon and Life in and with Christ This Covenant hath Conditions various conditions of various Benefits Our first true consent which Baptism celebrateth that is
instrumentally giving 4. Right to Impunity and Glory by Justification and Adoption conjunct the thing given which Right is our very Righteousness against ●his Accusation that is a relation whence the other relation of just and ●ustifiable resulteth For if you will not here see relations resulting from ●elations pretend not to true accurateness in your search 166. These four Causes now were enough to constitute and so prove ●s righteous against the Charge of being damnandi if we were questiona●le no further But the turning point of the day is yet behind 1. Our ●llegation of Justification by Christ and the Covenant may be denied ●t may be said by the Accuser that the Covenant justifieth none but ●enitent Believers and giveth plenary Right to Glory to none but saints ●nd persevering Conquerors and that we are none such Against this Ac●usation we must be justified or perish else all the rest will be un●ffectual And here to say that it is true I died an impeninent Person ●n Insidel Hypocrite or Ungodly but Christ was a penitent Believer for Of our own personal performance or righteousness how far necessary to our Justification ●e or sincere and holy for me or that he died to pardon this all this will ●e false and vain Christ's Merits and Satisfaction is not the Righteousness it self which must justifie us against this Accusation But our own ●ersonal Faith Repentance sincere Holiness and Perseverance purchased ●y Christ and wrought by the Spirit in us but thence our own acts Mr. W. Thomas of Ubley in his Book against Speed the Quaker saith pag. 42. part 2. This is an old Popish trick to make much of the Doctrine of the St. James in a mistaken interpretation and to lay aside the Doctrine of St. Paul Rom. 3. 28. when they should joyn both together and ascribe to Faith the justification of men as sinners and to work their justification as Believers This is sound and needeth but fuller explication ●e that cannot truly say The Accusation is false I am a true Penitent ●anctified persevering Believer must be condemned and perish Thus ●aith and Repentance are our Righteousness by which we must thus far ●e justified 167. But this is but a particular mediate subservient Righteousness ●nd part of our Justification subordinate to Christs Merits 168. Yet this being the Condition on our part for our Participation ●n all the free Gifts of the Covenant Scripture useth to describe Gods ●udgment as enquiring after this The great thing to be glorified in ●udgment is Gods Love Wisdom Justice and Truth and Christ's great Merits and performance in our Redemption But the great thing questio●ed accused tried and judged will be our performance of the Covenant of Grace as to our conditions The day is not to try God whether he be ●ust or Christ whether his Merits and Satisfaction were sufficient and whether he have done his part But to try man whether 1. He have ●rue Right to Impunity and Glory 2. Whether he have performed the Condition on which the Covenant giveth that Right and be indeed the ●rue Receiver of it The Devils hope cannot lie at all in proving Christ or the Covenant faulty or defective on their part but in proving ●s to be none of the persons that have Right This therefore is the Righteousness mentioned Matth. 25. and of Faith imputed Rom. 4 c. ●nd else-where 169. But if we will speak of Righteousness and Justification entirely ●s that which containeth all its Causes we must set all the five forementioned together giving each one its proper place and no one the ●lace or office of the rest And give leave to the self-conceited pievish ●gnorant blindly to revile you for saying that you joyn your Faith and Holiness to make one Righteousness with that of Christ as if it were not sufficient And tell him that Christ's Righteousness is not ours absolutely in it self but to and in the proper effects And that it is perfect as to its ●roper ends And that he never intended it to this end to be instead of Faith and Holiness in us nor to make them needless to our Salvation 170. No man must ascribe any thing to his own Faith or Holiness i● the least degree which is proper to 1. Gods Mercy or Grace 2. To Christ or his Righteousness or Merits 3. Or to the Covenant not any thing but its proper part And that must be granted it 171. It is a vain Fiction in them that think our Right to Justificatio● or Impunity and our Right to Salvation have not the same causes and conditions but that our own Repentance and Obedience is a condition of our Right to Salvation but not to Impunity or forgiveness Whereas ou● very Justification is a justifying of our Right to Salvation and the same Covenant giveth them conjunctly on the same conditions 172. But our Right to both as begun hath less for the condition th●● our Right to them as continued and perfected For our believing consent to the Baptismal-Covenant putteth us into immediate Right to all the benefits of the Covenant which we are then capable of but not to all that we shall be made further capable of hereafter we are pardoned and should be glorified if we presently died But as we have more Grace to receive so we have more Duty to perform as a means yea a condition of obtaining it 173. This over-lookt by many is much to be considered both as to the case of Infants baptized and the Adult Many wonder that the What right the Covenant giveth to the after-helps and degrees of Grace Children of godly Parents prove oft so bad as if by the Baptismal-Covenant they had received nothing from God But the Synod of Dort Art 1. § 17. well concludeth that godly Parents have no cause to doubt of the Election or Salvation of their Children dying in Infancy they being holy and in the same Covenant with their Parents But the continuance of Gods Grace hath a continued condition and means to be used on our part The condition which the Covenant requireth to an Infants first Justification is that he be the Child of a true Believer by him dedicated to God And as the first Condition is to be found in the Parent or Owner so must the Condition of continued Grace as long as the Child continueth an Infant And that is the continuance of the Parents Faith and his faithful performance of his promise made to educate his Child in the way of God But if the Parents should presently both turn Infidels and so educate their Child and give him up as the J●●izaries are to an Infidel to educate I know God may nevertheless give him Grace above his Promise if he please for a Benefactor as such is free but I know of no assurance of it by Promise For in Baptism both Parties were obliged for the future and not one only And if when the Child cometh to the use of Reason he wilfully
and the Righteousness which is not in us but in him is ●urs so far as to be for our Good as far as his Office and Covenant do ob●ige him So that a Righteous Christ and therefore the Righteousness of Christ are ours Relatively themselves quoad jus beneficis so as ●hat we have right to these Benefits by them which we shall possess ●nd for the merits of his Righteousness we are conditionally justified and saved before we believe and actually after But are not accounted to be Christ nor the Legal Actors of what he did nor Christ ●ccounted to be each of us SECT V. Merit 192. The great Controversie about humane Merits which hath made ●o great a noise in the world is of so easie solution that I can scarce Confes August Art 6. Semper sentiendum est nos consequt remissionem peccatorum personam pran●nciari Iustam id est acceptari gratis propter Christum per fidem postea vero placere etiam obedientiam erga legem reputari quandam Justiciam mereri praemia Et Art de Bon. operib Quanquam hac nova obedientia procul abest a perfectione legis tamen est ●us●i●ia meretur praemia ideo quia personae reconciliatae s●nt It a d● operibus judicandum est quae ampliss●●i● la●dibu● or●anda sunt quod sint necessariá quod sint cultus Dei Sacrificia spiri●●alia mereantur praemia Ib. Ex●recitatio nostra conservat ea meretur incrementum uxta illud Habenti dabitur Augustinus praeclare dixit Dilectio ●er●ur incrementum dilectionis cum viz exercetur Habent enim bon● apera Praemia cum in hac vita tum post hanc vitam in vita aterna● ●hink but almost all sober understanding Christians in the world are ●greed in sence while they abhor each others opinions as ill expressed or misunderstood Distinguish but 1. Of Commutative Justice and Distributive Governing Justice 2. And of Governing Justice according ●o Gods several Laws of Innocency Mosaical Works and of Grace ● And of Justifying and Meriting simply and comparatively And the case is so plain that few things are more plain to us that Christians con●rovert Viz. 1. To dream of meriting from God by any Creature Man or Angel in point of Commutative Justice is blasphemy and madness that is That we can give him any thing that shall profit him or which is not absolutely his own as a compensation for what he giveth us He maketh himself a God that asserteth this of himself 2. To say that any since Ad●● save Christ doth merit of God in point of Governing Justice according to the Law of Innocency is a falshood And he that saith He b●●● no sin is a lyar 3. To say that we can merit pardon or Justification o● Salvation meerly by observing Moses Law was the Jews pernicious erro● 4. To say that our faith and performance of the conditions of the new Covenant doth merit by the retributive Sentence of the old Covenan● or that it is in whole or part any meritorious Cause that God gave the world a Saviour or that Christ freely pardoneth and justifieth us all conditionally by the new Covenant or that it supposeth not Christ's Righ●●ousness to be the total sole meritorious Cause of that pardoning Covenant and all the benefits as thereby conditionally given All this is gross contradiction 5. To deny subordinate Comparative Merit or Rewardabl●ness as from Gods Governing distributive paternal Justice according to the Covenant of Grace consisting in the performance of the condition of that Covenant and presupposing Christs total merits as aforesaid i● to subvert all Religion and true Morality and to deny the scope of all the Scriptures and the express assertion of an Evangelical worthiness which is all that this Merit signifyeth To say nothing of contradicting Catholick antiquity and hardening the Papists against the truth 193. This Comparative Merit is but such as a thankful Child hath towards his Father who giveth him a purse of Gold on condition th●● he put off his hat and say I thank you who deserveth it in Comparison of his Brother who disdainfully or neglectfully refuseth it This last being absolutely said to Deserve to be without it but the former only comparatively said to deserve to have it as a free gift 194. And those that reject the saying of some Papists who in thi● sence say that Christ merited that we might merit placing our Evangelical merit in a meer subordination to Christs do but shew what prejudice and partiality can do and harden those who perceive their errors 195. Some man may think that the high things required in the Gospel self-denyal forsaking all running striving working loving overcoming Whether faith be not the meer Acceptance of a free gift according to its Nature Against Merit read of Papists Waldens de Sacram. tit 1. Gregor Armin. 1. d. 17. q. 1. a. 2. Durand 1. d. 27. q. 2. Marsil 2. d. 27. Brugers in Psal 35. Eckins in Centur. de Praedest Et inquit Fr. a Sancta Clara Deus Nat. Grat. p. 138. tribuitur etiam Cusano nec longe differt Stapletonus nostras Leg. Suarez in 3. p. Tho. Disp 10. Sect. 7. q. 3. See the Thomists sence of Merit in Lud. Carbo Tho. Compend 1. 2. q. 23. art 4. p. 240. c. are more than the meer Receiving of a free Gift But 1. If it were so yet our first faith would be no more by which we are Justified from all the sins of our unregeneracy 2. But upon consideration it will all appear to be no more materially For 1. When we say that it is the Receiving of the free Gift we must mean According to the Nature and to the use of that Gift As if you be required to take food the meaning is to Eat it and not to throw it away If you be required to take such a man to be your King your Master your Tutor your Husband your Physician c. the meaning is As such to the use of his proper office And so Accept of God as God that is our Absolute Owner Ruler and End and Christ as our Saviour Prophet Priest and King and the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer to Illuminate quicken and renew us is the su● of all the Positives of the Gospel 2. For this very Acceptance of them in this Nature and to this Use includeth the using of them after accordingly And if we do not so use them we thereby reject them and lose our own benefit of them as he that eateth not his meat refuseth and loseth it and he that weareth not his Cloaths and he that learneth not of his Teacher 3. And then Self-denyal and forsaking contraries and resisting impediments is but the same motus ut a termino a quo And he that refuseth to come out of his Prison and Chains refuseth his Liberty and he refuseth the Gold that will not cast away his handful of dirt to take it So that
really all is but a Thankful Accepting of the mercy of the new Covenant according to its nature and use as it is offered 196. It is a great question whether a man may Trust to his own Faith Of Trusting in our own faith repentance holiness c. Repentance or Holiness But some men still trouble the world with unexplained words where no sober men differ No wise man can dream that we may Trust to these for more than their proper part as that we may Trust them to do any thing proper to God to Christ to the Spirit to the Promise c. And to use the phrase of Trusting to our own faith or Holiness when it soundeth absolutely or may tempt the hearers to think that they may Trust them for Gods part or Christ's part and Of which see more in my Life of Faith Tollit gratia Meri●um non quod omnino nihil agamus sed quia non satisfacimus legi procul absumus a perfectione Melancth in Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 7. not only for their own is a dangerous deceiving course But that really they may be Trusted for their own part and must be so no sober person will deny For so to believe obey pray to God c. and not to Trust to them in their place that is not to think that we shall be ever the better for them is unbelief and indeed distrusting God and saying It is in vain to serve him and what profit is it that we call upon him And such diffidence and despair will end all endeavours Let every man prove Gal. 6. his own work and so shall he have rejoycing in himself and not in another This is our Rejoycing the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity 2 Cor. 1. 12. and Godly sincerity we have had our Conversation in the world If we are Justified by faith we may Trust to be Justifyed by it But the rare use of such a phrase in Scripture and the danger of it must make us never use it without need As if we were disputing whether the Popish or Protestant Religion be that which a man may trust for his Salvation or the like And when ever it 's used it implyeth our Trust in God and our Saviour only for their part 197. To conclude this great point of Imputed and Inherent Righteousness The last objection of the mistakers of Imputation To save me that much labour of citations I desire the Reader to see in Guil. Forbes Consider Pacific the Concessions of Vega Pighius Stapleton and other Papists about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as granting us all that Protestants mean as Bellarmine expresly doth as Davenant Nigrinus Joh. Crocius and many others have observed it may be objected that The same man may well be judged a Sinner deserving hell never fulfilling the Law nor satisfying Justice nor deserving Heaven in himself that is in his Natural person and yet be Judged one that never sinned but fulfilled the Law is perfectly holy and righteous and merited Heaven in his Legal or Civil person in and by Christ To which I answer One man is but one and hath but one person But if you take the word Person equivocally as signifying another that is made like him in some respects or that hath his Nature or doth somewhat in his stead and for his benefit as a second person say so and we will strive with no man about words If you will say we are now on earth in our Natural persons and are in Heaven in Christ or that we are Redeemed in our Natural persons but Redeemed our selves in Christ or that you are sick in your Natural person and well in your person in Christ c. I like not your language but there are scarce any words so bad which a man may not put a good sence on But we would be understood and plainly ask whether Christ was properly every sinners or believers person in Law-sence so that ipso facto God accounteth us to have been habitually and actively perfect in Him and to have merited and satisfied in him If so the Law can look on one man but as one And he that paid a debt by his Servant or any other as his Legal person cannot be required to do it again in his Natural person unless you will say that God loveth our Legal person and will save it and may hate our Natural person and damn it The Scripture useth no such contradictory subtleties as these SECT XI How faith Justifieth 198. The common saying that faith justifieth as an Instrument might pass as tolerable if too many did not strain it to a wrong sence and raise Note that when we call faith an Accepting it relateth to the Donation of the Covenant and the Donatum which is a Jus ad beneficia Renovation is effected by faith as a second cause but Pardon is Accepted by it And we fully grant the Papists that Renovation and pardon go together whatever they call them And some of themselves do speak just as we de Remissione Macula which others are confounded about Vid. Wotton's citations out of the Schoolmen de Macula de Reconcil pec And Brianson saith in 4. q. 8. fol. 116. that sin as ●emitted or guilt is Tantum quaedam Relatio rationis in quantum est objectum intellectus Voluntatis divinae Quia postquam commissit peccatum Dei voluntas ordinat ipsum ad poenum correspondentem peccato Intellectus praevidet pro omni tempore donec poena debita sit soluta Videre peceata Dei est ad ●oenam imput●re Avertere faciem est ad poenam non reservare August Ergo ni● aliud est post actum c●ssantem p●●catis off●nsa Macula reatus nisi ista relatio rationis S●d hujus Ordinatio ad ●oenam ut est disconveniens ipsi animae dicitur ejus Macula ut autem est obligatio formaliter ad istam poenam dicitur R●atus Et ut est divinae voluntatis c. dic●tur Offensa Nil n aliud est Offendi vel Irasci in Deo quam v●lle Vindicare ista poena But he after owneth that the culpa is another thing unwarrantable Doctrines from it and harden the Papists by unwarantable Answers A Justifying Instrument properly is an efficient Instr●mental cause of Justification which I have elsewhere too largely proved that faith is not either Gods Instrument or ours Physical or Moral no● any way efficiently justifieth us But justifying is one thing to Receive justification is another thing and to be justified is a third Faith i● no justifying act But faith is in its Essence the Acceptance of an offered God Christ Spirit for Life This Acceptance is by the Covenant made the condition of our passive true Reception and Possession of Right before opened To be such a Condition performed is to be a removens prohibe●s of the said Reception which is strictly to be Dispositio materiae recipienti● And so it
may be called 1. A Receiving Cause 2. And a medi●● or dispositive Cause of the effect Justification as Received but not as Given As I said Dr. Twisse chooseth to call it But this causa Dispositiva is p●● of the causa Materialis viz. Qua disposita A cause or more properly a condition why I receive Justification and by receiving it am Justified which is their meaning who call it A Passive Instrument that is A ●●ceiving Instrument 199. The plain easie truth is that Faiths Nature which is to be ●●lieving Acceptance of Christ and Life offered on that Condition being ●● very essence is but its Aptitude to the office it hath to our Justification by which the Question is answered why did God promise us Christ and Life ●● the Condition of faith rather than another Because of the congruity of its Nature to that office But the formal Reason of its office as to our Justification is Its Being the performed Condition of the Covenant And if God had chosen another condition a condition it would have been Now the true notion in Law being a Condition Logicians would call this improperly a Receiving cause and more properly A Receptive Disposition of the matter reducing it to Physical notions But the most proper term is the plainest We are justified by that faith which is the Believing Practical Acceptance of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as Given us on that condition in the Baptismal Covenant because or as it is made by God the condition of his Gift thereby Understand this plain doctrine and you have the plain truth 200. They that say contrarily that Faith justifieth proximately as it is an Instrument or a Receiving Accepting act and not as a Condition of the Covenant do evidently choose that which they vehemently oppose viz. that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere justifieth For the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere or the ●●●● of Faith is to be an Acceptance of Christ given But if they will to avoid this say that By Faith they mean Christ believed in then they say that by Receiving Christ they mean not the receiving of him but Christ himself And why then do they not say so but trouble the world with such unintelligible phrases But to open the senselessness and co●sequents of that Doctrine would but offend All know that Chri●●●● the object is connoted as essential to the act of Faith SECT XII How Repentance is joyned with Faith 201. Repentance is a Dispositio materiae recipientis too and a part of the condition of the Covenant And so far a Material or dispositive Receiving Cause But not an Acceptance of the Gift formally in its averting act 202. Faith and Repentance are words used in Scripture in divers significations Saith Malderus Gu. Amesius a parte recedit ab antiquo Calvinismo quiae requirit ad justitiam bonae oper● tanquam conditionem praerequisitam quod ●tiam extendit ad ipsam ●lectionem See here how little the Papists understand us As Faith is sometimes taken for bare Assent as Jam. 2. and usually for Affiance or Trust and always when it denominateth a Christian or Justified Believer as such it essentially includeth all the three parts Assent Consent and Affiance but yet denominateth the whole by a word which principally signifieth One act which commonly is Affiance as including the other two so Repentance is sometime taken comprehensively for the whole Conversion of a Sinner to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and so it includeth Faith in the narrower sence and is the same thing as Faith in the larger sence but express'd under another formal notion Sometimes it is taken more narrowly and that 1. As to the Act. 2. As to the Object 1. As to the Act and so the word Repentance signifieth only the Aversion of the Soul from evil by sorrow and change of mind And this is the strict formal notion of the word though usually it be taken more largely as including also the Conversion of the Soul to Good which is the usual Scripture and Theological sense though the word it self do chiefly signifie the Averting act 2. As to the Object 1. Repentance sometime signifieth the Turning of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God And so Repentance towards God is distinguished from Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ 2. And sometimes it signifieth only the turning of the Soul and life from some particular Sin 203. Repentance as it is the turning of the Soul from sin and Idols * The Papists take Repentance it self to be part of the Remission of Sins And let the Reader note for the fuller opening of what I have said of their darkness thereabouts that Jansenius Aug. To. 1. li. 5. c. 22. p. 126. maketh four things to be inseparably conteined in Remission though distinguishable 1. The Conversion of the Soul to God 2. The abstersion of the Macula or filth 3. Reconciliation or the remission of Gods offence 4. The relaxation of the aeternal punishment That all these are then at once given us we are all agreed But whether the name Remission or Pardon of sin ●e meet for them all we disagree Is it not visible then how unhappily we strive about words whe● we talk like men of several Languages But all is but removation and remitting the penalty of which Gods offense is the first part And Macula is either the sin it self or the relative consequents to God is the same with Faith in God in the large Covenant-sence and includeth Faith in God in the narrower sence Repentance as it is our Turning from Infidelity to Christianity is the same with Faith in Christ in the large Covenant-saving-sence and includeth Faith in Christ in the narrower sence as it is meer Assent Repentance as it is a Turning from the Flesh to the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer is the same thing as our Faith in the Holy Ghost in the large Covenant sence and includeth Faith in the Holy Ghost in the narrower sence But when they are the same thing the ratio nominis or formal notion is not the same As man's mind is not so happy as to conceive of all things that are one by one entire single Conception so we are not so happy in our language as to have words enough to express things entirely by one name but we must have several words to express our inadequate conceptions by And so that is called Repentance as the Souls motion from the Terminus a quo which is called sometimes Faith or Affiance and sometimes Love from the motion of the Soul to the Terminus ad quem though the Motus be the same But when Faith and Repentance are distinguished as several parts of the Condition of the new Covenant the common sence is that Repentance signifieth the Conversion of the Soul from Sin and Idols to God as God which is or includeth Faith in God And Faith signifieth specially Faith in Christ as the Mediator and way
it he could never have the thing promised for that were to have God and not to have him nor yet his necessary disposition for fruition for without holiness he is not a capable disposed recipient of Salvation The rest of his arguments run all upon this error as i● love and holiness were only the means and not the end and Salvation given SECT XVI Of assurance of Pardon Justification and Salvation And whether it be Faith 224. The Faith by which we are justified is not a believing that ●●●● justified but a believing that we may be justified Not a believing t●● Christ is ours more than other mens or that we shall be saved but ● believing in Christ that he may be ours and we may be saved by him 225. There is assurance in this Faith not assurance that we are s●cere or shall be saved But assurance that Gods Promises and all ●● Words are true and that he will perform them and that Christ ●● the Saviour of the world and that the love of God is our End ●●●● Happiness and that all this is offered to us in Christ even Pardon ●●● Life as well as others which offer Faith accepteth truly But the Believer is oft uncertain of the sincerity of his own belief and so of ●● Salvation 226. How much certainty we have of Divine Revelation and Scripture verity I have so fully opened in many Tractates and lastly in o●● I know that the learned Conciliator Guiliel Forbes doth confidently charge them as guilty of confusion who place Faith in more faculties than one and that call it Fiducia But I doubt not but the error is his own which tendeth to confusion by not distinguishing a meer physical act from a moral or political which is made up of many physical acts And if he or Bishop Gror. Downame Camero or any that go that way had been put to tell what one physical act they will confine Christian justifying Faith to they would have ●ound themselves in confusion To say It is assent denieth not but that it must be an assent to many verities And this assent signifieth at once a belief that God is true and that this is his word and that this word is true He that saith It is a belief of the assertion for the oredibility of the As●ertor can scarce prove that he nameth but one Act And I know no such assent which ●●●● bit essentially contain a trusting to the word of the Assertor or Testifier called Fiduc●a Can you believe a ●a●● ●o●●●● be true because he is credible and not trust his credibility so far as believing him importeth It is a contradiction F●●● eredentis is nothing but a trusting to the Fides dicentis and they are Relatives as Act and Object Though I grant that ●●●● is also a quietting applicatory Trust or Fiducia which is but the exercise of Faith as supposing me to see my 〈…〉 Promise which cometh after our first believing in which we see but our receptive capacity that the Promise 〈…〉 with the rest of Mankind and the thing promised is offered to me called The certainty of Christianity without Popery that I will not here repeat it further than to say that it is not a perfect apprehension which we call our certainty nor yet an uneffectual doubtful one But such ●●● as will carry a man on confidence of Gods Word to a holy life and ●● the forsaking of all other hopes even life it self for the hopes which ●● given us by Christ which yet may have several degrees in several persons But objective certainty which is the evidence of verity is m●●● full than our subjective certainty for want of our due receptivity ●● us and is still the same in it self though not equally brought or revea●● to all 227. Even doubting of the truth of the Scripture and Christianity may stand with saving Faith and Salvation when it is not predominant nor so great as to keep us from the said forsaking all for Christ and Heaven 228. Doubting of mans own Salvation is not always from weakness of Faith directly much less is it the want of Faith it self ●o● sometime a man may doubt meerly as doubting of the sincerity of ●● own Faith and not at all doubting of the truth of the Word of God But when it is the doubting whether the promises be sure which make● a man doubt whether he shall be saved this doubting is the debility ●● Faith 229. The same may be said of dispair That dispair is from the weakness or want of Faith which cometh from an unbelief of the truth of the Promise And that also is pernicious dispair which from what Cause soever is so great as to take men off the use of necessary means to attain Salvation But that dispair which cometh from overmuch self-condemning and a conceit that a mans heart is false and not that Gods Promise is false may stand with true Faith and Salvation if it be not so great as to take him off the use of necessary means 230. No man ordinarily can be assured of his Salvation or Justification without extraordinary Revelation but by being assured first of the ●ruth of Gods Promise and of his own sincerity in believing For his assurance is of the conclusion of this argument Whosoever sincerely believeth and repenteth is justified But I sincerely believe and repent ●herefore I am justified And the weakness of the apprehension of either of the premises is ever in the conclusion which always followeth partem debiliorem 231. There are therefore but two sorts of men who can believe that they are justified by a Faith properly called Divine that is which is a belief of Gods Word herein 1. Those that God revealeth it to by pro●hetical or extraordinary Revelation if there be any such 2. Those who are more certain of their own sincere Faith than they are that Gods Word it self is true if any such there be in the world For with all others the certainty of the sincerity of their own Faith being weakest ●he conclusion followeth it 232. If any man can possibly doubt more of the truth of Gods Word ●han of the soundness of his own Faith though that mans Faith may be called Divine it is no honour to it because it hath so much doubting of Gods Word mixed with belief And it 's like his greater assurance of his belief of it is but his error or infirmity 233. Ordinarily therefore no Christians can believe fide Divina that they are justified and shall be saved that is this is no Word of God but a conclusion of which one of the premises only and that the stronger is Gods Word 234. To say that he that believeth shall be saved is equivalent to this I shall be saved is not true nor reasonable seeing I believe is not Gods Word nor so certain as Gods Word And one of the premises is not equal to both 245. When they say That it 's all one when I am sure that
elect and should persevere So that they denied all certainty of Salvation by ordinary means And that none of all the Greek or Latin Fathers then or long after went further from the Pelagians than Augustine did I think I need not perswade any that hath read them 259. This historical Truth is useful to be known From whence I infer that it is possible for Christians to live in setled peace and comfort in respect to their heavenly Felicity without a certainty of perseverance and Salvation For to think that no Papists no Greeks no Arminians no Protestant Lutherans nor any of the ancient holy Doctors nor any of all the Martyrs or other Christians of their judgment did attain to such holy peace and comfort is unreasonable and contrary to all Church-History and to experience 260. And though it were a far more joyful state to have proper certainty yet reason and experience in other cases tell us that without certainty a man may live a joyful and peaceable life where probability is strong enough to remove all reasonable cause of fearfulness though there be a possibility of the worst As we see that men in youth and health though they may possibly die or fall into torments the next hour yet do not therefore cast off comfort and live in such trouble as they would do if they had probable cause to expect it There is no wife living is certain that her own Husband will not murder her the next night nor no Child certain that the Parents will not cast them off or kill them nor no Friend certain that his dearest Friend will not do so And yet few but melancholy people will therefore take up sorrow and cast away all their comfort in life and peace and in these Friends Even these persons are their trust and joy There is no man sure but he may be executed among Malefactors And yet while there is no reason to expect it a man may live a comfortable life There is no man certain that he himself shall not fall into a particular crime of Murder Theft Perjury or the like And yet we live not therefore uncomfortably For mens affections follow the powerfullest cause 261. Hence also I conclude that certainly the denial of certainty of persevering and Salvation is not a thing that should break the love peace or concord of the Christian Churches or for which they should cast off or revile each other For what sober man could do so by all those that I have instanced in 262. It is a shameful self-delusion of some Disputers who think when they have once believed that certainty of Salvation may be had that they are then certain themselves or next to certain of their own Salvation But he that hath no more certainty to be rich or healthful tha● to believe that Health and Riches may be got is far from having them 263. Who was more full of confidence and joy than Luther who speaketh more against the Papists commanding men to doubt of the pardon of sin who speaketh of a higher Faith than he on Galat. Yet he with Melancthon and all the first Protestants in the August Confess Art 11. saith They damn the Anabaptists who deny that those that are once justified can again lose the Holy Ghost 264. If Adam in Innocency had neither solid comfort or cause of such the state that we fell from was not so good as we commonly believe But Adam had no assurance of his perseverance in that state For he fell from it 265. No man as is said is certain that he shall not fall into such a Vid. Judic Theol. Palat. de persever in Synod Dord p. 1. pag. 208. pr. 3. hainous sin as Peter David c. did 266. The Synod of Dort saith By such enormous sins they greatly offend God they incur the guilt of death they grieve the Holy Ghost they interrupt the exercise of Faith they most grievously wound Conscience sometimes they lose the sense of Grace for a time till by serious Repentance returning into the way Gods fatherly countenance again shine upon them And the Brittish Divines in their Synodic Explic. say They contract damnable guilt and lose their present aptitude to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Adding So that while they remain in that state of Impenitence they neither ought nor can perswade themselves otherwise than that they art obnoxious to death Rom. 8. 13. If ye live after the flesh ye shall die For they are bound in a capital Crime by the desert whereof according to Gods Ordination they are subject to death though they be not yet delivered to death nor shall be if we respect Gods fatherly love but shall be pluckt out of this sin that so they may be pluckt out of the guilt of death Lastly For their present condition they lose their aptitude to enter into Heaven c. And Thes 4. p. 193. Gods unmovable ordination requireth that a Believer thus exorbitant do first return into the way by renovation of Faith and the act of Repentance before he can be brought to the ways end which is the heavenly Kingdom By the Decree of Election the faithful are so predestinated to the end that they can no otherwise be brought to it than by Gods instituted means as by the Kings high way And Gods Decrees of the means and of the end and order of events are as firm and certain as those of the end and of the events themselves If any man therefore go on in a way contrary to Gods Ordination as the broad way of uncleanness and impenitence which directly leadeth to Hell he can never come that way to Heaven Yea if death surprize him wandering in Luk. 13. 3 5. 1 Cor. 6. 9. Heb. 12. 14. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Act. 27. 31. that out-way he cannot but fall into everlasting death This is the constant and clear voice of the Scripture As Paul said of those in the Ship c. Act. 27. 31. It is certain that David and Peter Gods Elect Servants were to come to Heaven But it is as certain that if one had remained impenitent in his Adultery and Murder and the other in his denial of Christ and perjury neither of them could have been saved Providence and Mercy unty this knot by providing that no elect person die in that state in which according to any Ordination of Gods Will he should have been shut out of Heaven And Thes 5. In that interspace which is between the guilt of sin contracted by a grievous sin and the renewed act of Faith and Repentance such a Sinner standeth a person to be damned by his own desert but by Christ's Merit and Gods firm purpose a person to be saved but not before by excited Faith and Repentance he hath obtained pardon is he actually absolved But in such guilt the condition of the Faithful and of the Wicked is not the same To the Unbelievers is wanting the inward principle of Faith without which the
it and the natural then it is no proper expression to say that such a mans falling away was impossible antecedently but only that 1. It is non futurum 2. And logically impossible in order of arguing that it should be so And it is ordinary with high Antiarminians to say That Gods Decree and his Grace too are such as only determine mans power and that neither of them ordinarily make our Fall impossibile but only non-futurum But when God worketh by a greater force of Omnipotency taking away the moral power ad contrarium and how oft what man dare say that he can tell the difference being in the effect and not in God 274. Therefore though the dispute of the event as future or not future have its place yet the dispute de possibilitate is usually but vain and darkening especially as managed by those Confounders who only say It is impossible that Gods decree or fore-knowledge be frustrate and necessary that it be fulfilled not distinguishing the necessity of a consequence in a syllogism from the premises and the necessity of an effect as from its necessitating cause God can cause without necessitating the second cause much more decree and fore-know 275. He that hath saving Grace in the least degree cannot lose that degree without losing all the species or all saving Grace But it 's otherwise with him that hath a higher degree 276. There have many of our acquaintance gone so far in a life of mortification and diligence of suffering like Christians of the highest rank who yet have fallen to the death to the denial of the very essentials of the Christian Faith that from the very Doctrine of certain perseverance hath become a cause of doubting and trouble to some who have said If a man could fall away from true Grace I should not doubt but such and such a man did so and I should hope that yet my heart may at the present be sincere But seeing no man ever had true Grace who apostatizeth these men had none who in all proboble judgment of reason were once far better than I now am And I can never be sure that I have true Grace till I go further than ever they did which I almost dispair of ever doing having intimately known them to be no dissemblers Thus both ways of this controverted Doctrine have their troubling difficulties 277. If none censured the deniers of certainty herein but only those who themselves ever attain to a certainty of their sincerity perseverance and salvation they would not be enough to make any great division or breach about it And could we but be impartial and bear with the dissent of Brethren herein as well as we do of the ancient Doctors and Churches our peace and concord would be less disturbed by this Controversie than it is I have else-where cited some Tertullian is too harsh in conceding a mutability in God Contr. Marc. li. 2. cap. 23 24. Si vero etiam circa personas levem vultis intelligi quum reprobat aliquando probatos aut improvidum quum probat quandoque reprobandos quasi judicia sna aut damnet praeterita aut ignoret futura Atqui nihil tam bono judici convenit quam pro praesentibus meritis rejicere adlegere c. Yet this may have a good interpretation Eusebius Praeparat Evangel li. 6. pag. 289 290. Yea these would fight or be a contradiction that the same man should both become honest or good and certainly fore-know that he shall be honest But I am not of his mind But among those before Augustine such passages are not so strange as these are in himself De corrept Grat. cap. 13. pag. 539. Quis enim ex multitudine fidelium quamdiu in hac mortalitate vivitur in numero praedestinatorum se esse praesumat Quia id occultari opus est in hoc loco ubi sic cavenda est elatio ut etiam per Satanae Angelum ne extolleretur tantus colophizaretur Apostolus Nam propter hujus utilitatem secreti ne forte quis extollatur sed omnes etiam qui bene currunt timeant dum occultum est qui perveniant Propter hujus ergo utilitatem secreti credendum est quosdam de filiis perditionis non accepto dono perseverantiae usque in finem in fide quae per dilectionem operatur incipere vivere ac aliquandiu fideliter ac juste vivere postea cadere neque de hac vita priusquam hoc eis contingat auferri Quorum si nemini contigisset tamdiu haberent omnes istum saluberrimum timorem quo vitium elationis opprimitur donec ad Christi gratiam qua piè vivitur pervenirent deinceps jam securi nunquam se ab illo esse casuros Quae praesumptio in isto tentationum loco non expedit ubi tanta est infirmitas ut superbiam possit generare securitas Et Epist 101. ad Vitalem Utile est quippe omnibus vel pene omnibus propter humilitatem saluberrimam ut quales futuri sint scire non possint Et lib. 11. de Civit. Dei cap. 12. pag. 67. Quis enim primos illo● homines in Paradiso negare audeat beatos fuisse ante peccatum quam●●s de sua beatitudine quam diuturna vel utrum aeterna esset incertos esse● ante● aeterna nisi peccassent Cum hodie non impudenter beatos vocemus quos videmus juste ac pie cum spe immortalitatis hanc vitam ducere sine crimine vastante conscientiam facile impetrantes peccatis hujus infirmitatis divinum misericordiam Qui licet de suae perseverantia praemio certi sint de ips● tamen perseverantia sua reperiantur incerti Quis enim hominum se in actione profectuque justitiae perseveraturum usque in finem sciat nisi aliqua revelatione ab illo stat certus qui de hac re justo latentique judicio non omnes instruit sed neminem fallit So Prosper Resp ad Gallor cap. sent ad secundam Qui dic●● quod ab his qui non sunt praedestinati ad vitam non auserat percepta baptismi gratia Originale peccatum non est catholicus Sacrament●● enim baptismi quo omnia prorsus peccata delentur etiam in eis verum est qui non sunt in veritate mansuri ab hoc ad vitam aeternam non sunt praedestinati Et sent ad septimum Qui dicit quod Deus quibusdam filiis suis quos regeneravit in Christo quibus fidem spem dilectionem dedit ob hoc perseverantiam non dederit quia a massa perditionis praescientia Dei praedestinatione non sint disereti c. Vid. caetera sent sup 12. Et Resp ad object Vincent 12. Praedestinatio Dei si apud nos dum in praesentis vitae periculis versamur incerta est apud illum tame● qui fecit quae futura sunt immutabilis permanet I need not tell the learned that Fulgentius is of the same
the Natural power in it self but by so doing formaliter relativè it maketh it no power ad hoc to the contrary in that instant Of which more anon § 10. Such grace of God as cometh from his Absolute Will or Decree of the due Event is never overcome For Gods decree is not frustrate § 11. Gods gracious operations are never overcome by any contrary Act but what he himself is the Agent Cause of as an Act For in Him we Live and Move and Be. Yet man is the only Cause of the Inordination of that act by which it is set in opposition to Gods other acts For God doth not militate against himself § 12. The case lyeth thus God antecedently to his Laws framed Nature that is the Being and Natural Order of all the World and so he became the Head or Root of Nature the first Cause who by his wise decree was to concurr to the end with that Natural frame and to continue to things their proper forms and motions And man is one of his creatures having a Nature of his own to which God as the God of Name doth Antecedently concurr By this natural concurse of God the fomi● cator the murderer the thief c. are naturally able to do those acts But being free agents that can do otherwise God maketh them a Law to restrain and regulate them And when they break this Law they resist that gracious concurse which suitable to the organical cause God conjoyneth with the means But they do this by their Natural power and activity not used as God requireth them but turned against his own Law So that if God would withdraw his sustentation and destroy m●ns Nature they could not resist his grace But that he will not do being his antecedent work and so God is resisted by his own-given-power and act disordered and turned against his grace § 13. The Will of God which is thus resisted is only 1. His Preceptive or Legal will de debito 2. And his will of purpose to give man so much help and no more by which he can and ought to believe and Repent is said to be resisted or frustrate so far when by mans fault it doth him not that good which it might have done § 14. Gods Grace and Spirit are said to be resisted when the Word and other Means are * * * That God doth govern inseriora per superiora and work by means not for want of them but from the abundance of his Goodness so as to communicate to his creatures the dignity of causality See Aquin. 1. q. 103. a. 8. q. 104. a. 2. Alexand. 1. p. q. 26. m. 5. a. 2. 3. m. 7. Albert. 1. p. q. 67. m. 4. a. 1. Richard 1. d. 39. a. 2. q. 3. d. 45. a. 2. q. 2. Agid. Rom. 2. d. 1. p. 1. q. 2. a. 6. ibi Gabritl d. 1. q. 2. resisted which call him to his duty For these themselves are gifts and acts of grace § 15. But it is not the bar● Word or Means alone but the Spirit working in and by those means which is so resisted For though no mo●tal man can clearly know just how the Spirit concurreth and operateth by the Word and Means yet we may know that God doth limit his own operation to the aptitude of the means ordinarily and that he worketh with and by them not according to his Omnipotency in it self considered but according to the means or organs And as in Nature he operateth nor quantum potest but agreeably to the order and aptitude of Natural Causes so in Grace he operateth non quantum potest but according to the aptitude and order of the sapiential frame of Governing-means of grace § 16. When the preaching of the Word Education Company and other visible Means seem equal God hath innumerable means supernal internal external invisible and unknown to us by which he can make all the difference that he maketh in men So that we cannot prove that ever he worketh on souls without any second cause or means at all though we cannot prove the contrary neither And therefore he that resisteth all means for ought we know in so doing resisteth all Gods gracious operations on his soul § 17. * * * I know not how to find both sense and concord in the words of your Alvarez de A●x l. 7. disp 59. p. 264. Ead●m contritio que est ultima dispositio ad gratiam in genere cause materialis antecedit illam In genere tamen causae formalis efficientis est effeclus ejusdem gratiae propterea quamvis non sit meritoria gratiae est tamen meritoria vitae aetern● Et p. 265. Contritio qua penitens disponitur ad infusionem gratiae habitualis est meritoria vitae aeternae ut Thom. 1. 2. q. 112. a. 2. ad 1. Ergo est effectus gratiae habitualis Nulla enim operatio hominis est-meritoria vitae aeternae nis● procedat à grati● habituali ordine saltem naturae sit ea posterior How can the Act be the ultima dispositio to the infusion of that habit which it floweth from Unless he mean eadem specie and not numerically which yet is false For it is not eadem or else he falsly supposeth that the same Love of God may go before Grace Whereas Dr. Twisse so frequently asketh Whether Gods condional will and so his operation be Volo te velle modo velis or credere modo credas to give us faith if we believe and so maketh non credere or non velle to be the only resistance and the Arminians to be ridiculous in making the effect antecedent to the cause as a condition of the causation and itself This semi-subtilty though it beget voluminous confidence must cry peccavi if a little more subtilty do but detect the defectiveness of it We are not now enquiring of the Rationes fidem habendi but of the Rationes non habendi nor are we enquiring Whether God have made a Covenant or formal Promise of giving faeith upon antecedent conditions But whether he deny or give-not grace for actual faith effectual or sufficient to any but those that resist and wilfully omit the preparatory acts which they were able to perform even preparatory Volitons Or if you will make the question to be de ratisnibus fidem habendi not de causis Actus donandi Whether God do not ordinarily give or produce the act of faith in that soul which doth not wilfully resist and omit such preparatory acts as it could do even Volitions And so I answer 1. It is not I will give thee faith if thou wilt believe or I will make thee willing if thou be willing of the same thing But it is 1. If by resisting common preparing grace thou so harden ●hy heart or increase the privation of receptive aptitude in thy self as that the same degree of grace means help impress will not change thee which otherwise would
make this motion to be somewhat received before we act and yet nothing but our act which is absurd IV. Other Thomists hold that It is somewhat really distinct from our operations and that is Quoddam complementum virtutis activae quo actualiter agat And he that knoweth what predicament this complementum belongeth to and what it is let him take this opinion for more than a meer complement And here they tell you that they speak not of Gods simultaneous concurse for that Alvarez confesseth is nothing besides Gods essence and mans act But of his previous motion which he saith is somewhat more So Amesius Antisynod de Grat. c. 2. pag. 255. Satis esset apud omnes pios dicere Dei Velle sine ulla Impressione intercedente certe posse efficere ut Voluntas consentiat ipsius Vocationi I now meddle not with the truth of this and Twisses argument is easily answered But I intreat the Reader to note into what all our controversies are by these excellent men reduced who yet most aggravate them What now is the Gratia efficax ad credendum Nothing besides Gods esse but ipsa fides Is faith effective of it self No. Is Gods essential will effective of it Who ever denyed it What place is there for Controversies of sufficiency and efficacy when it is but Gods essence and the known effect of which they speak and hold not as Alvarez doth any motion or Impress made by God upon mind or will at all Gods will then is effectual quia vult effectum and it is virtually sufficient for whatever he willeth not but could will But then no man can possibly do any more good or less evil than he doth because no more or less is willed of God which volition is the first necessary Cause of all things And is not all their Volumes de Auxiliis Gratiae and the several sorts previous simultaneous operating co-operating c. meerly vain when there is no such thing as any Grace besides Gods meer will and the Act of man And yet Dr. Twisse elsewhere saith that Gods Decrees do nihil ponere in objecto As if they differed in the nature of motion And he saith that this is true both of supernatural acts which are from Infused habits as faith hope Love and of Imperfect supernaturals as fear of hell and attrition by which man is remotely prepared for Justification ● which proceed not from supernatural habits but from the spirits special impulse not yet inhabiting but moving And Alvarez thus concludeth I. That which God doth in second causes by which these act is Aliquid habens esse quoddam incompletum per modum quò colores sunt in aere virtus artis in instrumento artificis It is Aliquid incompletum transiens cum ipsa operatione Are you ever the wiser for all this II. Hoc ens incompletum praevium actioni causae secundae producitur in illa effective à solo Deo nullo modo dependet efficienter ex influx● ipsius causae secundae And therefore herein the will is passive though not in its own Act as he falsly affirmeth Luther to assert for what can act and not be active III. When second causes natural or supernatural have by their inherent form sufficient Active virtue per modum actus primi proportioned with the effect then Gods premotion is not a Quality but proprio vocabulo dicitur Motio Virtuosa by which the universal cause maketh the second actually operate according to its proper mode Therefore it is not a Habit or disposition or natural power IV. Yea in Imperfect supernatural acts as fear of hell which go before habits and by preventing grace are elevated to the acts it is not a Quality but Motio Dei virtuosa by which they are done and is of the same sort with that which causeth acts from habits V. This previous Motion is Really distinct from the operation of the second cause and is not our act it self but is immediately from God Which he useth many arguments to prove And can all this give any man a formal conception what it is which he calleth aliquid incompletum and Motio Virtuosa We know not what the Vis projectis impressa is in corporeals And can we tell how spirits and how the God of spirits maketh his Impressions or what the word Impression or Motion here signifieth We know that we know it not if we know what we know and know-not And why is it called Motio Virtuosa Virtus he maketh a quality It is no quality and yet Virtuosa Omnis motio est Actio Is it Actio Increata Then it is God himself which he denyeth and speaketh of somewhat between God and mans Act. Is it Actio creata Then it is a Modus Agentis for so is every Action as such as distinct from its effect in patiente And if so it cannot be modus Dei for then it is Ipse Deus And if it be modus hominis it is either homini● agentis vel patientis If the first then it is mans Action If the second it is formally no action For modus patientis is passio though many would confound action and passion with saying after their Masters that Actio est in patiente which is equivocation So that the plain truth is that mans understanding can reach no further than to conceive 1. That our souls are the termini of Gods Volition and Active power 2. That though God act not on us by corporeal contact yet we must call our selves Patients and think of the Attingency of his Active essence with its effects by some Analogie of Corporeal attingency contact and impressed moving force But truly to know how God toucheth moveth operateth on any Creature and by what Impressions or what there is indeed between Gods essence and mans Act we know not at all And if Christ had never said Joh. 3. so is every one that is born of the spirit our own experience might have told us that we know it not Boldly then tell our Church-distracting wranglers that contend about the nature sufficiency efficacy resistibility of this Act of Grace that they know not the very subject of their disputes And shall we still fire the Church by striving about words that profit not but subvert the hearers and tend to the increase of ungodliness Yea and shall bold blind zeal use the Reverend names of God and his precious Truth to colour and countenance these pernicious contentions I grant that the nature of Grace and the concord of it with Free-will may be soberly treated of But when men have followed the controversie beyond the ken of humane understanding and there will proceed to build great Fabricks upon unknown suppositions and perversly contend for them against Love and peace they do but serve Satan against God under the colour of his sacred truth and name And I think it not amiss here to tell you what Alvarez saith to this Question de Aux l. 12. disp 118. p.
an Infinite effect But the world is not Infinite § 4. As to the second question it is either de nomine or de re If the former let every man speak as he list for me rather than I will contend with him whether Creation of faith be a fit name As to the matter 1. It is agreed on that faith is not a substance 2. Nor an Accident con-created with a substance 3. Nor a composition of substances into one done by secondary Creation Generation or Art 4. But that it is the right ordered Act of a substance whose natural power which performeth it was pre-existent though without that act and the moral disposition Therefore it being a Modus entis or modus modi that we talk of the common name is Alteration and suscitation actuating and ordering But if men sober sometime call it a New Creation as indeed the whole frame of holiness together is called the New Creature in the Scriptures and sometimes the Divine nature sometimes Regeneration sometimes a Divine Artifice Alteration Conversion Sanctification c. it is the same thing that is meant by all their several names § 5. As to the third Question Whether it be a Miracle * * * Justificationem non esse proprie Miraculum Vid. Malder ib. p. 578. Et Br●anson in 4. q. 8. Cor. 2. fol. 144. confessing it above the power of a Creature to justifie us but not properly a miracle p 1. As a Miracle signifieth a wonder a thing is wonderful either for the Rarity or for the Great appearance of Gods power in it In the first respect faith is not so Rare as to be a miracle In the second the Sun and Heavens are a greater wonder than faith 2. But as a Miracle signifieth that which is done by second Causes but unknown to us and out of Gods ordinary way of working so it is no miracle 3. And as some men call that a Miracle which exceedeth the power of the second causes so all things would be Miracles that God doth For they are effects of his power as exceeding the power of second causes 4. As a Miracle is that which is done by God without any second causes † † † Many good people would never be so much against the acknowledgement of second Causes if they understood the matter But they ignorantly think it derogateth from God the first cause so some think that the propagation of souls is a miracle But of souls and faith it is much unknown to us how far God useth second causes But that Generation as to one and Preaching and all other means to the other are some sort of second causes * * * We have no reason to think that God useth no second cause in working faith It is much to be noted which Pet. de Alllaco saith in 4. q. 1. E. Plus facit Deut faciendo aliquem effectum mediante causa secunda quam si faceret eu●dem effectum se solo Quia in prima factione sunt plures termini divina actionis quam in secunda For as he said before Quandocunque Deus facit aliquem effectum mediante causa sceunda ipse non solum facit illum effectum sed etlam facit causam secundam esse causam illius effecti Mar● this well is sure 5. And lastly if by a Miracle be meant that effect which God produceth both above the power of second causes and by a more glorious exertion of his own power than in his Course of Nature and Government he useth by and with second causes so it is not a Miracle because in the way of his ordinate co-operation with his Gospel he ordinarily produceth it § 6. So that as all Christians must confess that we had never believed if God had not wrought it in us by that spirit of Wisdom and Love which is Omnipotent so to contend any further whether it be a Miracle and a proper Creation or an effect of Omnipotency as such c. are such questions as presumptuous Schoolmen heretofore and hot-headed Sectaries in our times have used to afflict the Church of Christ with and to tempt their ignorant zealous followers into such employments as most effectually destroy their charity and injure others and scandalize the world SECT XV. Of the sufficiency and efficacy of Grace § 1. I Have said so much of this before as that lest I be tedious by repetition I must be but brief * * * Malderus against the Synod of Dort and 1. 2. q. 111. art 3. dub 8. bestirs himself with special industry to tell what Gratia efficax is And he concludeth that it is afflatus gratiae praevenientis sub genere gratiae excitantis quae non respuitur cum respui possit rather praeparans voluntatem quam adjuvans rejecting Valentia who placeth it in the Habit of Grace caused by excitation and à Lorca who takes it to be adjuvant and those that make it co-operant and those that place it in praedetermination physical of which he confuteth four opinions p. 502. and saith Probabilior sententia est quae negat omnimodam gratiae infallibilitatem adeóque efficaciam sumi posse ex sola reali aliqua differentia considerata ex parte gratiae praevenientis And that Just and unjust have effectual grace and therefore it differeth not from sufficient really And he resolveth all per scientiam mediam that Grace is effectual because ex proposito convertendi Deus it a hominem trabit sicut aptum novit ut sequatur certissime secu●urum and so that Grace i● effectual er natura sua and not so called only ex eventu I. By sufficient Grace is meant that which is necessary to the effect and without which it Cannot be but with it it may be though it sometimes be not § 2. That there is such a sufficient Grace not alwayes effectual to mans act is before proved by Adams Case And that no man hath such now for any means or duty in order to his recovery as Adam had to stand when he fell is not to be asserted or received And that no prepared soul hath such sufficient Grace to believe that yet believeth not is a thing that is past our reach to know § 3. This sufficient Grace consisteth in a Power to the act when the Indisposition of the natural power is so far altered or repressed as that by the means and helps vouchsafed by God the act is Morally possible to be done For he that truly can do it all things considered is well said to have such necessary grace § 4. But God of his bounty usually giveth men more than such a meer moral possibility by many additional helps and urgencies to the act which I mentioned before § 5. But by sufficient is not meant As much as is useful yea or needful to the Ascertaining of the Event much less to the meliority of the act § 6. II. The EFFICACY of Grace relateth to the effect And
by the effect it must be described Efficacy is Aptitudinal which is the force and fitness of the Efficient Cause Or Actual which is Efficienty it self § 7. Aptitudinal efficacy is 1. In God 2. In the means And 1. In Gods Absolute Power 2. In his Ordinate Power § 8. 1. Gods Absolute Power is Omnipotency or Infinite and therefore was aptitudinally efficacious to make a world before it was made § 9. 2. Gods Ordinate Power is the same Essential Omnipotency denominated from the Connotation of those effects which he hath decreed to produce according to the limited aptitude of second Causes and means or the disposition of the recipient or at least as limited in the effects by his meer free will § 10. In these respects though still Gods power in it self be Omnipotency yet in the limited way of operation it is various 1. As Gods Will quoad terminos is various 2. And as the means are various 3. And as the Receivers capacities are various To one the same operation ex parte Dei mediorum though not from the same Decree is abundantly efficacious and to another not § 11. And thus God so limiteth the effect of his Power as that it shall be effectual sometime on a Condition to be freely performed by man receiving it even by a former help and not absolutely § 12. Therefore all that is Aptitudinally efficacious is not actually efficient of every effect to which it was thus apt § 13. The aptitudinal efficacy of the means being of God falleth in with his ordinate power herein and is not the thing in question § 14. The effects in respect to which Grace is called efficacious are 1. The Giving of the Means themselves 2. The first Impress on the soul 3. The altering of the souls Disposition 4. The production of the act 5. And of the Habit. And it must be some of these effects which are called efficacious or inefficacious to others So that by that time the state of the Question is truly opened this which Dr. Twisse saith Arminius durst never speak out his opinion of and which he and others make to be the very heart of all these Controversies perhaps will appear to be nothing § 15. For what is that Grace whose efficacy you enquire of ● Is it Gratia operans or operata The efficient cause or the effect If it be Gods Gratia operans it is either the Prime Cause or the second Causes If it be the Prime Cause it is Gods essence only Even his Essential Power Vasquez in 1 Tho. ●●●● 19. disp 8c p. 5●●●●● Voluntas libera De● ●●●● essentia Divina significata per modum actus vitalis affectus eliciti cum revera sit ipsamet substantia Dei includit tamen habitudinem etiam qúandam rationis ad res futuras quae liber● Deo convenit sient etiam res libere futurae sunt Cum enim haec relatio consurgat ex fundamentis non necessaries ●●●● ex rebus ipsis obj●●●● futuri● ipsa etiam habitud●●●●●re Deo convenit non intrinsicè sed extrinsec● solum denomination● quam Deo convenire non conve●ire ●on est absurdum Ergo cum Velle liberam Dei non solum includat essentiam sed cum tali respect● ●ti-●●s● libera Volunt as poss●● D●o adesse abesse ni●il sequitur absurdi quod divina simplicitati immutabilitati repug●et This little is all that they can tell us what Gods free Volition of extrinsick effects is And can you tell us any more Bradwardine denying in God any executive power besides meer Volition though he call him o●●nipotent antecedently to his self-knowledge and Volition doth make Grace ●x parts D●● to be nothing but his Will that we shall do the act and be such and ●●ch Intellect and will And is that the Question Wherein consisteth the efficacy of Gods essence Why it consisteth in it self if you mean Aptitudinal efficacy It is Gods essential Virtue If you mean Actual efficiency that speaketh the effect of which more anon So that about Gods essential efficacy there is no Controversie § 16. But if you say that It is his Potentia quà ordinata and not quà essentialis vel absoluta that you enquire of the efficacy of Remember that the word Ordinata or Limited signifieth no alteration in Gods Power at all but only An effect which as Limited and ordinate from whence the Power causing it is extrinsecally so named Gods essential Power is never limited but Infinite and to be Ordinate is but to have ordinate effects So that still either the Controversie must be of Gods essence which is past Controversie or of some second cause or some meer effect § 17. And if you transferr the Question to the efficacy of second causes 1. You will deny your selves that means and second causes have any power but from God 2. And that the very nature of those causes is sufficient to the ascertaining of the effect because they cause mostly morally● And it is one of the accu●ations against the A●minians right or wrong that they lay all on moral suasion or causality 3. And second causes are so numerous and unknown to us that we are uncapable of judging well of their efficacy 4. But it is I think agreed between you that the force of Means or second causes in Conversion is not such as necessitateth the will Or if some of the Schoolmen and Jesuites which with their Scientia Media do joyn Gratiam per congruitatem mediorum efficacem do make this efficacy to be the chief cause of the effect yet they deny it to cause necessarily at least alwayes when the effect followeth And what if we add that objects effect not as such And therefore this question de efficacia causarum secundarum must extend to some second effective Agents and not only to objects as such nor to those that preach present and offer objects as such And what that Agent Cause must be under God by that time you are agreed you will find that they are new Controversies that will there rise up before you And yet I think that if we will needs wrangle about the efficaciousness of any cause foregoing the first effect it self on the soul it must be of the efficacy of some or all these second causes or we must question whether God be God For I can find nothing else to question § 18. It remaineth then that the question Wherein the efficacy of Grace consisteth must be meant of Gratia operata even of the effect it self And then either you mean that this effect is efficacious to it self or to something else The first is such a contradiction as is not to be imagined that you should think that an effect is its own cause and ask How doth faith e. g. cause it self Therefore there is nothing left but only to question How the first effect of God on the soul in its conversion is efficacious of the second § 19. And here 1.
Some of you will grant that as motion causeth motion by contact of bodies so the first effect on the soul can cause the second And others of you will deny it and say that Gods Actions being diversified only by the diversity of effects and objects that which causeth the second effect is to be denominated a second Action and not the same numerically which caused the first no nor specifically if the effects specifically differ And so as scholastick wits here exercise their curiosity without respect to Arminianism or Calvinism you will here fall into notional Controversies in the way § 20. 2. But granting that the first effect is that efficacious Grace which must cause the second how shall we know what the first effect is and what the second Gods Grace like the Sun is still shining though we are not still receiving it When it worketh but the commoner sort of effects these tend to more and more The first Gracious effect may be forty years before Conversion But this is not your meaning But I suppose you will say that it is the first special effect or gratia operata that is proper to the saved which you mean But to pass by that Augustine Prosper Fulgentius much more their predecessors held that sincere faith Love holiness Justification present right to Life if they so dyed are not proper to the saved but that some lose all these If you say but proper to the Justified or Sanctified or Converted or it be the first effect which is proprium Justificandis which you mean Are we agreed what that is § 21. Either the first effect on the soul or the first Gratia operata is the Act of faith it self or somewhat antecedent If the Act as many subtilly maintain then it were a foolish question to ask Whether the Act of faith be Effectual to cause it self and How Therefore it must be somewhat antecedent or we can find no matter for our Controversie de efficacia Gratiae ad credendum § 22. If somewhat antecedent to the Act it is either a Disposition or Infused Habit or an Impression Impulse or Influx which is neither Disposition nor Habit. * * * Dico 1. Non certo constare ex divinis literis esse hujusmodi Habitus supernaturales 2. At baptizatis infunditur Gratia ●o sensu quod efficiuntur D●o grati consortes divinae naturae renati 3. Conceditur Dei adjutorium ut credamus velimu● diligamus per inspirationem infusionem spiritus sancti 4. Dei adjutorium desuper infusum est omnino necessarium ut credamus diligamus c. non tantum ut facilius credamus Medina in 12. q. 51. p. 282. See many definitions of a Habit confuted in Medina 1. 2. p. 271. and that which he resteth in is Aristotles Qualitas quâ rectè vel malè afficimur § 23. 1. A proper Habit of faith it is not Though Mr. Pemble singularly seem so to think yet he meaneth but a seminal disposition And it 's commonly held that the Habit is given by sanctification after the Act given in Vocation 2. But if it were otherwise the Habit is not alwayes sufficient to ascertain the Act. For holy men oft sin against a Habit and believers do not alwayes exercise it Habits Incline per modum naturae but do not certainly determine to the act 3. And of a Disposition it must be so said much more § 24. 2. And if it be an Impulse or Influxus Receptus as I think we must affirm this is but a general notion of which our understanding is very crude or small A meer Motus it is not For as was said in the beginning the Divine Influx is threefold viz. From Vital-Activity or Power Wisdom and Love to Life Light and Love in man Now as I said if there be no such Impulse besides the Life Light and Love produced our Controversie is at an end For these are not efficacious or efficient of themselves But if such a different Impulse there be it 's hard to know what it is in man I conceive it best expressed by all these inadequate notions conjunct 1. An inward urgency to this threefold act which is called in the Schools both auxilium concurse and Influx 2. By which Urgency the soul is more Disposed to the Act in hoc ordine than it was before 3. Which Disposition containeth in it a Moral Power to that Act so ordered and somewhat more even some Inclination to perform it If any man can tell me better what that Divine Impulse is which is antecedent to mans Act I am willing to learn § 25. Now if this be the question Whether this Divine Impulse which is the first effect of Gods spirit be of its own nature efficacious to produce According to Jansenius the first Grace is Necessary Delectation or Love in act before that which is free and full And if so then there is no grace causing this grace and so none to be the subject of this question Whether it be more or less sufficient or effectual operating or co-operating grace which maketh one man love God initially rather than another For it is no Grace b● Gods essential will this Love be the first Grace and no received Impulse antecedent to it our Faith Love c. as the second effect I answer 1. Sometimes Gods Impulse is so Great as propriâ vi doth change mind and will and overcome resistance and procure our act 2. Sometimes it is so strong as that it prevaileth against the contrary ill-disposition so far as to give man a Moral Power to the Act with some Inclination which yet contrary habits and temptations do overcome and the Act doth not follow which yet was not for want of Power to have done it And this is called sufficient Grace 3. We have great reason to believe that as in some Instances Gods greater Impress is the chief differencing Cause so in other Instances an equal Impulse of God on unequally disposed subjects doth produce the Act of faith c. in one of them which it produceth not in the other through the incapacity of the recipient 4. Therefore there is a double degree of efficacy or Vis One which only so far moveth and helpeth the will as that it can do the act and sometime doth it without more Another which is so strong as that the second effect alwayes followeth it 5. But whenever the Act of faith is produced by force or Impulse more or less God is the first and principal cause of it and man but the second and the praise of it is accordingly due And I think this decision accommodateth both sides of our contenders § 26. The foresaid Impulse or first effect is only the work of God and the means and not ours But the Act of Faith Love c. is Gods work and ours and ours as Free-agents Therefore that Impulse of God which is Aptitudinally efficacious on supposition of mans due reception and self-excitation
of the Holy Ghost which is specially promised in the Gospel to believers For there are 1. Many common works of the Spirit 2. And the special effect of faith it self before it § 2. This gift of the Holy Ghost unto Believers was formerly two fold the Gift of Miracles or wonders and of special Holiness of which the latter continueth to the end of the world § 3. The spirit is Given to Believers in several respects conjunct 1. In that he is Given to Christ their Head with whom by Union they are Relatively one Body 2. In that He is Given to them by the Baptismal Covenant in special Relation to their own persons to be their sanctifier In which respect they are Baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost as being now in Covenant theirs 3. In that he worketh in them the Acts and Habits of Holiness even of Love to God and to his Image and helpeth them in all duties and against all temptations enemies and sins But not that his essence is more in them than elsewhere but his Operations from those Relations § 4. This Gift of the spirit is the great priviledge of believers and of Gospel times in the eminent degree and He is the great Agent Advocate and witness of Christ in us the divine nature and name of God and his mark upon us our witness earnest pledge and first-fruits of life eternal and the great difference between Christs living members and the unregenerate world § 5. So powerful and fixed is this Habitual Holiness or Love of God for that is the summ of it that though it be no substance nor alter not mans species nor operate not by natural necessitating determination yet it strongly and constantly inclineth the soul per modum nature to the act of Love and so emulateth nature that it is called in Scripture the Divine Nature and the new man § 6. The greatest blessing in this world is to have more of this Spirit and the greatest punishment to be for saken by the spirit and deprived of it And believers themselves must fear most lest they should quench and grieve the spirit and be punished with any measure of its desertion And their great work is to cherish it carefully and obey it faithfully and constantly § 7. The word Infusion as to Habits being metaphorical is ambiguous 1. If the question be Whether Habits be so Infused as that they are caused without Means we must deny it ordinarily 2. If it be Whether they are not at all procured by any cogitations desires or preparatory duties of our own to fit us to receive them It is to be denyed as to the ordinary way 3. If the question be Whether the Act of faith do ever go before the Habit as a cause of it It must be affirmed of the ordinary case 4. If it be Whether the Habit ever go before the Act we must say that some Impulse disposing to it doth And God can cause a Habit before the Act But we cannot prove that he ever doth so much less that it is his ordinary way § 8. Whence it is plain that ordinarily All Infused Habits are so far also Acquired as that they follow means and the Act But all Acquired Habits are not such as are called Infused § 9. The difference is in this that Habits are said to be Infused when the Holy Ghost doth excite the soul to the Act and by that Act unto a setled Habit by such a special powerful Impulse as would not follow Gods ordinary operation by meer natural second Causes As the seal set home on the wax by a strong hand maketh a deep impression more than when it 's laid on lightly by a child so are sacred objects and means and motives when set home by the spirit allowing for the differences of the things § 10. Whether in every true Believer a fixed Habit of Love instantaneously follow the first act of true faith though weak or whether in many God only give after the first act so small an increase of the Disposition as is short of the true nature of a habit till increased by frequent acts is a case that I think more difficult than needful to resolve § 11. That which God worketh in Infants is a seminal fixed disposition But I cannot prove that it is a proper Habit. § 12. Whether Adams Natural sanity or sanctity antecedent to his first Act was to be called more properly a Habit or only a seminal disposition I leave to others But if his and Infants be to be called Habits you must say that they are only certain General Habits such as Health in the Body and not those particular Habits which are strictly so called § 13. The nature of a Habit is not well known to mortal men We know that it is a strong and fixed Disposition to prompt and facile action of this or that special sort But what that Disposition is we well know not That is whether it be the robur of the essential virtues or faculties of the soul Intellection Will Activity And if so wherein that second Gradus Virtutis which is not essential differeth from the first that is And whether it be any thing else than a secret constant Act in and by which the soul is excited to more sensible acts it 's hard to know But certain I am that besides those Acts which taking in somewhat of Imagination or sense are ordinarily perceived by us which are our ordinary conversation the soul hath also some deep secret fixed acts which make no use of sense or Imagination or none that is observed and yet are the ruling acts of the man Such commonly is the Intentio finis which operateth constantly without memory or observation in all use of means As a travailer on his journey keepeth on his way while he seemeth wholly taken up with the occurrences company and talk of his way and thinketh not sensibly of his end And yet had he not an unobserved Intention of it he would not go on And night and day the soul hath this secret insensible sort of Action § 14. As when a spark of fire is blown up to a flame and the excited Act doth tend to more and the more it burneth caeteris paribus the more it is strongly inclined to burn And yet no man can say that here is any new Matter that was not before existent nor that the second degree of fire is not of the same nature with the first nor that there is any thing but nature and action which inclineth it to more action And yet how the same essence before not perceived is suddenly blown up by Action to such observable appearance and effects is past the power of man to understand aright So some such thing there is in the present case allowing for the difference of natures and kinds of operation SECT XVII Whether man be meerly Passive as to the first special Grace § 1. Answ 1. THe Nature of mans soul is to
the difference seemeth to be founded 1. See what the Brittish Divines say in the Synod of Dort de art 3. 4. suffrag p. 124. Th. 1. There are certain outward works ordinarily required of men before they are brought to the state of Regeneration Rom. 10. 14. Mat. 6. ●● Act. 13. 46. Psa 58. 5. or Conversion which use to be sometime freely done by them and sometime freely omitted as to go to Church to hear the Preaching of the Word and such like Th. 2. There are certain inward effects which are excited in the hearts of those that are not yet justified previous to Conversion and Regeneration Act. 2. 37. by the virtue of the word and spirit such as are the knowledge of Gods will the sense of sin the fear of punishment the thoughts of deliverance some hope of pardon To the state of Justification Gods grace useth not to bring men by sudden Enthusiasm but prepared and fitted or disposed by many previous actings by the Ministry of the word As in natural Generation there are many previous dispositions 1 Cor. 4. 15. before the reception of the form so in the spiritual we come to the spiritual birth by many foregoing actings of Grace If God would immediately Regenerate and Justifie a wicked man not prepared by any knowledge any sorrow any desire any hope of pardon there were no need of the Ministry of man and the Word Preached to do it Th. 3. Those that God thus affecteth by his spirit by means of the Word them he truly and seriously calleth and inviteth to faith and conversion We must judge of the helps of Grace by the nature of the offered benefit and by Gods plain word and not by the abuse and event Se●ing the Gospel of its own nature calleth men to Repentance and Salvation seeing the excitements of grace tend to it we must not think that 2 Cor. 5. 20. 2 Cor. 6. ●● Gal. 1. 6. Rev. 3. 2. God here doth any thing dissemblingly Nor can it be imagined that that calling by the word and spirit can make men unexcuseable which is given only to that end to make them unexcuseable Th. 4. Those whom he thus affecteth God forsaketh not nor ceaseth to promote them in the true way to conversion before he is forsaken by them by voluntary neglect or the repulse of this initial grace The talent of grace once given men of God is not taken away from any man till he bury it by his own fault Therefore we are oft warned in Mat. 2● 2● Scripture not to resist or quench the spirit nor to receive the grace Heb. 3. 7. Prov. 1. 24. 2 Chron. 24. 20. of God in vain nor to fall from God Yea it is plainly given as the reason of Gods forsaking men that they first forsake him Th. 5. Many lose these beginnings Mat. 13. 19. Heb. 6. 4. 2 Pet. 2. 21. Th. 6. The Elect do not so behave themselves under these preparatory workings but that for their negligence and resistance they might justly be forsaken of God But such is Gods special mercy to them that though Joh. 6. 37. ●er 14. 7. 32. 39. Phil. 1. 6. for a time they may repel or suffocate this exciting and illuminating grace yet God doth urge them again and again and ceaseth not to promove them till he fully subjugate them to his grace and place them in the state of regenerate sons Th. 7. All men resist Gods grace and God might justly forsake all Rom. 9. 18. 11. 35. Act. 28. 27. but doth not By all this it is evident that they took not man to be forsaken of God in the state of meer original sin or the corrupt mass but as a wilful resister and refuser of offered Grace and oft after the receiving of much preparing grace and that God forsaketh none till they forsake his grace 2. To the same sence our English Divines commonly tell us how ordinarily God prepareth men for conversion before he convert them and how far persons unconverted may go in common grace He that readeth Mr. Hooker of New England Mr. John Rogers his doctrine of faith Mr. Boltons instructions for comfort Mr. Meads Almost a Christian and abundance such will see that they were of the same mind 3. Hence it is plain that those persons that resisted this further work of grace and forsook God first had true Power to have done otherwise and could have gone further than they did without any other grace than they had Though quoad necessitatem sequentem vel consequentiae it might be inferred even from Gods prescience that it could not be 4. They here describe Gods effectual grace by moral titles of Gods urging them till they yield though as after they open it Gods renewing active influx maketh new creatures and is not a meer moral indetermining suasion leaving the will indifferent 5. The truth is as is aforesaid no mortal man can tell of any difference on Gods part between his common and special agency on souls but only on the part of the work done Nay it is against the doctrine of all ●orts of Divines both Papists and Protestants as to the generality that there is any difference at all For they all say that all Gods actions ad extra are no●hing but his essence viz. his essential knowledge will and power which is undividedly one as terminated effecting related and denominated variously E. g. by one Volition he willeth divers products but not by divers volitions See the Conclusion of the first Chapter ex parte sui either considered specifically or numerically but the specification and individuation is only in the effects and in Gods will as relatively denominated And if this be all mens doctrine what an unhappy case is the Church faln into that the very same men that say this should yet intolerably quarrel Whether this one Divine attingency or operation shall be called Creation infusion urgency excitation perswasion physical hyperphysical moral or what else when all are agreed that all are one and the same ex parte Dei And as to the effects I do my self think that a certain Impulse received on the soul is the first effect and the Act of man as faith is but a second and that of both Causes But we cannot tell well what that Impulse is And therefore must dispute in the dark about the differences of it And this is nothing to them that own nothing but Gods essence as the cause of our act as the first effect If their opinion hold true that as in Creation there was no mediate Impulse between the Creator and the Creature for there was no recipient so here there is no effect on the soul before the Act and habit of faith it self then what is that Grace whose Ratio efficaciae we can make a Controversie of Ad hominem at least I may say that it is common acts and habits overtopt by fleshly interest and concupiscence which
think a good thought by any help that God can give him unless he physically predetermine him to it then the reason why man doth it not is as notoriously to be resolved into Gods not-predetermining him to it as the reason why he doth it into his predetermination and as it is night because the Sun shineth not XVII But at least we can say that God is not the cause of sin because he is under no prohibiting Law Though it be true 1. That his nature or perfection the root of all Laws is more than a Law 2. And we know indeed that this proveth him not at all to be no cause of the sin of man but only to be no sinner himself though he cause it which is none of the question XVIII And from this necessity of predetermination it followeth that all that part of our holiness and obedience which consisteth in not sinning is not at all caused by God e. g. that we hate him not nor his truth and wayes and servants that we murder not commit not adultery steal not lye not covet not blaspheme not wrong none do no evil c. we need no help of God for this Because if he will not move our wills by efficient predetermination to do them it is impossible for us to do them at all XIX And though we say that God willeth sin to be by his permission only and not by his efficience yet indeed predetermining by efficiency as the first cause is the principal efficiency And properly we must say that God permitteth no sin at all For we say that his permission proveth the consequence of the thing permitted And therefore we must say that he permitteth no sin but what is done And that which is done by commission positively he effecteth by effecting the fundamentum and therefore permitteth not And men sin by omission because God doth not make them sin and not because he meerly permitteth it For permission is not de impossibilibus XX. God willeth not sin because he willeth it not as sin in its formale which also we must confess that the wicked themselves do not XXI And whereas we hold that God cannot foreknow things future but as he willeth or decreeth them we must confess that the formale peccati as well as the materiale was such as it is quid futurum if it was but futura privatio And therefore this would inferr that God willed and decreed the formale peccati also XXII Gods Will is his Love and what he Willeth he Loveth XXIII God willeth the futurity and existence of sin not only of the materiale but the formale even of all the sin that ever is done XXIV The existence of sin is Good and Amiable not only by accident but per se as being very conducible to the Glory of Gods Justice and Mercy and therefore is per se Willed and Loved of God XXV It is incomparably much more sin than Holiness which God willeth and Loveth and by predetermination causeth in mankind on earth For it is much more sin than Holiness that existeth in man And all that existeth God causeth as aforesaid the circumstantiated act and so the resultancy of the relative form And he willeth and Loveth the existence of all and the thing existing so far as he causeth it XXVI God Willeth Loveth and Causeth sin incomparably more than wicked men do For they Will and Love it with a humane mutable dependent will but God with a Divine primary immutable will Man causeth the forbidden act whence the relation resulteth with a Will that is irresistibly moved so to do by God as the pen writeth only s●o modo with Volition But God causeth it as the first omnipotent unresistible cause of all that the Creature doth in sinning XXVII The same must be said of God and the Devil who can no more commit one sinful act till God unavoidably predetermine his will to it by his premotion than sinful man can XXVIII God by his Law doth strictly forbid all those sinful acts which he principally and unavoidably causeth And he strictly commandeth all those good acts whose contraries he thus causeth us to do XXIX Though there is nothing in sin which can have a cause of which God is not the Principal cause and though he Willeth and Loveth all that he causeth yet the Scripture saith that God hateth sin and cannot behold it and hateth all the workers of iniquity and that it is abomination to him that he is as one laden with it and wearied provoked and offended by it And that he Loveth the Acts of obedience and holiness when he will not cause them but doth cause and will the contrary XXX Pardon and salvation is promised and earnestly offered by God to the Reprobate themselves on condition that they will believe and repent when God doth unavoidably as the first cause determine their wills to the contrary acts even to disbelief and impenitent hatred of God and holiness XXXI The Law of God is that all the Reprobates shall be damned to hell fire if they will not believe and repent when his omnipotence doth unavoidably premove and determine them to unbelief and impenitence and if they will not give over those acts of sin to which God doth thus unavoidably move and determine them XXXII Gods executions are answerable to these Laws and all save Christians and all professed Christians saving the sanctified are to be punished in hell fire for ever only for not doing the acts of Faith Love and obedience when God as the first cause predetermined them to the contrary and for doing the acts of sin when God unavoidably moved them to it and made them do it so that consequently all that are damned suffer in hell for not being Gods even the first sufficient causes of their own acts and for not being above God or stronger than he that is for not overcoming or avoiding his invincible and unavoidable predetermining premotion unto evil acts XXXIII The same must be said of the Devils who sin and suffer on the same terms XXXIV Q. What kind of torment then will there be in Hell Can Conscience torment men for doing that which they were unavoidably made to do by Omnipotency and for not doing that which without Divine predetermination they could no more do than make a world or for not doing that whose contrary they were thus predetermined to that is for not overcoming God when they know the case Or must we not more congruously say that the state of Hell torments lyeth in a most vehement hatred of God for so using them and a justifying of themselves Or will every mouth be thus stopt in judgement XXXV Q. Is not Divine Justice the most perfect Justice and the exemplar of all humane Justice allowing for disparities And should Kings and Judges imitate this fore-described course And how then would they be esteemed XXXVI Q Is not that best which is most agreeable to Gods Will and Love And therefore sin better than
Holiness in all that have sin and not holiness and in the Godly so far as they sin because that it shall be so is more yea only willed by God and caused by his predetermination XXXVII Q. Whether this doctrine tend not to utter Infidelity as to the Christian faith by making it seem to men incredible Is it credible that God sent his Son so wonderfully to expiate those sins which he so loved and caused as aforesaid and to save his people from their sins which God thus unavoi●ably moved them to commit and to destroy the works of God under the name of destroying the works of the Devil Must Christ suffer bleed die and bear Gods wrath for that which God unavoidably made man do by his principal determination And is it easie for him that believeth one of these to believe the other XXXVIII Q. How will men preach and hear the Gospel if they do it in congruity with this doctrine Will they say God sent us to beseech and charge you not to do that sinful act which you cannot do unless he make you do it by predetermination and which you cannot avoid if he so make you do it He beseecheth and importuneth you to do all those commanded acts which you can no more do than make a world unless he predetermine you to do them nor can forbear them if he do XXXIX Q. How will men Repent confess resist temptations pray and use the means of Grace if they believe that all sinful acts in the world are thus unavoidably Caused and Willed and Loved of God as good for his Glory XL. Q. Whether they that teach as Dr. Twisse often that sin is not malum Dei sed nostri do not take it to be no injury to God nor displeasing to his will Or is not injury and displeasing evil in respect to God as the terminus though it be no h●rt to him nor his evil as the subject or agent And doth not the opinion that it 's Evil only to us and Good to God as conducible to his glory teach men to hate it only out of self-love and not out of love to the glory of God yea to Love it as conducible to Gods Glory more than to hate it as evil to our selves seeing Gods Glory must be preferred above our selves XLI Q. Is not sin thus made a coequal with Christ who is but a means to the glorifying of God to which faith Dr. Twisse sin is summè conductbile XLII Q. Doth not this doctrine make the sanctification of the Holy Ghost to be unnecessary when all that is to be done to save us from sin is for God not to make us sin by his premotion Or doth it not make sanctification to be nothing but this predetermination of God which is made as necessary to sin as to duty and so natural and gracious operations made the same and God to do as much to produce evil efficiently as good XLIII Q. Is it not much worse to man if God by predetermination make him first a sinner and wicked by sinful Habits and then damn him for it than if he should damn an innocent man for nothing For sin and pain is far worse than pain without sin And to compel the will unwillingly to sin were it possible is less than to make it willing XLIV Doth not he that affirmeth that the Devil doth but sin as efficiently predetermined by God and doth not force nor determine any mans will to any sinful act but that God predetermineth all men and Devils to every sinful act committed I say doth he not describe God as worse than Satan horresco quaerens if sin be the denominating evil and the causing of sin be more than tempting to it Had I not rather my will were resistibly tempted to sin than unresistibly made to sin by predetermining efficient premotion XLV Is not the objective Reason in Devils of mans implanted Enmity against them Gen. 3. 15. because they are Enemies to God and us as being themselves Lovers of sin and Tempters of us to sin and misery XLVI Doth not he take the directest course to root out the Love of God and all Religion from the World and to tempt men to hate God and so to begin a Hell on Earth who describeth God in Satans likeness and much worse as much as being the principal cause of all sin in men and Devils is worse than sinning when predetermined and tempting others to it XLVII I think that the Dominican Predetermination directly and necessarily overthroweth all certainty of Divine Revelation by man or Angel and consequently all certainty of the Christian faith even by overthrowing the very formal object the Divine Veracity For if God efficiently premove and predetermine all wills and tongues and pens to all the lies that ever are made in the world then 1. To do so is not inconsistent with his perfections or his will 2. And then we can never know when he doth not so unless by the event This is grounded on these suppositions 1. That Gods revelations to us are not Immediate only by himself but by some Creature Angel or Man or a created voice or sign 2. That the Ratio certitudinis of such Revelations by a Creature is because it is God that is the chief author of them 3. That it is not conceiveable how God can by any way of Revelation be more the author of it than by physical efficient immediate adequate predetermining both will and tongue to the act with all its circumstances Call it by what name you please Inspiration Vision Illumination Impulse c. it can speak nothing more of Gods Agent efficient Interest than this predetermination doth 4. If it did do more yet it would overthrow all certainty of our faith Because if God can efficiently cause and that as the total principal cause by predetermination all the lies that ever were told in the world we can never be sure that the other mode of his operation so far differeth from this as that he cannot be the chief cause of a lie in this way as well as of all lies by predetermination I have driven many to say their utmost and could never yet hear any such difference assigned as could prove any Inspiration whatsoever to have more of Divine Causality in it than physical predetermination doth signifie and import nor how this principle leaveth us any certainty that the tongues of all the Prophets and Apostles were not predetermined to speak falsly ab antecedente and so their pens XLVIII To say that God is not able to make a Creature with power to determine any one Volition of its own even as modified comparate or circumstantiate without his efficient physical predetermination aforesaid sayeth more against Gods Omnipotency though on pretence of a contradiction than I dare say or think XLIX Yet after all this I grant that if all proper free will and contingency be denyed and every act in the world as comparate and circumstantiate made
doctrine of faith and Law and promises of Christa●e the Means which the Spirit useth in operating our Faith Love and Obedience And it is not two Covenants that give these two but as soul and body make one man so the Word of Christ and his Spirit make up one total cause of our sanctification The Spirit causeth us to believe that which the Word revealeth and to love the good which it proposeth and to obey the Precepts of the Word Therefore the Gospel is Grace and the Spirit is Grace that is a free gift of God to miserable sinners for their recovery and inward holiness is the effect of both And to feign that all obedience as it is performed to Christs Law upon its proper motives is therefore not of the Spirit or is our own Righteousness opposed to Christs because our own reason and free-will is exercised in it is Phanaticism and subverteth the Gospel and the Prophetical and Kingly Office of Christ II. God never gave a Law no not to the Jews only to convince them that they could not keep it but to be the Rule of their obedience And the Just did keep it in sincerity But the Law of Moses as separated by the ignorant Jews from the promise and grace of Christ could not be kept by any to Justification To say that Christs Laws now have no higher end than to tell us that we cannot keep them is Antichristianity Are we commanded to repent believe love God only to tell us that we cannot do it It 's true that without the Spirits help we cannot But it 's as true that the Command is the Rule of our duty and all the Gospel and Covenant of Grace is the means of exciting us to our duty by which the Spirit worketh in us faith repentance love and obedience But saith Jansenius the Law of Christ is to humble men in the sense of their disability and drive them to seek to Christ for his grace I answer 1. Is not humbling men and driving them to Christ a good effect If so then his Law is the means of all that good 2. Were the Gospel and all the Apostles Epistles written only to drive men to Christ and not to edifie them and make them perfect to salvation Were not the Precepts of Love and Holiness means of working Love and Holiness in men Is not the Word the seed that begetteth men to eternal life and is not the receiving of this seed into good and honest hearts made by Christ the cause of holiness and salvation Were not the Disciples clean by the word that Christ spake to them and doth he not say that his Word was spirit and life as being the concause of the Spirits vivification He that never received more benefit by Christs Doctrine Law and Gospel than to be convinced that he cannot believe repent obey or love God hath not yet the benefit which they are principally intended for But suppose that by Law he had meant the meer penal part or threatning as some words would make a man suspect 1. It 's a strange description of a Law to exclude the precept and premiant part and include only the penal part which is the last and least 2. As it is the same Man that hath Love and Hatred Hope and Fear so it is the same Law of Christ which hath precept and prohibition promise and penalty And it is the same Holiness or New Creature which is a conformity to all together Of which more anon III. He can never prove that all unbelievers have no Power to ●●e any means which tendeth to ●aith by a preparatory grace nor that the use of all such means is Impossible to them XIII His distinction of Natural and Moral Impotency is good But then that Moral Impotency it self must not be made the same with the Natural else there will be the same reason for excusing sin by it If mans Will had been made by God such as could not possibly love him or holiness it would not have left a man unexcusable in judgement that his enmity was Voluntary It is reason enough for a man to kill a ●oad or Serpent as malum sibi naturale because it is a hurtful creature But this is no Moral Evil in them nor is their death their punishment nor yet in any ravenous creature which preyeth on the rest that are innocent And so would it be with bad men if God had made them bad Indeed if Adam have made them all bad and God have given no Saviour Grace or Remedy they are con●emnable and unexcusable as they were virtually in Adam if judged only by the Law of Innocency as made to Adam But they are excuseable if judged by Christ by the Law of grace which condemneth no man meerly as not innocent or a sinner but as a rejecter of grace These things are so plain and weighty that Ja●senius should not joyn with the Antinomians in opposing them XIV While he confesseth that Christ so far dyed for all as to procure them all the mercy which he giveth them I have no further quarrel with him but to prove that a Condition pardon of sin and grant of Life eternal with much means and help to make men perform the Condition which is but a suitable Acceptance is indeed mercy XVI That Christs grace is Love or Complacency in good is a truth which I highly value but with all these exceptions to his doctrine 1. It is the Heart of the new Creature and that which must communicate it self to all the rest or else they are lifeless and unacceptable For the will is the man in Gods account And complacency or love or appetite is the first act of the will which is it that he calleth with Augustine Delectation Grace lyeth principally in a Placet But the man hath more parts than his Heart And all other parts of sanctification are graces of Christ in their several places and not love only 2. Though no man is to love himself as God nor instead of God nor above God nor as the noblest ultimate object of his love yet all men are necessitated by nature to love themselves and therefore to desire their own felicity in loving God next to God as the final object of that love And so our end is finis amantis vel amicitiae which includeth mutual complacency and union though not in equality And to such an end grace causeth us to use the means And Christ is proposed to us as our Saviour and all his grace as for our good and all Gods commands as necessary for our happiness and sin is described to us to be hated as our o●● evil and destruction and against our good as well as against Gods will and honour And with us this is denyed scarcely by the Antino●ians themselves Much less by any judicious Christians 3. It is past the reach of any of us to prove that our actual love is the first effect of the sanctifying Spirit on the soul
Pardon and Salvation on condition they will repent and believe but he died moreover for the Elect to procure and give them Faith and Repentance also Know you not that Paraeus in his Irenicon saith That the Sins of all the World lay on Christ on the Cross as the cause of his Death Know you not that it is the commonest Doctrine of the Protestants That Christ died for all men as to the sufficiency of his death but for the Elect only as to the efficiency of Salvation And what can you say more or less than those few words signifie Know you not that the Synod at Dort it self saith That Christ's satisfaction is of infinite value and price abundantly sufficient to expiate the Sins of all the World and that the Promise is That whosoever believeth shall not perish And this is to be preached to all And that many yet repent not believe not but perish is not through any defect or insufficiency of Christ's Sacrifice but by their own default Musculus his words for Universal Redemption are Loc. Commun c. de Redemp Gen. hum p. mihi 326. c. Redemptio est generis humani Ge●●s humanum Complectitur non unam aut alteram Gentem sed mundum ●niversum omnes viz. totius orbis nationes cunctos homines à primo usque ad novissimum Generaliter est omnium Scimus non omnes Redemptionis hujus fieri participes Verum illorum perditio qui non servantur haud quaquam impedit * It seems there were but few in Bradwardin's days who were of his mind in confessing the antecedent natural impossibility of any ones Salvation or any good act which cometh not to pass seeing li. 3. c. 29. p. 735. he answereth them that say why should the Opinion of a few trouble the Church and the far greater number that is against it by referring them to the paucity of wise men and Believers and saying that truth must be preached for the few Elect that will receive it And p. 737. tells us how Aristophanes contrary to the six Judges appointed by Ptolomy did adjudge the Crown to that Poet that the people liked worst quo minus Universalis vocetur Redemptio Resolutio illa telluris qua passim omnia ad germinandum astate solvuntur recte Universalis dicitur etiamsi multae arbores non germinent c. Anno Jubil●o Generalis omnium servorum liberatio erat etiamsi multi in servitute ma●●●tes gratiam liberationis respuebant Ad eum modum habet Redemptio istageneris humani Quod illam homines reprobi deploratè impii non accipiunt neque defectu fit Gratiae Dei neque justum est ut illa propter filios perditionis Gloriam ac titulum UNIVERS ALIS REDEMPTIONIS amittat cum sit parata cunctis omnes ad illam vocentur c. sic cuim cavebimus ne Catholicae Gratiae Gloriam obscuremus in arctum Constringamus vel cum phanaticis hominibus neminem prorsus damnari dica●us Bullinger A. You may spare your labour of citing Bullinger and Musculus or Melanchthon or Bucer or such moderate men But what are they to the rigid Calvinists B. Calvin saith in Rom. 5. 18. Communem omnium gratiam facit quia omnibus exposita est Non quod ad omnes extendatur reipsa Nam si passus est Christus pro peccatis totius mundi atque omnibus Indifferenter Dei benignitate offertur non tamen omnes apprehendunt And in 1 Cor. 8. 11. Dictum memorabile quo docemur quam Chara esse debeat nobis fratrum salus nec omnium modo sed singulorum quando prounoquoque fusus est sanguis Christi And in 2 Pet. 2. 1. Non immerito dicuntur Christum abnegare à quo redempti sunt And in 1 Joh. 2. 2. He saith That qui dicunt Christum sufficienter pro toto mundo passum esse sed pro elect is tantum efficaciter say true and that which commonly obtaineth in the Schools though he otherwise expound that Text. A. You need not cite Calvin Grotius said truly that he had his Lucida intervalla and though Amyraldus seek to defend him from self-contradiction Petavius calls him all to nought for it But what can you say for your high Antiarminians such as Paraeus Molinaeus c. B. Paraeus let all mark it saith Irenic cap. 24. pag. 142. Quod Christus pro solis electis satisfecit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est vel falsa accusatio Omnium peccata Christus portavit dissolvit expiavit si magnitudinem pretii seu 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficientiam spectemus Non omnium sed tantum fidelium si 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 efficaciam fructum applicationem To which he citeth Ambrose Innocent Lyra adding Juxta hunc intellectum nulla est dissensio Art 6. itidem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est vel falsa accusatio Promissiones Gratiae sunt Universales pertinentque ad omnes quoad praedicationem invitationem mandatum credendi And on 2 Pet. 2. 1. Erant Redempti respectu sufficientiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Molinaeus Anatom Arminianis saith cap. 27. sect 8 9. When we say that Christ died for all men we take it thus that the Death of Christ is sufficient to save whosoever do believe yea and that it is sufficient to save all men if all men in the whole World did believe in him And that the cause why all men are not saved is not in the insufficiency of the Death of Christ but in the wickedness and incredulity of man Finally Christ may be said to reconcile all men to God by his Death after the same manner that we say the Sun doth enlighten the eyes of all men though many are blind many sleep and many are hid in darkness c. That most methodical acute Divine Georg. Sohnius saith Tom. 1. Thes de Justific mihi pag. 104. Satisfactio illa justitia pro omnium temporum hominibus omnium hominum peccatis peccatorum omnium cum culpa tum poena sufficit quia ab infinita persona dependet Matth. 18. 11. 12. 31. Rom. 5. 18. 8. 32. 2 Cor. 5. 15. 1 Tim. 2. 6. 1 Joh. 1. 7. 2. 2. Tit. 2. 14. Errant igitur qui Christum pro omnibus hominibus passum esse negant A. But such violent men as Zanchy the grand Patron of the impossibility of falling away talk not at this rate B. Zanchy saith Thes Vol. 3. fine Thes 13. 16. de Volunt Dei Eadem de causa dici non potest Dei voluntatem proprie simpliciter fuisse ut Christus pro salute omnium moreretur id est ut omnis per ejus mortem servaretur ac proinde Christum secundum propositum patris pro salute omnium mortuum esse sed tantum ut loquuntur sufficienter Caeterum damnari etiam illi non possunt qui spectata revelata voluntate Dei docent Deum velle omnes homines salvos
yet hereby confesseth that he willeth or decreeth that permission You say then that he decreeth to permit mens unbelief and this is all that the Synod saith of non-Election or leaving men out of the number of the Elect. 2. If you yourselves believe all this with what face can you oppose the same in others If you do not either you believe that none are Infidels and damned or you believe that God doth not permit it to be so but it is done by conquering his Omnipotency or else you know not what you believe choose which you will 3. Do you really differ as Episcopius pretendeth about the cause of Reprobation As to the cause of Damnation all are agreed that sin is the true meritorious cause The question is only of Gods Will or Decree of it And it is not of his sententia prolata or Decree pronounced by Christ in Judgment for of that also it is agreed that sin is the meritorious cause Your oft recurring to your Objections when they have been fully answered puts me on the rediousness of repeating the same Answers Gods * The cause of Gods Will in reprobating Will is considered either ex parte volentis essentially or as extrinsically denominated from the connotation of the Object In the first sense you have not yet declared your selves to deny the common Doctrine of the Christian World that Gods Will is his undivided most simple Essence and that God hath no cause and so his Will in it self hath no cause that in God there is nothing but God Dare you say that a Creature made God yea that so base a thing as Sin made him How then doth it cause his Will which is himself Is Gods Will such a mutuable thing as mans And is it not the first cause of all things And shall men pretending to Learning reproach others for not assigning a cause of the first cause and that Sin which is baser than a Creature causeth the Creator But if you speak of Gods Will as denominated by connotation of the Object mark what we grant you viz. that as thus only Gods Will or Volitions are denominated diverse so are they denominated to be of this or that sort and numerically also distinguished And so they may be said to have a cause but not an efficient cause but only an * Arminius and Arnoldus Corvinus frequently affirm that Faith is not the cause of Gods Election to Glory but only a condition in the object objective cause And what Cause is an Object To let pass the Error of many Logicians it is only as an Object a material constitutive cause at least here And so sin is the objective material cause of that extrinsical denomination and relation of Gods Will called Reprobation to damnation It is that dispositio objecti which is essential to the Object And so as Gods Will may any way be said to have a cause we will say freely after the manner of men that sin is the objective cause of the Decree of damnation And speak now with shame can you say more or less Do you or any of us that are sober and understand our selves differ at all in this 4. And you cheat your selves and others more in saying Not from any ill desert of theirs more than others When if you would speak congruously you should only say that when all deserved to be utterly forsaken God effectually prevaileth with the Wills of his Elect not for any good desert of theirs above others You would infinuate that God must punish no man unless he deserve worse than every man whom he forgiveth which is false Do you not your selves believe that all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God and that God might justly have let them perish Do you not hold your selves that all men are guilty of resisting or sinning against Grace it self as well as against Nature and that God may justly with-hold his Grace from the Rejecters of it and if he did so by all he did not wrong them If God then leave not all as he might do but resolve to prevail with some infallibly do you represent this mercy as if it were cruelty to others What if it be apparent that you your selves charge God with as much of that which you call cruelty to all the World as the Synod doth to the Reprobate alone or as many of us do For they do but say that God leaveth the Reprobate to their own free Wills And you say that he doth so by all the World You say that God giveth all men that hear the Gospel so much Grace as that they may have Christ and Salvation if they will And they say so too as confidently as you do Tell me if you can then what Mercy or Grace you plead for as common more than they you cannot tell me And will you wrangle as if you differed when you do not Only they say and think that they give more to Gods Grace as to the Elect than you do which is to be examined anon And then you will quarrel about the Cause of the first Cause the Will of God and dream of it as if it were like the Will of Man which is an effect and that of many Causes Is it not enough for you that sin is the cause of all punishment but it must also be the efficient cause of Gods Will which is God Yet again I tell you that all sobe● men will agree with you that Gods Volitions of extrinfick Objects viz. Reprobations denominate not Gods Essence as such for we use not to say God is Reprobation or Election but only his Essence as terminated ad extra And to gratifie you to the utmost we distinguish an operating efficient Cause from a recipient Cause And we maintain that a Sinner is the recipient Cause of Gods damning Volition or Reprobation As shutting the Windows is the cause that my Room is dark and opening them is the cause that they are light not by causing the Sun to shine but by receiving or not receiving it so man is a receiving Cause of the Effects of Gods Will and Operation and of the Will and Operation it self as extrinsically denominated and diversified by the Effects But this recipient Cause is nothing but cause materialis objectiva which hath two parts the ipsa materia and the materiae dispositio Take not on you still to differ where you do not The third Crimination A. * Of that Deus vult omnes salves fieri saith Alliaco 1. q. 14. F. 1. Potest exponi de voluntate signi vult id est praecipit vel obligat c. 2. Si exponitur de voluntate beneplaciti potest intelligi de Vol. antecedente 3. Si de Vol. beneplaciti proprie dicta debet intelligi ut dicit Magister i. e. nulli salvantur nisi quos Deus vult salvari 4. Vel de generibus singulorum sed at singulis generum By denying Universal Redemption they deny that
believe so that Faith is a fruit of the Death of Christ in a remoter secondary sense And in all this Name me any Christian Churches that are disagreed C. To bring it only to a mans free will whether he will believe or not is not to give him Faith and to purchase no more is not to purchase it B. Do you not perceive that here you divert to the Controversies of the Decrees and of effectual Grace Of the first we have said enough already of the other after in due place The sixth Crimination C. They feign Christ to purchase only a conditional Pardon Justification and Salvation and so to leave it uncertain to the corrupt Will of man whether any shall be saved or not B. This also concerneth the Decrees and is fully answered before 1. That Christ hath purchased and God given a conditional Act of Oblivion or Pardon and Life to all is the very Gospel it self and to be questioned by no Believers 2. None of them all do suppose Christ to die at uncertainties as to the success for they suppose that he fore-knew the success from eternity 3. They suppose not that the success was undecreed For they that presuppose fore-sight of mans concurrence yet assert an * Episcop Instit Theol. l. 4. sect 5. cap. 6. Certum est posito decreto conditionato omnes ac singulos qui vel ad vitam electi sunt vel ad mortem reprobati recte ab aeterno praedestinatos dici posse debere eternal Decree of his Conversion upon such fore-sight And it is not on the fore-sight of Faith that they say God decreeth to give men Faith but on fore-sight that the will of the Sinner will concur or not obstinately resist the Spirit that is drawing him to believe And the Jesuites and Arminians by their Scientia media do hold God to be the chief cause of mens believing For they say That God foreseeing that man will believe if he have such a measure of help and such means and circumstances doth freely decree to give him that help of the Spirit and those means by which he knoweth it will be done So that here is no uncertainty but different thoughts of the ascertaining decrees and ways 4. And lib. 1. I have shewed you that not only the Schoolmen but Bellarmine Ruiz Suarez and many of the most famous Jesuites do assert effectual Grace to be such both ex voluntate operantis and ex vi operationis absolutely And where then is this feigned difference The seventh Crimination C. They make Christ to do no more for Peter than for Judas for those in Heaven than for those in Hell while they say that he died equally for all B. * Vasq in 1. Thom. q. 23. a. 8. disp 94. c. 2. Perantiqua Theologorum sententia quam ego Catholicam existimo est non solum Christum nobis meritum ut a Deo diligeremur praedestinaremur per gratiam ejus ad gloriam sed etiam ut eligeremur ex massa perditionis electione gratiae suae Note that he speaketh only of the effect of Gods Decree and so it is all one as to say that differencing Grace is merited by Christ which is that which you would have Equality here is meant either of his Intention or of the benefits given Those benefits are of several sorts 1. No doubt but they err who feign God equally to decree and Christ to intend the eventual absolute Salvation of all 2. And they err that say that he bestoweth equal benefits on all even in this life yea antecedently to mans Will But the New Covenant or conditional Promise doth equally as to the tenor of it give Pardon and Right to Life to all But who is it that holdeth this equality of Intention or Benefit Not the greater part of the School-men or other Papists no not the learnedst Jesuites Not the Lutheran Churches But some few Arminians that run into one extream as you do into the other Nay how can they hold an equality of Intention when they confess that upon foreknowledge of their Unbelief the condemnation of many was eternally decreed C. Yes they hold that antecedently to fore-sight Gods Intention is equal B. 1. That fore-sight it self is from eternity 2. Who can frame out Orders of antecedency in the mind of God between his fore-sight and his Will without confessing great darkness and impropriety of Speech 3. And he that first giveth man to believe and will doth not first foresee that he will believe and will before he decree to give it him The eighth Crimination C. They make Christ's sheep to know him before he know his sheep that is to believe before he decree to give them Faith B. This is but the same in sense with what is before answered And it belongeth to the controversie of Gods Decrees They all say that God decreeth to give them sufficient Grace to enable them to believe before he fore-seeth their belief And most say more as is aforesaid The ninth Crimination C. Some of them say that Christ's Death did actually deliver * Vid. Episcop Resp ad qu. 64. qu. 38. supposing the Salvation of all that die in Infancy all men in the World from the guilt of Original Sin and so that none perish for Original Sin because what Adam did Christ undid B. You can name no Church that doth hold such Doctrine And we have nothing to do with singular odd Persons 1. Millions were unborn when Christ died and were not guilty of Original sin till afterwards and therefore were not capable of Pardon 2. The Papists who damn unbaptized Infants cannot be of that Opinion 3. What Adam brought upon us Christ did deliver us from upon his terms and in his way and by his degrees but not immediately He hath given all men a conditional Pardon of Original Sin as he hath done of Actual and no other The Unregenerate are under the guilt of all Sin whatsoever 4. But it is certain that no man except Infants doth perish for Original Sin alone For all men at age have other sins And it being certain that God offereth all men a recovery or remedy mediately or immediately it is certain that Infants perish not meerly for Adam's sin i●puted as a remediless evil but that their non-liberation or not being pardoned and saved is long of their Parents Unbelief and not entering them into the Covenant of God who is the God of the Faithful and their Seed The tenth Crimination C. They make Christ to have died for the Serpents Seed against whom the enmity is proclaimed when the new Covenant was first made Gen. 3. 15. B. 1. If by the Serpents Seed you mean such as are Gods Enemies no doubt but Christ died for them Rom. 5. 1. to 12 c. What need reconciliation else 2. If by the Serpents Seed you mean Reprobates as such you can never prove it to be the meaning of the Text. 3. If you mean fore-seen final
never read that any mans damnation was any whit the more increased for not performing these acts And again page 170. It is true there is a Faith infused by the Spirit of God in regeneration But who ever said that any man was damned because he doth not believe with such a Faith As much as to say that non-regeneration is the meritorious cause of damnation C. I am amazed at this especially his supposing that no man ever said that which I thought no man of us had denied B. I would think that his meaning is that men are not condemned for want of Gods infusing act but their own believing act or for the privation of Infusion but for the privation of Faith or of Faith not quatenus infused but as they ought to have believed without infusion But he was not so wanting in accurateness but that he knew how to have exprest himself had that been his meaning And then I know not how his words will consist with this sense I never read that any mans damnation was the more increased for not performing these acts where changing their own hearts is one And whoever said that any man was damned because he did not believe with such a Faith Here it is the Faith as such which is supposed spoken of the privation whereof is not the meritorious cause of damnation And indeed though the power of this Faith would have been in us had there been no Sin or Saviour yet there would have been no obligation to believe in Christ as Mediator And therefore if the Law of Innocency had stood alone even the want of an acquired Faith in Christ would have been no sin But this is the unhappiness of such as must read Controversial Writings There is no end of searching after the Writers meaning But the thing it self I think is plain c. that only an effectual special Faith will save us and it is such a Faith of which Christ speaketh Mat. 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned though he believe with any other Faith whatsoever which he calleth acquired Perhaps this his opinion hath some dependance on what he saith before ibid. He punisheth the disobedient with eternal death True but according to what Covenant Not according to the Covenant of Grace that is only a Covenant for Salvation but according to the Covenant of the Law the Covenant of Works Woful error and confusion The Covenant of the Law is almost as bad a phrase as the Covenant of the Covenant 1. Gods Law of Innocency was a Law and Covenant in several respects 2. So was the Jewish Law which Paul meaneth by the Law of Works 3. So is the Christian Law of Christ and of Grace No man is now condemned by the Jewish Law of Works as such it being ceased and never did it bind the Gentile world The Law of Nature and of Innocency indeed condemneth the disobedient but the Law or Covenant of Christ or of Grace doth condemn them to much sorer punishment Luke 19. 27. Those mine enemies that would not I should reign c. Mark 16. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned Heb. 10. 29. Mat. 25. throughout But this confounding of the Covenants I must not here rectifie But yet I hope he meant only that men suffer not for want of Gods Regenerating Infusing Act but for want of their own act of Faith The fifth Crimination C. I find Dr. Twisse ibid. alibi saepe charging it on them as holding that Grace is given according to Works which is Pelagianism For they think that God looketh at some preparation in the Receiver and giveth it to some because they are prepared for it and denieth it to others because they are unprepared whereas it is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in him that of his meer good pleasure sheweth mercy B. There is enough said of this after about differencing and effectual Grace But if we must say more I ask you Quest. 1. Do you by this phrase according to Works mean to urge the Scripture that speaketh in that phrase in its proper sense or do you Vulgatum illud facient● quod in se est Deus non denegat Gratiam intelligitur de faciente ●● gratia auxilie Pet. ● S. Joseph Thes Univers de auxil pag. 83. Idem pag. 90. Nequidem ipsius Christi opera fuerunt actu meretoria citra promissi●nem Dei usi ex se essent valoris in●●●iti which needeth explication only use the phrase in some other sense of your own C. I use Scripture phrase in Scripture sense because I rest on its Authority B. Quest 2. Are we not also saved without Works in Scripture sense And would it be contrary to Paul to say we that we are saved by Works yea or according to them in that sense that he speaketh of them See James 2. 14 c. Tit. 3. 5. Ephes 2. 5 8 9. Gal. 3. 2. 5. 10. Acts 15. 11. c. and 16. 31. Rom. 5. 10 And yet saved according to Works in another sense James 2. 14 c. Phil. 2. 12. Gal. 6. 4. Rom. 20. 12 13. 2 Cor. 5. 10. C. In several senses of Works we deny it not B. Quest 3. At least you will grant that we are not justified by Works and yet that we are justified by Faith yea in another sense by Works Quest 4. Is not believing and repenting in order to Justification and all holy obedience in order to Salvation as truly op●● a work and in a far nobler sense than preparation for Faith is C. That cannot be denied B. Then you cannot affirm that the phrase not according to Work● which excludeth not Faith Repentance holy Obedience to justification and salvation doth intend the exclusion of all preparation in order to Conversion or Faith in Christ when by Works excluded it meaneth the same thing or sort in all C. But saith Dr. Twisse ibid. page 154. Pardon and Salvation God doth confirm only on condition of Faith and Repentance But ●● for Faith and Repentance doth God confer them conditionally also If so whatsoever be the condition let them look to it how they can avoid the making of Grace to wit the Grace of Faith and Repentance to be given according to Works B. I know he frequently saith the same But 1. I speak now only of the sense of that Scripture and say that this goeth upon a most false and dangerous supposition that Justification and Salvation are given according to Works though Faith and Repentance be not whereas in the sense of Works there meant by Paul no man can be justified by Works And though Christ saith This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom the Father hath sent yet it is not that which Paul meaneth Let not therefore Scripture words be abused to mislead mens understandings 2. But as to the matter of the Controversie I spoke to it enough
a long answer B. Not as Paul meant it but as our troublesome Contenders use it in Even those that found the infallibility on scientia media make congrous Grace ex proposito convertendi to be the cause of the difference So Malderus 1 2. q. 111. a. 3. p. 517. Quod hic credat prae alio indubie venit de misericordia Dei ipsum si● vocantis ut accomodet assensum misericordia inquam qua nos in C●risto elegit Totum est miserentis Dei ipse vocat ipse facit ●t vocatus veniat ipse ●t currat ipse nolentem praevenit ut velit volentem subsequitur n● fr●fira velit vi sua Gratia it a sibi aptat liberum arbitrium ut a n●llo d●ro corde resp●●t●r quod dici●●s provenire ex ●o quod meris in●●●abilibus occultis modis noverit Deus ita hominis ●over sensum ut accomodet assensum Fatemur Dei omnipotentiam Dominium quod habet in voluntates hominum manifestari in gratiae eff●catia Et consensus homi●is est don●m Dei descendens a Patre luminum ●llumque consensum De●● vult ●acit quia facit ●ominem virib●● grati●●acer● Ye● he yieldeth to ●radwardines Doctrine supposing him only to intend necessitatem quandam consequentiae necessarium esse hominem libere velle ill●d ipsum quod Deu● cuju● omnipotentia quaecunque voluit facit praevoluit ipsum ville libere Item gratiam efficacem der● intuit● meritorum Christi non tantum quatenu● est sufficiens●sed etiam quatenus est e●●i●ax dum seeundum propositum ●●●● ●●●m cura D●● non est aqualis do omnibus another sense the answer must be suited to the question And here note that really it is the state of both parties compared and not of one of them that constituteth the dissimilitude as is said And the efficient causes of both states are the causes of the difference And so truly the cause of Nero's unbelief and the causes of Paul's Faith which are many as aforesaid all set together are the causes of the differences or rather all make up one cause of it This no Logician can deny But yet in vulgar speech we use to say that that person or thing is the cause of the difference 1. Which is the cause of the singularity 2. Or which causeth the state of the second person compared supposing the state of the first person to be already existent And so you will find yet several senses of the question C. Explain it by some instances B. 1. As to the cause of singularity If one man be born an Ideot or a Monster when we ask what made him differ from other men though really the causes of the dissimilitude be to be assigned on both parts yet we mean only on his part why is he not like others So if one Child be unlike to all his brethren or one Scholar in the School be much better or much worse than all the rest or if one in a Family be sick he that asketh what maketh him differ doth mean what made him sick c. 2. And so as to Posteriority of State if you suppose one of the dissimiliar parts pre-existent and ask what maketh the other to differ from it as if you ask why the Scholar writeth not like his Copy why the Son is so unlike to the Father why this age is so unlike the last c. We mean only what causeth the difference ex parte subsequente C. Apply it to the case in hand B. If you ask what made the difference between the Devils and the persevering Angels In the full and proper answer you must assign the reason on both parts But according to the usual sense of the question you must say The wilful sin of the Devils made the difference For the equal state of uprightness went before the difference So if you ask what made the difference between the world after the fall and before it vulgarly we must say sin because that came last So if you ask what made the difference between Noah and the world between Lot and Sodom Ans Indeed that which made one part sinful and the other righteous But according to the vulgar sense of the question it was the Righteousness of Noah and Lot and the causes of that righteousness So what made the difference between Judas and the eleven Apostles Ans Judas his wilful sin and Wickedness though indeed the cause is on both sides So what maketh the difference between Believers and the Unbelieving world Really the unbelief of the world and the Faith of Christians with their causes But it 's like the speaker meaneth only ex parte credentium And then the cause of their Believing is the cause of their differing But now if it hold true that God giveth a sufficiency of Grace ut causa universalis ex parte donantis antecedently to mens accepting or rejecting equally then if one ask what maketh the difference you would understand him why have not unbelievers Faith as well as others And then the answer would be wilful resisting or refusing Grace or the moral special indisposition of the Recipients makes the difference or else all would be alike believers But note that we ask not What maketh the difference between Believers and unbelievers but do particularize the subject and ask what maketh the Believer differ from the Unbeliever or what maketh the unbeliever differ from the believer It is then supposed that we mean only ex parte nominata And thus in the vulgar sense the questions what maketh the believer differ from the Infidel and what maketh the Infidel differ from the believer must have various answers C. I understand you thus in brief 1. You say that constitutively it is Faith that is the difference on Paul 's part and unbelief on Nero ' s. 2. The causes of the said Faith and unbelief are the causes of the difference As the causes of the whiteness of one wall and of the blackness of the other cause their difference 3. That to ask why the Believer differeth from the Unbeliever is but to ask why he is a Believer when the other is not 4. Here you say the two Relations of dissimilitude in two ubbjects make the questions two in one viz. 1. Why or whence is Paul a Believer 2. Whence is it that Nero is an Unbeliever 5. You say that Nero is an Unbeliever through his own wilfulness and illdisposition resisting Grace Satans temptations concurring And that Paul is a Believer from many conjunct causes 1. Gods Grace by his Spirit 2. Christs Merits 3. Christs donation of that Spirit 4. The means by which he worketh 5. The concurse of Pauls will To which efficients you add in most a competent Receptive disposition in genere caus● materialis both passive and active 6. You say that in all this Gods Grace is incomparably the greater cause than man's will 7. But yet not the sole cause and that some free-not-necessitated concurse of mans
finem Now either there is such a middle Impulse or not If not then besides Gods essence there is no effect on us antecedent to our consent but the said cogitation and passion And 1. These are commonly said not to necessitate the will 2. And if they do it must be but Morally which is commonly held to be no way of necessitating though it may be of ascertaining the event And so consent or our Volition it self would be but of co-operating Grace And if there be such a middle Impulse as Gregory holdeth it is confessed by him and the Dominican praedeterminants to determine the will only to act freely and therefore not to necessitate it to consent but only to ascertain it and so the Volition will be as free as but by co-operating Grace though the Impulse would be necessary which tendeth to it of a special Grace for every preparatory Act. But of the rest I doubt B. And then 2. Sure you cannot deny it as to well prepared Souls 1. Because you granted that the same degree of help may be effectual to a disposed Soul 2. And so the Help though universal will to a prepared Soul be proportionable to the desired effect and is nevertheless Grace or powerful to such for being universal or uneffectual to others 3. And it seems that such a kind of degree of Grace was effectual on Adam before his fall and uneffectual in his fall 4. And it seemeth congruous to Gods other works that he give Grace suitable to his Law and Promise which shall not be always uneffectual So that it is most probable that to prepared Souls that ordinary established degree of the Spirits Influx from Christ which is universal but uneffectual to the unprepared is not only sometimes but ordinarily effectual I think none can prove the contrary And the same Grace you confess to be effectual to preparation But to unprepared Souls whom God will suddenly convert out of the ordinary way a special extraordinary operation seemeth necessary But wherein the extraordinariness of it consisteth antecedent to faith the second effect besides the extraordinary means I think it past mans reach to know C. Well now tell us Unde Gratia fit Efficax B. Any ordinary Logician will tell you that the effect is from all the causes and not from any one alone It is effectual in that it produceth the effect To which each cause doth its proper part and one is not all The effect in question now is Faith Faith is caused as is said 1. By Gods will as the Original 2. By Christ as sending the Spirit and meriting Grace first 3. By the Spirit as the Operator 4. By the Gospel as the Instrument 5. By the Preacher as a Sub-Instrument 6. But all this effecteth ordinarily in materia disposita and no other Having before wrought that preparation 7. But extraordinarily in materia indisposita working disposition and all at once Now here 1. Gods Will doth its part without any cause Velle ex parte Dei sicu● agere is his essence and the termination of it in rem Volitatam hath no efficient but only an Objective Cause 2. This prime Cause is the prime reason of all the efficacy of Inferior Causes Not qua voluntas simply moving them but qua voluntas cum potentia executiva moving them and qua volitio inferreth the necessitatem consequentiae of the effect So that plainly I think that no Good cometh to pass in the world but what God forewilled and nothing which he absolutely willeth cometh not to pass what he fore-knoweth is necessary necessitate Infallibilitatis and what he absolutely willeth necessitate Imutabilitatis and what he worketh from such a will is necessary necessitate invincibilitatis 3. Though all the other Causes are the reason of the effect and not only the first yet none of them operate on the first Cause and put any force into it for the act So that its force is from it self but theirs from it And having said this much preparatorily I thus resolve your great question Here are three things before us whose cause may be enquired of 1. The necessitas Logica consequentiae ex quo in ordine probandi necessario sequitur eventum futurum esse And this is the Decree or Will of God yea and his fore knowledge This is presupposed 2. The prime effect of Gods Will and Active power operating And this prime effect is not our Faith or Act but the Impression or Received Influx of God on the Soul For the Soul receiveth its like some Impression by the Divine Influx by which it believeth or acteth it self It doth not Receive its own Act as if that act had been first pre-existent in the Donor but it performeth that Act because it is premoved to it Now if the question be of this first effect Unde operatio Gratiosa sit efficax I answer 1. The whole efficient reason is in the operator and operation it self It is effectual ad impressionem ex natura rei because it is an Act If it did nothing it were no Act transient 2. And the specification and individuation is from the terminating object It is denominatively and Relatively one Act which is on a Stone and another on a Soul de specie And it is numerically one which is on Peter and another on John If the Sun did shine in vacuo there being no other creature to be objective or passive it would still agere but it would nihil efficere quia nihil afficere So God is one Infinite act and ex parte sui never begineth to act nor ever ceaseth nor is divided But transiently he doth nihil afficere vel efficere but first by making objects and then acting on them So that were there no mobile Gods act would not movere This first effect then of Impress hath an Effective and an Objective Cause The Effective Cause is Gods Essence that is his Active Power Intellect and Will and nothing else Supposing now that it be not Gods operation on the Instrument or medium that we speak of but immediately on the Soul it self But Man's Soul is the Objective Recipient Cause of this first effect which is the Impress or Influx received 3. The Secondary effect is Mans Act Faith and Repentance it self If the question Unde Gratia sit efficax mean this as with most it doth then it is all one as to ask Unde hic Effectus For that Gods Influx on the Soul immediately is the sole Cause is false Therefore the answer is that this effect is from all the Causes conjunct From Gods Will or Law and Power and Wisdom from Christs mission of the Spirit before merited from the Spirits Impress or Influx from the Gospel from the Ministry usually and from the Agent Believer all these as the efficient Causes And it is from or on the prepared Soul ordinarily as the Materia disposita vel Causa Receptiva Objectiva of the Divine operation And from or on God Christ the promise
or Nay to these two questions 1. Do you allow of the use of the word Worthy Lib. Yes because it is in Scripture P. 2. Do you deny it to be true in the sense I have opened that is that we have that worthiness which is nothing but a Moral aptitude for that promised Reward which as to the worth of it is but Gods free gift merited for us by Christ and is only a Fathers Reward as to the ordering of it as our Governour even a Reward of grateful Children Lib. No I cannot deny this sense to be sound P. Then you grant both Name and Thing And are not you ashamed then to have so long traduced and reviled such as hold and say but that which you are forced to justifie and to make poor souls believe that works are cryed up and Christ is injured and mens salvation hazarded by it when yet you confess that all is true in word and sense Lib. But when the Papists abuse such phrases to error though the Scripture use them we must do it sparingly and with caution P. 1. But is that a good reason for you to revile those that use them in the Scripture sense 2. And if you will forsake Scripture words as oft as men misuse them it will be in the power of any Hereticks to drive you from all Scripture phrase by abusing all 3. And how can you more effectually promote Popery than by forsaking Scripture language and leaving it to their possession and use Will not men think then that the Scripture sense is liker to be with them than with you Were it not better for you to hold to the Word of God and only detect and disclaim mens ill expositions of it CHAP. III. Whether our own Righteousness be any way necessary and conducible to our Justification before God Or Whether we are any way justified by it and how far Lib. BUt if I grant you that salvation is the Reward of our own faith and holiness I shall never grant you that we are Righteous by it before God or that it is any part of that Righteousness by which we are justified for that is only the Righteousness of Christ P. I hope you are not willing to wrangle about words not understood Quest 1. Do you think that the words Righteous Righteousness and Justification have but one sense in Scriptures and in our common use Lib. No you proved more before P. Quest 2. If the Devil or Men or a mistaking Conscience should say that you or any Saint is an Infidel or hath no faith how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and by maintaining that I do believe P. Very good Then faith it self as faith doth so far justifie you And Quest 3. If you be charged to be Impenitent and never to have truly Repented how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and averring that I did Repent P. So then your Repentance it self must so far justifie you And Quest 4. If you are charged to have been an ungodly person to the last or not to have loved God or your neighbour not to have called on God nor confessed Christ before men nor to have fed clothed and visited him as you could in his members or not to have mortified your fleshly lusts but to have lived after the flesh in murder theft whoredom drunkenness c. What is your righteousness against this accusation Lib. I must defend my self against a lye by denying it to be true I must be so far justified that is vindicated against Calumny by my innocency in those points P. Very good so far then you must be justified by your godliness love obedience mortification innocency and works And what if you be charged as an Hypocrite to have done all that you did in meer dissimulation how must you be therein justified Lib. By denying the charge and appeal to God that I was sincere P. So then your sincerity is so far your justifying righteousness And what if you are charged with Apostasie that you fell from Grace must you not be justified by pleading your Perseverance Lib. These are none of the Justification which the Scripture speaketh of which is only against true accusations and not against false ones P. Say you so What if one be truly accused that he hath no part in Christ and that his sin is unpardoned or that he is under the guilt of damnation by the obligation both of the Old Covenant and the New or that he never truly repented or believed or that he is unsanctified and never sincerely obeyed Christ c. Is this man justifiable Lib. No I say not that all men are justifyable But who ever is Justified in Scripture sense is justified only from a true Accusation P. What is that true Accusation Lib. That he is a sinner and deserveth damnation according to the Law and that he hath no righteousness of his own P. Must he not confess all this to be True if it be True And is not confessing the Guilt which he is accused of contrary to justifying him Do you not see here what Confusion you cast your self into for want of noting the various senses of Justification If by Justifying we mean Making an unjust man just then it is true that he is justified from his Guilt that is he is pardoned and he is justified from the Laws condemnation that is a man condemned by the Law is pardoned and he is justified from his reigning sin that is he is sanctified But this Justification is not opposite to Accusation but to Being unjust But if you speak of Justification by Plea or Sentence it is contrary to Accusation of Guilt And so no man is justified that is not Just or Guiltless in the point of which he is accused God will by no means clear the guilty or justifie the unjust Exod. 34. 7 8. nor say of the wicked Thou art Righteous Prov. 24. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 17. 2. 23. Jer. 11. 20. Rom. 1. 32. 2. 2. But that you are quite mistaken in saying that Scripture never mentioneth Justifying man from a false accusation these and many such Texts shew Rom. 8. 33. Isa 50. 8. Prov. 17. 15. 1 Kings 8. 32. James 2. 21 24 25. Rom. 2. 13. Luke 7. 29. Matth. 11. 19. 12. 37. Isa 43. 9. 26. Luke 10. 29. 16. 15. Deut. 25. 1. Exod. 23. 7 c. And how widely differ you from most Protestant Divines who say that Justification is a Judicial Sentence of God as Judge Though indeed it is of divers sorts Lib. But it is not Scripture Justification unless it be perfect And all that we do is Imperfect To justifie him in some one thing is not Justification by faith but another thing P. 1. No doubt but Scripture mentioneth both particular Justification as to some particular causes and a more large Justification from all things that would damn him in Hell And this latter is the Great Justification by
but the Baptismal Covenant where sure the condition is notorious and every Baptizing Minister prerequireth the profession of it CHAP. VII Whether Justifying Faith be a Believing in Christ as a Teacher Lord c. or only a Receiving of his Righteousness P. VI. AS to this your sixth Charge I have said so much elsewhere in my Disputations of Justification and in other Books that I cannot justifie the tiring of Readers by repeating it And will say now but this little following 1. That Paul doth not distinguish between justifying faith and saving faith but excludeth the Works excluded by him from being the causes either of Justification or Salvation 2. That if Receiving Christs Righteousness be meant by them properly and physically it is no sort of faith at all but only the effect of the donation which they call Justificari or passive Justification But if it mean a moral metonymical Reception that is nothing but Consent to have the offered gift And if only Consent to have Christs Righteousness be Justifying faith then all the Assenting part is excluded in which Scripture much placeth it and most Divines in part and many in whole besides Cam●ro and his followers And so also all the Affiance or Fiducial ●cts are excluded which almost all include even that which they call Recumbency being distinct from Consent 3. All these acts following are essential to Justifying faith as well as this Consent to be Justified 1. An Assenting belief in God in the baptismal sense 2. An Assent to the truth of Christs Person Office and Doctrine 3. A belief in the Holy Ghost 4. A belief of Pardon Sanctification and Glory as possible purchased and offered by Christ 5. A Consent that God be our God in Christ 6. And a Consent that Christ be our Teacher 7. And our King and Ruler 8. And our Intercessor 9. And our Judge and Justifier by sentence and as our Advocate 10. A belief of his Resurrection Power and Glory 11. A Trusting to the Father and the Son according to these forementioned Offices 12. A Consent to be Sanctified by the Holy Ghost 4. Plainly our Justifying and Saving Faith in Pauls sense is the same thing with our Christianity or becoming Christians And the same thing with our Baptismal faith and consent 5. To believe in Christ as Christ is in Scripture Justifying faith But to accept his righteousness only and not to believe in him as our Lord and our Teacher and Intercessor c. as aforesaid is not to believe in him as Christ 6. In my Answer ubi sup to Mr. Warner and elsewhere I have detected the fraud of their quibling distinction who say that All this is in faith quae justificat but not quà justificat as supposing a falshood that any act of faith quà talis justifieth 7. They that say that only our Acceptance of Christs Imputed Righteousness is the Justifying act of faith and that to expect to be Justified by any other viz. by Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost and believing a Heaven hereafter and believing the Truth of the Gospel and of Christs Resurrection Ascension Glory c. and by taking him for our Teacher Ruler Intercessor c. is to expect Justification by Works in Pauls disclaimed sense and so to fall from Grace I say they that thus teach do go so far towards the subverting of the Gospel and making a Gospel or Religion of their own as that I must tell them to move them to repentance not only the adding of Ceremonies is a small corruption in comparison of this but many that in Epiphanius are numbred with Hereticks had far lesser errors than this is CHAP. VIII Of Faiths Justifying as an Instrument P. VII ANd I have said so much in the foresaid Disputations of Justification and other Books of Faiths Instrumentality and the reason of its Justifying interest that I cannot perswade my self now to talk it out with you all over again but only to say 1. That I have fully oft proved from many plain Scriptures that pardon and salvation are given with Christ in the Covenant of Grace on Condition of a penitent believing fiducial acceptance And therefore that it is most certain that faith is a Condition of our Justification and so to be profest in Baptism 2. The name of An Instrument given to faith and its Justifying as an Instrument are of mens devising and not in Gods Word 3. But as to the sense It is certain that faith is no Instrument of our Justification Gods or Mans if it be meant properly of an Instrumental efficient cause 4. But if it be taken Metaphorically for an Act whose Nature or essence is An Acceptance of a free Gift and so by Instrumentality be meant the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere that is Faith 's very Essence in specie then no doubt it is what it is 5. Or if by an Instrument be meant A Moral aptitude or Disposition of the person to be justified answerable to the Dispositio Recipientis vel materiae in Physicks then it is such an Instrument But how well this is worded and what cause there is to contend for a word both of humane invention and metaphorical and this as if it were a weighty Doctrine I leave to sober judgements 6. But it is certain that the Accepting Act of faith is but its Aptitude to be the condition of the Gift and therefore that its being made by Christ the Condition is its Moral nearest interest in our Justification CHAP. IX Whether Faith it self be imputed for Righteousness Lib. VIII WHat do you but subvert the Gospel when you put faith instead of Christ or of his Righteousness When the Scripture saith that we are justified by Christs Righteousness Imputed to us you say it is by faith imputed P. Do you think any sober Christians here really differ or is it only about the Names and Notions Which ever it be 1. Of the name Is it not oft said that Faith is and shall be imputed for Righteousness Rom. 4. 22 23 24. James 2. 23. Lib. Yes I must grant the words but not your meaning P. Where doth the Scripture say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us Remember that it is only the Name that I ask you of Lib. It saith that Righteousness is Imputed and what Righteousness ●an it be but Christs P. I tell you still it is only the phrase or words that we are first trying Are these the same words Righteousness is Imputed and Christs Righteousness is Imputed If not where are these latter words in Scripture Lib. Grant that the words are not and your words are P. Then the question is Whether Scripture phrase or mans invented phrase be the better and safer in a controvertible case And next Whether you should deny or quarrel at the Scripture saying that faith is imputed to us for righteousness and not rather confute our misexpounding it if we do so Lib. Well Let us examine the sense then What
Righteousness is it but Christs that is said to be imputed to us P. It is none but what we have from Christ But the phrase of Imputing supposeth it ours And the meaning is no more but that we are reputed Righteous And the causes are not included in the phrase of Imputing righteousness to us but in the words before and after As Imputing sin to us and not Imputing it is but to Repute reckon or judge us sinners or by sin guilty of punishment or not guilty so is it here So that it is supposed 1. That Righteousness that is This Relation of being Righteous is the thing imputed 2. Christs Righteousness is the meritorious cause 3. The Gospel Donation is the instrumental Cause 4. Our Faith in Christ is the condition and as such the subordinate matter necessary on our parts And that faith is imputed for Righteousness plainly meaneth but this that Christ having merited and satisfied for us all that is now required on our part to denominate or primarily constitute us Righteous is to be true Believers in him or true Christians And I further ask you Do you thus paraphrase the words Faith that is Christs Righteousness is imputed to us for righteousness Lib. Yes I do so because the act is put for the object P. Were it so said but once and otherwise oft you had some colour for this But when it is never said Christs Righteousness is imputed to us and so oft said Faith is imputed for righteousness how shall ever the Scripture be understood at this rate if still by faith it mean not faith at all but Christs righteousness And why must not all other places that mention faith be so understood also But read the Texts and set all together and see what sense thus will be made of it Rom. 4. 3. What saith the Scripture Abraham believed God and it that is not his believing but Christs Righteousness was Imputed to him for righteousness Is this a sober and modest paraphrase or a shameless violence Doth not it refer to believing God before mentioned Vers 4 5. To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned or imputed of Grace but of debt But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith that is not his faith but Christs righteousness is counted for righteousness Is this a modest Exposition Vers 10 11. We say that Faith that is not faith but Christs righteousness was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness How then was it that is not his faith but Christs righteousness reckoned In uncircumcision And he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the fiath that is not of the faith but of the righteousness of Christs righteousness which he had being uncircumcised that he might be the Father of them that believe that righteousness that is Christs might be imputed to them also who walk in the steps of that faith which Abraham had c. doth faith here also signifie no faith Vers 13. When the promise is said to be through the righteousness of faith and Vers 14. faith made void is it no faith that is here also meant by faith And Vers 16. It is of faith to that seed which is of the faith of Abraham is not faith indeed here meant by the word faith So Vers 18 19 20 21. Who against hope believed And being not weak in faith he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith And being fully perswaded that what he had promised he was able to perform is it no faith that is meant in all these words yea or no act of faith but accepting the righteousness of Christ So next Vers 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for Righteousness that is Not his faith but by It is meant only Christs Righteousness though it was faith that was over and over mentioned as the antecedent So Vers 23 24. It was not written for his sake only that it that is not faith but Christs righteousness was imputed to him But for us also to whom it that is not faith shall be imputed if we believe is not that faith neither on him that is God the Father that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead which is a distinct act from Consenting to have his righteousness who was delivered to death for our offences and was raised again for our Justification Is the meaning that we are justified by the Imputation of Christs Resurrection so to us as that in Law sense we rose again in him and by Rising fulfilled the Law of Innocency I will not for shame and weariness thus go over other such Texts but I must be so faithful as to say that if good men and wise men and men that cry down the Papists and others for adding to Gods Word and corrupting it and calling it a Nose of Wax and introducing new Articles of faith will yet own such Expositions as these and accuse those that own them not they are as great Instances as most I remember except the defenders of Transubstantiation how far education or custom or humane dependance or faction and partiality and prejudice may blind the reason of professed Christians and godly men And that man that dare lay his comforts and hopes of justification and life upon such expositions of Gods Word should be modest in crying down the false hopes of others and reproving them that build upon the sand Lib. You have made a long discourse to make us odious upon a false supposition We do not say that in all or any of those Texts by faith is not meant faith but only that it is not faith as faith or as an act of ours but as connoting its object the Righteousness of Christ P. 1. Alas a great number of better men than you have too oft and plainly said without distinction that Faith is not imputed to us for righteousness I hope they meant better than they spake but I would it could be hid from the world that these words are not only in the Independents Savoy Confession but even in the Confession of the Westminster Assembly cap. 11. Not by imputing faith it self the act of believing or any other Evangelical obedience to them as their Righteousness but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ to them So also in the larger Catechism Not as if the Grace of faith or any act thereof were imputed to him for his Justification How well soever they may mean Gods oft repeated Word should rather have been expounded than denyed 2. But what mean your cloudy words It is not faith as faith but as connoting the object They that cannot speak clearly seldom clearly understand what to speak The Question is Whether it be really and properly Faith that is meant in all these Texts or whether it be only Christs righteousness If you say that It is both in several respects you grant then that it is saith it self in one respect that is
to sin entertained we must go as far from sin as we can But poor deceived souls run into it under the conceit of going far enough from it and sometimes into greater than they avoid S. What sin have such Protestants run into in their opposition to Popery P. I will tell you some I. In Doctrine and II. In the consequent● and practice I. It is more than one injudicious Protestant Divine that hath printed such unfound Opinions as these in opposition to Popery for want of judgement 1. While they plead against the Romish false Tradition they have weakned faith by denying that necessary use of Historical Tradition of Scripture which Christianity doth suppose As others have denyed the necessary use of Reason unto faith 2. They have wronged the Church by undervaluing the Tradition of the Creed and the Essentials of Christianity by many means besides the Scriptures 3. They have much wronged the Protestant Cause by denying the perpetual Visibility of the Church and almost given it away as I have shewed against Johnson 4. And their d●nyal of its Universality and confining it long to the Waldenses and such others is an exceeding injury to the Church and Truth 5. And so is some mens over-doing as for the Scripture who teach men that they can be no surer of Christianity as delivered many years in Baptism before any of the New Testament was written than they are that there is no one error in all the Bible by the carelesness of the Scribes and Printers nor any humane frailty in the phrase 6. And also their feigning the Scripture perfection to consist in its being a particular determiner of all those circumstances of which it is only a general rule 7. And those that make every form of prayer or Ceremony to be Antichristian 8. And those that make Justifying faith to be a certainty or full perswasion that we are elected and pardoned and shall be saved 9. And those that say that To believe that I am justified is to believe Gods Word or ●ides divina either as most say because one of the premises is in Scripture or as excellent Chamier saith because the Witness of the Spirit is Gods Word 10. And those that say All that have true faith are sure they have such as Keckerman and too many others 11. Those that deny Christ to have made any Law 12. And those also that assert Imputation of Christs Righteousness in that sense which I have proved to subvert the Gospel 13. And those that deny Faith it self to be Imputed for righteousness 14. And those that deny that there is any personal Evangelical Righteousness in our selves that is any way necessary to our Justification 15. And those that lay all the stress of Faiths Justifying us on the notion of Instrumental efficiency 16. And those that say we are Justified by no act of faith but its receiving Christs Righteousness and all other acts of faith are the Wor●s by which none is justified 17. And those that say that Evangelical obedience is not meritorious as it signifieth only Rewardable in point of Paternal Evangelical Governing Justice and as all the antient Fathers used that word because we merit not by Commutation 18. And those that say that man hath no free-will at all of any sort to spiritual good 19. And those that say that Christ was in Gods reputation the greatest sinner or wicked man Adulterer Murderer hater of God in all the world 20. And those that say that he suffered in soul Pain altogether of the same kind with those that the damned suffer in H●● 21. And those that in opposition to the Popish Government Confession Austerities and several acts of Worship do run into the con●rary extream against due Government Confession Austerities c. And those that from dark uncertainty or à minus noti● do gather many conclusions against known truth I pass by such as the Antinomians who as I have proved subve●t the Gospel it self by running into the contrary extream from Pope●●● S. You are as ●ad as Parker or the Debate-maker that th●s l●y s●●ndal on the Reformers themselves If these were their faults you ●●●● cover them and not open them This had been enough for ● Romish R●bshakeh P. You know not what it is that you say This is to a●ho●●●●●●tance and to preferr the honour of man before the honour of God yea to let the shame be cast on Gods Word and Religion lest the erro● of ●●●● be shamed But all men are lyars that is fallible and God is ●●●● He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy but he that hideth it shall not prosper Are there not with you even with you also saith the Prophet sins against the Lord our God Why hath God recorded in Scripture the faults of so many of his servants and fome● them to such open Confessions Did Paul wrong Peter and ●●●● Gal. ● or the Ministry when he said All seek their own thing● and no●e the things of Jesus Christ or did the Evangelists wrong all ●he Disciples by saying that They all forsook him and fled or James all C●●stians saying In many things we offend ●ll I think the Prou● Impe●itence of many Professors that will not confess sin nor endure to be ●●led to it lest Religion be dishonoured is that great dishonour to Religion which God hath been long punishing us for When such evils have ●●●● held and done as our age hath known either it must be said that they are not evil or that they are If we deny it and say they are God ●●●● and m●ns duty we feign God and Scripture and Religion to be for all that evil which is to blaspheme If we say It is evil we must sa●● that we are the guilty causes of it God will teach Ministers and Professors instead of Pharisaical self-justification to take open shame to themselves that he and Religion may be vindicated before he will deliver us from shame and sorrow And he that will save his honour against this shame shall lose it and he that will thus lose it and cast it away shall most effectually recover it S. I think you would fain perswade us that Protestants are as bad as Papists and perswade us into the Roman Tents P. That is but your pievish inference But little do you know how much of Popery it self you have while you think that you hate it more than I. S. You would make me believe any thing if you make me think that I have more of Popery than you P. 1. Do not you agree with them in consining the Catholick Church to one Sect or Party only They to their Sect and You to yours 2. Do you not agree with them in your vehement condemnation of dissenters only they excommunicate and burn them and you deny them your communion and reproach them But their charity extendeth much further than yours and you condemn more dissenters than they do 3. Do you not agree with them in
Ledesm de A●xil dis 2. Ruiz de scient d. 15 16 33 36 c. For non entis non est Modus vel Relatio If you add that it is Denominatio extrin eca I answer it must be then God himself only as denominated Knowing or Willing that This or that shall be which is not properly the futurity of the thing For otherwise it must be a denomination of Nothing 83. Obj. The Object is before the Act of Knowledge Therefore a thing is future before God knoweth it to be future Answ 1. To be future is a word whose sound deceiveth men as if it signified some being which is not so 2. God cannot know that a thing will be unless it will be But this signifieth no more but that he cannot know this proposition to be true This or that will be unless it be true But 1. there were from eternity no propositions 2. And the proposition is not true before it is a proposition 3. And therefore not before it is conceived in the mind whence it hath its first being 4. But if you might suppose God to have eternal propositions their Being is considerable before their Verity and the Verity hath its Cause But that cause is nothing but what is in God himself which is either his Decree of what he will Cause or his foreknowledge of what will be caused by a sinning Creature And neither of them as a cause of the truth of the proposition causeth that the Thing will be nor yet is any other existent Cause supposed but only that God knowing that he will make the free agent knoweth also that this agent will freely sin In all which the futurity is Nothing nor is any existent cause of it necessary But only the truth of the proposition would result from the Infinite perfection of Gods knowledge 84. Obj. The futurity of things is True whether God or man know it or think of it or not Answ 1. Futurity being Nothing is neither true nor false * * * According to Greg. and the Nominals sence of Relations before cited two Nothings may eternally be Related to each other One as a future Cause and another as a future effect And if there were now no Being but hereafter per impossibile a Being would arise of it self it is future though there be none to know it But this futurity hath no Cause And it is no more but that this Proposition Hoc erit would be True if there were any to conceive it 2. But all that you can truly mean is but this that whether it be thought on or not this is a true proposition Hoc vel illud futurum est Which is true when there are propositions extrinsecal which no man thinketh of But 1. God hath no propositions 2. Much less extrinsecal from Eternity But if he had any they would be nothing but the acts of his own knowledge 3. And they have no Cause 4. If they had been uttered by words they needed no Cause but his perfect knowledge 85. Obj. Futurity is the Object of Gods knowledge and the object is a † † † To the Question An praescientia Dei sit Causata à rebus Bonavent answereth in 1. dist 38. q. 1. a. 1. Praescita Causa sunt praescientiae Divinae non essendi sed aut Inserendi aut Dicendi Secundum rationem essendi Praescientia potest esse Causa aliquorum praescitorum licet non omnino sed nullo modo è converso Secundum rationem Inferendi sunt mutuo causae quia mutuo antecedunt consequuntur antecedens est causa consequentis Secundum rationem Dicendi futurum est causa praescientiae non è converso Nam praescientia dicitur scientia ante rem constat ergo quod importat ordinem ad posterius si scitum esset semper praesens esset scientia sed non praescientia Bonavent 1. dist 38. dub 3. saith Gods knowledge called Approbation connoteth effectum bonita●em but when it is called simplex Notitia it connoteth only the event but in it self is one Thus denominations by Connotation and relation may be many wayes diversified both of Knowledge and Will cause of the act God knoweth things to be future because they are future as he knoweth existents because they exist Answ Still I say 1. Futurity is Nothing and Nothing hath no Cause 2. Nothing is eternally in God but God and God hath no Cause nor is an Effect 3. At least that which is Nothing cannot be the Cause of God 4. It is not true that God foreknoweth things because they will be but only that he fore-knoweth that they will be 86. Gods meer fore-knowledge nor his meer Will without efficient Power or Action causeth not the thing future and therefore is not the Cause that It will be But where Knowledge and Will with Active Power cooperate they are true Causes of the thing And nothing is a proper Cause that It will be but what will Cause its being 87. By all this it is evinced that God Causeth not the futurity of sin And that there needeth no Decree of God to make Sin pass è numero possibilium in numerum futurorum And consequently that the Learned and pious Dr. Twisse his Achillean argument which is the strength of his Book de Scientia Media is but delusory As the excellent Strangius also hath fully manifested And his admired Bradwardine is as weak in his attempts on the same subject and proveth God the Cause of all futurition by no better reasons than he proveth that without him there would be no impossibles yea that non posset esse impossibile When it were impossible any thing should be were there no God and yet that impossibility is nothing and needeth no cause It 's strange how some Learned men confound Things and Nothings and the Notions and Names of Nothings with the Nothings named So Bradwardine l. 1. c. 18. p. 221. will tell us how God knoweth complex objects and distinguisheth those that are antecedent to Gods Intellection from those that are consequent The former sort are such as these God is God is eternal omnipotent c. These he saith are the Causes that God knoweth them being before his knowledge of them The other about Creatures are after it and caused by it Yet doth the good man thus humbly Preface Non proprie distincte sed similitudinarie balbutiendo vix tenus possum vel scio ignarus homuncio excelsa scientiae Dei mirabilis resonare But see how the world is troubled with this prophane * * * Hervtus in his Quodlib puts the question Whether it be not a Mortal sin in a Divine to omit things necessary and to treat of curiosities But he was too guilty himself to answer it as plainly as he ought presumption and how justly Paul cautioned us against seduction by vain Philosophy and what danger the Church is in of losing Faith Religion and Charity and peace in a game
at words What is this Complexe object Deus est Is it any thing or nothing If nothing it is not before Gods knowledge and the Cause of it If any thing Is it God or a Creature A Creature is not before God nor a cause of his knowledge which is God himself If it be God is it his Essence as such or his Essential properties or the Persons None of these For Gods essence is the prime Incomplexe Being and not a Complexe proposition Dens est His Properties primary are Omnipotent-vital-power Intellect and Will But these also are the same Incomplexe essence and not propositions And his Intellect as an object of it self is not before his Intellect as an Actual Knowledge of himself nor the cause of it All the sense he can make of it is that this proposition Deus est est Aeternus c. if it had had an eternal being would in order of nature have been conceivable to us before this Deus scit se esse or before his knowledge it self or that if man had been the Knower it had been first a true proposition that He is before he knoweth that he is But God knoweth not himself by propositions Words in mente vel ore are but artificial organs for blind creatures to know by And doth God need such to know himself Doth he know by Thinking and by Artificial means as we do Hath he Entia rationis in his Intellect as man as Propositions are And had he an Intellect and these Entia rationis or propositions in his Intellect Deus est c. before he knew them yea and his self-knowledge which in Act is his pure eternal necessary Essence caused by these All that you can say is that poor creatures know by Propositions and phantasms and diverse thoughts and that God knoweth man and therefore knoweth all our propositions and thoughts as ours but not that he had the like eternally in himself and knoweth them in himself and that Himself as a proposition is the Cause of himself or self-intellection as in Act. He can know that you see by Spectacles and yet not eternally use Spectacles himself as the Cause of his sight But Bradwardine saith that God knoweth illa vera complexa quae voluntatem divinam praecedunt per solam suam essentiam sicut alia vera incomplexa Illa vero quae voluntatem ejus sequuntur non scit Deus per illa complexa neque per aliquid aliud à voluntate ejus semota sed per suam voluntatem vel per suam substantiam cum voluntate c. More presumption still He saith God knoweth complexa sed non complexe And who knoweth what sense those words have What meaneth he by complexa but Notions that is names and propositions as distinct from the Things And what is it to know propositions complexe but to know them as they are And what is it to know them incomplexe unless it be to know quid physicum a proposition is or to know that it is no proposition that is to err If God know a Complexum or a proposition that Proposition is in being And where was it in being before God knew it If in God or no where 1. God then is a proposition 2. And God is before he knoweth himself 3. And a proposition being in intellectu an act of knowledge it is to say that God knoweth that he is before he knoweth that he is and his knowing that he is causeth him to know that he is If it be said that by complexa he meaneth not organical notions words nor propositions but the Verity of Gods Being Eternity c. I answer To know things is said to be to know some Truth because by knowing the thing we can make this proposition This is or This truly is But Gods knowledge of Things is not as ours but by pure perfect intuition and so maketh not propositions in himself by knowing things But if it be the Truth of this proposition Deus est that you mean it supposeth that proposition to exist for quod non est non verum est and so to exist in God which is denyed And it is that proposition that Bradwardine speaketh of But if by Truth you mean nothing but Gods Essence that is not a Complex object which he speaketh of And he saith not that God knoweth suam essentiam creata vel futura but that he knoweth per suam essentiam quod Deus est est Omnipotens Aeternus c. per suam essentiam cum voluntate quod mundus futurus est So that it 's a proposition that he calleth complexum incomplexè cognitum by contradiction when he cannot prove that Gods Intellect made propositions in it self and that antecedently to themselves and the Causes of themselves And all this which men talk in the dark about God is non-sense to trouble themselves and the world with on false suppositions that Gods knowledge is such as ours or that we can have formal conceptions and descriptions of it when we should tremble to read men thus prophanely take Gods Name in vain and pry into unrevealed things I have purposely been the larger on this instance to warn the Reader to take heed of the common cheat of Scholastick Word-mongers who would obtrude on us humane entia rationis or Thoughts as real Divine entities and would perswade us that every nothing which they make a name for is therefore something yea some of them God himself What I have said of Divine Intellection I say of his Volitions of which cap. 20 21. Bradwardine saith that Voluta priora viz. Deum esse omnipotentem esse bonum cognoscentem c. sunt Causa But 1. It is too bold to say that Gods Will is an Effect 2. If it were so it must be his Essence Omnipotency and Intellect that is the Cause of his Will and not a Complex verity as Deus est omnipotens bonus est c. For Gods Will is not caused by Propositions 3. If you say that his Volition as terminated objectively on his Essence Goodness c. is his Will in act se Velle which some call the third Person yet here would be no Cause and Effect but our distinct partial conceptions of that incomprehensible simplicity which hath no real diversity or priority SECT VI. Of Gods Knowledge and the Co-existence of the Creature 88. AUgustine well and truly saith that fore-knowledge in God is the same with the Knowledge of things present Past present and future through his Infiniteness and Eternity being alike to him even all as present 89. But this dependeth upon the Indivisibility of Eternity in which all the things of time are included and co-exist 90. Thus saith Augustine li. 2. ad Simplic q. 2. Quid est praescientia nisi scientia futurorum Quid autem futurum est Deo qui omnia supergreditur tempora Si enim in scientia res ipsas habet non sunt ei futurae sed praesentes ac