true that to know quid possibile is not to know it to be existent nor any more than to know what God e. g. can do and so to denominate Nothing quid possibile as relating to Power And so Ariminens saith Nothing may be Related But the like must be said of futurity And it holdeth equally of the species and de numero possibilium futurorum so that here we have confitentem reum about the dance and dream of notions and nothings which I have before shewed they beguile mens understandings with And hence also my former doctrine is confirmed of the non-necessity of a causal decree of Negatives or Nothings or of a Positive Volition of them § 10. The truth is an Act of mans soul is such a thing that de existentibus it's hard for any of their subtilties to make known the difference of species accidents or individuals ab objectis And to know what interruptions they must be that go to cut one Immanent act into two or hinder unity SECT XIII Of mans Power Natural and Moral § 1. I Have said so much of this also in the other parts of this Book that a little here may serve 1. Man hath no Power whatsoever but from God and therefore doth not act as a prime Cause properly because but by a derived power § 2. That which is a Power but hypothetically on Condition of something not existent especially not in our power it self is no power properly and univocally but equivocally only As to say I am able to leap to Heaven if God will Cause it I am able to lift a thousand pound with sufficient help which I have not I am able to see if I had light or to see a Phoenix if there were such a thing or I am able to will or move with Gods necessary predetermining premotion say some which I have not None of this is a true Power ad hoc But to constitute a formal Power it is necessary that I have all things without which I cannot do the act § 3. It is a contradiction to say that when a man hath the true Power to believe yet he cannot do the Act * * * As Jansenius and Dr. Twisse do in making more absolutely necessary to it without further premotion which is to say He that can believe cannot believe The Power connoteth the Possibile § 4. †††Potentia rationalis naturae humanae non potest minui extrinsicè entitativè per destructionem alicujus gradus ejusdem potentiae potest tamen minui per appositionem impedimenti quale est peccatum vel per inclinationem contrariam ad peccata quae inclinatio generatur per actus males Necesse est enim ex hoc quod aliquid inclinatur ad â—num contrariorum quod diminuatur inclinatio ejus ad aliud Cum ergo peccatum sit contrarium virtuti ex hoc ipso quod homo peccat diminuitur bonum naturae quod est inclinatio ad virtutem Alvarez de Aux li. 6. disp 45. p. â—10 Ita Thom. 1. 2. q. 85. ar 1. in corp The true Natural Power of Intellection and Volition every man hath as a man And when God Christ Heaven are brought to us with all the Conditions necessary to Objects of Intellect and Will we have formal power to understand and will them in this Natural sence What is necessary to the Being of an Object and Revelation I desire the Reader to see distinctly opened by me in a small tract called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery § 5. But the soul it self hath a vicious Indisposition to the spiritual exercise of these faculties or powers And this is the morbus facultatum And this Indisposition is called a Moral Impotency because the soul is unfitted by it to the exercise of its natural Power § 6. When this Indisposition is so great as that no man in that case doth do the act we say he is morally unable And when it is not so great but that under that Indisposition some men do the act in that state of help we say that such a man is morally able Therefore he that is yet more disposed is so More able and it hath various degrees § 7. But if a man have so great a disposition skill and will as that he is ready to the facile and frequent performance of the act that Promptitude is called a Habit and is more than a meer moral power though a power also § 8. It is certain that men can do more than they do not only that they could do more if God would predetermine them or give them more grace but that properly they can The worst hath Power to do more good and forbear more evil than he doth And so have the best § 9. Adam had true proper Power natural and Moral to have stood when he fell He sinned not for want of necessary Power to have forborn it § 10. They that deny this and resolve all sin into Gods unresistible necessitating operation or denying of power absolutely and antecedently necessary I think do make way for Hobbes his Theologie or subversion of Religion § 11. Moral Power and Impotency are primarily such in the will the first seat of morality and derivatively or secondarily in the Intellect and executive Power And therefore it is not originally and radically of physical necessity but Free as the will which is free is the Cause of it § 12. * * * Jansen de Grat. Christ l. 3. c. 15. denyeth that without effectual Grace men have a compleat power to the Acts but saith yet They have power 1. Remotissime in that they have free-will 2. By faith not joyned with Love as being the beginning c. 3. Yet more by Love as the root c. And he noteth a double Impotency Una est ex defeâ—tu alicujus quod non potest quantumlibet magna voluâ—tate vel fortiter volendo suppleri Talis est Impotentia illius qui caret rebus temporalibus ad largiendum c. This is natural Impotency De tali Impotentia verissimum est quod Dâ—us non jubet impossibilia Nam hoc ipso quo talis oritur impossibilitas vel praeceptum extinguitur vel certe ad illud implendum is cui praecipitur non amplius obligatus est Non est enim culpae Voluntatis quod non â—iat c. Altera ex defectu ipsius Voluntatis seâ— Volitionis oritur quae si adesset quanta adesse debet praeceptum facillimâ— impleretur Tantummodo enim fortiter volendo impletur Haec Impotentia nullo modo excusat cum qui non implâ—t quod praecipitur Posset enim implere si vellet Quod si nolâ—erit ideo non potuerit quis non cum dixerit pro ipsa tam perversa obdurataque voluntate culpandum Velâ—nt plenâ—que velint mox ut voluerint impleâ—untur si autem nolint ideoque non possint quis nolentibus vitio non vertat c Nam revera
causeth no antecedent necessity but concomitant existentiae 3. This supposeth Gods Scientia futuri conditionalis Against this Dr. Twisse hath said much in a peculiar Digression And surely God ever operateth as God which is ut Causa prima But how far he determineth is the doubt i a capable object of knowledge And therefore he knoweth what conditional propositions of future contingents are true 2. Whether this should be called scientia media or not is a vain question 3. Gods acts ex parte sui being but his Essence and all one can no otherwise be distinguished nor ordered as to the denominations of priority or posteriority than as the objects are distinct and by their order of priority and posteriority allow us by Connâ—tation so to denominate the acts 4. The Intelligibility and the Amability of things are in themselves simultaneous though from the order of humane operations we say that things are first Intelligible before they are Amiable And so we may say of God after the manner of men but not otherwise 5. God doth not will the form or the act of sin as circumstantiated and as the form necessarily resulteth from it neither for it self nor propter aliud the essence or existence 6. Therefore God doth not foreknow sin as willed and decreed by him nor therefore foreknow it because he willeth it 7. God fore-knoweth or knoweth the formale peccati as well as the materiale yet almost all confess that he willeth not the formale Therefore he knoweth that which he willeth not Therefore his Volition of it is not necessary to his knowledge of it 8. There is no effect in God for all that is in God is God who is not effected Therefore there is no Cause in God of any thing in God Therefore Gods will or decree of Good is not the cause that he foreknoweth it noâ— his foreknowledge the cause that he willeth it But he both knoweth and willeth all that is Good at once 9. Gods inward operations on the soul are real efficiencies and yet moral and to us unsearchable They cause the will to determine it self to Good when it doth so but how we know not But we know that he ordinarily worketh by means and according to their aptitude 10. God useth such means with the free wills of his elect as he foreknoweth will prevail with them and setteth them in such circumstances as he foreknoweth they will freely act aright in But his inward grace is the principal or chief cause And he doth not will or decree to give them such means and circumstances because he foreknoweth they will prevail That is Gods will and decree as in him hath no cause 11. But the word because is in Scripture applyed sometimes to Gods Love or hatred and sometimes to his outward acts as John 16. 27. The Father loveth you because ye have loved me and believed And in the first case that which is meant is that the qualification of the object is the material constitutive cause of the act of God not as it is Himself but as relatively denominated ab extra from the object in specie vel individuo And in the second case It meaneth that the effects of God ad extra called his transient acts as in passo have their proper uses and we our commanded ends in using them And so God is said to send Ministers e. g. because he would save the hearers that is the Ministry is a cause of mens â—â—lvation 12. From all this it appeareth that they err who think that their scientia media is equally useful in the points of Election and of Reprobation and that they run pari passa For all Good is both willed and known and so Election supposeth not the foresight of our faith or obedience as causal or antecedent if we speak of that Act of Election which is to faith and obedience But Evil is foreknown and not willed at all And therefore there is no such Reprobation which is a will or decree that men shall sin And the non-impedition of sin being no act needeth no positive act of will or decree * * * Yet none of the stress of their differences lyeth on this And the Jesuits with the rest assert a Positive Volition de peccato permittendo without proof which I leave to â—uens various opinions But Reprobation which is the decree of damning ever supposeth the object to be a foreseen-sinner finally rejecting grace The rest about this is spoken to sufficiently before §. IV. II. Of Durandus 's way II. AS to the way of Aureolus Durandus Ludov. à Dola c. I conceive it is commonly rejected because not understood or because the wording of it soundeth disgracefully But it is a great matter that all confess how easily it would end all these controversies were it true And by Lud. à Dola's Explication and what Capreolus saith of Aureolus I conceive that they are commonly mistaken Durandus thinketh that to the motion of the Creature it is necessary 1. That God by his continued No doubt but God is quoad praesentiam Immediate in all his efficiency and as Near to the effect as if he used no second cause But yet he is not so immediate as to exclude second causes as media And while he useth them he operateth on us according to their kind of operations even as if they were between him and the effect And this is the sense of Durandus and à Doâ—a and easily reconcileth all Amyraldus de lib. Arbit c. 4. concurreth with Durandus It is consâ—derable that all confess that if Durandus's way did hold it easâ—ly ended all the controversie As Lud. le Blank noteth Thes 3. de Concurs Juxta hos doctores nulla est difficultas in conciliando divino concursu cum libertate c. And this way is as consistent with Gods certain disposal of events as predetermination it self influx continue the being and the nature and properties of the agent 2. And that he continue all the circumstant creatures concauses and objects and the media of action 3. And that no powerful impediment hinder the action Now say the Jesuits and Dominicans and the rest God doth moreover concurr as the first cause to the Act it self by an Immediate efficient Influx besides that by which he upholdeth the Power and second Causes But I think that Durandus meaneth as much as they that is that God doth not only uphold the creature in its meer esse but in its Nature which is its Mobility and its principium motus And this Nature is not only a Power to Action but also an Inclined Power So that for God by constant Influx to continue a Natural Power and Inclination to Action or motion with all necessary concurrents without impediments is truly by his Influx to concurr to the motion as the first Cause while his Influx is not only as to Being but as to the Motive force and inclination And no more than this doth seem to me
Glory as the materia objectiva actus humani where I conclude the Causa finalis as the chief object Thus I have shewed you truly and plainly unde fit fides as that is all one as unde hic effectus and that is all one as unde Gratia fit efficax as to this secondary effect C. But I conceive that the sense of the question rather iâ— which of all these is the chief cause or reason of the existence of the effect B. Pardon my impatience of Confusion The chief cause and the chief reason are not always the same There is no question but God is the only and total Causa prima from whom all the rest have all their power and force But by the Reason of the existence is often meant that which in discourse must be assigned proportionately in answer to the question Why is one converted rather than another supposing Gods Influx on them both And this is oft the Receptive disposition as is said for Reciptur ad modum recipientes C. Well But the question recurreth what is the chief Cause and Reason that one not another hath that preparatory Receptivity B. The chief Cause is God why one hath it The chief Cause why another hath it not is himself that is the Moral deficient cause The Ratio differendi I opened to you before The most notable if we suppose Gods Influx to be of it self universal and equal is the Indisposition of the Sinner whence he doth difference himself from those that God causeth to receive even preparing Grace But the true Ratio effectus is from all the Causes conjunct C. But you must come at last to some prime difference And if you will say that the reason of our Preparatory effect or degree of Grace is because I used a former well or did not refuse it or was prepared for it what will you say of the first degree B. I say that the first preparatory Grace or help was given to Adam and all in him as the first natural goodness was C. But where came in the first difference B. By Cain's wilful Sin against God and his Grace C. But though you do with Augustine hold a communicated guilt of the sins of other Parents than our first and so a difference between persons yea and Kingdoms thence arising yet some Children as Esau and Jacob born of the same Parents must have in them some other cause of difference even as to preparatory Grace B. Suppose Gods fixed equal Influx universal there are two Causes of difference herein 1. One is the meer sinful wilfulness of one party that doth not do what that Grace enabled him to do by which a difference is made C. You mean that Jacob better used his help than Esau B. Not so but that Esau more abused it than Jacob. Suppose Jacob had slept out his youth or done no good and Esau had rebelled against God also and done much mischief Esau had hereby made a difference which is assignable without commending Jacob. C. Well what is the other Cause B. 2. Gods own free differencing Will and Grace who is a free Benefactor and may do with his own as he list and therefore freely loveth Jacob with the electing special love and decree which he hath not to Esau For though I have all this while discoursed with you of the Ratio Efficaciae of an Universal Grace I say not that there is no other C. O Now you come to the matter indeed B. II. The Question Unde fit Gratia efficax * Blank de Dist Grat. Thes 79. Naturam Gratiae efficacis Thomistae ponunt in motione quadam virtuosa quae est in voluntate per modum quo impetus in re quae impellitur Jansenius in â—ffectibus Amoris desiderii boni coelestis spiritualis quibus suaviter sursum rapitur animus humanus Discipâ—li Cameronis in potâ—nâ—â—ssima mentis illuminatione persuasione quae voluntatem â—ffectus secum rapit Alii in omnipotenti efficacissima Dei operatione qua novum principium spiritualis vitae Cordi hominis vocati inditur homo simâ—l excitatur ad actus eliciendos quae hic plerique vâ—i docti proferunt componenda potius quam opponenda videntur Even they that are for Physical praedetermination are not agreed what it is some make it a transient quality passing with the act Some say it is only mans Act it self as from God the first cause Some with Alvarez say It is Aliquid quod habet esse incompletum as colours in the air that is They know not what and yet venture on hot contentions about it And Jansenius who maketh it to be Delectatio or Complacentia saith it is Actus vitalis indeliberatus animo quidem amoris desiderii praecedentis consensum ac delectationem illam quae quies animi gaudium dicitur De Grat. Christi l. 4. c. 11. Much like to Vasquez save that Vasq calls it but an indeliberate prime motion of the affection and Jansenius calls it Indeliberate Delectation or Complacency which certainly is an Act of man and the Scotists say that all the Wills Acts are free though not all its inclinations But thus we strive about that which none of us understand viz. How God moveth his Creatures and our Wills in special being put of Gods special Grace by which he arbitrarily maketh a difference and is more than his Universal Grace must be thus resolved That though other Causes concur to the effect the Great over-ruling differencing and ascertaining Cause is the very quality and aptitude of Gods operation it self as proceeding from an absolute volition of the effect and in the Means and Influx fitted to ascertain the effect C. Wherein consisteth this differencing special Grace B. Deceive not your self No mortal man can know in what it ordinarily constantly or chiefly consisteth We know 1. That though God as Rector per Leges keeps one even and constant course yet as Proprietor and Benefactor he may vary as he please And that a Benefactor may give unequally to men of equal merits And that God really doth so de facto And that his Will hath no Cause 2. We know that God hath innumerable ways to fulfil his Will and make a difference between man and man which are beyond the search of Mortals 3. And though we can name divers which he can take we know not de facto which he doth take hic nunc C. What differencing free acts of Grace do you observe B. None which violate Gods established order or diminish his universal Grace But such as are superadded specially to some As 1. To Children of the same Parents he giveth to divers a temperament of Body as in one much more conduceth to thoughtfulness tenderness meekness sobriety chastity zeal honesty c. than in the other He is a stranger to man that knoweth not this 2. He sometime giveth them various Education One is piously educated Another is snatch'd away and
Decree and free acceptation L. I am sure your own friends say that These are few and too modest and indeed half Hereticks for their pains R. I love not to perswade the World that men mean worse than they speak What you mean by too modest I know not but it is not true either that they are few or taken by their Church for half hereticks And truth is well served by nothing but truth But the author you mean doth well in not opposing those that are of this mind nor those that deny all merit of congruity and in acknowledging that such there are He is a stranger to the Popish Doctors who either taketh the Scotists themselves to be few or judged half hereticks or else that it is they only that are of that opinion of which more anon L. But what mean they that say it is ex Dignitate if not as profiting God R. 1. I tell you they almost all conclude against commutative merit and who is so mad as to think that we profit God 2. I tell you that you may also ask what the Scripture meaneth by worthiness And how else will you translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but worthy or deserving And what is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Merâ—â— 3. They mean the Moral aptitude of Well-doing for the promised Reward And do you deny that L. But some of them say plainly that it is of Debt R. Yes they oft say with Augustine that God by his promise hath made himself as a Debtor L. But some say that Merit of condignity is ex proportione operum to the reward R. It 's impossible to know what every man meaneth and impossible to make all men speak congruously But as far as I can discern most of them that so speak mean that the most wise God doth all things in order and harmony and as he suiteth natural causes and effects so he doth gracious ones And that his free grace putteth into mans holiness a suitableness to the Reward which is but a suitableness of the habit and act to the object And that he that Loved God much shall be much happy in that Love and be much beloved by him And so every Saint enjoy God according to the proportion of his Love or holiness and Glory be varyed according to the degrees of Grace L. This we all hold But you make them sounder and wiser than they are R. Many of them and us want skill to speak very clearly Confusion and darkness is found in all our conceptions and expressions so far as we know but in part Those that you can prove to me are worse prove it by them I take this to be the common sense of those few that talk of Meritum ex proportione For they most commonly disclaim the word equality and all disclaim it as to commutation And what else can they mean And here I offer you an argument for Reward even in this sense of proportion which all the world cannot answer supposing that God will freely continue man in life and immortality If the Reward be essential to or necessarily inseparable from true love and obedience then true love and obedience have certainly a Reward and a moral aptitude for that Reward or a Rewardableness called Merit But the former is certain For 1. To Love God is the souls health pleasure and felicity it self including the Knowledge of him And perfect Knowledge and love is perfect happiness 2. To obey God is formally to do that which Pleaseth him pleasedly because it pleaseth him And to Please God is mans ultimate End and Reward 3. It is impossible but that God by his perfection should Love and be pleased with every thing that is Good according to the proportion of its goodness and therefore with the Love and obedience of his Children So that all those arguments of Protestants which well prove Holiness to be Happiness it self prove the Reward to be essential or inseparable L. If this be all that those few highest Papists mean then they are but more zealous in commending holiness than the looser sort as the Religious Preachers with us are And if this be indeed their meaning they are unhappy in expressing themselves or we in understanding them and our hearers unhappy that upon such misunderstanding are taught to abhorr them R. You know 1. That by Justification they mean Remission of sin and Holiness 2. And that they hold that no works merit but those that are done by the members of Christ and by his spirit in love and holiness 3. And that they merit nothing but what is primarily Gods Gift 4. Nor any thing but what is merited by Christ by another sort of merit to which ours is but subordinate 5. And that they commonly say that even faith it self doth not merit Justification or Holiness because though it have a Promise of it and so ex pacto it is due yet there is in the nature of the things no necessary connexion between them And now what can they mean after all this by condignity ex proportione operis ad prâ—mium but this which I have described Holiness is happiness and connexed to happiness in its various degrees L. But some say that they are so Impudent as to say that from the intrinsick worth of the work setting aside the consideration of the promise it is meritorious R. 1. Their commonest opinion is that the natural Aptitude of Holiness and obedience and the Promise of God set together make them rewardable or meritorious as they call it which is most certain God promiseth not his blessings and happiness to men for things evil or worthless and indifferent But 2. Some among their Doctors say that Were there no promise Holiness would be Rewardable that is that Gods perfection proveth that he is Pleased with it and Loveth the holy 2. And that it is happiness it self as is aforesaid And as this doth but speak the suitableness of Gods Image to be the object of his Love and of obedience to be the Pleasing of his will so it seemeth to me only to mean that Were there no Positive supernatural promise yet the very Law of nature which is Gods first Law containeth such a signification of his will that he will love and bless those that love him and obey him as is indeed a kind of natural promise And it is to be noted that all the Heathen World who know not the written promise do agree in this as a natural Verity that God loveth and is pleased with Goodness love and obedience and that it shall go well with them that are so qualified And if we should forget the Papists and preach to religious people with us that there is no Goodness in the Divine Nature and Image of God and in Holy love and obedient fruitful lives for which God would love or be pleased with such as have them supposing Redemption and the merits of Christ any more than with the wicked if it were not that he hath
God is Morally and most fitly said to Nill such Nothings it is not as Nothings but as Possible Evils For only Evil is the proper object of Positive Nolition so that it may be spoken fullier of sin than of other Nothings even fitly in a Moral sense 494. VII Lastly Acts of Will are ordinarily ascribed to God when it is meer operations or privations that are meant and so the phrase is as they say ab effectu ad affectum When a man 1. Denyeth his aid 2. And actually hindereth it is a sign of nolition And so from Gods 1. Not causing 2. And his hindering he is said to Nill that Nothing that never shall be So much of the phrase 495. Now for application 1. Non-dare fidem aut gratiam not to convert is Nothing Therefore it is not Positively willed or decreed of of God or at least no man can prove it so to be So not-to give the Gospel the Spirit c. 496. Yet note that when mans sins have so forfeited such gifts that they are penally withheld this non-agency hath the denomination of a Moral Act. And also that the making of the Penal Law which maketh this Privation due as a punishment was a positive act of God and had a positive Volition But Negations not-penal are not so 497. 2. Not to hinder sin or to Permit sin barely as permission is Nothing As elsewhere I have proved Therefore it hath no Positive Decree or Will save that when it is penal and the execution of a Law that Law being a real natural being and the Jus thence resulting a real relation and the executive Privation quid Morale they are Willed and Decreed answerably as they are To permit a man to be spiritually Dead is not-to make him alive To permit his Darkness or Ignorance is not-to give him Light or Knowledge To permit his unbelief is not-to cause him to believe To permit his want of Love is not-to give him Love To permit his positive sins of Malignity or Carnality is but not-to cure and hinder them by Grace or Providence supposing the Natural support and concurse whith the Author of Nature giveth to all things 498. Therefore when Gods Acts in themselves are his Essence and all one and are diversified but by connotation of divers objects relatively and denominatively when he knoweth all things uno intuitu and willeth all that he willeth unica Volitione when nihil physicum is no denominating terminus of a physical act though so far as it may be called Moraliter id est Reputative aliquid as a Privation it may be said to denominate reputatively as a quasi aliquid and that which is moraliter vel imputative nihil cannot morally denominate when both Non dare spiritum gratiam fidem vitam c. and permittere infidelitatem peocatum c. are truly Nothing and even in Reputative Moral sense are wihil morale when they are not penal And as antecedent to sin they are not penal Judge now impartially whether 1. Those men deal not presumptuously with God 2. And troublesomely with his Church who assert the Being of Positive Decrees and Volitions in God about such Nullities and raise Controversies about the Reasons and the Order of them yea unto dangerous inferences when as 1. They can prove no such thing in God as they assert 2. Nay when we say so much to prove the contrary 499. And here consider whether Scotus himself assert not without all need or proof that God hath a positive knowledge and reflexive Volition of his own Non-Volition and so that a Nullity as to his own act must be the terminus of a positive act When that Nullity is neither God nor a Creature nor aliquid vel Dei vel Creaturae and so seemeth to be no denominating terminus of a distinct act Yet no doubt God is not to be called Ignorant of such Nullities or Idle for those are terms of privation If God be said either not to Know nothings or not to Wilâ— or Nill them it is because it signifieth his Perfection And no part of perfection is wanting to him But we must not place his perfection in a conformity to our imperfect mode of knowing or willing 500. For we dare not here presume peremptorily to determine Negatively that God doth not positively Will his own non-agency or non-volitions because we know how dark we are and distant from God and unfit to say any thing but certainties of him as certain truth But we abstain from the contrary assertion as utterly unproved and we will impute no needless acts to God as his Perfection Though we yield to reputative moral denominations 501. And so I contradict not the language of Aquinas 1. q. 14. 9. who saith that God knoweth such non-entities as never will be ut possibiliâ— And esse in potentia quamvis non in actu is more than nothing But remember that esse in potentia speaketh the esse Potentiae but the possibile is a pure nothing So that this is but to know the Potentia and not any thing else Yet no doubt but God knoweth all things as they are in himself that is he knoweth that he can do all things and knoweth what he knoweth and willeth but this is no esse creatum but God himself at least as to that which never will be But if any will call it a knowing of things possible which are nothings when God knoweth his own Power to make them we quarrel not with words while the sense is known 502. But remember that it is not the Knowledge but Decrees and Volitions of God that our enquiry now is about And Aquinas and his followers commonly say that Gods will goeth not so far as his knowledge and that he knoweth indeed mala ex bonâ— of which they are the privation as no doubt he doth so far as it is not imperfection to be said to know them or as they are objects of knowledge but yet that Mala neque vult neque â—â—lit sed tantum non-vult as Lombard said 503. Ockam Quodlib 3. q. 6. hath the question Utrum Cognitio intuâ—tiva potest esse de objecto cognito And he 1. concludeth that per potentiam divinam potest esse de objectâ— non existente but he meaneth only quod fuit vel fuerit 2. That naturally it cannot be And faith that Contradictio est quod visâ—o sit tamen illud quod videtur non sit in effectâ— nec esse possit Ideo contradictio est quod chimaera videatur intuitive fed non est contradictio quod illud quod videtur nihil sit in actu extra caâ—som suam dummodo possit esse in effectu vel aliquando fuerit in rerum natura Unde Deus ab aeterno videt omnes res factibiles tamen â—unc nullâ— fuerunt By which it is plain that he meaneth as Aquinas that it is not as Nothings but as Possibles and Futures they are known even by God saving that Aquinas and
just so here the question is Whether Gods Causation and Mans be more than Gods alone And I will not say that Gods is a Part nor yet that Mans is none nor that it is the same with Gods But that Gods acting and concurse are quite above the reach of Mortals 568. But here again note what I said even now 1. That it is no more sign of finiteness in God nor dishonour to him to be a limited or Partial Cause than to be no Cause and limited totally by suspension of the whole act And yet so he is as to all Possibles which he doth not make or move 2. And that it is his own free will only that thus limiteth him As it doth from giving all men more grace c. So that really here is matter of satisfaction 569. Though he offend me by making God the Cause of sin I will here cite the words of our Countrey-man Holkot Quodl lib. 2. qu. 1. Est sententia omnium Theologorum quod Deus est Causa immediata omnis rei productae sic quod omni creaturae agenti sive sit Natura sive Voluntas Deus coagit sic imaginandum est quod in omni actione creaturae qua aliquid producit Deus Creatura sunt duae causae Partiales illius producti Non sic imaginando quod Deus producit unam partem effectus creatura aliam ob hoc dicatur Causa partialis sed ideo quia concurrunt in agendo vel causando Unde tam causa universalis quam particularis dicitur communiter causa partialis ideo etiam Sol Homâ— sunt duae causae partiales hominis generandi similiter Vir Mulier Quia ad hoc quod aliquid dicitur causa partialis sufficit quod sit tale quod propter ipsum quoddam aliud vel quaedam alia res ponatur in esse sit quod illis positis res est aliquo istorum ablato res non fiet 570. Further I desire that it may be specially noted that God is our Creator in order of Nature before he is our Ruler And that Nature is before Morality obedience or sin And that God as Creator first setled the order of Nature so as that the Alteration of that Law or setled Order should not be ordinarily expected by us though he can alter it And therefore that man is man and hath a Natural Power of Self-determination and that God upholdeth him and concurreth as an Universal Cause belongeth to this fore-setled natural order and is presupposed to moral determinations and specifications either as from God or man 571. And note that to Good Acts we have need of more Help from God than this meer Natural Causality and Concurse And therefore God affordeth us more accordingly but not to all alike 572. It is further objected against this way that our making Reprobation to Infidelity Permission of sin not-giving faith c. to be no Acts of God cometh all to one as to mens sin and damnation because man cannot believe nor avoid sin without those Acts of Grace which God withholdeth Answ I confess it were all one if the supposition were true as it is not For we have proved after that man hath power without those acts of Grace which God suspendeth by that Common Grace which he giveth to do more good and forbear more evil than they do Of which in due place 573. It is objected also that while we make Gods Providence to fill the World with occasions of sin which he fore-knoweth men will take to their damnation yea as long as God could prevent all sin and save all souls and yet will not it cometh all to one which way soever you go in these Controversies I answer 1. Undoubtedly Gods Judgements are unsearchable But when we come into his Light we shall be perfectly reconciled to them all 2. And undoubtedly God doth whatsoever he will and all that he thought meet to Decree or Will shall come to pass in despight of sin 3. And when we have said all flesh and blood will be unsatisfied till faith and the will of God do satisfie us 4. But yet be it known to you that there is a great difference between Gods permitting sin after great means against it and his causing it Between the making of a free agent and putting life or death in his choice and his causing men unavoidably to sin and then to damn them for it The Holiness of Gods Nature will stand with the Being of sin by mans causing but not with Gods causing it And the Truth of Gods Word must be considered 574. If this were all one to Damn men unavoidably and to give them their free choice of Heaven or Hell in the means it is strange that so many Learned men as among the Jesuits Arminians Lutherans and Greeks do hold no other Grace at all but what leaveth man to such a free Choice could ever be so satisfied when others hold that the Elect have more SECT XVIII A Confutation of Dr. Twisse 's Digr 5. l. 2. sect 1. Vind. Grat. 575. I Come now to consider of what is said by them that go further about Gods will or Causality as to sin And because Dr. Twisse hath a peculiar Digression Vindic. Grat. li. 2. p. 1. Digr 4. I will somewhat animadvert upon it He beginneth Sententia nostra haec est Deum hactenus dici posse Velle peccatum quatenus vult ut peccatum â—iat viz. ipso permittente And so he maketh the question An Dens Velit ut peccatum eveniat ipso permittente Arminius thought God willed only his own Permission of the sin Twisse saith that he willed that sin should come to pass God permitting it Arminius his concession cannot be proved as I have shewed But Twisses must be disproved And 1. I will give you our Reasons against it Bonavent in 1. d. 46. q. 3. resolveth this question very plainly and truly Mala â—ieri nullatenus bonum esse potest sed bene occasio boni And shewing the difference between Causa Casus Occasio he saith that Causa est procedens intendens Casus pâ—ivat Intentionem sed non operationem Occasio privat utrumque And he distinguisheth Occasion into that which hath ratioâ—â—m Actiâ—i excitat agentem and that which hath but rationem passivi as one by anothers evil exciteth himself to do good And also between the evil and the ordinability to good And saith the evil is but the occasio passiva of the good and the ratio boni quod substernitur is occasio aliquo modo activa Vide locum 576. Let the Reader remember that what the Author saith of Gods Willing he also in the point of Predetermination saith of his working viz. that he Causeth as much as he willeth But I pass that by now because I have largely confuted it elsewhere And to speak to One is to speak to both 577. 1. All sober Christians are agreed on what side
naturally happy is proper to God therefore Adam was to be led to it freely by a Covenant An. To be happy necessarily and independently and primarily is proper to God But you can never prove it any contradiction or impossible for God to make a Creature naturally happy nor that there are not such § 9. Here the M. S. citeth some words of his Gibieuf making our Being in God initially and finally to be our state of amplitude and liberty and our going out from God to be our particularity and state of necessity as if we were pre-existent in God and our individuation ceased upon oâ—â— return into him as our End An. But these are Platonick Phantasms And Gibieuf who was a devout Oratorian and talketh too oft of our Deification as Benedictâ—â— de Benedictis Barbanson Baker and other Fryers that talk phanatically must be read with caution and exception and as the Soul need not fear too near a Union with God as the loss of its individuation so neither must it desire or hope for such § 10. M. S. An unchangeable state of Happiness in the love of God is called Eternal Life An. No doubt but that is called Eternal Life in the fullest sense which actually endureth to eternity as to that particular Subject And so 1. The life of Glory perfectively 2. And a confirmed state of Sanctity here initially are usually called Eternal Life But 3. Whether the lossable state which the Angels fell from and Adam fell from or that measure of Grace which the ancient Fathers thought the justified may fall from be never so called also I cannot prove § 11. M. S. Adam's promised Happiness was 1. Essential in this perfect holiness or love of God 2. Complemental in the enjoying God iâ— all the sanctified Creatures in that Paradise but not to be translated to Heaven which Christ only procureth us An. I inclined to that Opinion 26 years ago when I wrote the Aphorisms which you oppose But I now incline more to the contrary and rather think man should have been translated to Heaven as Henoch and Elias were upon many reasons which I now pass by Though I take it yet to be scarce certain to us § 12. M. S. The Holiness of God is his loving himself as his End And the third Person proceeding by a reflex act of the infinite Will and self-love of God is therefore called the Holy Spirit An. 1. This notion of Gods Holiness that it is his Self-love is not to be contemned It seemeth to be so with this limitation that you confine not his Holiness to this but take this only as the most eminent among the inadequate conceptions of it For his whole Transcendency in Being Life and Knowledg as being adoreable by the Creature and its End and the Fountain of all created Goodness and specially of Morality is also Gods Holiness 2. But the saying that God is his own End seemeth improper though tolerable if spoken but analogically For God neither hath nor is to himself a Cause nor an Effect a Beginning nor an End 3. That the third Person proceedeth by a reflex Act of the infinite Will many School-men boldly say And so some say that he is Gods actual self-self-love which is â—he same that you call his Holiness And some say that he is the Divine Will or Love considered in it self as distinct from Vital Power and Intellect or Wisdom But of this I have spoken more largely else-where § 13. M. S. Adam's promised Reward was to be fixed in an unchangeable state of pleasing God by this Holy Spirit not by infusing any new quality which should unchangeably fasten him to the Rule for no created thing can unchangeably keep a man from falling An. 1. The promise to Adam is very obscure But Happiness it must needs be and everlasting 2. But it is past my reach to conceive how the Spirit of God can fix man in perfect holiness without any fixing quality as it 's called on his Soul A constant Act the Soul must have And 1. If that Act be caused by any Divine Impulse disposing the Soul so to act then that disposition is a quality 2. And if there be not both disposition and habit then the Soul will not in Glory be habitually or qualitatively holy but only actually 3. And a habit-acting being perfecter than an act without a habit or inclination the Soul will be more imperfect in Glory than in this state of Grace 4. Operari sequitur esse God fitteth all his Creatures to their works And as when he will give Immortality he will give a Nature fit for Immortality even indissoluble and incorruptible so when he giveth perpetuity of Love he giveth a nature or habits fit for perpetual Action Christ saith A good Tree bringeth forth good fruit and an evil Tree evil fruit Make the Tree good and his fruit good 5. The Operations of Love in Glory should be ex potentia aut violentia aut neutra if there were no intrinsick disposition or inclination to them In a word it is a contradiction for a Soul to be perfectly holy and not have the perfection of inclination to its Acts. 3. But if the meaning were that no holy quality alone sufficeth without Gods Influx that were no more than what must be faid of every Creature without Divine Influx no Creature can be or operate a moment No created thing of it self without God can continue How then should it keep a man from falling But if the Soul have any more goodness of nature or inclination in it than the Devils have it must be a created thing or God himself If only God that proveth not a Saint to be himself better than a Devil as to nature or disposition but only that God in him is better His reason why the Sun is naturally fixed to its Operations but not a glorified Soul is § 14. M. S. that one is a natural and the other a voluntary Agent One as Gibieuf saith Non agit sed agitur the other doth agere non tantum agitur An. 1. Gibieuf and you were deceived in thinking that such naturals non agunt Passive matter doth not Act ex principio essentiali unless Dr. Glissons and Campanellas Doctrine hold true But the three Active Natures Intellectual Sensitive and Vegetative and so Fire and the Sun do ex principio Activo essentali agere but nothing doth Act without an Antecedent Influx to action from the first Cause in which it is passive For no Creature is Independent 2. Voluntas est quaedam Natura quamvis libera To move naturally only and not freely is proper to Agents meerly natural distinct from free But to move freely and yet from a fixed principle which shall infallibly determine the Soul to act freely is not a contradiction nor that which Gibieuf should deny to the glorified § 15. M. S. Man though a Creature is the first Cause of his own action He moveth and sets himself on work else he were
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 pà ssum habeat dispositiones actionâ— 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. pâ— 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. Valentiâ—â— 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
work but a grace of some other Providence 4. Consequently that there are men yea most who are no subjects of Christ nor under any Law of grace by Christ and yet not under the meer Law of Innocency and therefore are under some other Law who knows what or lawless 5. His damning all that perish meerly for Original Sin and its necessitated consequents which no man had ever the least power to avoid 6. His asserting that Angels and Adam had sufficient Grace and Free-will by which the Angels did and Adam could have persevered in Innocency and never sinned And yet that since the fall no ungodly man hath such help and free-will to any one better act than he doth nor the holiest person to any better than he doth but the best Saint is less able to do one better act than Adam was to keep all the Law 7. And so his consequent that it is properly impossible for any man in the World good or bad to do any better than he doth 8. That all they love God sincerely amore amicitia who love God and Justice propter se as amiable in himself though they love their filthiest sins so much better and all their fleshly worldly interest as that they have but an uneffectual wish that they could leave them 9. That we must not say that Christ giveth men either a Power to do better than they do nor yet that Grace of Fear which they have as being below him And yet must say that he giveth multitudes this uneffectually sincere love which never saveth them 10. That a Habit of true faith may be many years in a man before i◠justifie him when as the word true must mean some other faith or else that same will never justifie him which did not justifie him so long 11. His Antinomian or Phanatick distinguishing Law and Grace as if Christ had no Precepts or Laws but Operations or else his Gospel and Covenant in signis were no part of his Grace 12. And thence his fiction that all that which is done by any Grace ad posse and in obedience to Christs written Law is a Legal Righteousness of our own and no part of Christs Righteousness These with what else I have before disclaimed I dislike in Jansenius his way And yet think that a man that can well distinguish words from things and will not be deceived by ambiguous terms may shew that even he and his adversaries are not so far disagreed as they seem E. g. Whether Christ dyed for all They are agreed that he dyed to procure for all so much Grace or Mercy as he giveth them and that among these a conditional Pardon and Gift of Christ and Life is one c. And they agree that he dyed not with any absolute intent of giving them any more than he doth give them What remaineth then but the Controversie de nomine Whether this much be fitly called his Dying for all which Scripture putteth out of doubt The like I might say of many of the rest of the differences §. VIII I Conclude with this summary determination of all these Controversies to satisfie sober minds 1. GOD our CREATOUR is the Causa prima the spring and Master and end of NATURE and accordingly having antecedently made the creature in such variety as pleased him 1. He Actively affordeth them all that general Influx by which the Being given them is supported and they are sufficiently furnished for their several motions operations or receptions 2. And his Infinite Goodness and blessed Will is their common End in which they are all finally terminated but variously thereby felicitated according to the variety of their capacities 3. And as the Governour of the Universe he sapientially ordereth all things and conducteth them from their Beginning to their End but variously as they are various II. So GOD our REDEEMER having in Christ made all necessary preparations and Redeemed mankind as to what belonged to a Saviour to do in Person upon earth and having antecedently made an Universal Law of Grace 1. Doth Reveal his Mercy to lost sinners commonly but in various degrees as he pleaseth And doth concurr with his Gospel by vouchsafing a Common Gracious Help which hath an aptitude and tendency to the recovery of lost sinners 2. And as the final Infinite Good he felicitateth all that are by Grace conducted to him as their end and on the rest will have his absolute will fulfilled and will not be frustrate of his End though sinners may be frustrate of theirs and be unhappy 3. And as Rector he sapientially conducteth man in the way to this felicitating End antecedently by the Gospel which is the same in it self to all that have it and consequently as Judge by his Rewards In which supposing his foresaid commoner preventing Grace he consequently giveth men such further degrees of co-operating grace or help and spiritual mercy as in the use of former grace they are fit to receive and justly and penally denyeth that to others which they have made themselves immediately unapt for or uncapable of in the way of this ordinary common operation But withall as a free Owner and Benefactor who may do with his own as he list as he diversifieth the works of Nature though Nature keep a constant course except in Miracles so he freely diversifieth the gifts of his Grace external and Internal though as Rector and the common Benefactor of lost sinners he alter not the terms and means of Grace which he at first determined of And the equality and constancy of his Rectoral and Judicial distributions is no way inconsistent with the diversity which as a free Owner and Benefactor he maketh either in his Decrees or Gifts So that he is the Cause of All Good though not every way equally to All to make All Good and happy And he hath made man capable of Improving his Gifts to return him his own with Usury which he will require But he is the Author of no evil of sin nor punisheth any but for sin and as a means to that Good which is better than the Impunity of the sinner But he ruleth and causeth the Effects of sin when he causeth not the sin it self The Order of his Productions may be much perceived by man and are fit for our observation Of his own Knowledge and Volitions of them we know no more but that It is not formally the same thing as Knowledge and Will in Man that It is most perfect and incomprehensible that It is his Essential Intellect and Will variously named as variously connoting the effects and objects that To dispute of any other internal order priority or posteriority in God's Knowledge or Will as if he had particular Thoughts Ideas and Volitions as man hath or any thing in Him were Caused by the object and to vex the Church with contentions hereabout is a presumptuous arrogance and prophaneness which God will punish and good and sober men should tremble at and hate and not
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 â—â—â—dia nemini Deus destâ—â—â—â— 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 workâ— meritorious in point of commutative Justice yâ—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 themâ—nor that he that believeth is no fitter for Justification than â—n Iâ—fidel nor he that is holy any fitter for Heaven than the unholy nor yet that he that heareth meditateth prayeth aâ— 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 câ—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 differenceâ—ha Jacob from an Esau is not that Jacob before Gods Grace did will and râ—n deâ—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 iâ—super Deus in obsequium suum fle ctit ad actuâ— fidei obedientiâ— ita inclinat per spiritum suum sanctum verbo utentem ut voluntas per illam operationem non solum possit obedire â—ed obediat quoties obedit non ex se anâ— 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
and not have spoken evil of what you understand not But it 's better now than not at all Our judgement is as followeth I. That God hath three Essential Attributes which he expresseth and glorifieth in his works His Vital Power or Activity his Wisdom and his Will or Love That all these are and operate conunctly but yet each appeareth in eminency in its special effects That Gods Power eminently appeareth in the Being and Motion of things and his Wisdom eminently in the ORDER of things and his LOVE in the Goodness and Perfection of things That accordingly he is 1. The first Efficient 2. The chief Dirigent 3. The ultimate Final Cause of all II. That as to man he is Related to us 1. As our Creator the Cause of our Being Nature and natural Motion as the Fountain of Nature where Power is most Eminent 2. As our Governour and the God of ORDER and the Dirigent Cause where all Attributes concurr but Wisdom is most Eminent 3. As our most Bounteous Benefactor and most Amiable Good and End where Goodness or Love is most eminent III. That accordingly God is the Author of Nature Grace and Glory and since the fall of Natura Medela Sanitas of our Nature our ORDER and Gracious Government and of our Holiness and Happiness and so is our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier IV. That neither Man Angel or any Creature can possibly have any good but by Gods gift any more than they can make themselves or a World And this Gift must needs be free seeing the Creature hath nothing that is good but what it hath of God and nothing to give him that can add to him or but what is absolutely his own V. God is to us 1. Our OWNER 2. Our RULER 3. Our BENEFACTOR antecedently And no man can Merit of God as he is an Owner or a meer Benefactor for so he freely disposeth as he pleaseth of his own But only of God as a Ruler as is after opened VI. Therefore it is blasphemy to hold that man or Angel can Merit of God in point of proper Commutative Justice which giveth in exchange one thing for another to the benefit of the receiver For as is said God cannot Receive any addition to his perfection nor have we any thing but his own to give him Luke 17. 10. we are thus unprofitable servants as to a Proprietor in point of Commutation though the unprofitable servant be daâ—â—ned Matâ—h 25. 30. in another sense that is who improveth not his Masters stock to the benefit of himself and others and the pleasing of his Ruler VII Mans Duty therefore meriteth only in point of Governing distributive Justice And not every way neither in respect of that For Governing Justice is distinguished according to the Law that governeth us which is either 1. The Law of Innocency or 2. The Law of Grace And no man since the fall can Merit of God according to the Justice of the Law of Innocency which exacteth personal perfection VIII The Law of Grace is in its first notion a free gift of Christ Pardon and Right to Life Eternal by Adoption to all that will Accept it believingly as it is offered that is according to the nature of the Gift And this Gift or Conditional promise and pardon no man can merit For Christs perfect Righteousness and Sacrifice hath already merited it for us and so hath left us no such work to do Nor is there the least place for any humane Merit or Rewardableness from God but on supposition of 1. Christs Merits and Meritorious Righteousness 2. And of this free gift or Act of Oblivion and Life already made to us without our desert IX But yet this is not a meer Gift but also a true Law God is still our God and Governour and Christ is Lord of all Rom. 14. 9. He that is a King and Ruler hath his Laws and Judgement That which is a Gift in the first respect hath 1. It s condition 2. Many commanded duties and so is a Law of Grace in other respects And it is only in respect to this Law of Grace that man is Rewardable or can Merit X. The Gift is from God as Benefactor considered as Good and in it self But it is from God as Sapiential Rector quoad ordinâ—m conferendi as to the Order and Reason why one man rather than another receiveth it So that we Merit not of God as Benefactor nor as Rector by the Law of Innocency or Works nor yet as to the Value or Goodness of the Benefit which is a free Gift But only of God as Rector by the Law of Grace which regulateth the Reception of his free gifts merited by the perfect Righteousness of Christ and so only as to the Order and Reason why one more than another receiveth that free gift As if a Father hath many Sons One living obediently Others playing the prodigals and upon his freely-offered pardon and grace one receiveth it thankfully and the other refuseth it scornfully Here both the obedient and the penitent son have all upon free gift as to Commutative Justice but on various terms And yet both merit in point of paternal Governing Justice but very differently One meriteth of strict Fatherly Justice The other only of a forgiving Father quite on other terms And it is a Comparative Merit by which he is fitter for pardon than the Sons that despise it and spit in the Fathers face XI God as a Benefactor and a Governour giveth some benefits Antecedently to any duty of man And these are never a Reward to us but of Christ perhaps in some instances As Legislation so the benefits of it and that attend it are before Reward and Judgement But other benefits are given by God both as Benefactor and Legislator upon condition of some duty of ours in the Antecedent gift and so in the Judicial sentence and execution that duty is rendered as the reason of our actual Right to them And these are a Reward XII Our first Grace is no Reward nor merited because it antecedeth all conditional duty of ours XIII Our first Reception of Right to Christ Pardon and Life being given on the condition of penitent Acceptance in faith may be called a Reward because they are consequent gifts on condition But because the condition is so slender a thing as the thankful Acceptance of a free gift Divines agree not of the fitness of the name Reward and Merit while they wholly agree about the thing But our after-mercies and final Glory being promised on the condition of such a faith as worketh by Love obedience and improvement of Gods mercies in good works and patience perseverance and conquest of the Flesh the World and the Devil therefore they have more unanimously agreed not only de re but that the names of Reward and Rewardableness or Merit and Worthiness are here fit but used only in the fore explained sense XIV And though the Scripture oftest use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
that we are commanded not only Thankfully to Accept but Thankfully to obey our Lord Redeemer and Saviour Lib. No. P. Quest 3. Date you deny that life or death eternal dependeth on this as a Condition or Moral means and that we shall be judged according to it Lib. No. I deny it not P. Quest 4. Is it not a Law that thus commandeth us and by which we must be judged Lib. Yes If it were no Law there were no duty and sin in belief and unbelief P. Quest 5. Is not a man so far just and justifyable by that Law as he keepeth it and justifyable against the charge of being one that must be Damned by producing the Condition of pardon and life performed Lib. Yes I deny it not P. Quest 6. And doth not the same Law virtually justifie the performer now whom it will justifie as the Rule of Judgement at last Lib. Yes no doubt P. Quest 7. And is not the Name of Righteousness many score times given in Scripture to our own actions done by Grace and measured by the New Covenant Lib. Yes I cannot deny it P. Why then while you deny neither Name nor Thing what wrangle you about And let me plainly tell you that such men as you by indiscreet ever-doing are not the least of Satans instruments to bring the Gospel under scandal and harden the world in Infidelity and the scorn of Christ while you would so describe the Christian Religion as if this were the very heart and summ of it Believe that all the Elect have fulfilled perfectly all Gods Law by another and that Christ did it as personating each of them and therefore no crime of their own is imputable to them nor any kind or degree of Goodness or Righteousness in and of themselves is at least required of God as any means or condition of their present or future justification by their Judge or as having any hand therein As if God were become indifferent what we all are so that Christ be but Righteous for us when as it was Christs grand design to restore lapsed man to God which he doth not only by Relative benefits but by Renewing them to his Image in love and holy obedience Lib. Have you not lately and oft been told that holiness and obedience are necessary now but it is to other Ends than to justifie us as for Cratitude c. P. 1. We easily grant it is for other Ends than Christs Merits were and not to justifie us as they do nor in that Causality They are not to purchase for us a free gift of pardon and life nor the Holy Ghost c. as Christ did 2. But again tell me Hath not Christ a Law that commandeth our obedience to those ends as Gratitude which you mention And is not the keeping that Law a thing that the same Law will so far justifie us for Yea a Condition that life dependeth on And if the Cause in Judgement be Have you kept it or not must you not in that be accordingly Justified or Condemned Give over cavilling against plain necessary truth Lib. By this you will fall in with the Papists who take Justification to be partly by Christs Righteousness and partly by our own and partly in pardon and partly in faith and holiness P. Tell not me of the Names of Papists or any to frighten me from plain Scripture truth 1. Why may not I rather say Why go you from all the antient Writers and Churches even Augustine himself by your new and contrary opinion Was true Justification unknown for so many hundred years after the Apostles 2. The most zealous Antipapists do confess that some Texts of Scripture do so take the word Justification And multitudes of Texts so take the words Righteous and Righteousness And he that will impartially consider them may find that more Texts than are by us so confessed do by Justifying mean Making us Just and so Accounting us on all these causes conjunct 1. As being Redeemed by Christs Merits 2. And freely pardoned 3. And having Right to life 4. And renewed to Gods love and Image 5. And so justifyable at the Bar of Grace by the Law of faith and liberty 3. And the reality of all the Matter of this Doctrine is past doubt if the Controversie de nomine Justificationis were not so decided CHAP. IV. Whether the Gospel be a Law of Christ Lib. III. YOu bring in your doctrine of personal Righteousness to Justification by feigning Christ to have made a new Law whereas the Gospel is but a Doctrine History and Promise and not a Law and so no Rule of Righteousness and Judgement And this many Protestants have asserted P. I have read some such sayings in some men And some I think meant no more but that Christ did only expound and not add to the Law of Nature called by them the Moral Law And these I have excused for their unhappy kind of expression But for the rest that mean as the words sound universally they subvert Christianity and as the Arrians denyed Christs Godhead so do they his Office and Government and are somewhat worse than the Quakers who say that the Spirit within us is the Law and Rule of Christ which is better than none I pray answer me Quest 1. Is Christ the King and Ruler of the Church Lib. Yes P. Quest 2. Is not Legislation the first and principal part of Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 3. Do not they then that deny Christs Legislation deny his Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 4. Is it not essential to Christ as Christ the name signifying Relatively his Office to be King Lib. Yes P. Quest 5. Do they not then by this deny Christ to be Christ Lib. No for they confess that he hath a Law but not that he made any since his birth P. We grant 1. That the Law of Nature now is His Law 2. And that the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam after the fall was his Law 3. And Moses Law was partly his But you will not say that we are under this last nor I hope that he hath no other than the two first Lib. Why what other can you prove P. It is the Name or the Thing that you deny for you use to confound the cases 1. Whether the name be fit judge by these Texts Gal. 6. 2. Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ James 1. 25. The perfect Law of Liberty Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 3. 27. Boasting is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of faith Mic. 4. 2. For the Law shall go out of Zion c. So Isa 2. 3. 8. 16 20. 42. 41. The Isles shall wait for his Law 1 Cor. 9. 21. We are under the Law to Christ Heb. 8. 10 16. I will put my Laws into their minds and hearts James 4. 12. There is one Law-giver c. Isa 33.
the Synod of Dort and been as far from Tyranny as they should have been matters had never come so oft to Blood or Tumult among them as they have done nor Grotius and the Arminians had so much to say against them I will not meddle with the matters of this Island in our times seeing they sufficiently speak themselves But how cometh this Clergie Tyranny to be so common so long and so powerful in the World to make Parties and draw Princes into Wars 1. It must be remembred that true Godliness is not common in the World Too many take up Christianity as in the Eastern parts the posterity of the old famous Christians are now Mahometans 2. The Gospel and true Spirit of Christianity is contrary to the minds and worldly interests of carnal ambitious covetous voluptuous men So that they profess a Religion which their own hearts abhorr as to its serious practice 3. Every unrenewed man hath such a worldly fleshly nature and is voluptuous proud and covetous And none of them love to be reproved or crossed in their way 4. Church Honours Dignities and great Revenues and Clergie-ease in an idle life are a great bait or temptation to a carnal mind And the worse men are the more they will desire and seek Church preferments and make all the friends they can to get them And the more self-denying men will not do so but perhaps avoid them 5. The diligent seekers are liker to obtain and find than the neglecters and avoiders And so the Churches to be usually in the power of the worser sort of men and Religion to be under the Government of its enemies 6. Men in power and the Major Vote have great advantage to execute their own wills and to put Laws on others and bring them under what Characters they please and so to affix the names of Hereticks or Schismaticks on them if they fulfil not all their wills yea to silence them and suppress their Writings and make them to be little understood in the World yea or by their neighbours round about them 7. The Vulgar as they are for the Conquerour in the Wars so usually are for the upper and stronger side in peace that have Power to hurt them and have the Major Vote And also easily believe them and think men that suffer are like to be guilty of what they are accused 8. Godliness being against a worldly mind and interest and the Rabble usually for it hence ariseth a Conspiracy of carnal Clergie-men and the Rabble against those that are most seriously Godly as if they were their enemies and a surly proud intractable sort of people As Sulpitius Severus describeth Ithacius and his followers and even Mr. Hooker out of him Eccl. Pol. Praefat. 9. Such men in Power never want flatterers at their ears to praise all that they do and to exasperate them by slandering and reviling sufferers 10. The long possession since the dayes of Constantine of Great Places and Power by the Clergie within the Roman Empire now the Greek and Latine Churches doth seem to justifie mens Usurpations and Tyranny and make all dissenters seem singular and Schismatical which was and is the Papal strength against the Reformed 11. Too many of the Secular Rulers of the World have much of the same Spirit And find also their interests so twisted in shew with the Papal Clergies that they dare not cross them 12. The faults of those that suffer by them in doctrine and imprudent carriages use to give them great advantage and make all their odious characters and names of them believed and received as the case of the Waldenses and of the Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany too fully prove II. The second Rank of Church-disturbers are DOGMATISTS or men that profess exceeding zeal for ORTHODOX Opinions or Theological Knowledge And thus three instances tell us of the Cause of our Calamities 1. That of Gnostick and Heretical persons who account every new Conceit of theirs to be worthy the propagating even at the rate of Theological Wars and Church Confusions and cry out But the Truth and sell it not when it is some error of their own or some unprofitable or unnecessary notion 2. The case of the Romanists to say nothing of all the old contentious Bishops and Councils and the controversies about Persona and Hypostasis and about many words and forms of speech What do the Roman Councils for many hundred years last but on pretence of preserving the faith uncorrupted multiply divisions and new Articles of faith quoad nos And while they cry down most of Christs Church as Heretical or greatly erroneous they have run themselves into the grossest errors almost that humane nature is capable of even to the making it necessary to salvation to deny our own and all the sound mens senses in the World in the case of Transubstantiation 3. The case of the Schoolmen and such other Disputing Militant Theologues who have spun out the Doctrine of Christianity into so many Spiders Webs and filled the World with so many Volumes of Controversies as are so many Engines of contention hatred and division And I would our Protestant Churches Lutherans and Calvinists had not too great a number of such men as are far short of the Schoolmens subtilty but much exceed them in the enviousness of their zeal and the bitterness and revilings of their disputes more openly serving the Prince of hatred against the Cause of Love and Peace O how many famous Disputers in Schools Pulpit and Press do little know what Spirit they are of and what reward they must expect of Christ for making odious his Servants destroying Love and dividing his Kingdom How many such have their renown as little to their true comfort as Alexanders and Caesars for their bloody Wars But how cometh this Dogmatical Zeal so to prevail Consider 1. Nature it self is Delighted in Knowing much Else Satan had not made it Eves temptation Without Grace even Theological Speculations may be very pleasing to mens minds Morality and Holiness is principally seated in the Will 2. Satan hath here a far fairer bait than worldly Wealth and Pleasures and Honours to tempt men and steal away their hearts from that Love and Practice which is Holiness indeed All men are bound to Love Gods Word and his Truth must be precious to us all and now it is easie for the hypocritical Dogmatist to take up here and make himself a Religion of Zeal for those opinions which he entitleth God to And O that I could speak this loud enough to awaken the Learned World of Disputers to so much jealousie of their own hearts as is necessary to their own safety as well as to the Churches peace This thing called Orthodoxness Truth and Right-believing precious in it self if it be what it is called is made by Satan an ordinary means to deceive Learned men and keep them from a holy and heavenly mind and life when grosser cheats would be less effectual
the believing sinner may stand before this righteous and holy God is to affirm the eternal damnation of all the World VII The Covenant mentioned justifieth not but declareth our Justification which is the immediate proper effect of Christ's righteousness VIII Never any man in his wits affirmed that the righteousness of Christ is the formal cause of our Justification Give us but leave to call it the material cause or the meritorious cause immediately and properly of Justification c. Some will think that they are great and heinous errors which either these words or some of mine that seem contrary import But I must crave leave here to follow my usual method in separating the Controversies de re de nomine and then I think that even these strange words prove not him and me at so great a distance as they seem to intimate For I grant him as followeth de re 1. That God hath such a decree of Election or eternal purpose as he describeth and calleth the Constitution of the Covenant 2. That God doth wisely and graciously execute this Decree 3. That all Grace and Mercy is given by Christ And therefore so far as Mercy is common Christ is the common cause of it 4. That Christ himself is a blessing or gift decreed and also freely given by God even from his love to the World Joh. 3. 16. 5. That God's electing Act or Decree as in him hath no condition nor his purpose to give Christ as a Saviour to mankind 6. On our part no condition is required either that God may elect us or that the first promise of a Saviour be made or that Christ come into the World or that he fulfill all righteousness or that he obey or die or rise or be glorified or come to judgment or raise the dead or that he enact it as his Law of Grace that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned 7. Nor is any condition on our part necessary absolutely necessitate medii that the Gospel or the first Grace yea the first special Grace be given us 8. That Christ by his suffering and merits hath procured to his elect not only pardon and life if they believe and obey him but Grace to cause them effectually and infallibly to believe repent obey and persevere 9. That no man can or will believe and repent but by his Grace 10. That to give men a promise of pardon and life if they will believe repent and obey the Gospel is not the whole of Christ's Grace to any but where-ever he giveth this he giveth also much means and gracious help by which men may do better than they do and so be more prepared for his further Grace 11. That if God only gave men a promise of pardon if they believe and gave them no Grace to enable or help them to believe it would be no saving Covenant 12. God did not repeal his Law of Innocency or as he had rather call it of Perfection nor did properly dispense with or relax the preceptive part of it Nor is it absolutely ceased as to a capable subject And therefore Christ was bound to perfection 13. God would not have his Law to be without the honour of the perfect performance of mans Mediator though it be violated by us all 14. No man is saved or justified but by the proper merit of Christ's perfect obedience yea and his habitual holiness and satisfactory sufferings advanced in dignity by his divine perfection 15. This merit as related to us supposeth that Christ as a Sponsor was the second Adam the Root of the justified the reconciling Mediator who obeyed perfectly with that intent that by his obedience we might be justified and who suffered for our sins in our room and stead and so was in tantum our Vicarius poenae as some phrase it or substitute and was made a curse for us that we might be healed by his stripes as he was obedient that his righteousness might be the reason as a meritorious cause of our Justification which supposeth the relation of an undertaking Redeemer in our nature doing this and in our stead so far forth as that therefore perfect obedience should not be necessary to be performed by our selves And righteousness therefore is imputed to us that is we are truly reputed righteous because we as believing members of Christ have right to impunity and life as merited by his righteousness and freely given to all penitent believers And Christ's own righteousness may be said so far to be imputed to us as to be reckoned or reputed the meritorious cause of our right or justification as aforesaid Thus far we are agreed de re And then de nomine I willingly leave men to their way of speech 1. If he will call God's Decree his Covenant in Constitution 2. If he will call the execution of his Decree his Covenant in execution 3. If he will call nothing else the Covenant of Grace or at least nothing of narrower extent but what comprehendeth God's eternal Decrees and the promise and gift of a Redeemer and so of the rest I cannot help it his language is his own But I shall tell you further my thoughts de re de nomine 1. De re 1. God's eternal decrees purposes or election give no one right to Christ Pardon or Life and so justifie no man 2. The execution of God's Decrees yea of Election hath many Acts besides Justification 3. It must therefore be some transient Act done in time ad extra by which God justifieth men 4. There are divers such acts concurring in several sorts of causality or respect 5. Christ's meritorious righteousness and satisfaction are the sole proper immediate causemeritorious of all the Grace or Mercy procured and given by him there being no other meritorious cause of the same kind either more immediate or at all co-ordinate and copartner with him 6. As Christ giveth us Holiness qualitative and active by the real operation of his Spirit though he merited it immediately himself so doth he give us right to impunity to the further Grace of the Spirit and to Glory by the instrumentality of his Covenant as by a Testament Deed of Gift or Law of Grace Which by signifying God's donative will doth not first declare us justified or to have the foresaid right to Christ and Life but doth first give us instrumentally that right and so immediately justify us And God's will giveth us not right as secret or of it self but by such instrumental signification 7. God hath signified his will to us partly by absolute gifts and promises and partly by conditional that such there are he that denieth must deny much of the Scripture Christ was absolutely given to fallen mankind for a Redeemer and so was the Conditional Law or Covenant of Grace and many other mercies But he hath made and recorded a conditional Gift of Christ as in special Union to be our
God do intendere finem and what is his End The Order and Objects opened p. 57. Sect. 16. What Election and Reprobation are The order of the Decrees called Reprobation and of the Objects Of Negations of Decree p. 66. An Additional Explication of Divine Nolitions p. 76. Sect. 17. Whether God Will Decree or Cause Sin Five Acts of God in and about Sin What Sin is Many wayes God can cause the same thing that the sinner causeth and so fulfil his Decrees without Willing or Causing the Sin Objections answered God freely not idlely or impotently restraineth his own possible operations sometimes that he do not such or such an act at all and sometime that he do but so much towards it and no more Whether God be ever Causa partialis p. 84. Sect. 18. A Confutation of Dr. Twisses Digress 5. li. 2. sect 1. Vindic. Gratiae where he asserteth that God Willeth the existence of Sin and that sins are a medium sua natura summe unice conducibile to the Glorification of his Mercy and Justice p. 92. Sect. 19. The same Doctrine in Rutherford de Providentia confuted Whether things be good because God willeth them or willed by him because good resolved Whether there were eternal rationes boni mali Dr. Field vindicated p. 106. Sect. 20. The old Doctrine of Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius thought by some Jesuits too rigid but indeed Conciliatory for absolute Election to Faith and so to Salvation and for no reprobating Decree but only of Punishment for Sin foreseen but not decreed Prosper ad Cap. Gall. Sentent translated p. 115. Sect. 21. The summ of Prospers Answer to Vincent 16. Object p. 118. Sect. 22. Fulgentius words to the same sense p. 121. Sect. 23. The healing Doctrine and Concessions of many called Calvinists of the Synod of Dort Pet. Molinaeus c. p. 124. Sect. 24. And of Petr. á Sancto Joseph Suarez Ruiz c. on the other side especially Bellarmines at large and others p. 127. ERRATA PART 1. pag. 10. l. 38. in marg for Reason Being r. Relation being p. 24. l. 25. r. those Causes l. 26. r. first Case p. 27. l. 2. r. Of predetermination Reader Pain and Greater business forbad me to gather the Errata some are gathered by a Friend out of the first Book many more I must leave to your ingenuity I see in the Premonition p. 4. l. 22. for Mr. W. Mr. D. l. 47. for Armatus Annatus Also Dial. 11. p. 231. l. 30. r. refuse Dial. 13. p. 291. l. 13. for not r. done Catholick Theologie The First BOOK PACIFYING PRINCIPLES Collected from the common Notices of Nature the certain Oracles of GOD in the Holy Scriptures and the common Consent of Christians For the RECONCILING OF THE CHURCH-DIVIDING and DESTROYING CONTROVERSIES especially about PREDESTINATION PROVIDENCE GRACE and FREE-WILL REDEMPTION JUSTIFICATION FAITH MERIT WORKS CERTAINTY OF SALVATION PERSEVERANCE and many others In Three Parts I. Of Gods Nature Knowledge Decrees and Providence about Sin with Mans Free-will as the Objects of the former II. Of Gods GOVERNMENT and MORAL Works III. Of Gods Operations on Mans Soul By RICHARD BAXTER An earnest Desirer of the UNITY LOVE and PEACE of Christians For endeavouring of which he expecteth with resolved Patience still to undergo the Censures Slanders and Cruelties of IGNORANCE PRIDE and MALICE from all that are possessed by the Wisdom and Zeal which are from beneath Earthly Sensual and Devilish the Causes of Confusion and every evil work James 3. 14 15 16. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in S t. Pauls Church-yard MDCLXXV The First Part OF THE NATURE KNOWLEDGE WILL AND DECREES of GOD As far as is needful to the intended CONCILIATION and CONCORD SECT I. Of our Knowledge of God as here attainable THough it be about the Knowledge Will and Decrees of God that our Controversies are agitated yet because the consequent Verities are scarce ever well understood without the understanding of the Antecedents out of which the Consequents arise and without the just order place and respect which the later have unto the former and unless things be understood in their true Method I will therefore expose my self to the obloquy of those who will call it Over-doing so far as to premise somewhat of the Deity it self But not what is necessary to the full explication of the Divine Attributes as we are capable as must be in a Method of Theologie which I have attempted elsewhere but only so much as lyeth under our Controverted Subject And when I have done that I shall leave the rest Thes 1. To Know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent is Life Eternal * * * John 17. 3. Bradward l. 1. c. 11. p. 198. The first necessary incomplex Principle is God and the first complex simply is of God Deus est c. But yet it is not to us the primum cognitum 2. To †††Exodus 20. know GOD is to know his Being Nature and Relations For though those Relations that are to Man be not essential to his Divine Nature yet are they essentially contained in the signification of the name GOD as he is the object of our Faith and Religion For to be OUR GOD doth speak his Relations to us as well as his Nature As the name KING and FATHER doth among men 3. We neither have nor can have here in flesh any one proper formal Conception of the Divine Nature that is formally suited to the truth in the object But only Metaphorical or Analogical Conceptions borrowed from things better known 4. Yet nothing beyond sense at least is so certainly known as GOD so far as we can reach though nothing be less perfectly or more defectively known or less comprehended Even as we know nothing Visible more certainly than the Sun and yet comprehend nothing Visible less 5. It is not true which many great Metaphysicians assert that the Quiddity of God is totally unknown to us For then it could not be life eternal to know him nor would a meer Negative knowledge cause in us a sufficient Positive Love or Joy or Trust c. But to know that we cannot know him would but inferr that we cannot Love him For we Love not an unknown Good 6. Nor is it true that Pet. Hurtado de Mendoza in fine Disput and some others say that the Notions of Life and Intellect are all that we have of the Quiddity of God and that the Divine Will is not a Quidditative notion 7. God is here seen in the Glass of his Works with the Revelation of his Word and Spirit And from these works we must borrow our conceptions * * * The doubt is How Imperfect works can notifie the perfect God And the Schoolmen manage it as an insuperable difficulty Whether God could have made the World or any thing better than it is If you will pardon me for making
Possible and Future we must be very fearful and not unreverent and rash in ascribing such a dance or lusus of notions to God unless as used with great impropriety after the manner of weak man 70. God knoweth his own Power Knowledge and Will And so knoweth what he can do what he knoweth to be eligible and what he will do And if any will call this knowledge of God by the name of the Possibility or Futurity of the thing known or will denominate Nothing as an Imaginary something as Possible and Future relatively from Gods Power Will or Knowledge Let them remember 1. That Nothing hath no relation 2. That properly they should but give the denomination to that which is that is to Gods Power Will and Knowledge and say God Can e. g. make a World or Will do it and not to that which is not And when they say that e. g. the world is eternally possible or future they can justly mean no more but that God can and will make it 3. And that this is but lis de nomine and not a real difference whether futurition be thus from Eternity 71. And especially let them remember that nothing in God is Caused There are no effects in God Therefore as there is nothing from Eternity but God and therefore possibility and futurition must needs be names of God himself or some Divine perfection or conception which is himself if they be said to be eternal so such Possibility and futurity can have no eternal cause For God hath no Cause nor any thing in God 72. If the Futurity of sin must have an eternal Cause then God causeth Pennot l. 3. c. 14. citeth many Fathers saying that things are not future because fore-known but fore-known because future And Augustine Greg. M. Boetius Ansâ—lm Lomb. Aquin. saying the contrary And he citeth the four wayes of the Schoolmens reconciling them and concludeth that in regard of the Creatures being the first is true and in regard of free acts the second I think that in regard of sin neither is true Unless Because signifie only rationem denominationis objectivam And even if so it is dubious whether they be not simultaneous as Relations are the futurity of all sin But that is not so For none is the Cause that sin will be but he that mediately or immediately causeth the being of it when it is 73. Imagine per possibile vel impossibile that a thousand years hence a free created agent that can do otherwise will cause such an act It may be denominated Future without the taking in of any antecedent cause into the notion It is called Future because it will be and not because there is at present existent any cause from whence it will be mediately or immediately 74. Though Futurity be Nothing yet this Proposition is something This or that Will be And to know the futurity of a thing is most properly to know the truth of that proposition It will be 75. God knoweth not by Propositions for that is the imperfect mode of man But he knoweth Propositions when they are existent as humane instruments or conceptions And therefore he knoweth the truth of all true propositions of futurity 76. What man knoweth by Propositions God knoweth otherwise by a more transcendent perfect but incomprehensible way Therefore God knoweth that every thing will be which will be 77. There were â—o Propositions from Eternity For man that useth them was not And God useth them not though he know them as used by man Therefore this proposition Hoc futurum est was not from Eternity Because non entis non sunt affectiones 78. But if there had been such Propositions from Eternity as The world will be made Christ will be incarnate c. they would have been true And so the eternal Futurity of things as commonly disputed of can be nothing but the Eternal Verity of a Proposition de futuritione which was no proposition because then there was none only in time mans brain Imagineth or feigneth that then there might have been Creatures who might have used propositions de futuritione rerum which if they had they would have been true 79. All Verity is either 1. Rei 2. Conceptus 3. Expressionis And 1. Ubi non est Res ibi non est Veritas Rei The thing which was not from Eternity was not a True Thing from Eternity 2. The Divine knowledge that such and such things will be was True from Eternity by an incomprehensible way above propositions 3. If there had been any Propositions Mental or Verbal de rerum futuritione they would have been true And this is all that can truly be said of the Eternity of futurition 80. Only this being added that so far as Gods will was the first Cause determining of any thing that will be so far he was eternally the Cause of the truth of this proposition Hoc erit when such a proposition shall be 81. But where Gods Will is not the first cause of the Thing which will be there it is not his causing the truth of the proposition that is the cause that it will be Though his Knowledge be a medium from whence it may Logically be inferred that it will be 82. Moreover whatever is from eternity must be Res or modus rei or Relatio But from Eternity there is no Res futura no modus rei futurae no Relatio rei futurae * * * I know that the Judicious Greg. Arim. 1. d. 28. q. 3. pag. 122 c. asserteth these four things 1. That aliquid potest reserri realiter ad non ens 2. Non ens potest realiter referri ad ens 3. Quod Deus aeternaliter referebatur ad Creaturam quae non erat 4. Quod Deus realiter reserlur ad creaturam ex tempore And his reasons are very considerable for three of them But as to the second which concerneth our case he faileth For 1. his first reason that relations are ever mutual or convertible I deny his proof as vain as to the reality of the relation 2. And that res non existens is causa I deny Fuit causa non est 2. And remember that he instanceth only in things as caused or foreknown Sin therefore can be called future but as fore-known 3. Remember that his Master Ockam hath oft in Quodl proved that Relations are Nothing besides the quid absolution and Reason Being nothing but Comparabilitas all is but to say that God fore-knew what would be and therefore had there been such a proposition from Eternity as This will be it had been true Vid. Aquin. 1. p. d. 38. q. 1. a. 1. Bonav ib. a. 1. q. 1. 2. Durand 1. d. 38. q. 1. Scot. ib. q. 1. Cajet Bannes Rip Zumel Nazar Molin Vasqu Arrub. c. 1. p. q. 14. a. 8. Greg. Valent. 1. p. d. 1. q. 14. punc 5. s 3. Alvar. de Auxil disp 16. Snarez de Aâ—xil l. 1. c. 13.
Ledesm de Aâ—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 bonitaâ—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
in Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud and which you may still hear in all parties in their ignorant censures of one another by the names of Calvinists and Arminians And yet the Church of Rome is justly condemned by us for its uncharitable Cruelty against Dissenters when thus we thereby condemn our selves SECT VIII More of Gods Fore-knowledge and of Permission of Sin 140. BUt to leave this Wilderness and speak more of things certain or such as belong to us in our measure to know It is certainly unknown to mortals formally what knowledge is in God as is aforesaid and much more in what Manner he knoweth either Futures or Contingents or any Creatures ex parte scientis 141. If any particular manner therefore offer it self to your minds as that which probably seemeth to be the right it may afford you reason therefore to suspect that it is not the right Because it is certain that the Manner is past our reach And what man can comprehend is infinitely below God 142. If the Case of Aarons Sons the Bethshemites Uzzah Uzziah and others that presumed too boldly to meddle with holy Rituals and Ceremonies was so dreadful what is theirs that profanely toss Gods own Name and pretend to know that of himself which they know not and turn his secrets profanely into matter of Contention against the Churches of Christ 143. Either Futurity as such is Intelligible in it self to God or else the things future are Intelligible as in Eternity or else futurity is intelligible only in its Causes We can think of no other way but God hath more than we can think of If it be Intelligible in it self or as things are In Eternity the Controversie is mostly ended The perfection of Gods understanding then is proof enough that he knoweth all that is intelligible But if it be only in the Causes it is either as those Cases necessarily will Cause or else as freely and contingently The first Cause reacheth Pennottus propugn l. 3. c. 11. n. 1. noteth that even the reconciling of the certainty of Divine pre-science with contingency was quite past the power of mans understanding in this life in the opinion of these subtile Schoolmen Gabriel 1. d. 38. q. 1. a. 2. Ockâ—m ibid. q. 1. Marsil 1. q. 40. How much more difficult will it be to reconcile Gods Dâ—crees and most of all his premotion if pre-determining with contingency Plainly and honestly saith Bonaventure in few words in 1. d. 37. q. 2. Divina Cognitio quia à re non Causatur nec dependet ideo potest esse certa de re contingenti not our Controversie For sin hath no necessitating Cause but free The second is the same difficulty with that in question viz. How God knoweth that a free undetermined Cause mans Will will this or that way determine it self Nothing is knowable to us as certain from an uncertain cause which hath no antecedent reason to prove its future self-determination to this more than to that 144. If we go to the Jesuites Scientia Media as it deserveth not that name so it is insufficient to this use For all those circumstances in which God sore-knoweth that the will shall determine it self are such as necessitate the will so to do or not If they say the first they give away their own cause and the cause of Religion speaking of sinful Volitions If the latter the case is still as difficult and the same as if they had never mentioned those circumstances or conditional knowledge viz. How God knoweth that a will still free and not necessitated will choose sin rather than duty For from non-necessitating circumstances it followeth not 145. If we go the way of Scotus and say that he fore-knoweth it in the determination of his own will de rerum futuritione either that will is supposed to be a Causing efficient will or not If it be it reacheth not the case of sin seeing Gods will doth cause no sin But if not then still the difficulty is the same as before How God that willeth the Event but causeth it not doth know that his Will shall be done For it is not from the Cause to the Effect To say that his own Immutability proveth it is no proof For if his Immutability Cause not the Effect ariseth not from it And to say that his Omnipotency or Absoluteness inferreth it is no proof unless his Omnipotency Cause it And to say that it followeth Logically Necessitate Consequentiae though not Causally necessitate effecti vel consequentis that what God willeth to be shall be is most certain And so is it from his fore-knowledge which medium yet the Scotists say is here insufficient But that is because it is here supposed that what God so knoweth or willeth to be future he willeth to be future by the causation of some Cause for he willeth not any thing to be without a Cause Besides that still sin is not willed by him to be future at all * * * See in Alliaco after cited the notable reasons by which the Nominals confute Scotus in this opinion which yet Dr. Twisse Praef. ad l. de scient Med. saith did first invite him to School-divinity 146. And here I am to confute the foresaid reason of Rada recited Thes 130. God saith he fore-knoweth sin in that he knoweth that he decreeth to permit it And Dr. Twiss often saith that all confess that Permission certainly inferreth the event of the thing permitted I answer †††This also Annatus de Scient Media cont Twiss granteth him cap. 5. §. 1. But not as ex ratione permissionis but by hypothetical Connotation Because we use the word Permission about that which aliunde will be if permitted So that it is a Compound notion when thus used There is not so much as any great appearance of the Truth of the consequence unless limited To Permit is nothing but non-impedire not to hinder And if a thing will come to pass because it is not hindered then the world would have been made without God and man saved without God if he would not hinder it Try if your work will be done meerly by your not hindering it 147. Indeed the word Permission is oft used as a complicate notion signifying both the permission and the event permitted But that 's nothing to the nature of proper permission it self 148. A man may be hindered 1. Morally and that 1. By Commands 2. By Threats 3. By Promise and perswasion 4. By Gifts 5. By terrifying stripes on himself or others In all these respects God permitteth not sin but hindereth it by them all 149. 2. Or a man may be hindered Physically And that 1. By toâ—al restraint and disabling 2. Or by lesser impediments which make not the act impossible but difficult God doth not alwayes thus hinder sin and therefore thus he permitteth it He doth not disable the sinner e. g. to lie And he doth not alwayes render it difficult to
him But it followeth not necessarily that this will be done because it 's possible no nor because it is easie or not difficult to be done 150. * * * Ruiâ— de praedet Tr. 2. diâ—p 12. §. 1 2. p. 172. so defineth Permission as I confess so it is positively decreed viz. Increatam permissionem Deus non praedâ—finit Creata permissio simul complecâ—itur quâ—rundam rerum productionem aliarum rerum negationem quibus positis peccatum permittitur And if by permission they will mean quid positivum it must have a positive Will and Cause but what 's that to the Negative or meer non impedire Thus still all our wranglings shall be but about ambiguoâ—s words His reason §. 2. is Permission of sin is good 1. Negatio Volitionis essicacis qua Deus impediret peccatum And he said that permissio increata is not decreed 2. Negatio motivorum c. 3. Prodâ—ctio Constitutio circumstantlarum 4. Generalis concursus Ans 1. Nothing is not Good meer Negations are Nothing 2. Moral Negations or Logical that is Denyal and restraints are something and have a Cause 3. Production and Concursus are something and have a Cause but so is not a meâ—r non-impedition which is proper permission But the Case differeth as to permitting of a propense agent and an indifferent agent and a contrarily disposed agent To permit a stone to ascend will not make it ascend To permit the Air to move will not make it move But to permit a stone in the Air to fall I think with Durandus is enough to make it fall supposing the continuation of the Nature of it and all circumstances And so is it in permitting some sinners to sin 151. But yet here we must distinguish 1. Between a necessary and a free agent 2. Between Adams sinning and ours 3. And between the sin of a man strongly inclined or but weakly or that hath many disswasions or but few 1. Though a bad man be under a moral necessity of sinning in the general that is of not living innocently yet he is not under a necessity of committing every sin that he committeth nor is it a valid consequence He is a bad man Ergo he will do this and that and the other Sin Because a free agent oft acteth contrary to his habits 2. And some Sinners have so great impediments in sinning that they stand long in aequilibrio before the act 3. And Adam had no more propensity to his first sin than to the contrary So that bare permission will not inferr the Certainty of all sin atleast and therefore will not here serve turn 152. But saith Rada it is not common permission but also a withdrawing of effectual helps against sin Answ 1. God did not so by Adam at first 2. But are sufficient or necessary helps also withdrawn as well as effectual If so then Adam was as much necessitated to sin by God as he was to dye by Gods withdrawing his Vital influx or sustentation and it would have been as naturally Impossible for him not to sin as to live without God But if not so then while Necessary Grace called sufficient is continued the withdrawing of any other inferreth not a necessity of sinning But indeed it is an unproved and improbable fiction that God withdrew from Adam any Grace which he had given him till Adam cast it away It is therefore no good Illation Deus permittit aliquem peccare ergo peccat unless by permitting you mean withholding necessary help which is more than proper permission 153. And it must be remembred that God is far from a total permission or non-impedition of sin He alwayes hindereth it so far as to forbid it to threaten damnation to affright men from it to promise salvation and all felicity to draw men from it He tells men of the vanity of all which would allure them to it And his daily mercies and corrections should withhold men from it Only by doing no more nor effectually changing or restraining sinners but leaving them to their own choice under all these moral restraining means he permitteth sin 154. But it is also confessed that when by great sin these means themselves are forfeited some of them are oft-times withdrawn or not given And so some are without that Teaching those mercies or those corrections which others have But yet they are still under a Law of Grace 155. And it is still supposed that God as the first Cause of Nature upholdeth man in the Nature which he gave him and concurreth with it as the first Mover and Universal Cause And therefore that mans Inclination to Felicity Truth and Goodness which is Natural doth continue Otherwise it is confessed that Permission would inferr sin materially but no sin formally if by permission be meant Gods withdrawing Reason Free-will or executive power 156. But I easily confess that if the Dominicans predetermining Premotion * * * Or Bradwardines Effective Volition as necessary and productive of all that cometh to pass in sinful actions could be proved that would certainly inferr the event of sin And if God decreed so to pre-determine the will sin may be fore known in that decree And if Scotus or the rest had been of that mind they had never omitted that easie solution of the Case How God fore-knoweth sin But this I have elsewhere confuted and shall add a little here 157. But first having disproved all these presumptions of Gods way of fore-knowing future sin I shall in a word tell you the answer which may and must satisfie us which is That Gods Understanding is Infinite and therefore extendeth by its own perfection unto all things intelligible But How his understanding reacheth them what Idea's he hath of them how they are Intelligible to him with such like are sinful presumptuous questions of blind men who know not their own ignorance And no manner of understanding is properly Divine which mortals can comprehend SECT IX Of Predestination and Free-will of which see more Sect. 20. against Mr. Rutherford 158. THough Pre-determination belong to Gods Execution and be after his Volitions in order yet because I am now only to speak of it as a pretended medium of his knowledge of sin and as quid decretum I shall touch it here It is confessed that there is no substance which God is not the Maker of besides himself Nor any Action of which he is not the first Cause 159. God may well be called the perfect first Cause of humane Actions in that he giveth man all his Natural faculties and a Power to Act or not act at this time or to choose this or that and as the Fountain of Nature and Life and Motion doth afford his Influx necessary to this free agency So that when ever any Act is done as an Act in genere God is the first Cause of it For it is done by the Power which he giveth and continueth and by his Vital Influx And there is
futurition A conditional proposition de futuro is as true of that which will never come to pass as of that which will And if they mean that God Decreeth e. g. that Judas shall sin if he be so and so tempted it will lay the cause of Judas sin more on God in their own apprehension than their Cause or the Truth will bear For if God Decree that unnecessary Causes shall certainly effect the thing sin let them take heed of the consequence 267. I could never see how the Doctrine de scientia media doth at all Pennot l. 4. c. 23. saith 1. Scientiam Mediam maxima cum probabilitate defendi posse 2. Hunc modum reconciliationis decretorum cum Libertate principaliter immediate non inniti Scientiae mediae sed solum remote quia principaliter illa non ponitur in Deo ad conciliandam arb libertatem cum Div. decretis sed ut Deus provide sapientissime omnes actus maxime liberos disponere possit dirigere ad opt fines serve their turn seeing they use it to shew how God knoweth that Determinately which he foreseeth but in Conditionibus sine quibus non or in unnecessary and not determining causes And their own answer signifieth nothing more to the purpose but that God can know future contingents by the Infinite perfection of his understanding which is most true But that he knoweth them ever the more for the supposition of circumstances they never prove Therefore the doctrine of Gods knowledge of such Conditional propositions and contingents as so circumstantiated seemeth True materially that They are the Objects of Gods knowledge but false efficiently as if they were any Causes of his knowledge which hath no Cause but only extrinsecal denominaters of it in that act And it seemeth useless and needless to their purpose 268. For I confess I think that we need no more and are capable of no more to satisfie us how God knoweth any thing Intelligible than to say By his Infinite perfection Man knoweth by Reception ab extra but so doth not God And if the Quest How doth God know this suppose extrinsick efficiency or reception it is blasphemous And I confess I hear men dispute How God knoweth with horrour as I hear men curse and swear and blaspheme knowing how uncapable such Moles as we Mortals are of understanding the intrinsick manner of Gods knowledge And I detest the very question and am but perswading others to detest it thus understood 269. Much more do I think it arrogant presumption in those that dispute pro scientia media to say that God Can no otherwise know future contingents As Annatus de scient med p. 85. contr Ab omiibus conâ—â—sâ—â—â— est nullam veritatem fugere intellectum Diâ—inum ac proinde propositiones de fuâ—â—ris contingentibus c. Blank de Concord lib. cum Decretis 1. Thes 49 50 51 Twiss D. 1. c. Seclusa Scientia Mediâ— non remanere in Deo praescientiam absolutam futurorum contingentium Et cap. 6. Seclusa Scientia Media non posse praedefiniri à Deo liberas creatae voluntatis actiones O Man O Worm Who art thou that in cases so unsearchable darest assert a non posse upon the Almighty God thus in the dark 270. And it is no less arrogant in the adversaries of Scientia Media such as some of our own and the Scotists who dare say that God Rada â—â—i â—â—pr who was one of the Congregation where it was disputed before P. Clem. 8. and was against it as Pet. à S. Josiph and others tell us cannot know future contingents but in the predefinition and decrees of his own will As if we had seen into all his Powers and Acts who dwelleth in the unaccessible light Whereas we know little of the smallest of his works 271. And as audaciously do the Dominicans plead that God cannot otherwise know our future free acts but by decreeing by immediate identificate premotion to predetermine them as the total first efficient cause Nothing can be more certain than that we know not How God knoweth who scarce know How we know our selves 272. He that hath read but one half what is said upon this subject by Zumel Ripa Gonzal Fasol Arrub. Aluiz Alarcon Alvarez Tanner Ruiz Greg. Valent. Suar. Molin Cantarel Navar. Curiel Cabrera Mascaren Verdu Fonseca Mendoz. Lessius Diotalev Moncaeus Theophil in Theolog. Natur. Aegidius Conink Pennottus Petr. à S. Joseph Annatus Twisse c. yea or but any two Contenders and is not convinced that they talk presumptuously of things which are unknown above their reach Non dâ—sunt ex nostris qui scientiam mediam aliquateâ—us agnosâ—unt inquit Strangius l. 3. c. 13. p. 675. naming even Gomarrus Walaeus and Lud. â—â—ocius as also Jacob. Martinius and other Lutherans and are we further from Arminius than Gomarrus was doth not think reverently enough of God nor knowingly and humbly enough of man And he that doth but weigh the difficulties which Durandus his third opinion casteth in the way and doth but try to solve well all Lud. à Dola's Questions Part 1. cap. 9. p. 96 97 c. and to answer well all his arguments against the usefulness of Scientia Media Part 2. and against the truth of immediate physical Predetermination Part. 3. and against Identificate Concurse as to evil actions Part 4. may soon find that much of these matters are so far above us as to be nothing to us and unfit to be thought necessary to our Peace and Concord 273. The old doctrine of Gods Prevision and this de Scientia Media in all that is within our reach come all to one And they erre that hold it to run pari passu equally about Good and Evil. God fore-knoweth not evil Acts because he willeth them or the futurity of them nor because he decreeth to predetermine the will to the act in specie which is sin But he willeth to effect that which is Good and may so far know it SECT XIII Of Gods Will and Decrees in General 274. GOds Decrees de futuris and his Will de praesentibus are in themselves the same save as to the extrinsick denomination from the divers state of the connoted objects 275. Gods Decrees are not his works in themselves considered but only That Gods Decrees are not to be taken for a thing past and ceased but as a thing still doing Pennot li. 4. c. 24. thinketh is the best notion to reconcile them with liberty But ab extrinseco Connotative they must be denominated past though without change in God Of this Dr. Twisse hath animadverted when with his executive power they operate ad extra and then his knowledge and will are his working being productive of the effects 276. As in point of simplicity Gods Acts are all One and yet many that is One ex parte agentis as his Acts are but his Essence and yet many ex parte effecti objecti inde
Gods will hath a final cause meaneth but a final object as he confesseth A Tree is a passive recipient cause of the Termination of the Suns calefacient act and of the â—ffect as received but not of the act ex parte solâ—â— 283. Even the Acts of Gods free-will or Decrees have no Cause even in God himself no more than those called Necessary For we must not say that any thing in God is an effect 284. Yet as Gods Acts are oft denominated by Connotation from the object which in man is a constitutive Cause of the Act loco materiae so extrinsick objects may be called The Causes but rather the Objects of God Will Love or Knowledge not as his Essence but only as so denominated by that Connotation of the object 285. These distributions of Gods Volitions in Number and by specifying objects and individuating objects which are called material constitutive causes of the act are all according to humane weakness in us who know God but enigmatically and in a glass But yet if any man use such words in a broader manner than we think fit before we censure and condemn him we must hear his sence explained For all that ever we can say of God is improper analogical yea metaphorical And it is but in degrees of impropriety that all words about Gods attributes and actions differ For as is oft said no man hath formal proper conceptions of any thing in God If God should not speak to us in this improper language of our own he must not speak intelligibly to us unless he create another understanding in us And he himself in Scripture using such language of himself alloweth us to use it while we profess to disclaim ascribing to God any of the imperfection which it seemeth to import 286. On these terms not only Various Volitions are ascribed to God in Scripture and exteriour causes of them as John 16. 27. the Father Loveth you because ye have loved me and believed c. * * * So Gen. 22. 16. 26. 5. Prov. 1. 24. Luke 11. 8. 19. 17. Gal. 4. 6. Eph. 5. 6. 1 Sam. 28. 18. 1 King 9. 9. 11. 34. 20. 42. 2 King 10. 30. 2 Chron. 34. 27. Psal 91. 14. But also Fear Affliction Grief Hatred Repenting Rejoycing c. Deut. 32. 27. Isa 63. 9. Gen. 6. 6. Psal 5. 5. Gen. 6. 7. 1 Sam. 15. 11. Joel 2. 13. Jer. 15. 6. Hos 11. 8. Zeph. 3. 17. Jer. 32. 41 c. and exteriour causes of them 287. That which is to be understood by all these is 1. That man is so far the Cause of the Effects of Divine Volitions as the Dispositio receptiva may be called a Cause And I before shewed in the instance of the effects of the Suns Influx how great a hand the various Dispositiones materiae receptivae have in the diversifications of effects 2. And that Gods Volitions themselves are hence relatively denominated 288. Therefore we must say that Gods electing Peter and his rejecting Judas his Love to Peter and his hatred of Judas are not in specie the same act of his will nor his Loving Peter and his Loving Paul the same Numerically As his knowing of Peter to be a Saint and his knowing Judas to be a Saint is not the same numerical act of knowledge Though as they are Gods Essence all are but one And we must say that he Loveth one because he is good and hateth another because he is evil and he justifieth men because they believe and condemneth men because they believe not that he forgiveth a sinner because he repenteth c. Though Gods Will have no efficient Cause 289. Those Volitions of God which are but Immanent as to Efficiency but Transient Objectively are some of them to be denominated as before the thing willed and some as after The Will of effecting is before the thing willed The Will ut finis or Complacency and Displicency as also Intuitive Knowledge of the thing as Existent estimation approbation reprobation of it the Will of Continuing modifying altering perfecting destroying suppose the existence of the thing willed in esse objectivo And so many Volitions may be denominated as beginning in time as connoting the objects †††Pennottus li. 4. c. 24. p. 235. confidently argueth that because God can Love him that he hated or Loved not he can therefore Predestinate him whom he reprobated or change his decrees without any change in himself I answer 1. I grant that God can Love a Saint whom he hated as a sinner before and cease hating him without any change save relative and by extrinsecal denomination 2. But his inference seemeth to me false and dangerous unless he had meant it of executive Election and Reprobation which he doth not For 1. Proper Love and Hatred connote an Object as existent and by such connotation are named And his fourth supposition is false that Love is nothing but Gods Will to give a man life Eternal For the formal Act of Love is Complacency And the Velle Bonum is another thing as I think an effect of Love or at the most another act of Love And we deny that any absolute Velle bonum alicui is ever changed though displicence be changed Because it is the same with Decree 2. And the reason why the said Decree or Volition if absolute and proper may not be denominated changed is because it maketh its own object and so supposeth it not pre-existent and dependeth not on it denominatively And therefore it would inferr God to be mutable to change it But it is not so in the other which as to the Relation and Name followeth the Mutable creature as doth Gods Knowledge of present existents and preteritions as to denomination and connotation And it is no more wrong to Gods Immutability so to name them than to his simplicity to name them many and divers 290. And in this sense it is no more wrong to Gods Immutability to speak of Him as being before in Potentia only as to such Relative denominations As the Rock in the Sea hath not yet that proximity to the Wave which a twelvemonth hence will touch it and yet is not therefore mutable Or as you are yet but in potentia to the termination of his Relations who will pass about you before and behind on the right hand and on the left So God was but Potentially the Creator and Redeemer of the World from Eternity Though as to any real passion God hath no passive power 291. In this sense of relation to the objects and effects it is that we conceive of Gods acts of Knowledge and Volition in a certain order of nature as one being before and one after another Though not as they are Gods Essence 292. Yet because the use and truth of words or names is their signification of Things as indeed they are and we should put no name on any creature but what is adapted to notifie it aright
ipsa Dei essentia quae est necessaria Alliac Camer in 1. q. 12. D. See in Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 24. how they are confounded about the ordering of Gods decrees as to the order of Intention and Execution His Solution supposeth that Unius objecti Volitio est ratio determinans ad aliorum volitionem When as ex paâ—te Dei there is but One Volition and that hath no cause and the Ratio is a deceiving ambiguous word and his Decrees are his Will and therefore are all but one 374. 4. They cannot deny but that all our conceptions of God are improper and analogical or metaphorical more or less and that what Knowledge and Will in God is formally no mortal knoweth And should we dispute then audaciously about this Order 375. 5. None can deny but that these Mysteries require the highest reverence and that it 's dreadful to take Gods Name in vain and dally with the Consuming fire And yet shall we presume 376. 6. They all confess that our Lord Jesus his Prophets Apostles or Scriptures lead them not this way and decide not these Controversies so as that they can stand to their decision alone 377. 7. They cannot deny but that desiring arrogantly to be as Gods in Knowledge was our first Parents sin that ruined them and us and that this was Satans first successful game And that our disease is like to be such as its original 378. 8. Lastly They cannot choose but know that it is the troubling of the Church with new Articles and new practices and leading them from the simplicity that is in Christ even as the Serpent beguiled Eve with the promise of more knowledge which hath been the great plague and divider of the Churches in all Ages though the Apostle foretold them that It was this that he feared of them And are we not self-condemned if after all this we will censure and reproach one another and foment divisions for that which most certainly no mortal understandeth 379. I. And first your very foundation is uncertain that God doth properly Intendere finem Nay it is certain that as Aquinas afore-cited Vasquâ—z saith that Gods own Goodness is not a final Cause of his Volition supposing that movere ad Electionem medii is final Causality Ruiz asserteth the contrary taking final Causality to be first esse primum objectum And thus men strive about artificial notions Vasq 1. d. 82. c. 1. Ruiz de Voâ— Dei d. 15. §. 1. p. 159. But that nothing is the Ratio Volendi but his own Goodness see Albert. 1. p. tr 20. q. 19. m. 1. a. 1. Alex. 1. p. q. 35. m. 3. Henric. quodl 4. q. 19. Gabr. 1. d. 14. q. 1. a. 2. Dried de Concord p. 1. c. 3. Vasq disp 82. Scotus 1. d. 44. Molin 1. q. 19. a. 5. saith though Vult hoc esse propter hoc non tamen propter hoc vult hoc He prescribeth Ends to Man and setteth Ends to Means which are fiâ—es operis But that he Intendeth an End Himself must be said very improperly or very uncertainly or not at all The truth is that we must say that God doth finem intendere because we must speak of him after the manner of men or not at all But it is not true in the same sense as we speak it of man and as the word properly signifieth but equivocally 380. For 1. To Intend an End is to make that End a Cause why we choose the means as most say But Gods Election or Actions have no Cause All deny that there is in God Cause and Effects or that propter hoc vult hoc 381. 2. In man to Intend an End doth imply that a man yet wanteth his end and that it is somewhat that he needeth or at least doth not yet obtain But God needeth nothing and hath no end that is desired or wanting nor but what he continually possesseth or enjoyeth as well now as hereafter 382. 3. We know no such thing as Intendere finem where the Act and the End are the same Intendere is not the same with Finis But in God they are the same He that is most simple hath no Intention which is not Himself and no End which is not Himself and so both are one 383. 4. Our Intendere finem is not the same really with Electio mediorum But God hath no Intention but what is really the same with Election though not denominatively connotatively and relatively 384. 5. Divines usually say that Nothing below God himself can be his End But where there is no means there is no End or intention of it But to God there is no Means He is not a Means of himself And no creature can be a means of him If we say that any thing can be a means ut Deus sit vel ut sit Maximus Sapientissimus Optimus it were no better than Blasphemy God then hath not an End like man 385. Yet necessity constraineth us to use the phrase but these things must still be understood when we use it 1. That no creature can be Gods End unless you will call an object as terminative an End or else an Effect 386. 2. That it is not Gods Essence and perfections that is an end as to any medium But it is his Will For his Free Will is the Beginning and the Complacency of that Will is the End of all things But if you call God his own Object and so call the final Object an End so we must consider God as Loving Himself and Himself is the End or final object of his own Love or Complacency and he himself as Loving himself is said to Act on that End or Object And indeed eternal self-knowledge and self-love which some of old ventured to call the second and third Persons are the Great Immanent Acts of the Divine Essence with the sibi vivere And it seemeth the chief Notion of Holiness in God that he Loveth Himself in primo instanti and that he is most Amiable to his Creatures in secundo instanti and that he is the Cause and End of all that is good in them Thus a final object of his own and our Love or Complacency God is past all doubt And secondarily his Will is pleased and fulfilled in all his works 387. 3. Yet by that Complacency we mean not that God is passive or receiveth any Delight from the Creature or hath any addition by it to his felicity But as he is a Communicative Good by way of Efficiency as the first efficient Cause so is he a felicitating Good to the Creature as its End and he is Love taking the creature into its nearest Communion with him which is his Complacency and the End of all things And hence it is that God is said when he had finished his works to Rest complacentially in all as very Good 388. 4. As the Complacency of Gods Will is his End in the formal notion so far as it may be said of God
positivas causas To which what I have said is a sufficient answer And 1. Sometimes they have not but only the cessation of a causation 2. They never have a positive efficient of themselves for nothing is not made but only a positive remover of the cause of that which the subject is deprived of or an interposer or hinderer of the causation of it e. g. of Light or life And death hath no cause but that which ceaseth the causes of life Reprobation is commonly looked at in the two most notable parts as called 1. Gods Reprobating men to unbelief and impenitency 2. His Reprobating men to final damnation The last of these also is considered in the execution 1. As Privative 2. As Positive called Poena damni sensus And both especially the Privative part are considerable 1. As executed by man himself on himself freely 2. Or as executed by God Concerning each of these observe 512. 1. Not to Believe and Repent is no real entity And not to Give faith and Repentance as is said is no real entity And to Permit Infedelity and Impenitency is no real entity as is proved And not to Decree the Giving of saith and the hindering of unbelief is nothing And most clearly besides these four nothings nothing can be proved either existent or needful All that cometh to pass will come to pass without any more ado Therefore 513. As far as any mortal man can prove God hath no such Act of Reprobation at all as is 1. Either a Decree that a man shall not eventually Repent 2. Or a Decree not to give him Repentance 3. Or a Decree to Permit his Impenitence 4. Nor can we prove an after Volition of his own former non Volition which is asserted by Scotus But the three first we have great reason to lay by and so not only to say as Davenant that this part of Reprobation is an Act negative quoad objectum but that it is no Act and there is no other Reprobation as to this part save 1. Gods not decreeing to give faith 2. And his not giving it 514. 2. And as to Damnation so much of it as consisteth in sin it self God no otherwise causeth than as he doth all sin which is properly not at all It being but the Act as an act which he causeth as the Cause of Nature and not as sinfully qualified and so no more decreeth this than other sin 515. And most men little think how much of damnation lyeth in sin it self and the privative consequents which need no other cause 1. To be ignorant of God and Goodness 2. To be void of the Love of God and Holiness and Holy persons and all the Holy employment of Heaven 3. To be thereby void of all the Delights of Holy ones which consist in such Knowledge Love and Employment Praise Obedience and holy Communion 4. To be uncapable of the Reception of Divine complacency as he that maketh himself blind is uncapable of the light or he that maketh himself unlovely is uncapable of immediate Love 5. To be defiled and diseased with all kind of sinful lusts and malignity and made like the Devil 6. To have all sorts of Lusts in violence when they can have no fewel or satisfaction and so to be tormented with these lusts To have extream selfishness and Pride when they have cast themselves into the utmost shame and misery 7. To see that no Creature can deliver them and to despair of ever being better as having no hope from God or any other 8. To see or know that others enjoy the Glory and everlasting felicity which they have lost 9. To think how easily once they might have attained it and how it was offered freely to their choice 10. To think of all the solicitations of mercy that importuned them and all the time and means they had 11. To think for how base a vanity they lost it and that misery was their wilful choice 12. To be tormented with envy and malice against God that forsaketh them and against his Saints And to feel conscience awakened setting home all their former folly All this is nothing but sin and its own effects which hath no Causation at all from God but to continue the nature which he gave them and is not bound to destroy And how great a part of hell is this 516. Nay we know not how much sensible Pain may be the consequent of their own sin without any other Act of God than his common continuation of nature it self As a man that eateth Arsnick or unwholsome meat is tormented by it without any other act of God than as the universal Cause of Nature 517. All this much of Damnation then being meerly the work of the sinner himself so far as there is no Act of God in the execution so far no man can prove any Positive Act of Volition or Decree 518. But 1. As God in these is the universal cause of Nature and so of natural acts 2. And as in other instances he actually further punisheth them 3. And as he actually made that Law which made these penalties the sinners due so far God hath a Positive Decree and Volition that these persons shall be damned And moreover as improperly or morally his not sanctifying them and not saving them is called his Act and is really their penalty even so may his not-willing to save or glorifie them be called his Decree and will to damn them if you will 519. By this time we are ready to answer our first question What are the objects of these several acta of God so far as connotatively we must call them several And 1. * * * Besides all before cited against Volitions de nihilo see Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 6. §. 1. p. 36. Antiquorum gravissimi sentiunt Deum non omnia Velle sed ea duntarat bona quae in aliqua differentia temporis existunt proinde possibilia que nunquam futura sunt non amari à Deo â—â—â—â— Mala inde Deum not esse omni-volentem nâ—llam creaturam à Deo amari necessario Ita Albertus Alexand. Boâ—â—vent Richard Gaby Bannez Zumel Molina Valentia Scotus Against which he bringeth frivolous reasons and asserteth that God willeth as a material object the Goodness which the Creature would have if it were made and this as to all Creatures which never will be What putid contradictions are here to will Goodness which is no Goodness of all Creatures which are no Creatures as material objects which are nothings God willeth his own Power whence man calleth that Possible which is nothing But was there from Eternity any Possibles not-future to be willed What was there from Eternity but God And are all theâ—e Nothings God himself Gods not giving the Gospel to any persons is no Act and so hath no object But reductively or improperly the object is Man sinning against the grace of the first edition of the Law of Grace that is These are the
subject de quo of which it is truly said They are without the Gospel 520. 2. Gods not converting effectually some that have the Gospel is no Act and hath no object But the subject of the Privation called the Object is Some part of those men who have forfeited the helps of special Grace by their abuse or neglect of the Gospel and the Commoner grace which was given them 521. 3. Gods not Pardoning Justifying Adopting and Sanctifying men is no Act and hath no object But the subject of the Privation and object of the Laws contrary sentence is Impenitent Unbelievers or the non-performers of the condition of Justification c. in the Covenant 522. 4. Gods not Glorifying men is no Act nor the damnation which consisteth in sin as aforesaid is none of Gods act But the sentence of condemnation is Gods Act and no doubt some other Positive Execution And the object of these is All finally Impenitent Unbelievers and unholy ones that is who performed not the Condition of that Edition of the Covenant of Grace which they were under 523. And it being past all denyal that these are the objects of the Executive Acts we must say that these also are the objects of the Decrees accordingly where a Decree is proved and when we speak of them only juxta ordinem executionis and not Intentionis which I laid by before 524. And lest you recurr to it once more I will recite more of Davenants words de ordine Intentionis De Praed Reprob cap. 1. p. 107. 1. Sciendum tenendum est si Dei naturam perfectionem in se consideremus illum non prius unum videre deinde aliud neque prius hoc decernere aut velle deinde illud sed unico simplicissimo actu c. 2. Ex parte tamen Rerum quae decrevit signa quaedam prioritatis posterioritatis distingui possunt Hic tamen observandum est inter ipsos Scholasticos non admodum certam constantem esse hanc doctrinam de hisce signis seu instantibus prioritatis Scotus qui primarius est ad haec signa fabricanda artifex videtur non-nullis non solum eadem posuisse priora posteriora secundum nostrum intelligendi modum sed etiam statuisse unum esse in ipso Deo prius naturâ alio But from this he vindicateth him Ex adversa parte Occamus noster haec signa quocunque modo considerata negavit in 1. d. 9. q. 3. Et Biel ejus sententiam amplexus haec signa oppugnavit in 3. d. 2. q. 1. dub 3. Prioritates in Divinis non sunt ponendae sicut nec pluralitates actuum ordinatorum Unus est enim Actus in Divinis re ratione indistinctus qui est ipsa essentia Divina ne secundum nostram quidem considerationem talem ordinem Prioritatis posterioritatis concipi posse in decretis Divinis ut talis consideratio non sit falsa speculatio If this hold our Controversie of the order is at an end 525. And he added the words even of a rigid Thomist Domin Bannes quamvis non omnino explodat haec signa cum Biele perpendens tamen discordiam Theologorum in his assignandis Animadvertendum est inquit quam pro libito in negotio praedestinationis reprobationis multiplicentur instantiae à Theologis quam parum illa conferant ad assignandam rationem differentiae inter praedestinatos reprobos Liceat itaque hic paucis monere non esse nimis confidendum aut certo dogmati adhaerendum ulli certo ordini decretorum divinorum sive à Protestantibus sive à Pontificiis assignato cum difficile sit duos reperire sive inter nostros sive inter adversarios qui ad amussim per omnia consentiant in hac serie decretorum divinorum describenda Caveat it aque unâ—squisque ne talem considerationem praedestinationis reprob inducat quae vel Divinae justitiae vel gratiae gratuitae adversetur tâ—m non multum refert quo ordine prioritatis c. SECT XVII Of Gods Causing and Decreeing Sin 526. BUt because it is the avoiding of Gods Causing and Willing sin Of too many such enquirers it may be said with Augustine de Utilit Credâ—ndi cap. 18. Dum nimis quaerunt unde sit malum nihil reperiâ—nt nisi malum Obj. Omnis determinatio diâ—ina est immutabilis Omnia siuâ—t Deo determinante Ergo omnia siunt immutâ—hiliter Respondet Mâ—lanâ—th Ad maj Est immutâ—bilâ—s necessitate conseqâ—entiae Ad minor Dissimilâ—s est determinatio in bonis malis actionibus Mala siunt 1. Deo praesciente non impediâ—nte non autem adjuvante vel impellente Item Deo sustentante naturam suum opus Item Deo eventus certos decernente Strigel in Melancth pag. 296. Carbo Compend Thom. 1. q. 19. a. 9. Malum ut malum nullo appâ—titu potest appeti nisi per aâ—â—idâ—ns Deus â—ullo modo vult malum Culpae Deus neque vult siâ—ri malum â—â—que non vult sed permitti Ruiz de praedesin Tr. 2. disp 13. §. 3 4. would prove a decree to permit mortal sin in the unjust and just ex destitutione circumstantiis And d. 16. §. 3. he tellâ—th us of many wayes by which God maketh sin the occasion of his Grace without causing or willing sin in form or nearest matter which is a great reason of these Controversies I shall say somewhat more particularly of that About which there are various Opinions 1. Some think as Hobbs that no acts of the will are so free as not to be necessitated as the motions in an Engine though unobserved by our selves who see not the Concatenation of Causes 527. 2. Some Dominicans and our Dr. Twisse and Rutherford held that no act natural or free can be done by any creature without the Predetermination of Gods Physical efficient immediate Premotion as the first total Cause of that act But yet that this standeth with Liberty because God causeth contingentia contingenter fieri And that he so causeth every Act of sin in all its circumstances and the totum materiale peccati and all that the sinner causeth But yet that he is not the Author of sin nor causeth the form Because 1. They say that sin hath no efficient cause but a deficient which God is not being not obliged to act And sin is nothing but a privation 2. Because God is under no Law and therefore though he do the same things that man doth it is sin in man but not in him And saith Holkot he is the cause of sin but not the Author because he commandeth it not by his Law 3. At other times they say that sin is formally a Relation of disconformity to the Law of God and God causeth the whole act as circumstanced but not the relation which resulteth from it 4. And God causeth not sin as sin but as a means to his Glory or as a punishment of former sin
arbitrii postulat sive prius sive posterius sive simul non sequitur malitiam Deo esse tribuendam cum illa solum ex modo operandi creaturae sequatur Vasquez in 1 Tho. q. 23. d. 99. cap. 4. the general nature of action when existent hath So that this Moral specification addeth not to the natural generical entity 543. It is therefore 1. Acting 2. Not acting 3. Moral disposition which are Commanded and Forbidden by God And not any one only and these not in themselves but about the Materials commanded or forbidden Objectively in the Law To Act on a forbidden object Not to Act on an object when commanded and to be viciously disposed to either is a sin 544. You may see then that sin is a Connotative notion yea and a Relative notion It connoteth a Ruler a Law and End a Subject and is thus variously Related 545. As Subjection is the Root of Obedience and all obedience Virtually being A Consent to obey and Love is the Root of benefits so to forsake God simply as our Rector or our End or our Owner is Atheism practical and all sin in one But to violate only a particular precept de mediis is but a particular sin 546. God is the Cause of the Law which commandeth and forbiddeth and God is the Cause of Nature and Objects and Action as Action That therefore which he hath made mans part is to Love God and Holiness and not to over-love the creature nor to love it as our End or in his stead and to do all that he commandeth and not to do the particular acts about such particular objects as he forbiddeth 547. The remote subject or relatum then of sin is the person sinning But the nearest is the Act Omission or disposition The fundamentum or ratio referendi is the said Acts Omissions or dispositions as such or such about such or such objects commanded or forbidden which is a Relation And the form of sin is the Moral Relation of Disobedience or Disconformity to the Law So that if you must needs have it in Logical notions Sin is a Moral Relation resulting from a Physical relation of Actions Omissions or dispositions of Gods subjects which are modified contrary to his Law 548. It is a Moral Relation as it is Disobedience found in a Moral agent against a Law and Rector as such It is a Physical Relation as the Act c. is prius naturâ quid naturale about an object that is quid naturale It s fundamentum of both relations And one Relation may be sounded in another is the Mode of the Act Omission or disposition as to an undue object c. as it is forbidden by the Law Of the subjects and relatum I have spoken before 549. So that the form of sin being Relative can have no Cause but that which causeth its fundamentum and cannot possibly but result when that is laid 550. It were an injury to God to feign him to make such a Law as should say Though thou hate me see that that hatred be not Related formally as a breach of my Law or I forbid thee not to commit Adultery but only forbid that thy Adultery be quid prohibitum or a sin For if God forbid not the act it cannot be a sin and if he forbid it it must needs be sin And so of omissions 551. They therefore that tell us that sin is nothing but a Privation speak not satisfactorily nor altogether truly It is no substance indeed nor any such Reality as Man cannot Cause without Gods Causing it supposing his Universal Natural Support and Concurse But the thing forbidden is often Acts and Dispositions as well as Omissions and the form of sin is a Moral Relation which hath so much reality as a Relation hath if that be any And that Relation hath a positive name It is not only a meer Non-conformity but also a Disconformity becaused founded in See Dr. Wallis against the Lord Brooke of this very well Actual Volitions and Nolitions as forbidden and not only in Omissions 552. Subtile Ockam Quodl 3. q. 15. disputing Utrum rectitudo deformitas actus differant à substantia actus denyeth it and after a Confutation of the common saying that Deformitas est carentia rectitudinis debitae distinguitur ab actu quod in peccato Actus est materiale carentia justitiae debitae inesse est formale concludeth Quod deformitas non est carentia justitiae vel rectitudinis debitae inesse actui sed est carentia rectitudinis debitae inesse voluntati Quod non est aliud dicere nisi quod voluntas obligatur aliquem actum elicere secundum praeceptum Divinum quem non elicit ideo rectitudo actus non est aliud quam qui debuit elici secundum rectam rationem But I conceive 1. That the rectitude of the Will can be nothing else but the rectitude of its acts suspensions and dispositions 2. That Ockam here describeth only sins of omissions whereas the Rectitude of the Will is ofren also materially in not doing or willing what is forbidden And with these two animadversions I am reconciled to Ockam who addeth Ad aliud dico Quod illud dictum de Materiali Formali est falsum Quia aut est peccatum commissionis aut omissionis si primo modo est Materiale sine formali quia ibi non est carentia rectitudinis debitae inesse actui si secundo modo tunc est ibi carentia quae est formale sine materiali Resp 1. To the first I add that It had been true if it had been the Act as an act that had been forbidden or else the species of the act as quid naturale But it being the Act not as an act in genere but as this act thus modified or specified by an undue object that Act with its Relation as quid physicum are presupposed as the relatum to the moral relation of Pravity or Disconformity And to the second I say that it 's true that Omission is not Materia Physica but it is an inadequate first conception of sin and so is materia moraliter dicta vel loco materiae And the Omission being considerable 1. Quatenus Non-agere 2. Qua privatio naturalis 3. Qua Privatio disconformitas moralis these three inadequate conceptions take up the whole nature of the sins of omission 553. The same Ockam Quodl 1. qu. 20. Utrum actus exterior habeat propriam bonitatem vel malitiam moralem even as dependent on the Will And he denyeth it against Scotus who affirmeth it I will not trouble the Reader with their reasonings not doubting but Ockam erred and that it 's true 1. That no exterior act is Morally good or evil primarily 2. But that secondarily and participatively as it is voluntary there is a morality in the acts Words and deeds and passions are under Law next to the Will and in dependance on it As the body conjunct with
case 661. I intreat the Reader that is inclining to any extreams but to read â—over first those short answers of Prosper ad Capitulâ— 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 â—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 tâ—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 paâ—â—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 â—â—â—â— 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
was not so much as for original sin foreseen that God is said to hate Esau because then he would have hated Jacob also but it must be referred to the â—eer will of God that one was loved to salvation and the other so hated as not to be saved Just as the Synod of Dort saith 693. Francisc à Sancta Clara alias Davenport a Learned Scotist in his Deus Nat. Grat. Probl. 1. pag. 3. describing Predestination out of Augustine Arriba Scotus Suarez c. saith And with all these agreeth the description of Predestination Art 17. of the English Confession 694. And Probl. 2. of the Causes of Predestination he noteth that We mean not the Causes of Gods will ex parte actus volendi sed ex parte volitâ—rum in quantum Deus vult unum esse propter aliud And on that supposition how easie is it to agree 695. But he addeth If you had rather say as Suarez 1. p. l. 2. de praed c. 1. that also ex parte actus divini there is a Cause it must be not as Gods act is absolutely considered for so it is his essence that hath no cause but as terminated on the Creature 696. Pag. 7. he himself professeth that when the Protestants say that on the part of the Predestinate there is not so much as any meritoâ—â—ous Cause Disposition or Condition they speak but the common opinion of all the School Doctors taking it properly and in Scripture senâ—e And what Montague and the Arminians speak of foresight he disowneth as contrary to Paul August Aquin. 1. p. q. 23. a. 5 c. Scotus Bradwardine Estius Smisings Yea he rejecteth Abbot Joachim who denying any Cause of predestination in God yet asserted a cause of it by an aptitude in the Predestinate and the Reprobate one being foreseen more humble and prepared for Grace and the other more proud and unprepared pag. 5 6. 697. Yea ordering Gods Decrees after the usual presumption be Ruiz de Praedefin tr 2. disp 6. sect 2. p. 86 87. Deus pro suo beneplacito decrevit ab aeterno efficaciter causare liberas operationes honestas prius ratione quam illas praevideret ut absolute futuras Unde infallibiliter sequitur liberi arbitrii operatio necessitate consequentiae Pag. 87. 1. Scriptura fidem sanctitatem quodlibet discrimen sanctorum à reprobis reducit ad electionem gratuitam 2. Ex vi sortis c. 3. Divina electio absque meritis est causa quae discernit justos ab impiis Quamvis n liberum arbitrium sit secundaria causa sâ—ipsum discernens qua potuit resistere vel consentire Haec tamen liberi arbitrii cooperatio revocatur in Deum ut in primariam causam suaviter praedefinientem Eâ— Tr. 3. d. 18. sect 3. p. 222. Ea merita nihil obsunâ— quidditati gratiae quae tanquam ex prima radicâ— nascuntur ex prima gratid data absque ullo prorsus merito Atâ—amen quodlibet etiam levissimum remotissimum meritum de congruo si ex illo nascitur prima gratia vel propter illud datur obesse quidditati gratiae Yea he addeth p. 223. Conditio ratio vel occasio prorsus separata à merito impetratione dispositione adhuc repugnaret primae gratiae quoniam adhuc maneret debitum connaturalitatis quamvis abesset debitum obsequii asserteth that God first intendeth our blessedness as the end before he intendeth us grace faith c. as the means And therefore cannot do it for foreseen faith c. Yea that he first decreed to give us blessedness before he decreed to create us as Scotus 3. d. 7. and Ovanâ—â— ibid. q. 3. a. 2. Yea that God willeth all this before he knoweth that it will be as Scotus 1. d. 39. And that seeing all Gods Volitions of giving any good are free without any precedent Cause in man it must needs be that the Decree of glory and not of grace only must be without Merit And he concludeth p. 13. that they have no quarrel here with the Doctrine of the Articles of the Church of England 698. Probl. 3. he resolveth with Smisings that the reason why this absolute decree of God consisteth with free-will is because that God doth not only decree the event but also the mode that it shall be freely done And therefore his decree doth not only consist with Liberty but maketh it necessary 699. His feigned order of the decrees is pag. 27. that 1. God decreeeth to glorifie 2. To give grace and merits to obtain it and that definitively 3. Then he foreseeth that they will concurr with grace 4. Then he decreeth the execution that glory shall be given them by the means of their operations And of Reprobation 1. That God effectually decreeth to do so much as he doth on his part to give them glory 2. And also so far to give them grace 3. Then he foreseeth that they will not co-operate with that grace 4. He decreeth to permit them to fall into sin 5. And then decreeth their damnation I would not cite this man if he were a Thomist or Dominican who are known to go higher than the Synod of Dort though their reputation at home with their party tempt them to rail at the Calvinists But as he is a Scotist and so of a middle profession Though Dr. Twisse perceived how much their founding Gods foreknowledge in his Volitions advantaged him 700. Supposing you to remember the ordo signorum of his Master Scotus before cited I adjoyn the order Doctoris illuminati viz. Fraâ— Mayronis in li. 1. d. 41. q. 4. Sunt quatuor signa Est ergo priâ—â—â— in quo Judas Petrus offeruntur Voluntati Divinae ut neutri tâ—â— Voluntas Divina ordinavit Petrum ad gloriam nullum autem actum positivum habuit circa Judam secundum Augustinum Secundum signum esâ— in quo ordinavit Petrum ad gratiam tunc circa Judam nullum actâ—â— positivum habuit Tertium signum est in quo relinquuntur sibi ipâ—â—sâ—â— uterque cadit in peccatum Quartum signum est in quo Petrus resâ—â—git Quia non potest permanere quia praedestinatus intelligitur ex primo signo Judas autem non resurgit eo quod non habet relevantem in Deo ideo reprobatur Here you see a Reprobation that is no Act of God but a non-acting or is negative quoad actum and not only quoad objectum And he before saith out of Scotus and with him Ideo dico sicut dicit Doctor noster Quod prius Deus videt merita quam reprobum licet prius non vide at merita quam eligat which is the commonest Doctrine of the Schoolmen and other Papists as well as Augustines 701. So D'Orbellis in 1. d. 41. Et dicunt quidam quod non est alia ratio quare Deus istum elegit non illum nisi quia placet Eo enim ipso quod placet ideo rectum est propter summam
si in Ecclesia Christi ut talis est aliquae leges judiciales siâ—t necessariae ad politicum regimen Ecclesiasticum quod suo modo spirituale est nihilominus noluit Christus dominus per se ipsum illas leges ferre sed id Vicariis suis commisit potestatem ad illas ferendas eis tribuendo Et ideo illae Leges non sub Lege Divina sed sub canonica computantur Prâ—prie igitur loquendo de Lege divina nova in illa non inveniuntur praecepta judicialia So that Christ never made the Papacy nor any of its Laws But indeed he appointed Baptism as our Church-entrance and more than a Ceremony and the state of Câ—uâ—ch Officers and their work and discipline Mat. 18. And what his Spirit did in the Apostles he did in another sort than he doth by any ordinary Ministers that have but the Spirits ordinary help b b b Aquinas and many other Papists â—oyn with some late Secâ—aâ—ies and say that it 's the Spirits Operation on the Heart that is the Lex nova and that it is not written But he could not deny but that yet the Gospel is Lex nova Scripta But falsly de nomine taketh this but for the secondary sense of the lâ—x which is the first and that the obliging Law and the other the effects of it as various as persons are that have it and not the Rule of Obligation And else-where I have shewed also de Lege natura As to the question Whether Christ's Law be exterior insignis vocal and written or in the Heart by the Spirit Suarez truly saith That lex imperans is in signis in Scripture words but lex impellens is the Spirit which though here the chief yet is not properly but metaphorically called a Law pag. 819. li. 1. in principio Though he add that it was eight years before the Gospel was written by Matthew and longer by the rest and that all that time and since it is written in the Heart But memory may retain a vocal Law before the Heart by love and subjection do receive it 61. In this Law or Covenant is made a free universal Deed of Gift of Christ first and of Pardon Spirit and Glory in and by him to all Mankind without exception who will believingly accept it in its true nature as it is offered therein Or If they will so accept it as Believers 62. This Covenant is to be preached by Christ's Ministers and men invited to believe and consent And all that so do are to profess that consent by a solemn Covenant in their Baptism and so to give up themselves devotedly to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Devil Flesh and World 63. For Faith in God the Father is as essential a part of that Faith which we must profess in Baptism and is called commonly justifying as Faith in Christ is And so is Faith in the Holy Ghost in its place For it is not possible to believe in Christ without believing first in God to whom he is the way and with whom he is our Mediator nor to believe in him fully as Christ unless we believe in him as giving us the sanctifying Spirit 64. This Covenant is nevertheless free as to the donation of the Gifts for being conditional For the Condition is not the purchase procurement by efficient causality or any way a proper cause of the Gift as given but only a dispositive cause of our reception of it and of the Gift as received It is a removens prohibens The Condition as imposed and as the mode of the Promise is only a suspension of the Donation and Right till it be performed The Condition as performed is a removing the suspension And so it is a receiving cause which is but dispositio materiae receptivae of which more in due place 65. And the Gift is nevertheless free because the Condition is but such as is morally-antecedently necessary to the reception of free Gifts For though physical Donation oft make its own way and pre-require not such Conditions as these at least yet moral Donation by Deed of Gift supposeth that the person will receive it and despising or unthankful refusal or turning it against the Donor nullifieth such a Donation in the Civil Laws of men 66. And the Benefits are nevertheless conditionally given though the Spirit of Christ cause us to perform the Condition For they are called conditional from the mode or form of the Covenant which giveth men Right to Christ and Life expresly on condition of believing 67. Though this believing be sometimes described as the assent of the Intellect and sometimes as the consent of the Will and sometime as a practical affiance trusting Christ as a Saviour to save us with Soul and Body to the renouncing and letting go all other trust Yet when ever Justification and Life is promised to Faith all these three are the essential parts of it 68. The clearest discovery of the true nature of Gods Covenant with man and of that Faith by which we partake of the benefits of it is in Baptism it self which hath ever been the entrance of men into Gods Covenant as consented to and mutual and so into a visible state of Christianity and membership of Christ and the Catholick Church And therefore it is happy for us that Christ so expresly delivered the form of the Baptismal Covenant and the Universal Church hath so safely in her practice kept it 69. This Baptismal Covenant which is conditional and the consent to which doth make us Christians must be still distinguished from the Covenant between the Father and Christ or his Law of Redemption And God promiseth not to us all that he promiseth to Christ for us nor giveth all to us which he giveth to him 70. And it must be distinguished from Gods meer Predictions concerning his Elect that he will call them renew them and save them or if those Predictions run in the form of a Promise either as they are promises to Christ concerning the Elect or as promises to the Church in general how God will perfect it still they give no man a Law-Title or Right to any of the Benefits till he is a Believer They justifie and pardon no man And so they must not be confounded with the Baptismal Covenant which is Gods stated Instrument of Justification and of Government and the Law by which he will Judge us at the last 71. This Baptismal Covenant is the character and test by which we must judge who are Christians and members of the Catholick Church of Christ and not by their Subjection to a pretended vicarious universal Monarch And this is the character with consent to his relation there by which every mans fitness for membership in a particular Church must be judged of And not by other Covenants besides that consent and proofs of Conversion not here included And this containeth the true Characters by which every man may know himself
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 oâ— Instrumental it is false * * * Unless by Justifying they mean the acts of Love Hope Obedience called Hâ—â—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 dâ—â—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. Pâ—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 â—aereticorum sententia Resp Haereticos loqui de facto non de imputatione peccati remanentis vere non remissi nos de possibili de verâ— remissione qua peccatum tollatur See how the case is turned and wranglers
him total resignation and use as such 2. As our Ruler we owe him â—ubjection and Obedience as such 3. As our Friend Benefactor Amaâ—â—lissimus we owe him Gratitude and Love as such which yet is part â—f Obedience too Now Sin being the privation of all this God is to â—e satisfied for it as such in all these three Relations And is pars laesa â—â— all these three Relations that is he is injured though not hurt It is â—â—ue that Government and punishing Justice formally as such belong to God only as Rector And satisfaction is made him eminently in that Reâ—ation yet also to compensate the injury done by sin to him in the other â—wo Relations also SECT IX Of the nature and distinctions of Justification 152. Justification is a word of many significations the Scheme whereof And 1. Of constitutive Justification should I give them all would seem to most Readers a troublesome diâ—tinguishing Therefore I take up with these three most notable senses â— Justification constitutive 2. Sentential 3. Executive The first is to make a man righteous The second is to judge him righteâ—us The third is to use him as righteous 1. By Impunity 2. Reward * * * The Papists are confounded in the point of Justification by sticking to confounding words They talk of Justification and remission of sin but cannot tell men intelligibly what they mean They say that Remission is a putting away the sin it self and not only the Reatum poenae and yet say many that it may be done without any physical change of the Sinner 1. By sin they mean not the Habit for that cannot be removed without a physical change 2. Nor the act For that is past as soon as done 3. When they say it is macula moralis habitualiter remanens they talk gibberish and play with a metaphor and the word habitualiter A true habit is quid physicum and what macula is they can tell no man besides a habit disposition privation â—r relation If they mean that it is the Reatus culpae or culpability that is done away and not only the Reatus poenae they hold â—he same thing which they oppose in those Protestants that go too far from them And it is not sound For the pardoned Sinâ—er will be culpable though not punishable for ever that is will be really the man that sinned and it will be an everâ—asting truth This man sinned though he be pardoned See Pet. a S. Joseph Theol. Speculat l. 4. c. 10. pag. 509 510 511. The Papists say Homo est formaliter justus per formam gratiae ipst exâ—riâ—secam non tantum per justitiam Christi illi imputatam And yet Nullus actus quantumvis perfectus sive sit contritio sive Amor Dei super omnia est causâ— formalis justificationis Patres diâ—entes charitatem esse perfectam justitiam intelligendi sunt dispositive non autem formaliter Because it is in the Habit and not in the Act â—r rather as others of them say in some internal inclination antecedent to the habits of Faith Hope and Love that they place Justification or as we call it Sanctification Pet. a S. Joseph Thes Univers de grat Hab. pag. 88 89. 153 God never judgeth a man righteous either by secret esteem or open sentence till he have made him such 154. To be made righteous is to be justified in Law-sense which is To be justifiable or justificandus by sentence 155. A man is righteous 1. Particularly secundum quid as to some particular cause that he is accusable of 2. Or universally as to all causes 3. Or eminently as to all those causes that Heaven or Hell depend upon 156. 1. No man is universally righteous really or reputatively God judgeth no Saint in Heaven to be one that never sinned And he that hath once sinned is unavoidably under the Relation of â—â—â—â— that sinned to eternity ex necessitate existentiae which Relation is the very Reatus ipsius peccati though all the ill effects be remitted 157. 2. Every man hath some particular righteousness For the worst man may be falsly accused and be righteous as to that false accusation But this will not save him 158. 3. That eminent Righteousness necessary to our Salvation though it be not universal or perfect else we should never be afficted by chastiâ—â—ments or denials of Grace or permissions to sin yet is it at least perfect as to its proper use and to our glorious perfection And may be called our universal Righteousness because it is all that we have And â—â— consisteth not of any one or two Causes but of many Of which no oâ—â— must be excluded or set against the rest As there are several Allegatioâ—â— or Accusations against us so there must be several parts of the matter of our Justification 159. Not only an actual Accusation but a possible or a virtual oâ—â— which we are liable to sufficeth to denominate Justification as its contrary in the first Law-sense of Justification 160. It is our Right to Impunity and to the heavenly Glory which is to be justified finally in Judgment and our persons as the Subjects of that Right And our Actions but mediately in order to that end 161. It is only at the Bar of Christ as Redeemer that we are to be judged and justified and not by God only as a Creator Therefore it is by the Law of Grace that we must be judged to life or death finally and not by the sole Law of Innocency 162. Therefore no man is justified by the Law of Innocency either by the preceptive or retributive part But we are justified only by the Lâ—â— or Covenant of Grace against the Accusation which may be brought against us from the Law of Innocency Against it not by it 163. We are liable to all these following Accusations which will opeâ— to us the correlate Justifications and the matter of each part 1. It may be said by the Accuser of the Brethren Thou art a Siâ—â—â—â— against the Precepts of Nature and Grace He that denieth this is a Lyar Against this Charge there is no Justification for ever But we must â—â— Heaven confess that we have sinned but Glory be to him that washed â—s from our sins in his blood by Pardon and Sanctifiation 164. 2. Next it may be said that We did deserve Hell by our Sin This also is to be confessed for ever 165. 3. It may be said that by Gods Law of Innocency Hell is ouâ— due and therefore we are to be condemned to it To this we deny the consequence because we have right to Impunity and to Glory freely given us by God our Redeemer by a Covenant of Grace merited for us by the Obedience and Satisfaction given for us by Christ our Saviour Where note that here in this first part of our Justification there are all these conjunct necessary Causes 1. Gods Love and Mercy giving 2. Christ's Righteousness and Satisfaction meriting 3. The Covenant
unus idemque per vitam totam esse non potest Non est satis quod dixi nisi illud etiam adjeceris qualis scopus hic esse debeat M. Antoninus li. 11. sect 21. p. 113. fruit of the Spirit that it is the very heart of the New Creature the sum of Sanctification as love is the sum of the Law So that to give the Spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father and to sanctifie and to work in us the love of God and holiness are three phrases of the same signification in the Word of God 248. As Christ as Mediator is the summary means and way to the Father to bring man home to his Creator so Faith in Christ is a mediating Grace to work in us the love of God And as else-where I have oft said The bellowes of Faith kindling Love and Love working by holy Obedience Patience Mortification Gratitude and Praise is the substance of all true Religion 249. Love being the final Grace and Faith in Christ but a means to 1 Cor. 12. last 13. 1. 2. 2. Whether the habit of Love in patria be better than that of Faith and Vision in genere moris only or also in genere rei the School-men are utterly disagreed Cacere's sum Theol. 22. q. 5. a. 1. Utrum in sola charitate supernaturali sit amicitia hominis ad Deum Affirm Quia Dâ—us ut aâ—â—hor natura non ea communicat quae sunt propria ejus sed solum esse naturale potentias quae c. The Reason is not so good as the Assertion Vid. Bradward li. 1. c. 1. cor 30. Contra indoctos artis amandi nâ—scientes Deum esse propter seipsum amandum câ—tera propter Deum omnesque actus humanos ad ipsum propter se finaliter ordinandos ipsumque esse super omnia diligendum and his following proof that God is not to be sinned against in the smallest of his Precepts or in the smallest thing to avoid the greatest pain oâ— obtain the greatest good imaginable it the end must needs be more excellent than the means as such And thus Paul giveth the pre-eminence to Love 250. And no wonder if he prefer it also for duration For Love is Heaven or felicity it self yea somewhat higher than felicity as such For as God is our End for and in himself above the ratio foelicitatis so God is our End as he is to be loved And God the Ultimate Object and Love the Ultimate Act and Gods Love communicated perfectly to us and Gods Will pleased in all this are the inadequate Conceptions which make up the Ultimate End supposing the perfection of Nature and of the Intellect in the sight of God as subservient hereunto 251. Man therefore hath a degree of fruition or attainment of his Ultimate End in this life so far as he hath a delightful love of God Though this be but the foretast and First-fruits 252. Therefore it is not by Faith only that we know what Heaven is and are drawn to seek it and hope for it but also by this earnest and foretast of love which worketh by a spiritual gust and sweet inward experience The Intellect first hath Faith and the Will hath Love And a promise and earnest is more a promise alone 253. When Faith hath wrought this holy Love in the Soul it doth as much if not more to keep us from Apostacy than Faith it self Therefore many unlearned Christians by the power of holy Love stand fast when subtile disputing Doctors may cleave to the world and fall away 254. Though it be an ill expression of those School-men that say Love is the form of every Grace that which I suppose they mean is true that love being the final Grace the rest as they are means to it or the effects and expressions of it are what they are partly in that Relation The means is a means only by its Aptitude to the end And is never loved as such for it self but for the end And what the effect hath it hath from its efficient Cause And it is true that no Faith no Fear no Obedience no Praise no Suffering is further accepted of God and a part of true Holiness nor will prove our Salvation than it participateth of predominant love to God But this predominant Love is always an evidence of Life 255. Qu. What if a man should by Faith in Christ be brought to the love of God and after fall away from Faith in Christ and yet retain his love to God would that love save him Ans When you can prove that ever there was such a man I will answer you Till then such false suppositions are no otherwise to be answered than by telling you that if God should permit a man to fall from Christ that man would lose the Spirit of Christ and the sight and sense of all Gods Love and Goodness manifested in Christ and in all the Work of Redemption And therefore he would lose the love of God 256. How far Holiness is the design of Christianity I have opened in a small Tractate on that Question And how far Sanctification is to be preferred before Pardon as such and yet Christ's Glory in pardoning us I have shewed there and in my Confession and therefore will not here repeat it SECT XVIII Of Perseverance and the certainty of it in order to certainty of Salvation and true Comfort 257. No man can be further certain of his final Salvation than he is certain of his perseverance in Faith and Love 258. Therefore it is a small number of Christians comparatively that ever were certain of their Salvation For 1. No one that is uncertain of his sincerity is certain of his Salvation 2. No one that holdeth this Doctrine That the Saints that are justified may fall away and that we cannot be sure of perseverance can be sure of his own Salvation It 's hard to conceive how he can be certain who holdeth that no man can be certain Now those that hold this Doctrine are almost all the Papists the Arminians the Lutherans and as far as I can learn by their Writings all the ancient Writers for a thousand years after Christ And the Semipelagians and Pelagians no man will put in as an exception except Jovinian alone against whom Jerome writing his second Book chargeth him as holding that a man truly baptized by the Spirit could not sin No doubt he meant to damnation or mortally But it 's doubtful what his Opinion was Augustine's report of him is of no great moment who as Erasmus noteth in his Argum. in Hier. adv Jovin neither had seen Jovinians Book or Hieorm's but spake by report And Austin Prosper and Fulgentius thought that all the Elect persevered as Elect being chosen to perseverance but that more were truly sanctified justified and in a state of Salvation had they so died than were elect That all these fell away and perished That no man could be certain whether or no he were
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 thaâ— 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
Creatures and their various species of being is after by PROVIDENCE to manage them as Active or Passive in their several Capacities And the ACTIVE Natures are threefold which he hath made to operate on the threefold Passives viz. INTELLECTUAL SENSITIVE and IGNEOUS or VEGETATIVE in its proper matter upon AIR WATER and EARTH § 12. GOD is so Active as not to be at all PASSIVE All the Active Creatures are first Passive as receiving the Influx of the first Cause and Inferiours from the Superiour second Causes But they are Naturally Active in that dependence and supposing that Influx § 13. The works of Providence about the Existent Creatures are MOTION causing Motion GUBERNATION causing ORDER and ATTRACTION or meet objective Termination satisfying their Appetites and giving them their Ends. * * * Cyprianus sie explicat Act. 17. In ipso sumus movemur vivimus In Patre sumus in Filio vivimus in Spiritu Sancto movemur Pater est sons omnis essentiae Filius est Vita Spiritus Sanctus est agitator seu motor unde apud Hebr. nomen habet Ruah quod significat endelechiam continuam perennem agitationem Vid. Strigel in Melanct. Loc. com pag. 294. § 14. MAN being endowed by his Creator with his Image in Vital-Active-Power Intellect and Free-will a Threefold Virtue in One as the formal Essence of his soul is peculiarly fitted for such acts of Providence as he must be under § 15. As the higher and Nobler Natures are under God the Immediate 1. Movers 2. Governours of the Inferiour so also are they 3. Their Immediate or nearest End having a Goodness in them fitted to attract terminate and satisfie the Appetites of the Inferiour God is not the only end of Appetites § 16. The Acts of Divine PROVIDENCE about MAN-existent are 1. Action or Motion 2. Special Government 3. Love From whence God is Related to Man the fundamental Relation of CREATOR supposed †††I hold with Bradwardine li. 1. c. 2. cor 3. Quod necesse est Deum servare quamlibet creaturam immediatius quacunque cansa creata Et c. 3. cor 3. Quod nulla res potest aliquid facere nisi Deus faciat illud idem immediatius quolibet alio faciente Et c. 4. cor 3. â—adem de Deo Motore â—aking immediation for proximity and facere movere for the action as such and not for the meer moral specification and comparability 1. As ACTOR vel MOTOR 2. As RECTOR 3. As AMICUS vel FINIS Lover Benefactor and End 1. ACTION as such is from God in the first relation 2. Action as ORDERED is by him in the second 3. Action as TERMINATED FINALLY and in perfection is in him in the third § 17. Creation inferreth Propriety and making us Good and inter bâ—na and ad bonum inferreth that God is our Benefactor So that ab origine he standing in these three Relations to us from what is past he is to dispose of us by Providence accordingly § 18. Gods Omnipotence is most conspicuous in Creation propriety and Motion His Wisdom in Governing and Order and his Good will in our Benefits efficiently and our Perfection finally in mutual Love § 19. MOTION is caused by Moving â—â—â—ce impressed ORDER moral by LAW or signification of Gods Will de debito And PERFECTION by attingency and union with our END § 20. From the first resulteth NECESSITY properly so called From the second Moral RECTITUDE In the third is FELICITY as to single persons § 21. From the first viz. God as Actor upon Many or the Universe ariseth CO-OPERATION or Concurse All things work together as the Wheels in a Watch. From the second Divine ORDERING ariseth HARMONY and from the third UNIVERSAL PERFECTION and Melody of the whole Creation and to man perfect Love § 22. Motion is unresistible unless by a greater or unequal Contrary Motion or passive impedition and its effect as such not free but Necessary Government by Law is resistible and obedience free Final Goodness or Love do perfect and felicitate necessarily and freely not effecting for so they are not now considered but satisfying so far as they are enjoyed § 23. The Creation being past and Beings existent except what Generation and Composition make unfearchably and Gods fundamental RELATIONS setled we shall confound and be confounded if we distin-guish not Gods after-actions according to the Relations in which he worketh them and their foresaid differences in themselves SECT II. The Order of Divine Operations § 1. GOD is the Immediate Cause of all things and actions caused * * * Bradwardine ib. p. 172. seemeth to favour Averrois saying that God is Forma omnis formae forma maxime essentialis principalis cujuscunque formati and so acteth all things And indeed when we deny him to be the form of any creature we mean that he is More and not Less And that we have not a fitter Analogical conception of God than that he is eminently more than the soul of the world And c. 14. p. 210. he calleth Necessarium the most proper name of God But when he saith c. 17. that Gods Essence Omnipotence Intellect Naturally precede Gods Knowledge and cause it and so putteth Causes and Effects in God he is too bold by him as to the Proximity of God to the effect For he is every where present in Essence and as near to every Being and Action as it is to it self We must not conceive of Gods using means as we do of mans where the Pen the Saw the Knife c. is between the hand and the effect God is as near and as total a Cause of what he doth as if he used no second cause § 2. They that say God is thus Causa Immediata Immediatione Suppositi seu Essentiae Virtutis speak true but not aptly because it ill insinuateth as if Gods Virtus were not his Essence when as in God they are all one only as inadequate conceptions we may distinguish suppositum à virtute but not otherwise And it is not as quid creatum that we speak of Virtus § 3. Since the Creation in the Motions of Providence God who at first made the Universe to be One by conjunction and co-operation of parts as truly as a Clock or Man is one hath setled a course of second Causes that one thing may act upon and move another and though he work upon the Highest of these Causes immediately without any other subordinate Cause yet on all the rest he ordinarily worketh by superiour created Causes which are some of them Necessary and operate in one constant course and some of them Voluntary and Free and operate more mutably and contingently § 4. The course of Necessitating Causes is commonly called NATURE and the Influence of Angels and other Voluntary Causes distinguished from Natural But they all operate as second Causes under the Influx and Government of God upon us that are here on earth § 5.
the Threefold Divine Excellencies Communicated and the Threefold humane Receptive faculties viz. LIFE LIGHT and LOVE or spiritual Vivification Activity and Power spiritual Illumination of the Intellect and spiritual Conversion or Sanctification of the Will by holy Love § 21. It is certain that it is not only on believers that Christ operateth by the spirit For he draweth men by it to believe and many wicked men that are not his elect have common even miraculous gifts of the spirit * * * Mat. 7. 21 22 23. Gal. 3. 1 2 3. Heb. 6. 5 6. 1 Cor. 14. which are all communicated by Christ § 22. As Nature it self is in his Political power and is delivered to him so far as it is reparable and belongeth to the reparation of man so all gifts and operations Received by any in the world which are Mercies contrary to commerit are the effects of Christ Even as the Sun shineth in the night by the Moon and in the dawning of the day by it self unseen and after by it self appearing so Christ shineth to the Heathen world in abundance of natural and providential mercies and by the help of many Creatures and experiences and to some by nearer approaches as well as to the Church by the manifestation of himself All which is evident 1. Because the whole lapsed world in Adam and Noe were brought under his own Covenant of Grace according to which he operateth 2. In that so much mercy after sin will not stand with Gods regiment by the meer Law of Innocency violated 3. In that Christ is expresly called the Saviour of the World and the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe who dyed for all in that all were dead that they that live should live to him who tasted death for every man c. And Joh. 1. 9 10 11 12. That was the true light which lighteth every man coming into the world or coming into the world lighteth every man He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not And v. 4 5. In him was life and the Life was the Light of man and the Light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not c. § 23. This threefold Influx of Christs Spirit for LIFE LIGHT and LOVE is not equally effectual on all nor equally effectual on the same person at several times nor each part of the influx equally effectual on the same person at the same time The Reasons anon SECT III. Of the Operations and Principles as compared § 1. THough Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love all co-operate by the spirit of Christ yet in the work of Mans Recovery their Impressions are not equal But as POWER with Wisdom and Love more appeared in the CREATION as is aforesaid so WISDOM with Power conveying Love appeareth more in our Redemption and LOVE with Power and Wisdom is most conspicuous and illustrious in our Renewed state begun indeed by Sanctification but perfect in our GLORIFICATION * * * As to the Question between the Schoolmen define beatitudin undoubtedly the Thomists err in placing it chiefly in the Intellect And Medina and others give silly reasons for it and the Scotists of whom Rada well handleth it are far righter And Agid. Romanus briefly and clearly tells us the truth Quodlib 3. q. 18. p. 187. Btatitudo est in aliquo finaliter in aâ—â—quo formaliter Naâ— si ipsum objectum principaâ—â— Voluntatis prout habit rationem finis sit beatitudo oportet quod beatitudo principaliter sit in hoc objecto coâ—sequenter formaliter in actu Voluntatis Nam Voluntas in suum objectum tendit finaliter sed per suum actum teadit in objectum formaliter Ex quo apparet quod be â—titudo sit magis in ipso objecto Voluntatis quam in actu quia ratio finis est magis in objecto quam in actu This is clear truth if you put but finis alone for beatitudo For Beatitudo qua talis is not the principal end of man but God as God in his perfect Goodness and the fulfilling of his will next and then our own beatitude with that of the blesâ—ed And he maketh Vision and not Love to be the secondary final object of all The Omnipotent Father as is said Createth Nature with the Son and Holy Spirit The Son the Wisdom of the Father is the Physicion of souls and healeth them by SKILL with Power and Love The Holy Ghost called by the Schoolmen The LOVE of God dwelling and working peculiarly in us to and in perfection with power and Wisdom is the PERFECTION of the soul And so Natura Medela Sanitas are the various effects of the Divine operation § 2. Therefore the SONS operation in procuring and communicating the SPIRIT of Love and Holiness is eminently sapiâ—â—tial § 3. The Impressions of all the Divine Virtues are excellent in their several kinds And it 's hard for us to say that this is simply more excellent than that But we can say which is more suitable to the nature of man to be esteemed and Loved by him And so we esteem the Impressions of Wisdom and Love as most suitable to us § 4. A Horse or Oxe excelleth Man in strength and a Bird or Hare or Dog in swiftness and a Mountain and an Oak in Greatness And yet we account the Wisdom and Moral Goodness of man to be a greater excellency and to make him the more noble Creature § 5. And God seemeth to tell it us 1. By calling these his Image 2. And by making man the Lord of these stronger Creatures § 6. And among men we take him not for the most excellent who is the strongest but who is the Wisest and the Best And therefore the Wisest and Best are by Aristotle said to be born by Nature to Rule the rest and by all sober men are thought to be the Fittest to Guide and Rule others how seldom soever it cometh to pass while the Robuster sort are Labourers and Mechanicks § 7. Yet I deny not but the effect is answerable to the Cause And as Active-Power causeth Action and Wisdom and Government causeth the Order and Rectitude of action and Love and Goodness the Perfection of it and the agent so Gods Vital-Power Wisdom and Goodness are equal which are the Principles of all As the Father Son and Spirit are coequal And God is indeed glorious in the Motion of Sun and Stars c. as well as in the Wisdom and Holiness of man But besides the foresaid suitableness this difference must be considered that as Life Intellect and Will Power By special Grace some mean two distinct things viz. 1. Our Love to God and other holy Habits and acts or an Inclination to them 2. Gods favour to us and acceptation of us and that as relating to the Glory which he will give us so that the first they call the Habit of Grace quâ— ens qualitas
consider that though he be Almighty yet he doth not all that he can do nor do his works equally manifest his Omnipotency And there are these causes for Limiting his operations in the effects § 2. 1. * * * Gemina operatio Providentiae reperitur partim naturalis partim voluntaria Naturalis per occultam Dei administrationem quae etiam lignis herbis dat incrementum Voluntaria vero per Angelorum opera hominum Vid. catera August de Genesi ad lit l. 8. cap. 9. plura li. 9. cap. 15. The chief cause is his Wisdom and Free-will It is his Will to do what he doth and to do no more which hath no cause § 3. 2. Another cause is that God operateth by Jesus Christ whose Humanity is finite being a Creature and God worketh according to the Instrument or medium As he shineth by the Sun Moon or Stars according to their several natures and not according to his meer omnipotency so doth he communicate Grace by Jesus Christ § 4. †††Mark 6. 5. He Christ could there do no mighty work because of their unbelief and 7. 24. He could not be hid and 1. 45. Jesus could no more openly enter into the City with many such places all speak of an Ordinate power working not ad ultimum posse And Christ by Office being King and Prophet will operate upon certain terms which in his Sapiential Government he sets down And God will not violate those terms § 5. 3. Also under Christ there are many subordinate Causes There are his Word Preachers and all the forementioned means and helps and Christ will work according to these means Though he tye not himself from doing more or otherwise I have proved that this is his usual way And the effect will be limited according to these second causes § 6. As the Sun shineth on us first in and through the air which abateth somewhat of its force and then through the exhalations and then through the glass window and each maketh some alteration as to the effect on us so is it in this case § 7. 4. But the notable limitation is the foresaid Indisposition of the Receiver Every eye hath a tunicle which the Suns light must penetrate But he that hath a suffusion or he that winketh hath a greater impediment to limit the effect so is it with the various degrees of Indisposition or moral incapacity which yet be nothing if God did work ad ultimum posse and did not as aforesaid work according to his free will and second causes SECT VII Of the Resistibility of Grace § 1. TO Resist Grace signifieth 1. Either Not-to Receive it Passively * * * Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 1◠§. 6. p. 187. distinguisheth of Gods will 1. As to its ratio totalis including not only the viâ— aut causalitas effectiva but also the formal reason of Volitio effiâ—ax which includeth the prescience of future contingents And so he saith It is never resisted 2. Secundum partialem inadaequatam rationem praecise ut causa efficiens nostrorum actuum liberorum prout offert motiva confert causas secundas suum concursum abstrahendo à formalissima ratione Volitionis efficacis quae quidditativè supponit formalissimam rationem praescientiae c. Et ita etiam in sensu composito cum tota causalitate illius in actu primo ut praecisus ab actu secundo potest non sortiri effectum as a stone receiveth not the rain ad intus or as oyl resisteth water or hard things receive not impressions as the soft 2. Or Not-to-Receive-Actually which is Receptio Moralis as a man receiveth not a gift who consenteth not or as he resisteth the light who will not open his eyes The bare Not-Consenting with the Will or not using the senses or organs not opening the hand c. is such a Resisting 3. Or an Active opposition which is more As a man resisteth an Enemy with heart or hand or a man by Nolition and not only Non-volition resisteth a suiter § 2. Mans sinful soul resisteth Gods gracious operations all these wayes 1. It is Passively become undisposed to Reception And thus he is said to have a hard heart of stone and a seared conscience and to be dead and past feeling Eph. 4. 18 19. 2. 1 2. 2. It doth not do what it can do morally to receive grace that is it doth not Conari or suscitate it self to be willing of it 3. Yea it doth Positively resist by Action and is unwilling of Gods gracious operations And this is twofold 1. By willing the contrary and prosecuting carnal interest over-loving the pleasures of the flesh and so turning away from the motions of grace 2. And therefore by an enmity to that grace and work which would †††Bradwardine li. 1. c. 1. cor 8. p. 5. proveth that Gods will is universaliter efficax nec impedibilis frustrabilis aut defectibilis which we grant as to his will as it is efficient and not meerly final and complacite But yet the Schoolmen that say he is not Omnivolens give reason for it convert him and take him off his chosen Idols § 3. No creature by resisting God doth abate or retund his essential Power or Activity nor make any thing properly difficult to him § 4. All the Elect resist Grace before it overcome and convert them And all our lives after we resist it too commonly when it exciteth us to duty and draweth us from sin § 5. He that repenteth not of his Resisting of Gods Spirit and Grace doth not understand and well repent of his sin § 6. All Resisting is not Overcoming All Resist grace but all overcome it not that is do not frustrate it as to the due effect § 7. There are several Degrees of yielding to Gods motions and operations and so several degrees of overcoming He is fully overcome by it who yieldeth to it wholly He overcometh it in some part who yieldeth to it but in part And because Gods grace moveth us to more than we ordinarily yield to therefore we do ordinarily overcome it in too great measure even when we are happily overcome by it § 8. God worketh not alike on all sometime as on Paul he so suddenly changeth the mind and will as that at once he both produceth the Act of mans consent and also taketh away even the moral though not the natural power to the contrary in the antecedent instant So that no man ever denyeth consent who is so moved And sometimes he procureth Actual Consent by such an operation as in the antecedent instant might have been resisted and overcome there being a Moral Power to the contrary So that there is Actually-Converting Grace which was superable in the antecedent instant as to Moral power and there is such a converting Grace as no man ever doth overcome § 9. Gods grace when it prevaileth doth not take away but determine
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 fomiâ— 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 mâ—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 barâ— Word or Means alone but the Spirit working in and by those means which is so resisted For though no moâ—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 Aâ—x l. 7. disp 59. p. 264. Eadâ—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 aeternâ— 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 nisâ— procedat à gratiâ— 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 â—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
cessationem aâ— vaâ—ationem ab aâ—â—u boâ— necessitate naturaliter praecedentâ— cor p. 649. Omnia quâ— sunt fiunt aut eveniâ—â—t sunt â—â—â—â— eveniunt â—â— aliquâ— necessitate ipâ—â— naturalâ—tâ—r praecedentâ— This is just Hobbs Soâ— 5. â—â— 654 that No creature hath simple liberty of Contradiction or Contingency but only secundum quid in respect to second causes but only Gods acts of will ad extra are simply free and contingent As if God had given no creature Liberty to forbear sin or do good but doing it or not doing it were from Gods necessitation though not from the creatures The Dominicans the Masters of the Inquisition and Murderers of the Waldenses and Albigenses of old and therefore faulty as well as the Jesuits though there are very Learned men among them both do commonly hold that No Creature natural or free can act unless God by Immediate physical efficient premotion predetermine it to that act both in the act as such which they call the substance of it and all the modes circumstances and order of it 3. Augustine and Jansenius after him with their true followers hold not this necessity of predetermining premotion to all acts natural or sinful but only to spiritual good acts which is not from the Nature but the Corruptâ—â—n of â—â—an and therefore the predetermination is not made say they by Gods Common Natural Motion but by Medicinal Grace 4. Durandus and his followers as Lud. à Dola and Aureolus partly do hold that if God do but uphold â—ll creatures as compaginate in the Universe in the Nature he made them in and so natural Inclination and media and objects all supposed this sustentation and Influx maintaining their Active Natures and means is sufficient to cause an Act without another particular predetermining premotion of God As e. g. in Naturals they think that if a Rock were violently held up in the Air God continuing its Natural Gravity and all other circumstant Natures and Concauses this Rock if loosed can fall down of it self without another predetermining premotion of God And that a new Act of God supposing the said support of Nature is more necessary to the not-falling than to the falling of it As it was to the fires not burning the Three Confessors Dan. 3. And I am unable to see the error of this Opinion And so in Free agents they think that if God continue the Nature of a free-will with all circumstants and necessary natures it can freely determine it self without another act of predetermining premotion And doth so in each act of sin Though as Jansenius saith by accidental corruption for Conversion we need Medicinal Grace 5. The Jesuits and all others explode this Opinion of Durà ndus as singular but give so little and slender reason of their dissent as would draw one the more to suspect their cause Instead of it they scarce know what to assert But Bellarmine and the chiefest of them under a pretended opposition speak I think the same in other words Even an Universal Concurse like that of the Sun which operateth in specification according to the nature of Recipients which specifie the effect Which Universal Influx no doubt Aureolus and Durandus include in Gods sustentation of Nature For to sustain an Active Nature in all its Active disposition by a suitable active Influx is universally to cause its motion The difference they are unable to assign 6. After these come Hobbs Cartesius and Gassendus with a swarm of Epicureans a Sect commonly despised even in Cicero's time and yet called Wits in ours by men that have no more wit than themselves and some of these say that Motion needeth no continued cause at all any more than non-movere But when a thing is in motion it will so continue because it is its state without any other continued cause than the motion it self And so they may as well say and some do that when a thing is in Being it will so continue till it be positively annihilated without any continued causation of its being As if esse existere were nothing more than non esse and agere were no more noble a mode of Entity than non agere and so needed no more that is no Cause For non esse non agere need no Cause When this distraction is worn out and shamed the next Age will reproach us for attempting the confutation of it And yet the Wits of this delirant Age have not the wit to understand a Confutation Some of them say that Spirits cannot move bodies for want of Contact as Gassendus Some say that Matter and Motion are eternal and that of themselves As if there were no God but Matter and Motion Some say that there is a God who gave matter one push at first and so set it in that motion by which one body by a knock will move another to the end And some say There is no other Intellect but the wonders of wisdom and order in the World are done by such fortuitous motion But Hobbes meeteth the Predeterminants and saith that the Will is free in that its Act is Volition but that this Volition is necessitated by superiour or natural Causes as much as any motion in a Clock or Watch and that it is unconceivable that any Act or Mode of Act can be without a necessitating efficient cause But he differs from them in his consequents and in the Notion of a Spirit acknowledging no being but Corporeal § 2. The Predeterminants commonly build not their doctrine on Gods free-will but on the Necessity of the thing As if it were a contradiction which God cannot do for God to make a creature that can Determine it self ad ordinem actionis without his particular predetermining premotion or to make a Stone that can fall from the Air of it self unless he move it downwards besides his sustentation of its natural gravity and all other natures by his Influx or universal Concurse § 3. But till they can prove the Contradiction they must pass for the denyers of Gods Omnipotency which is to deny a God § 4. * * * Let the Reader note 1. That all the rest of their arguments save this one are of no value 2. And that Dr. Twisse affirmeth that God is not alwayes the effector of all Good either of Profit or Pleasure which yet he saith are Good Now if there be no such Entity in Bonum conducibile vel Bonum Jucundum as necessarily to require God to be the Cause of them tell us if you can Why there is so much entity in Malum morale as that man is not able to cause it unless God predetermine his will Yea as to Entity there is no more in Bonum honestum than in the rest fore-named His words are Nos tueri poterimus Malum fieri esse Bonum per se neâ—â—pe in genere Boni conducibilis ad certum aliquem fiâ—â—m sed arguit adversarius Ergo Deus esset non modo
permissor sed effector â—jus mali Prorsus invalida consequentia Apparet enim non necesse esse ut Deus sit effector omnis Boni in genere conducibilis N. B. Vix enim datur aliquod peccatum quod non sit alicui conducibile Neque necessâ— est ut Deus sit author omnis boni jucundi magis quam ut sit author peccati Nam certissimum est extra omnem controversiae alâ—am positum peccatum esse bonum in genere jucundi etiam in genere conducibilis potest enim peccatum nobis cedere in salutem Vind. Grat. li. 1. p. 1. sect 7. p. 133. But whereas the Doctor upbraideth Arminius for confusion in not distinguishing the three sorts of Good in this controversie An â—â—li existentia bonum sit viz. the bonum honestum utile jucundum I must desire the Reader to avoid also the Doctors confusion and to be so much more accurate than he as to remember that this distinction is but de Bono Creaturae whose pleasure profit and honesty are distinguishable But that above these God Himself is the absolute and simple Good and that things are first Good as related to him the Prime and Ultimate Good And that the highest formal notion of Goodness in the â—creature is none of those three but the conformity of things to the Will of God the absolute Rule of Goodness And therefore when we ask An bonum sit ut sit malum we mean not an sit bonum hominis secundum quid but an sit bonum simpliciter viz. conforme Voluntati Divinae And if they can prove that Deus velit â—â—â—â— fieri we will confess it to be Good But 3. Yet I deny it to be bonum utile seeing it doth the sinner no good For Bonum jucundum in genere is not sin God would have men have more Pleasure than sin bringeth and not less But it is hoc minus jucundum sensibile preferred before hoc magis jucundum spirituale which is sin Now the prelation of a Less Pleasure to a Greater is no Pleasure So that sin is neither utile nor jucundum And the Doctor is quite out in calling â—ccasio a medium conducibile and confesseth that sin is no otherwise conducible to Gods Glory but as occasio Whereas occasio as such is no medium at all no more than possibilitas est ens unless you take Medium very largely Their chief argument is that the moral specification of an Action is an Entity and to say that any thing can cause any Entity without Gods first causing it is to deifie that creature making it a first cause Answ 1. The comparative Order of Actions as the terminating them on this object rather than that and at this time rather than that c. is but the modus modi entis and so is no proper entity 2. Or if the Name be the quarrell it is no other Entity than what God is Able to make a creature Able to cause without his predetermining Causality 3. This power is the excellency of the creature and the honour of its Creator § 5. As for their argument that there is no effect without a cause nor difference in effects without a difference in the causes and that an undetermined cause cannot produce a determinate effect I answer 1. God is the cause of all differences without any diversity in himself And he is the Free cause of all things necessary in the World 2. The soul is Gods Image 3. The Will when undetermined hath a self-determining power Therefore this is but petere principium 4. But there are many sub causes that are a reason of the determination As objects opportunity knowledge the removing of competitors c. § 6. Therefore Gibieufs Guil. Camerarius c. way of predetermination by the Causa finalis is nothing to our question that being no efficient but a Material objective or Moral Causation § 7. When they say that else God dependeth on the creature and is determined by it as to his Concurse I answer 1. How can Gods free upholding the power of a free agent be his dependence on it when it expresly speaketh its dependence on him without whom it cannot be nor act 2. No creature determineth Gods Immanent acts nor his transient as to the meer Impress and first effect and so not Gods Act at all unless Terminating be Determining It is only its own Act which the creature determineth which is a secondary effect of Gods act as proceeding from the second cause Gods Influx maketh all that Impress on the soul which God intendeth absolutely But whether by that Impress the sinner will consent the will determineth and is the chief determiner in Evil. § 8. Saith Dr. Twisse Vindic. Grat. lib. 2. p. 2. Digres 9. The second cause non agit in primam c. Hoc faceret vel volendo vel aliâ—d agendo c. Answ It 's granted God is not passive nor doth any second cause act on him as passive Who is his Adversary in this § 9. He addeth Neither on the Influx of God do we act for an Act is not the subject of an act Answ 1. If by Gods Act and Influx he mean not the Effect on the soul it is a false supposition that Gods Influx or Act is any other than his Essence But if the said effect be meant I have shewed you that both Indisposition in the Recipient and a contrary Act may resist it § 10. Against our Passive determination of the effect he saith that God is denyed to act by physical action on mans will which if he did he would rather determine it than be determined by it because it cannot resist him c. Ans 1. The will doth not resist by reaction on and against God but by Indisposition and by its own not acting when it can c. 2. Who dare deny all Physical Action of God on mans will when it is quaedam natura 3. The will doth not Determine Gods will nor reject his Impress but only determine its own Act. 4. If God would act ad ultimum posse the will would never disobey or fail of the due effect § 11. He saith ib. Doth God move only to the Act in genere or also to this species of action The first cannot be said For Suarez Hurtado say that God determineth the Agent to this Individual act And the creature hath as much need of help to the species of motion which is perfecter than the genus as to the genus And Gods Influx is singular and not determined to Generical nature c. Answ Gods universal motion as the Suns doth necessarily make its Impress on the creature and giveth him sufficient help ex parte sui to Act yea necessarily continueth the soul in some Action And that Action is singular and not a non existent universal But it is only the General Nature of a singular Act which Gods Natural Influx necessarily causeth And the Moral species what need soever we
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 Brâ—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 euâ—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 Marâ— 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 secuâ—urum and so that Grace iâ— 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
to Angels nor to Brutes For as God made one sort of creatures naturally determined to things sensible and another sort necessarily though freely determined to things spiritual so it pleased him to make a middle sort endued with Reason and free-will undetermined as to their choice and able freely to determine their own Volitions without any predetermining premotion of their Creator or any other That so they might be fit subjects to be governed in this Life by Laws and other moral means § 4. God as Creator maketh substances with their necessary Accidents and as the Natural Orderer of them placeth them in their natural order and as Motor or Actor he causeth Action as such But as Moral Rector he causeth only the Moral Order of Actions as far as belongeth to a Rector the rest being presupposed in Nature and leaveth it to man to cause the rest § 5. Seeing God is not to be blamed for making such a creature as man of a middle defectible undetermined Will left to his free choice with necessary helps it being part of the beauty of his works to be diversified He is not then to be blamed for any of the sins of such a creature because he supporteth his Being and his Active Nature and is his first cause of Action § 6. God could prevent all future sin if he absolutely willed so to do either by destroying the World or disabling the sinner or by withholding his Moving Influx or by such a change of his nature as should make him indefectible But he that made man in this Middle state will so continue him and not make a change in the frame of Nature to fulfil our wills § 7. No Act as an Act no Vital Act as Vital no Intellection no Volition as such is Virtue or Sin And therefore to cause it as such is not to cause either moral good or evil § 8. As God is Related to us as our Owner Ruler and our chief good efficiently as our Benefactor and finally as our End so to consent to these Relations and to the Duties of our correlations and to Practise them is the summ of all Moral Good even Dispositively and Actually to be Resigned and devoted to God as our Owner to obey and please him as our Ruler and to be Thankful to Him and totally Love Him as our Benefactor and our ultimate End All Moral Goodness lyeth in this § 9. By which it appeareth that Morality consisteth in the due or undue ORDER of our actions and dispositions as they are a Moral Agent 's related to God himself in these three Relations and to his Actions therein viz. his Disposals his Laws and his Attractive final Goodness with his Benefits § 10. In these the Morality consisteth as simpliciter talis in all three inseparably as Gods Relations are inseparable and our correlations But the Relation of our Actions to any one of them is Morality secundum quid § 11. And among them all our Action submission resignation patience to God meerly as our Owner is Moral but in the slenderest initial sense And our Actions as related to him as our Rector are Moral in the fuller formal sense And therefore by most accounted the only formal Morality as being a relation to a Law But yet our Actions as Related to God our Benefactor Lover and End are Moral in the highest most perfective notion § 12. It is not only sub rationâ— obedientia as it is a thing commanded by a Law that Love to God is Morally good but also in that superiour sense formally as it is the Love of God And therefore Love is called the Law of Laws and the fulfilling of the Law not only as commanded by a Law but as being the End of the Law and the state of perfection above it as Christ is to the Law of Moses and also as being a Law eminenter something greater though not formaliter § 13. But as there is an Order in these Relations so is there in the Morality of our Actions as towards them So that the Last still includeth the rest foregoing All Love is Obedience and all Obedience is submission to our Owner But all Obedience is not Love nor all Submission or Resignation formal obedience to a Rector Though they must all concurr and not be divided when they are formally distinguished § 14. I have thought it necessary though I be guilty of some repetition to open here the Doctrine of formal Morality Virtue and Vice because we cannot understand how God is vindicated from being the Author of sin till we know what sin is which we cannot do till we know what Virtue is which we cannot do till we know what Morality is And also because the Schoolmens most subtile elaborate enquiries into this point especially de naturâ— peccati are generally too little subtile or accurate as comparing it with this little you may perceive § 15. From all this it is plain 1. That God as the meer Author and Motor of Nature doth not cause us to Obey or Love him And therefore that these must be caused by another superadded operation § 16. Yet when we Obey and Love him the Generical Nature of the Act is from God as the God of Nature viz. as it is Intellection Volition Action But that these Actions are so duly ordered as to be thus terminated on God and things commanded is otherwise caused For though the Generical nature of Action Intellection and Volition as such be seldom found but in some Moral species and that be never found but in singular acts yet can one causality procure the Generical nature and another the Specifical and another the singularity in the same action As the Sun is the Generical Cause and the Virtus Seminalis the specifying and the Individuatio seminis the Individâ—â—aâ—ing of Plants Animals c. § 17. As God is the God of Nature so he hath setled Nature in such a constant course of motion as that we have small reason to expect that he should there make any ordinary mutations And therefore as the Sun aforesaid he doth by his Generical Influx concurr with all Specifying and Individuating Causes according to their several natures or receptivities § 18. They therefore that suppose that God as the Cause of all Action must of natural necessity ad esse by physical efficient premotion predetermine every Act natural and free to its object compared with other possible objects and that in all its modes and circumstances do confound Nature and Morality and leave nothing for God to do in causing Holiness but what he must needs do to cause all action that is caused allowing the difference of the second effects â— yea but what he doth in causing every sin For his Pracept is not with them the Causing predetermination § 19. Jesus Christ and his Gospel with all the fore described frame of moral means and the Spirit to co-operate are the proper second causes by which God as RECTOR will on his part ordinarily
cause Moral Good and hinder Moral Evil and by which as our Lover and End he will draw mans soul to himself in Love § 20. God as Rector though he vary his Laws in some things to several ages and places and promulgate the same Gospel with inequality on several accounts yet according to the respective Laws that they are under dealeth with all men in a certain equality which is called Justice that is His Laws antecedently to mans acts make not difference and as Judge he maketh none but what mans different actions require according to the said Laws and Justice But yet as Owner and as Benefactor he is free not against but above his Laws to make many inequalities which are no injustice they being not acts of formal Government and so he may do with his own as he list And thus though God give all their due according to his Law of Grace yet he giveth to his Elect such proportions of Grace as he gave them no antecedent Right to by his Law or at least to many of them passing by the controversie now whether he do so to them all § 21. God could cure and sanctifie all men if it were his Absolute will but he doth not and will not being no way obliged And he will be no loser nor sufferer by the creatures sin § 22. Gods absolute will is as fully accomplished by mans free acts as if they were all necessitated and Natural And mans actions are as free as if God had made no Absolute Decree of their futurity as in Good he hath done if we may so ascribe futurity to his Decrees § 23. It seemeth that all sin beginneth in the wills omission of what it was able to have done Even when Adams appetite was to the forbidden fruit and some think that this was the first part of the sin it seemeth that it was rather in the Wills not restraining that appetite when it could have done it And then positive sins do follow thereupon § 24. There is more Brutishness in sin and consequently more privative and less positive faultiness of the Reason and Will than many do consider which Paul partly meaneth Rom. 7. For it is certain 1. That a passion e. g. anger or fear may be forced on a man suddenly as â—n a Brute without Reason As if you come behind one and affright him or strike him suddenly no Reason raised that passion and consequently no Rational Will 2. It is certain that this passion without Reason can cause despotically a corporal motion as the fearful will start and run and the angry strike without any reason or rational will but as a Beast doth 3. It is certain that it is the office of the Will to Rule this passion and these motions 4. And that it must have due information from the understanding that so to do is good and best 5. If this information of the understanding did never miss of determining the Will then man would never sin but when the understanding failed of its necessary office before the will which would resolve all sin into the will of God as much as if he directly moved the will to it by necessitating unresistible predetermination For the Intellect as such hath no Liberty but is necessitated by objects further than it is under the Empire of the Will And the Objects and Intellect are made by God 6. Therefore it followeth that there is a certain measure of Intellecâ—â—â—l true apprehension according to which the will can excite and determine it self without â—â—y thing which it hath not and yet can forbear And that this not-willing what and when it should is the beginning of all sin § 25. God is no Efficient or Desicient cause of this first Omission of the will For efficient it hath none And deficient God is not who gave man power to have done it But man is the deficient Cause § 26. Man 's not believing not knowing not loving not obeying not desiring trusting fearing c. being the far greatest part of the sins of his life * * * Which made the worthy Bishop Usher dye with these words as his last But Lord in special forgive my â—â—â— of omission we see by this are not at all of God § 27. Though multitudes of positive Acts of sin do follow such omissions and go before some of them yet they being not sinful as Acts but as Disordered against the Rule and End and upon undue objects and especially comparatively preserring the wrong object before the right it seemeth that in their first instances they are all Omissive and Positive in the second only which maketh the Schoolmen so commonly say that sin is a Privation § 28. Yet the Moral formal Relation of sin is not only Privative but a Positive Disobedience or Disconformity And so as Quid Morale formaliter sin hath as much Relative being as Duty hath viz. 1. As contra Legem significantem 2. Contra Voluntatem Dei significatam 3. Et contra Jâ—â— Divini Dominii Imperii Amoris § 29. If any be unsatisfied in this it is certain that in the Velle hoc prohibitum potius quam hoc imperatâ—m there is no more physical entity than in the Velle imperatum no nor than there is in the Velle indefinitely considered as on any object Or if any deny that it is certain that there is no such addition of Entity it being but ordo modi in any such sinful Act from which as such the formal obliquity or sin resulteth but what man can do and doth without Gods causing the Act as so ordered and terminated So that God is no way the cause of formal sin § 30. †††Bradwardiâ— dealeth more plainly and maketh Gods effectual Volition to be the total immediate cause that man sinneth though it be no sin in God to do so and saith that God willeth it for good uses as the sinner doth or if he do not it is because God maketh him unavoidably do otherwise They that say He causeth all that man causeth and that as the first necesâ—itating or insuperable cause but yet is not the cause of the form of sin contradict themselves seeing that form is but a Relation which resulteth ipso facto from its fundamentam and terminus and nè per divinam potentiam cannot but do so And hath no other cause but what causeth them § 31. And they that say that yet God is not the Author of sin because he is under no Law do but sport with dreadful things And they mean that God is the chief Cause of all mens sins in the world but not of any sin of his own which is none of the question § 32. God doth neither Cause the sin nor the futurity or existence of it as some vainly distinguishing maintain especially Dr. Twisse and Rutherford For as Estius and others truly say to cause the sin is nothing but to cause the existence of it And sin as sin Dr. Twisse often
as the sole cause IV. Whether the best actions of Infidels or ungodly men be properly to be called good is but a Logomachy Call them but a Less evil or the abatement of evil and actions that tend as Means to their repentance and salvation and I shall not disagree with you in this V. His concession that the first sin was not necessitated is of great moment But it is a great mistake that following sins are necessary because they are punishments It is not the existence of the sin that is a punishment but the hurtfulness of it supposing the existence If drunkenness or gluttony be themselves noxious and penal that is but a consequent of their existence which was not necessitated by God as punishing them that caused them VI. The sixth I think sound and the Schools pure nature as if Adams Love in the principle was not his necessary Sanity is unsound VII Here again 1. I think he giveth too much to free-will in innocency and too little to God For Gods Help did not then serve mans will so much as Gods and God fulfilled all his will while Angels used their power and liberty and they did no good but what God willed and caused as he saw best And while man and Angels used their liberty they fulfilled Gods will in all their duty as much as if they had been necessitated by natural predetermination 2. And it is not true that their sufficient grace gave not Merit to the will For it followeth not that because they could have omitted a duty therefore in doing it they did any thing of which God was not the prime cause He that gave them all their power disposition objects helps and motives did give them that which he calleth Merit 3. It is his grand error that Gift and Reward are repugnant and that Life would not have been to Adam and was not to the Angels of free gift though of Reward For it is impossible that any creature can merit of God as a Proprietor in point of Commutative Justice seeing God is the absolute Owner of us and all things and no creature can give him any thing but what is his own Therefore there is a natural impossibility that quoad valorem rei aut ipsum beneficium a creature can have any thing but of free gift But God who is an Owner and Benefactor is also a Rector and so the cause of Moral Order as well as of real Benefits And so that which as a Benefit is a meer gift yet quoad ordinem conferendi is given by God per modum praemii to those that will Accept the Gift according to its nature and denyed to those that will despise it and refuse it As a Father will give a purse of Gold to the Child that will thank him and humbly take it and not to the Child that will spit in his face Jâ—nsenius doth so weakly open the nature of Merit and Reward as that alone would shew that he was not meet for his great undertaking Though he excellently shew that God is our Reward himself yet the Ratâ—â—nes praemii he â—aith little to that can satisfie the judicious Of which more anon 4. Angels were differenced inter se by Gods will and their own And we confess that so far as sin made the difference it was by their own will and not by Gods But was he sure that no such difference is made since the fall among men He will confess that when Eve sinned before Adam it was she that made the difference And how can he prove that it was not Cain who by sin first differenced himself from Abel or the Prodigal Luke 15. that by forsaking his Father first differenced himself from his Brother According to his own principles who holdeth falling away from Grace and Justification doth not he that falleth away difference himself from him that standeth He can never prove that now two men may not have equal help from God to go to Church or read a good Book and one do it and the other go to the Tavern or read a Play-book VIII 1. God doth not so use man as his Instrument in good but that he giveth the Instrument its proper aptitude and action as to the effect And that which it is and doth may be spoken of it To say a thing is gud is to praise it and good must be called good And to say that you were the Actor of Good and that Voluntarily is to praise you Therefore the Actor of good ex natura rei deserveth praise seeing Truth must be spoken of all things 2. God himself doth so often praise his servants and promise to honour them that honour him that to say no praise is due to them is to charge God with error 3. To deny all Reward and Merit as it signifieth Rewardableness or Moral â—ptitude for Reward is to deny the greatest part of the Scripture to deny God to be our Rector and so to be our God to deny the whole frame of his Sapiential Government and his glory therein and so to deny his Laws Judgement and Execution Sin Duty Heaven and Hell Thâ—â— summ of all is this â— No man or Angel can merit of God in Commutative Justice as Proprietor But only as Rector All is as is before said of free gift from God as â—roprietor and Benefactor 2. The same God who is Omnipotent is also sapientissimus optimus And he that glorifieth his Power eminently as the Author of Nature as Creator Conservator and Motor doth also glorifie his Wisdom in rerum Ordine And he ordereth Moral Agents eminently per sapientâ—am â—t Rector per media moralia viz. Doctrinam Leges Judicia And he glorifieth his Goodness and Love partly Antecedently to mans Actions and as a free Benefactor partly consequently according to the order of his Laws So that as his Attributes are inseparable so are herein the operations of them And the same Benefit is ut quid productum the effect of Gods Omnipotency and Dominion and ut Bonum Beneficium the effect of the Benefactors Love and yet quoad ordinem conferendi it is Prâ—mium à Rectore adjudicatum And between all these there is no repugnancy 3. We grant that God Rewardeth no man now according to the Law of Innocency for that condemneth every sinner 4. Nor according to or for the works of the Mosaical Jewish Law 5. Nor for any sincere obedience to the Law of Nature or any other without Redemption by Christ 6. We are agreed that the Reward is now doubly and eminently a free gift and the reward of Christs merits It is not only free as all Benefits from God to man are as to commutation but also after forfeiture freely given to sinners and it is procured by the merits of Christ who was freely given to be the Saviour of the world and it is given us by Christ as free gifts are upon condition of Acceptance and an Accepting Will is Gods free gift and they that
first giveth all creatures what they have and next faileth them and leaveth them in darkness as the Sun setteth and then Rising again revolveth all things into his original pure spirituality like the revolution of day and night Summer and Winter it is sure another thing than the Scripture describeth it which maketh it a noble part of that Sapiential frame of Moral Government which some despise § 37. IX But let it be noted that we hold that as the Almighty Father is the glorious Creator Motor and Life of Nature and the Eternal Wisdom Word and Son the Glorious Ordinator Rector and Redeemer so the Eternal Love and the Holy Ghost is the final Perfecter of believers even of Gods Elect and that this Sanctification and proficiency is by more than Moral Sapiential Regiment even by the Real shedding abroad Gods Love upon the soul or by a Quickning Illuminating felicitating Communication of Divine Life and Light and Love which yet maketh not the Sapiential Regiment vain § 38. And as to Free-will I further say that we are far from holding that it is a state of man in which he is Above God or Independent and as a God to himself or that God is any way a defective or idle as they call it Spectator of mans sins or free acts But that this rank and state of free agents is Gods own wisely-chosen work in which he is delighted And that he doth truly attain his ends in all § 39. Therefore as Mr. Sterry magnifieth the harmony which aâ—â—seth from Moral Good and Evil as designed and necessitated by God so we first admire the harmony which ariseth from Natural and free agents and their works which must not be dishonoured and left out § 40. And more than so we doubt not but all Gods works are perfect it being their perfection to be suited to his own will And the difference between us and Mr. Sterry Dr. Twisse c. is not Whether God be Glorious in all his works or they be perfect For we say that though mans sin be found upon Gods works and that sin be none of his works nor any means properly so called of Pleasing or Glorifying him nor at all willed or caused by him but hated and punished yet he loseth none of his complacency or glory by it but notwithstanding its malignity shineth gloriously in the perfection of all his works § 41. Yea more we say that men sin under his Disposing power and that he will make use of their evil unto Good and sin shall become an occasion of that Glory to God as sickness to the Physicion of which it is no Cause or proper Means nor of it self condâ—ceth thereunto Yea and that no Act as an Act how sinful soever is done but by Gods causation as he is the fountain of nature and prime Motor Yea more that all the Effects and Consequents of sin that are not sin it self are under the Causal Government and disposal of God who will attain his Ends in all § 42. Therefore we differ but in this Whether God get not all that glory which Mr. St. floridly describeth notwithstanding sin or on supposition of it as barely permitted negatively but with a Decree or Volition of all the good consequents occasioned by it rather than by sin it self as a willed designed effect of his own necessitating Negations and in the positive part of the acts as circumstantiated of his determining premotion Whether mans permitted sin be any of Gods works And whether Gods glory be not rather non obstante peccato and also by occasion of it supposed to be mans work only and by all the good consequents caused by God than by the sin it self as a Means conducible or a Cause § 43. For we deny not that God could have prevented all sin if he had so resolved and yet we believe not that such a permission is equivalent to a necessitating Motion or Privation as Mr. Sterry would perswade us To make a creature no better than such as can do good if he will and can be willing with a decree to make many willing is much different from making the creature bad and then condemning him to Hell for being so as an act of Justice Yet we doubt not but the Divine Light will shortly give us all a fuller discovery of that which shall vindicate the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God in his Government of man than yet the wisest mortals have § 44. Either you suppose that God doth all that he can do or not If yea then you suppose that he cannot nor ever could make any one Creature Worm or Grass more or less greater or smaller sooner or later or otherwise than he doth which few will believe It being not for want of Power but through perfection of Wisdom and freedom of Will that he doth no more But if God can make one creature more or one Motion more and yet doth not I ask Whether you dare call that non-agency by the name of Idleness or deficiency If not why should the Non-causation of sinful Volitions in specie morali or the leaving free-will to its own determination be so called Not to make more creatures or more physical motion or not to give more Grace and Glory is as much a non-agency as not to determine a sinning Will. § 45. As to all Mr. Sterry's Reasons against Free-will they are so Rhetorically rather than Logically delivered that I think it not meet to trouble the Reader with any further answer of them or to suppose them to have any more strength than those that other men plainlier have delivered § 46. I conclude with this repeated profession that I am fully satisfied that all the rest of the Controversies about Grace and Nature and Predestination and Redemption as they stand between the Synod of Dort and the Arminians are of no greater moment than I have oft expressed in this Book nor worthy any of that stir and contention which men that sufficiently difference not Words Methods and Matter have made to the mischievous injury of the Church And that the true life of all the remaining difficulties is in this controversie between the defenders of Necessary Predetermination and of Free-will that is not What free-will sinners have left but Whether ever in Angels or Innocent man there was such a thing as a will that can and ever did determine it self to a Volition or Nolition in specie morali without the predetermining efficient necessitating premotion of God as the first Cause or as Hobbes speaketh Whether ever a created will did act without a necessitating premotion And whether to will and to will freely be all one And whether the will except as to the kind of action be not as much necessitated to will or not will as my Pen to write or not write are we call not its acts Contingent or free either because they are what they are Volitions or though Ignorance because we see not the moving Causes § 47. And if
Opinion hold it will allow no other Religion in the World but this much To believe that moral Good and Evil are but like natural Good and Evil which God doth cause aâ— a free Benefactor differencing his Gifts in various proportions as he seeth meet as he differenceth Stars from Stones and Men from Dogs and equally causeth the wisdom of Man and the poyson of the Toad or Serpent and so will make such differences in this World and the next if there be any as pleaseth him as he doth here between one Horse that 's pampered and another that is tired out with labour Well may they cry down the Doctrine of Merit and Demerit that go this way It hath pleased God by permitting Hobbs to reduce this Principle of the Wills necessitation unto its proper practice thereby to cast more shame upon it in our Times for this Authors sake than we could have expected if none but such excellent persons as Alvarez * And more plainly yet Bradwardine who maketh the necessitating cause of Sin and Hell that God will have it so and none can resist him and his Brethren Dr. Twisse and Rutherford had maintained it But as Davenant well saith It is an Opinion of the Dominicans which Protestants have no mind to own And there are two sorts that thus subject the Will to absolute caused necessity 1. Those aforesaid the Dominicans who assist the predetermining premotion of God as necessary to every act natural and free 2. Those that make the Will as much necessitated by a train of natural second Causes which is Hobbs his way and alas the way of great and excellent healing Câ—mero For they hold That the Will is necessitated by the Intellect and the Intellect by the Object â— and God made both Will and Intellect and Object and Law And so Camero hath nothing to resolve the necessitating cause of Adams sin into but the Devil But who necessitated the Devil to sin This will be all one when it is discussed And if self-determining freedom of Will in Man be impossible it will be impossible in the Angels for they are not Gods Therefore I now deal with none but those who confess that God made Man's Will at first with a natural self-determining power and freedoâ— suited to this earthly state of government and that Adam's Will by that same measure of Grace which he had could have forborn his sin at the instant when he sinned II. The other extream which I reconcile not but confute * Yet I am not â—â—â—tating the old way of anaâ—â—â—â—a thing all the hard sayings or opinions of others that being it that I write this against of which course the Epistles of Joan. Antioch 5. 6 c. and of cyril Aâ—ix to Proâ—â—â—s against his so using Theoaâ—â— Mops in Proâ—â—â—â—â—â—â— are worth the reaâ—â—ing besides the fore named T is the Pelagians who deny Original Sin and acknowledge not the pravity of vitiated nature and consequently must deny the need of Grace in the same proportion and so far the need of a Saviour and a Sanctifier And how far this also subverteth Christianity you may perceive A. But both these Parties have a great deal of very plausible reason for their Opinions as you may see in the Domâ—nâ—oans on one side and Hobbes against Braâ—hall and in Dr. Jeremy Taylor his Treâ—â— of Repentance on the other and therefore are not to be so slighted B. I do not slight them but confute them I confess that the cases are not without difficulty yea not a little But I am surer that Religion is not to be renounced than they can be of the truth of their Opinions And do you think that if one of them had written for the Cause of â—â— liâ—n Porphyrie or Celsus against Christ that they would not have spoken as plausibly and made the case seem as difficult at least to be argumentatively answered as they here do A. Now let us here your way or terms before mentioned what they are B. II. I suppose every sober man will allow me 1. To distinguish Names and Words from Things and * Vasâ—u in 1. Tho. q. 2â— a. 3. d. 4â— c. 1. Bona pars hujuâ— controversiâ— an reprobationis detur causa ex partâ— reprobi dâ— vâ—ce est nominal Controversies from real and to that end to open the aâ—biguity of words as I go along And to â—â—ew when it is an arbitrary Logical notion or an enâ— rationâ—â— only that men contend about instead of a reality 2. I may be allowed when confusion lapeth up many doubtful questions in one to distinguish them that each may have its proper answer 3. I may be allowed to â—ast by as unfit for contention all those unâ—evealed and unsearchable Points which none of the Contenders know at all nor ever will do in this World 4. And I will take leave to lay by the rash words of particular Writers as not to be imputed to any others nor to the main Cause or as that which I am not obliged to defend reconcile nor at all to meâ—dle with 5. And when all this is done you shall see what Aâ—toâ—â— the remaining differences will prove A. Begin then with the first Article of Prâ—dâ—stination B. Remember my â—ndertaking that it is not to justifie every â—â—â—â— words that hath written on the Point and therefore I will not lose time in citing or defending Authors But produce you all your Accâ—sations as against the Cause of the sober moderate Calâ—â—â—ists and suppose me to be the person with whom you have to do The first Crimination A. 1. My first Charge is That you hold that God doth from eternity Decree to damn in Hell fire the far greatest part of men without respect See the conclusion of the Canons of the Synod at Dort where this very Charge is denied with detestation And can you tell better what men hold than they themselves Episcop Justit Theol. l. 4. Sect. 5. cap. 6. p. 412. Col. 2. 52. Sect. 2. Statuitur Deum cos secundum â—perasua judicare â—b rebellionem contumaci-am corum dolere irasci c. damâ—are c. cum tamen non modo absolute eos perirâ— peccare voluerit sed originario tali labe infectos nasci fecâ—rit unde omnia ista peccata scaturire ac fluere inevitabiliter necesse erat Quod quid aliud esse potest quam histrionica quaedam scâ—nica actio to any fore-seen Sin or cause in them but meerly because â—â—â—â— pleaseth him to do it This is your Doctrine of Absolute Reprobation B. That words may not deceive us let us in the beginning onâ—â— for all know what you mean by the word Decree A. I mean the resolution or purpose of his Will de eventâ— thaâ— this shall be B. And I suppose we are agreed 1. That Gods Will is nothing but his Essence denominated with respect to some Good as its Object 2. And there was no Object really existent from eternity
us in all this * Vid. Episcop Instit Theo. li. 4. sect 5. cap. 7. pag 415. col 1. 4. But as to presumption hereupon I answer you 1. That there is no mercy which Satan will not tempt men to abuse even Christ and the hopes of Heaven it self 2. As long as wickedness is that evil which Election decreeth to deliver us from he that is wicked may be sure that he hath not the benefit nor mark of Election and cannot have the least assurance that he is elect 3. And while he that is truly godly knoweth that he is no further elected to Salvation than he is elected to persevere in godliness this is no rational inducement to him to forsake godliness any more than to renounce Heaven but rather to conclude I am decreed to persevere in holiness therefore I must so do 4. And to pass by the Controversie of perseverance till we come to it it is as all confess so few of the Elect that are certain of their own Election that this Objection can extend but to a few 5. Lastly None are certain of their Election but such as have strong clear active Grace and evidence that believe firmly and love God much and obey him carefully And such as these are fit to improve assurance and to live in the fruits of love and gratitude Did you ever know what love and thankfulness and delight in God and holiness are and yet can you think that they are the way to sin You know nothing in Religion if you know not that they are the life and soul of true Religion and the most powerful principles of Obedience and Perseverance Nor do you understand the Gospel-design if you know not that the greatest manifestation of the love of God is the greatest means of love and thankfulness and desire and delight in God and goodness unto man The ninth Crimination A. At least thus * Suetonius saith Tiberius was a neglecter of Religion because he thought that all things were ruled by fate Fate is set up in the World and all things are under necessity and unavoidable B. You had this Objection about necessity before and to the answer of it I refer you further 1. Immutable Election doth set up but a consolatory quietting certainty in the World without which mans mind must still be in troublesome unquiet if not tormenting terrours Is it a wrong to you if you can be sure to be saved Had you rather live and die under these apprehensions I know not whether I shall be in Heaven Kipping Philonatur l. 9. c. 11. p 431. voluntas ista absoluta hominem cum effectis suis ineluctabiliter necessitat hoc est ad unum oppositorum necessario constringit determinat omnia ejus acta eventa ut non aliter evenire queant quam eveniant where he confuteth Piscators Arguments for such necessitating Decrees p. 432 c. or Hell for ever If you have not certainty or a hope that is somewhat near it I think this conclusion if you be awake and in your wits must needs make your life a constant bondage and the fear of death your constant misery and must blast all the pleasures of your fulest Prosperity Thank God that his Foundation standeth sure and the Lord knoweth who are his and see that you keep his mark upon you professing Christ and departing from iniquity And do not cry out as if you were fatally carried to Heaven against your wills 2. As for the word Fate it is ambiguous Some by fate mean but the certainty that God's Predictions shall be fulfilled Quod fatur eveniet Some mean only the certain connexion of Causes and Effects under Gods sapiential Government of the World As Campanella maketh Necessity Fate and Harmony to be the result of Power Wisdom and Love but not accurately enough And some say but how truly I know not That the Stoicks took Fate for some primary necessitating Cause which did necessitate all Acts of the Gods and Men. It is a word that we have no need of they that will play them with it may 3. But as to Necessity again I say 1. Election maketh no mans sin or misery necessary nor tendeth to it 2. It maketh no mans Salvation Thus Fewrbornius in Fascicul Disser de termino vitae useth 17 Arguments contra sententiam Calvinianam de fatali simpliciter necessario termino vitae quasi Deus ex absoluto simplici decreto absque ullo ad causas secundas physicas voluntarias respectu câ—ique hominum genus horam mortis praesixerat And all upon the encouragement of some ill and unsound words of Piscator who is most extream in this whereas this is none of the Calvinists sense commonly who hold that sin is only fore-seen and not decreed but all true means are decreed with the end in one Decree therefore respected as decreed necessary against his will in sensu composito 3. The more it maketh our Salvation necessary that is certain and insuperable the greater is Gods mercy the greater our happiness and cause of gratitude and Joy The Saints in Heaven are not offended at the certainty of their persevering blessedness If you shall Object That it necessitateth the perishing of all others because none can be saved who are not Elect. Remember that this was your third Crimination and is answered before I say again 1. Necessity and Impossibility are either Logical in ordine probandi or Physical in ordine causandi The first sort followeth upon your own Doctrine He that God fore-knoweth shall sin and perish it necessarily followeth Necessitate consequentiae and it is impossible but it should follow that he will sin and perish but not by Gods fore-knowledge Causal necessitating either taketh away the true power of escaping or depriveth of such power by prevention But so doth not the Election or Decree of God 2. Though we hold such absolute Election as hath been opened to you and that God decreeth to cause men to believe before he fore-seeth that they will believe in order of Nature according to humane Conception yet we hold as you do that Reprobation doth not so proceed but that God decreeth men to Hell only on fore-sight of final wickedness which he never caused or willed And if in this we agree with you you must accuse your selves as much as us 3. God doth both Decree to give and actually give men power to do more than they do And his decreeing that another man shall well use that power which he hath doth sure take away no power from you 4. Yea Gods not decreeing to cause you to use your own power well doth take none of it from you But includeth that such power you have much less his Decree to do more for others 5. All the World acknowledgeth that a Benefactor as such is free to give his own benefits as he pleases unequally And giving more to one taketh nothing from another Suppose that
comparativa ita de adultis 4. Non solum comparative sed etiam absolute loquendo nulla datur causa reprobationis quantum ad omnes effectus Where note that he granteth that there is in man a cause of Reprobation as to some effects viz. punishment For by a cause he meaneth any prerequisite condition For no doubt there is no efficient cause of any thing in God And all his stress is laid on this that the permission of the first sin is the first effect of Reprobation and this permission hath no cause in man Ergo Reprobation quoad omnes effectus hath no cause in man But the truth is 1. A man may put such a sence on the word Reprobation as to include what he please But it 's usually taken for Gods Decree to damn men and to deprive them of somewhat necessary to their salvation and so is 1. A positive Act as a Volition 2. And privative objectively and 3. Some unfitly extend it to that which is objectively negative and not privative 4. And some most ineptly extend it to that which is negatio actus no Act that is to nothing And so a man that will play with words may say that 1. Gods non-agere nonâ—igere is an Act. 2. That his non-impedire is an effect which is nothing and therefore no effect And Alvarez utterly faileth iâ— this proof either that non-eligere is an Act or permittere vel non impedire an eâ—â—ect or that it is fitly called Reprobation which hath â—â— privation but a negation for its Object e. g. that Judas shall not be an Angel nor iâ—â—eccabilâ— but have natural free-will is no act of his Reprobation And so of the permission of the first sin Arminius himself exam Perâ—ins pag. 568. saith Voleâ—et Deus Israelem punire Achabum mensuram scelerum suorum implere Propria â—mmediata adâ—quata causa cur permiserit ut Achaâ— iâ—â—â— cadem perpetraret est illa quam dixi mensâ—ra sâ—elerum implenâ—â— erat â—â—â—â— Dâ—â—â—â—â—tra peccatum hominis per aliam â—â—em Nabothum ad se evocare Which Dr. Twisse useth through all his Writings against him ad hominem in stead of argument â—â—-thinks this concession should seem enough which is too much And I conjecture that Arminius wrote it by over-sight and woâ—ld have said that God permitted Ahab to kill Naboth because he would â—â—â—â— him to â—â—â—â— up the measure of his sin making permission the res Voâ—â—ta But all theiâ— assigning Causes of Gods â—â—â—â— are â—â—â—â—â—â—ld God being above all causeâ— B. I wonder not that Dr. Twisse holdeth that God willeth it when he holdeth that he efficiently premoveth and predetermineth the Will to every forbidden act clothed with all its circumstances That which God causeth he must needs will But when he saith Nostri Theologi affirmant he must mean but some few such as Maccovius Spanhemius Rutherford and perhaps Piscator or Beza of his own mind But the generality of Protestants either are against him or meddle not with it He that will read Davenant and such others shall find the difference I remember but few English Divines at all that own it besides the forenamed and Mr. Norton But having written both an answer to this Digression of Dr. Twisse and to his and Alvarez and other mens Doctrine of physical predetermining premotion I may pretermit that here C. But by this they make God an idle Spectator of sin in the World and so deny a great part of his Providence or Works B. 1. This belongeth not directly to the Point of Reprobation but of Gods Works 2. Take heed of such unreverent words of God Who will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain Dare you reproach God as Idle if he do not all that your shallow thoughts will cut out for him C. The blasphemy is theirs that give the cause by their unsound Doctrine and not mine that do but denominate their consequents B. Let us try that Do you believe that God doth as much as he can do that he made the World as soon as he was able and could have done it no sooner or that he is able to make no one Man or Beast or Plant or Atome more than he hath made nor to do any one action more than he doth C. No I hold no such thing For God is Omnipotent and Free B. I pray you then study it and tell me if God be not to be blasphemed as Idle for such a total Non-agency or Free-suspension of his own Acts as to all such possibles why should you call him Idle if by the same Wisdom and Free-will he only suspend some degree of his co-operation with man in the case of sinning And if God freely decree that man shall be made a free Agent able by Gods common generical concurse as the cause of nature to determine or suspend his own Volitions without any predetermining efficiency of God If God will delight himself in making such a Creature will you dare to say that he is Idle because he moveth him not in another manner you will not so reproach a Watch-maker for not moving the Watch all day with his finger C. I confess I cannot answer that But how then is God the Governor of the World if so much sin be done without his Will and Operation B. The Work of a Governor as such is only 1. By Legislation to make the Subjects Duty 2. And by Judgment to try and decide the case of each Subject whether he do that Duty 3. And to see to the execution of that Judgment But not to be the determining cause of all the Subjects Volitions and Actions C. It is so with man because he can do no more but not with God B. Indeed God governeth all meer Naturals and Bruits by physical motion as Engins are moved as a Clock or Watch by natural necessitation And so he doth the meer naturals of man As his Concoction Pulse circulation of Blood generation in the Womb c. But God having made man an Intellectual free Agent ruleth him as such agreeably to his nature even by moral Agency by Laws and Judgment And this is that Regency of which we speak If you believe not that God is thus the moral Ruler of Mankind or King of the World you deny him to be God and overthrow all Religion and Morality C. But what say you to all the Texts that tell us that God willed and caused that which wicked men did as in the case of Pharaoh Sihon Rehoboam Absolom the death of Christ and many others B. One of the greatest over-sights of them that thus Object is that they distinguish not between the sin and the effect of the sin or the forbidden Will and Act of the Sinner as of him and the reception of this Act in passo in the recipient God can many ways concur to the causing of the reception and the effect without causing the Volition or Act as Agents by a specifying determination Especially
is the greatest Lover of Sin in all the world judge by their confuted words in the former Book 1. They deny not nor can do that Love and Volitiâ—â— in God are all one Gods Love is not a Passion but his Will 2. They say that God willeth that sin exist 3. And that as summè unicè conducible to his Glory 4. And that this great conducibility is a great good 5. That God is pleased finally in what he willeth antecedently 6. And that as God is infinitely above man in his Being so is he in the greatness and power and efficacy of his Volitions 7. And that man loveth not nor willeth not evil as evil or sin as sin but for inferior good infinitely below Gods Glory for which he willeth its existence And is not this to say that he is the greatest Lover of it that is C. Yet it sticks with me that God should be the Omnipotent Governor of the World and all Sin which is the common work of the World should be without or against his Will Providence is wronged by this B. You mistake the matter 1. That he decreed to leave any men ordinarily to their Free-will under moral Government was not from impotency as if he could have made man no better or more necessary an Agent But of his Wisdom and Freedom by which he made the Bruits without Reason and Stones without Sense 2. All sin is done against the Law or commanding Will of God which determineth only of Duty and not directly of Event But it is not done against his absolute Will de eventu For God is not overcome nor frustrate of his Decrees 3. I pray you once for all remember what I have told you in the first â—ook that Gods Providence doth about mans sin and then you will â—ot say that he is Idle or neglecteth his Government unless he cause Sin I. It is God that made man an Intellectual free Agent in his own Image and the Lord of his own Acts as a Creature morally governable by Laws And so all his free power is of God who still upholdeth it II. As God is the Fons Naturae he is the Principium motus and he concurreth as the first cause to all Action as Action in genere and so to all that hath a physical entity and reality in sin And I do not believe that Aureolâ—â— Duraâ—d or Lud. à Dola thought otherwise though they differ in expressing the mode of concurse III. God giveth men all the mercies which they turn to sin and is the cause of all those Objects which they inordinately love and abuse IV. God himself concurreth with Sinners in causing the same effects which they cause also by prohibited Volitions and Actions as in generation c. even when custom giveth one name to the sin and the effect And that by all the ways fore-named and many more V. God as the Worlds Governor and Benefactor maketh mens sins the occasions of much good and ordereth and over-ruleth all Wills and Events so as not to miss of any of his ends But will attain all his ends while the Sinner seeketh his own VI. All this that God doth he decreeth to do And all that Sinners do he fore-knew And neither his Wisdom Goodness or Power is ever over-come by sin or defective in any thing about it And is not all this enough for you but yet God must be the chief willer of sin C. I confess that God can govern the sinful World by this much B. Take in but one thought more which I afterward suggest Ockam laboriously endeavoureth to prove that the outward Act hath no peculiar sinfulness in it self distinct from that of the Will I have told you my Opinion of his tenet But this is granted him that no outward Act hath any sinfulness but secondary and participative as animated by the Will and that sin is primarily in the Will alone Now in abundance of the Scripture Texts alledged by Dr. Twisse and Rutherford it is not the Will of the Sinner that God is made the Author of but seemingly of the Act indeed of the Effect Now God cannot be the cause of any mans sin unless he cause the sinful Volition But I have anticipated our Dispute of Providence in all this because it is here usually handled as the matter decreed And therefore when we come thither you must excuse me from repeating it or pardon what you put me to do The sixth Crimination C. My next offence against them is that they make Gods Will and Decrees conditional and so make God dependent upon man B. This is opened in the Second Book * Vasquez in 1. Tho. disp 91. c. 1. Cum quaeritur an divinae praedestinationis detur causa qu. non est de actu divinae voluntatis quatenus est ipsa essentia divina res increata sic notant scholastici omnes clarum enim est divinae praedestinationis hoc modo non esse causam sed est de effectibus Et perinde est quaerere causam praedestinationis ex parte nostra atque causam aliquam totiuâ— effectus praedestinationis in nobis quae effectibus illis non sit annumeranda Nam si quidpiam ponitur effectus praedestinationis nequit illud ulla ratione esse causa totius effectus In Deo 1. Ipsa essentia Dei 2. Respectus rationis ad res cognitas et volitas Hic nascitur ex objectis Ejus igitur possunt esse causae Indeed they differ not from the Synodists or Dr. Twisse himself I think in this That is 1. They hold that God hath made conditional Donations Promises and Threatnings in his Word 2. And that God may truly be said to Will and Decree his own Word and all that is in it with its conditional mode 3. And as Aquinas and Twisse and all say Deus vult hoc esse propter hoc sed non hoc vult esse propter hoc Gods Will doth not depend on the Condition but Gods Will is that the Effect or Event shall depend on the Condition When the Condition is performed it is not a medium of Gods Volition but of the Effect 4. But yet this all must confess that as to the bare extrinsick denomination from the Object as Gods Will is variously denominated from things past present and future so it may be from absolute and conditional Grants and Promises which you will not deny but God hath made 5. And in case of sin and damnation sin fore-seen is an objective condition disposition or qualification sine qua non of such as Gods velle damnare is immediately terminated on as they confess at the Synod at Dort and Molinaeus there openeth in his judgment at large C. But this decreeing upon fore-sight of somewhat in man maketh God to follow the Creature and depend upon it B. It maketh him no way dependant at all For the Creature neither causeth any Act of God nor hindreth him from any thing which he would do It is
certain that nothing in God is effected by a a Creature nor his Essence by himself C. He is neither Beginning nor End efficient nor final Cause of himself but of his Works or Creatures only B. Therefore not of his Volitions or Decrees which are himself not of any of his Actions meerly as Agentis because they are himself but as they are in the effects But how can God be the Creatures end The Creature is no means either that God be God or that he be perfect or that he be glorious in himself or that he be just or merciful It is the highest blasphemy to say it C. You know all our Divines say That Gods end in decreeing is the Glory of his Mercy in the Salvation of the Elect and of his Justice in the damnation of the Reprobate †Bannes's order is thus 1. q. 23. a. 2. pag. 266. Actus qâ—os nos possumus imaginari esse in mente divina tam communes quam proprioâ— circa praedestiâ—atos hi sunt Cognovit Deus omnes homines possibiles ex quibus quosdam dilexit quantum ad esse naturae hos voluit creare ex quibus adhuc quosdam dilexit ad finem supernaturalem quae divina electio dicitur quatenus ex aliis quos creare volebat isâ—os seperavit sibi denique hos electos praedestinavit hoc est providet ordinavit ut per quaedam media supernaturaliter efficaciter pervenirent in finem supernaturalem That nothing but God himself can be the objectum formale of Gods Volition see Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 15. sect 6. p. 165. Ruiz de Vâ—l. Dei disp 22 23 24. pretendeth to more accurateness than others in ordering Gods Decrees and other Acts. Denying with others all real distinction but asserting a distinction secundum rationem ratiocinatam and would perswade us that he knoweth what that is what the fundamentum in re is he refuteth many others Opinions de ratio ordinis Molina's Vasquez Zumel Driedâ—s c. especially Aureolus and concludeth sect 5. that inter divinas operationes ordo prioris posterioris ex eo est quod â—nus actus sit requisitus ad alium vel sit alterius ratio vel conditio He confessetâ— all these to be fictious and that there is no real diversity and disp 11. sect 1. on the qu An in Deo sit proprie libera Volitio effiâ—ax dicit Nullius animus tranquilla paâ—e quiâ—scit solutionibuâ— hac usque inventis nec aliis se satisfacisse put at quâ— nec sibi satisfecerit Yet against Ockam he would have these fictions thought to be of very grâ—â—â— use when as all his prophane tremendous presumptions are but enquiring after a cause of the first cause under the name of Ratio vel conditio while he denieth that indeed there is any cause Their question is why Gods Will is terminated on this Object rather than on that And is not this to ask a cause of it of the first cause say but that Deus volitione â—nica vuiâ— diversa diver si mâ—de ordinata and you have said enough Had they meant only the Ratio receptiva increatis ratio constituâ—ivâ— alliâ—â—â—m diviâ—arum ut in effectis vel pâ—sso â—â— extrinâ—eâ—uâ— denominatâ—rum it had been sense But in God himself there is diversitas rationum volendi B. Here are a multitude of Errors or Ineptitudes together 1. That the name of the means Salvation and Damnation is put into the end 2. That one little parcel of the means only is put as if it were the whole If we must speak so low as to ascribe an End to God we must say that Ultimately he hath but one And that one must needs be more than the glory of his Mercy and Justice towards man Is all the rest of the world Angels and Men Heaven and Earth and Christ himself no means in which he will be glorified 3. That quid creatum is made Gods Ultimate End For this Glory of his Mercy and Justice is no other but a created demonstration or apprehension of it 4. And why are Mercy and Justice only named as though the glory of his Power Wisdom and Goodness it self were here no part C. If you like none of this tell me your own sense of it B. 1. I suppose that Intendere finem is spoken of God only in a transcendent sense and not at all as it is of man And 2. I suppose that Gods Being hath no Beginning or End nor any thing in him 3. I suppose that Gods Free-will by communication of Essence and of Perfections is the Original free Cause of all things He necessarily is what he is but he freely made what he made 4. Therefore I suppose that the same Will which is the Beginning of all is the End of all So that Gods Will as efficient is the Beginning and Gods Will as fulfilled and pleased is the end of all his Works 5. This may be called finis Dei improperly after the manner of men but tollerably and with the least impropriety and such as we must use 6. This is more properly the commanded and appointed end of the Intellectual Creature and analogically the end that all things tend to 7. God is never without his end For his Will is ever fulfilled and pleased For pro hic nunc he willeth nothing but what is 8. But there are degrees of Perfection in Gods Works and the narrow Creature hath lower ends besides the Ultimate inseparable from it And so man must intend his own felicity and above that the perfection of the Universe and above that the complacency of Gods Will. 9. And because all the parts are to contribute to the perfection of the whole and so all the parts of the means do make up one perfect Universe in the state of Glory and there and then the whole world shall bear the liveliest impress of the Divine Perfections this Impress or objective Splendor and Image of God together with the active Vision Love and Praise of the glorified which is part of the said Image or Impress is called Gods Glory which shineth in part in every part and perfectly in the whole perfected world 10. So that in a word the perfection of the Universe being the medium compleated is called Gods End in the lower material notion And the fulfilling and pleasing of his Will in the perfected world is called his End in the formal and higher notion And we can say no more of Gods Velle finem C. I confess your explication of Gods End and Intention seemeth to be most agreeable to the Principles of Theology B. And do you think that it is wise and Christian-like dealing to fill the Church with Contentions and make others odious to the people about the Order of Gods Decrees secundum intentionem while men know not whether God do Intendere finem or not or what his End is or what his Intention is or while they mistake all Will you make
Decree to predetermine the Agent For sin is so e. g. hating God blasphemy And that Dr. Twisse ill maketh Gods Decree the sole cause of futurity As to the presumptuous question how God knoweth future things besides that there is no time to measure Gods Acts by there need no other answer than that Gods infinite Understanding knoweth all that is intelligible But futures as such are intelligible Quid divinus intellectus infinitae â—â—â—tutis est quicquid intelligibile est necessarie debâ—t amplecti intelligere At futura contingentia intelligibilia sunt â—o quod sunt determinatae veritatis Vasq 1. Tho. q. 14. d. 65. cap. 4. But whereas he himself also defendeth that futures are known in decretis divinis he is forced to say that sin is known in Gods Decree of the materiale peccati where yet in his Doctrine of Simultaneous Concurse he maketh Gods concurse to be but part of the determining cause which would not without mans free co operation do it Therefore the Decree of a half causation is not enough to infer the effect futurition while they make sin that is eternally future yet not to be eternally willed or decreed by God to be future How can things pass without a cause enumero possibilium in numerum futurorum B. Alas what men and what Engines must the poor Church suffer and be tortured by sure Paul fore-saw these things when he feâ—red lest as the Serpent beguiled Eve with a promise of being as God in Knowledge so he should draw us from the simplicity that is in Christ. And when he warned us to beware lest any beguile us with vain Philosophy according to the rudiments of the world And when he telleth us of a Wisdom which is foolishness with God and of some who professing themselves wise became Fools Your Doctrine soundeth so unlike to Christ's and his Apostles that I must crave your Interpretation of it that we may understand before we wrangle I pray you what is it that you call Futurition C. The name tells you what it is You know what we mean by it B. I know that it is Grammatically a Noun Substantive but doth it signifie something or nothing C. It signifieth that something will be hereafter B. Now you turn it to a Verb But is futurity anything or nothing C. Suppose I say It is something B. If it was eternally something it is God For nothing else was eternal C. Suppose I say It is nothing B. If it be nothing it is no effect and therefore hath no cause and therefore no eternal cause C. Suppose I say that it is neither something nor nothing You know there are five sorts that Burgersdicius placeth between Res and Nihil and futurity may be one of them B. Five sorts of what You cannot tell If you take Ens or Res limitedly for less universal than Aliquid or a Species of it you may say that Datur medium inter Rem Nihil But sure esse and non esse are contradictories And taking Aliquid Ens or Res in the most universal notion it is a contradiction and a denial of the first principle of Knowledge to feign a medium Burgersdieius'es five Non-entia quae non sunt nihil are Privatio Denominatio externa ens Rationis Relatio modus entis And all this cometh from the pittiful narrowness of mans mind that can know nothing at all by one simple Conception but by parts And then it frameth several names according to all its inadequate Conceptions as if they all signified several somethings 1. Privatio is it self a compound notion including 1. The absence of the form 2. The debitum inesse 3. The matters capacity of it The first is Nothing the second is a Relation of which after the third is the nature or mode of the matter which is an inadequate Conception of Ens. 2. Denominatio externa signifieth 1. The Denominabilitas 2. Or the actual denomination The first is considerable 1. Qua talis 2. Or in causa velratione Denominability in se is nothing else but an inadequate Conception of ens rationis For I can call nothing by a Name But the Ratio denominandi may be something and as now intended is Relation 2. And the actual denomination is Res that is Verbum vel mentis veloris 3. Entia Rationis taken effectivè subjectivè are confessed to be real Entities but objectivè it is denied All Objects are so called 1. As aptitudinal 2. Or actually apprehended 1. As aptitudinal they are not entia rationis but something antecedent 2. As actual they are quid reale For they are conceptus humanus inadaequatè expressus sub ratione materiae A thought or conception is an Act which is quid reale And every Act consisteth of the modus agentis and the Object which as such is quasi materia and is essential to the Act so that even Genus and Species as in mans thoughts are quid reale And out of mans thoughts they are Relation or nothing 4. Relation is a something or nothing which keepeth an exceeding room in all our Sciences But when anatomized it is considerable 1. As in extrinsick Objects 2. As in the mind of man considering them 1. In the Object there is 1. Quid absolutum that is the subject the terminus the fundamentum cum ratione fundandi 2 The formal Relation The first is quid reale as is confessed The second is nothing besides the first It is nothing but rerum comparabilitas And that comparability is nothing besides the quid absolutum or thing it self When an Egg is new laid at the Antipodes an Egg here is newly related to it ut simile But nothing is added to this Egg But only now the mind of man can compare it with that at the Antipodes and consider that in quantity figure colour c. they are like which likeness as in ovo is nothing besides the same quantity figure colour c. themselves But by those Realities it is capable of being compared and the mind can raise an universal notion of both as compared 2. But this comparing Act of the Understanding is quid reale So that Ockam in his Quodlibets hath well proved in many questions that Relation is nothing besides the quid absolutum in re in mente humana And though his Gregor Armin. at large dispute that non-entia may be related yet it is on this supposition that non-entia may be imagined and be the matter of a thought or conceptus and as such they are entia rationis realia that is that conceptus is quid reale But besides that the Relatio non-entis is nothing but non-ens and a meer nihil Yet I confess that Rerum ordo is the sum of Relations and of morality and that this Ordo is existent whether we think of it or not But this Ordâ— is nothing distinct ab absolutis rebus ordinatis cum omnibus suis modis circumstantiis realibus Things are wonderfully diverse by
I pray you tell me A. It is an idle question For that is but necessitas existentiae He that is ungodly is necessarily ungodly while he is so B. II. VVe hold moreover that the same man will certainly all that time omit the prevalent love of God and all acts proper to the godly A. That 's but the same else he were a godly man B. III. VVe hold also that yet this man may forbear many acts of sin and do many things commanded and so is not under a vicious necessity of committing all Sin or omitting all Duty IV. VVe hold also that his vicious necessity of disposition is curable and not remediless and desperate V. VVe hold also that it is not curable without Gods saving sanctifying Grace proportioned to his disease or pravity VI. VVe hold also that God hath appointed every man certain Duties and Means to be used in order to his cure VII VVe hold that he giveth much outward help and some inward commoner Grace antecedent usually to sanctifying Grace by which much of these Duties and Means may be used VIII And we hold that God appointeth no means in vain nor commandeth any unprofitable Duty or which man hath not sufficient encouragement to use with hope of success and is not unexcuseable if he neglect Do you differ from us in any of this Or is there any thing more that we must have to be capable of your love and concord A. Though I granted you a necessitas existentiae that a wicked mans life while such be wicked in the main for that is but to say that a wicked man is a wicked man yet I grant you not a necessitas effecti as if his pravity made his wicked life unavoidable or necessary as a necessitating cause B. His wicked life is considerable 1. As to his inward actings or to his outward 2. As to the immediate or next Acts and as to the remote 3. And the necessity is voluntary or involuntary And so I say 1. He is under no natural or involuntary necessity but under a * Etsi Amor ille non excedat vires physicaâ— voluntatis humanae per se spectatae eas tamen superat si spectentur difficultates quae occurant Unde fit ut sine speciali auxilio non possit ad actum reduci naturalis inclinatio Dâ—um super omnia diligendi Non potest homo credere mysteria â—fidei â—t oportet ad salutem sine gratiae auxilio etiam quum sufficienter sunt proposita probatum a Deo esse revelatum Non potest homo servare quoad substantiam ullum praeceptum affirmativum supernaturale de interno actu sine auxilio gratiae etiam de singulis Pet. a S. Joseph Thes general de aux p. 81. 82 83. vicious inclination or habit which will produce some effects certainly and others uncertainly 2. The certain effects of the habitual privation of the love of God and enmity to him and to holiness is that his Soul will not in statu praesenti immediately nor till it be cured or over-swayed by a superior cause â— love God above all nor love holiness nor live a holy life Because the Soul will not go contrary to its habitual inclination without somewhat to over-power that habit An effect will not be contrary to the fixed inclination of its cause 3. And another certain effect of a Soul predominantly habituated to sensâ—ality is that it will live a sensual life constantly as to the bent of inward Volitions and ordinarily as occasion serveth in outward actions 4. But being not so necessitated to every Sin nor against every Duty and means of Cure this Soul is not under a necessity of so continuing uncured Now if it be the present voluntary ascertaining Disposition which you deny then 1. You must hold that an Enemy of God can immediately love him above all and live a holy life 2. And that there is some cause in a man most habitually sensual by which he can forbear both the inward desires and outward acts of sensuality which are contradictions to him that knoweth what a prevalent fixed habit is 3. And that all wicked Enemies of God have in them a cause that can immediately cure all their own enmity and pravity without Gods Spirit of Grace or else have his Spirit and Grace immediately at an instant at command And if all a mans Original Sin and contracted habits be so easily laid by at any minute the cure seemeth much easier than the depravation which perhaps hath been a long time growing to that strength which is contrary to all the Worlds experience As it is easier to kindle a fire in the City than to quench it and to catch the Plague or any Disease than to cure it or to wound the Body than to heal it or to pull down a House than to build it to drown a Ship than to make it c. So all Ministers Tutors Parents Christians yea persons find how wofully hard it proveth to cure one Sin To cure the Ignorant the Unbelieving the Hard-hearted the Proud the Lustful the Covetous the Passionate much more the malignant Enemies of God and holiness What need of the sanctification of the Holy Ghost or the medicinal Grace of Christ if the very depraved Will can do all in a moment of it self and depose its enmity A. You speak to me as if I were a Pelagian I am not for any of this But will rather yield to what you say B. II. And as for your second Charge * Vid. quae haâ—â—t Ruiz de praedefin tr 2. d. 8. per tot de necessitate vaga consistentâ— cum libertate secundum quid Et a. 9. p. 137. That all good actions are fore decreed of God proved and multitudes cited that defend it that they assert unresistible necessitating Grace I pray you leave it to the Fourth Article which is its proper place to avoid repetition But here let me remember you by the way 1. That not to love God not to believe not to repent not to live holily are no Acts and therefore no Effects of power but a privation 2. That therefore Gods causing a man to love him to Believe to Repent to be Holy is not to deprive him of any power but to give him act and power 3. Therefore it is not a depriving him of any true Liberty For true Liberty is the Liberty of some faculty or power 4. But if you will call a voluntary Impotency and Viciousness by the name of a free-power then God taketh away such Power by giving us Power and such Liberty by making us free But proceed to the next Crimination The second Crimination A. * The Arminians say that God giveth a supernatural power even to the Will it self and that by immediate operation Synod art 3. 4. p. 15 c. And they add Mente illuminata voluntati concessa supernaturali potentia partim per illuminationem partim per virium immediatam insusionem
usu ut in auditâ— verbi cum attentione meditatione virâ—ute sua efficaci singulis excitis liberrime sine coactionis impulsu raptâ— nova luce accensa in mente nova vero virtute voluntati communicata c. Qui assentiuntur obsequâ—ntur spiritui sancto virtute ejusdem id faciunt non tamen sine actione motu annixu Id. p. 722. Still note that the Grace called sufficient is that which giveth the Power without the Act Therefore as many things concur to denominate us able so do they to sufficiency of Grace Malderus in 12. qu. 111. â— 3. d. 3. saith Recte quidam eruditus annotavit neque praedicationem aut excitationem externam neque internam illuminationem intellectus simpliciter esse gratiam sufficientem quamvis in sâ—o genere quaeque sufficiens dici potest c. sed voluntas per boni affectus aspirationem supernaturali motione excitanda est Our Bradward shortneth all the Controversie li. 13. cor p. 208 109. telling us that Gods Will is the cause of every future and so of the future form of sin and that if there were no God there would be no Impossibile Whereas I think there would be nothing but impossibles For it would be impossible that any thing should ever be But there would be no propositions de impossibili Nay he talks of a non-posse esse impossibile and calls this mirum corrollarium Adrian Quodl 3. fol. 16. Quis duplicitur potest crederese a peccatis abstinere non posse 1. Quod non posset sine speciali Dei gratia adjutorio sic non errat 2. Absolute credendo se non abstinere posse a peccata aut non posse ad vitandum peccata a Deo sufficiens auxilium impetraâ—â— etiamsi fecerit quod in se est Et hic error est species infidelitatis opposita fidei ad quam obligatur credendo Deum juste pie miscricorditer mundum gubernare Illi-enim manifestissime repugnat apud nunquemque sanae mentis Deum homini imputare ad culpam ad quod vitandum nec dedit nec dare paratus est sufficientem facultatem homini inquam facienti totum quod in se est medium helps concauses c. B. You say true But remember still that this is from no change in the natural faculty as you confess For it was never in any man a power e. g. to act without dependance on God nor to act without an Object in Specie nor to act on an incongruous uncapable Object nor without a due medium and necessary concauses Now if you mean that the change is not on mans faculties but on the Objects Medium Causes c. that men do not love God while unholy you are notoriously mistaken For it is Sin that hindereth And God is the same God and Christ the same Christ and the Word the same and oft the preaching the same to a Believer and an Unbeliever So that though outward helps and hinderances do much the inward cause is most considerable And if all were right within it were no sin in us to be disabled by outward changes It is no sin not to hear without a Preacher or not to see that which is invisible or not to understand that which is not Intelligible or not to love that which is not Amiable or that which is by distance or unfit mediums made no Object of our Acts no more than not to touch the Moon or not to see into the bowels of the Earth Therefore though it 's true that the Will is related as a power to capable Objects and not as a power to things that by incapacity are no Objects yet the change that is made on it self by Sin and Grace doth not make it no power and a power in this natural essential sense It is one thing that is called natural power or faculty and another thing that is called Aright disposition or habit Therefore as to the first the Soul of every man hath a true natural power to repent believe and love God and they omit it not for want of natural power but of something else A. Call it then a moral power if you will B. We must so call it But you must know what that is It is not a power of the same sort with the natural power The very word Power is equivocal or analogous to them Else Grace should increase the Essence of the Soul or make a man to be more a man than he was before And Dr. Twisse derideth the Arminians for saying that potentia fundatur in potentia viz. Moralis in naturali which were very just if it were powers of the same kind that were spoken of but now being otherwise it is unjust for no doubt but potentia moralis is in potentia naturali as health is in the Body Quest 4. But I further ask you Do you think that any men do now in an unregenerate state love God above all and live a holy heavenly life yea or effectually and savingly believe by the meer power of their natural faculties till they are changed A. No that 's a contradiction to be unholy and holy I am none of those Pelagians that make Grace unnecessary to mans cure B. Are you not convinced then that where the natural power is existent something is wanting without which the acts of Holiness will not be performed Tell me then what that is A. That which is wanting to a man that hath sufficient Grace is nothing but his own Concurrence or Will For without any special Grace differing from sufficient he can believe But that which is wanting to them that have it not is sufficient Grace it self for believing which they want for abusing the antecedent Grace sufficient for preparation B. We speak not now of Grace as efficient ex parte Dei agentis But of Grace as it is in us or an effect of the former what is it in man that is wanting to believing Is it a natural Power or a right Disposition or what A. Till a man have sufficient Grace to believe it is proper strength or power it self that he wanteth and sufficient Grace is such a power But when he hath it he wanteth nothing but the Act which he can excite and doth not B. I confess I find Arminius Arnoldus Corvinus and others granting that all men are unable to believe till Grace enable them and more than so saith Arnoldus There is more strength or power necessary now to believe in Christ than was necessary to Adam to keep all the Law partly because of the mysteriousness of Faith and partly because we must first be restored to a new ability which requireth more power than to keep what we had A sly equivocation turning the question from the potentia operata to the potentia operans If it did require more power in the efficient so to renew us it followeth not that he thereby putteth more power into us than Adam had But Gods Power hath no degrees
stir up their distast of others B. The question may have three several senses of passiveness as man is considered 1. In his Nature 2. In his Action And therein 1. In the reception of the Divine Influx 2. In the acting thereupon And so the questions are 1. VVhether mans Soul be an active nature or passive matter only 2. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in the reception of the Divine Influx ad agendum 3. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in its own first act of Faith or Repentance Tell me Are not these three distinct questions And are they not all that you can devise unless you will make another whether we are merly passive in the preparatory part And are you not now ashamed to confess that you need any answer to any one of these three questions I. All the world is agreed save the Hobbists and Somatists and Sadduces that mans Soul is not meer passive nature but is an active nature inclined to Action as passive Elements are to non-action And that when God moveth it he moveth not Earth Water or Air but a Spirit whose nature is self-moving as fire under the first mover II. All the world is agreed that the Soul and all Spirits are not so purely and meerly active as God is but are partly and first passive and that they do and needs must be receptive of the Divine Influx before they can act For all Creatures depend on the first Cause and both Being Nature and Action would cease if Gods emanation to it ceased And all the world agreeth that no man before Conversion or after doth any act of Faith Love c. no nor eating and drinking and going c. but he is in the first instant passive as influenced by God before he is active Who ever doubted whether physice recipere be pati Did you ever know such a man III. All the world is agreed that man is not meerly passive when he acteth An Act is an Act sure And to believe repent and love is an Act and an act of mans Soul And Scotus who thinketh that immanent Act are qualities as we think of habits yet thinketh that the Soul is truly active antecedently to that quality Where now is there any room for a Controversie C. You would make me believe that we are very ignorant Wranglers that make a noise in our dream and will not suffer others to rest Do not the Arminians say that man concurreth with God to the first act of his own Faith yea that he maketh Gods Grace effectual B. You shall not again tempt me to anticipate the question of effectual Grace though enough is said before to it as far as this Objection is concerned in it Gods Influx on the Soul is one thing mans natural faculty receiving that Influx passively is another And mans Act is another To thrust in here a general word man concurreth and so to run away from clear and necessary distinction is not the part of a man of knowledge Did ever man yet deny that man herein concurreth as aforesaid 1. Man concurreth not to make his Soul nor to continue it in being or power 2. Man concurreth not as any efficient of Gods Influx on his Soul ad agendum 3. But man receptively or passively concurreth as a Receiver of that Influx 4. And man actively thereupon concurreth to believe and repent Is not all this true But you would tempt the Arminians to say that it is you and not they that are herein to be accused For what mean you else by confining the Controversie to the first act of Faith or to our first Conversion Would you make men believe that a converted man is not as truly passive in believing loving God c. as the unconverted is Must not the holiest person be passive in receiving the Divine Influx on his Soul before he do any holy Act You seem to deny this and then you are the person that err by ascribing too much to man If not shew the difference C. There is a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act And it is in respect to that habit that the Arminians say we are active procurers of it which we deny But the godly operate from a habit B. You speak a private Opinion of your own brain against the sense of the Concordant Churches Where doth Scripture say that a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act Mr. Pemble * Vind. Gratâ— saith so indeed yet he sometime calleth that but a Seed which at other times he calleth a habit Dr. Ames in his Medulla contradicteth it Bishop Downame * In the end of his Treatise Of Perseverance Le Blank de diss Grat. 2. Thes 22. speaking of our being passive as to operating Grace saith truly Non videntur hac in parte Reformati a sanioribus inter Scholasticos dissentire licet aliis verbis mentem suam exprimant The School-men and Protestants little differ in the method of operations of Grace and all are drawn by Controversies too near curiosity beyond their reach hath written a large Confutation of Mr. Pemble The generality of Protestant Divines contradict it and thus with Rollock de Vocat distinguish Vocation from Sanctification that they suppose Vocation to cause the first act of Faith and Repentance and Sanctification to give us the fixed habit the act intervening Mr. Tho. Hooker is large upon it in his Souls Vocation Will you start one mans Opinion which Calvinists and Arminians are against and feign this to be a difference between Calvinists and Arminians And perhaps Mr. Pemble himself by his first semen or habit meaneth no more than the Divine Influx ad actum received I have before told you how unsearchable the nature of that Influx is and how hard it is to know the true nature of an Habit. C. But Mr. Pemble saith It is the Spirit that is given before we believe B. Away with Ambiguity By the Spirit is meant either the meer received Influx of the Spirit ad agendum and so it is granted Bad men receive the Spirits Influx to such acts as he moveth them to Or else you mean the foresaid fixed Habits and Dispositions to a ready and facile ordinary Operation Or else you mean the Spirit given relatively by Covenant undertaking to be the Sanctifier and Preserver of the Soul In both these latter senses the Spirit is not given before the first act of Faith to Infidels They have not the fixed habits of Holiness Love Hope Obedience c. Otherwise they were holy Infidels No Scripture speaketh it nay contrarily it promiseth the Spirit as to Believers and affirmeth it given after Faith Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 14. 17. 15. 26. Gal. 3. 14. 4. 6. Joh. 7. 39. And that the Holy Ghost is not given in Covenant to Infidels I need not prove to them that will not baptize Infidels The sixth Crimination C. They hold that none are damned only for Adam's sin imputed * Yes Vasqu and other
the production of Faith and Holiness So it is the will of God that they shall have answerable noble special effects which effects besides his operation on and by the means the said Volition of God it self produceth immediately operating on the Soul not as a meer volition alone but as conjunct with his Wisdom and Vital Power or Activity by which he operateth all in all I could here say that God doth concur with these supernatural means on his Elect with a stronger greater special energy force or influx But I am loth to deceive you with bare words for this force energy or efflux is either God or something created God operateth by that Wisdom Will and Power or Activity which are his Essence therefore there are here no degrees in any operation And in the effects the degrees are not denied The sum of all is then but this natural effects are natural effects and Faith is Faith the difference we partly perceive the means also are various but in God the operator there is no diversity And so you may see what the stir about Infusing and Acquiring is come to C. I dare not deny this because it is agreed on by all Philosophical Divines and I should be called a Blasphemer if I affirmed any real diversity in God at least besides the Trinity of Persons called by the School-men Real Relations and by some real modes of being But it surpasseth mans understanding to conceive that the same cause no way differing ex parte sui should produce variety of effects By which it seemeth that when there was nothing but God his love to Jacob and his hatred to Esau his decree to save and to damn his will to make the world and to destroy it his fore-knowledge of good and evil had no real difference at all And is it not somewhat of a lye then in us to call those acts different or by different names which really have not the least difference at all But of this before B. God were not God if mans shallow wit could comprehend him All this must be confest unless you will be a Vorstian But if our conceptions be not false our diversity of names here is no lye because we intend but to denominate Gods knowledge and decrees or will but by the relative connotation of the things known and willed And though those things were nothing before the Creation and so the difference between Gods Decrees c. was really none at all and the esse cognitum was nothing but Gods simple Essence Yet as Greg. Armin. hath disputed there be some kind of Relations which are nothing themselves and consequently denominations which may be terminated on nothing as praeteritu futura are But if your understanding rest not here do as I do rest in a necessary and willing ignorance and be but so wise as not to trouble the Church with that which you know not nor imitate them that can shew the valour of their raging zeal by Writing or Preaching against them as the enemies of the Grace of God which dote not as confidently as themselves C. But what say you to Dr. Twisse 's words against Hord l. 1. p. 156. Albeit it be not in the power of nature to believe fide infusa yet is it in the power of nature to believe the Gospel fide acquisita which depends partly on a mans Education and partly on Reasons considering the credibility of the Christian way by light of natural observations above all other ways in the world B. 1. * Pet. a S. Joseph Thes univers de Grat. habit p. 86. Datur aliquod donum Gratiae Divinitus infusum quod post operationem in anima nostra habitualiter permanet Dari gratiam habitualem jam videtur esse de fide post Concil Tridentiâ— antea tamen non erat habitus gratia sanctificantis realiter a charitate distinguitur which others deny Gratia habitualis constituit hominem in statu supernaturali c. The Reader that will peruse Casp Peucer's Hist Carcer pag. 692 693 c. may see that the Luthorans were more for Infusion and miraculous operations of Grace and may see a handsom explication of Conversion and the operation of the Word and Sacraments and pag. 698. De viribus humanis in renascentibus renatis dum fit conversio deinceps ad sinem Credo quod gratuiti beneficii ac meriti Christi salvatoris applicatio naturae mortuae vivifitatio in regeneratione non fit actione physica brâ—ta aut raptu Enthâ—stastico aut Stoica coactione aut Magico affâ—atu verbi Sacramentorum sp sancti Neâ— mutatione Physica aut Mâ—gica hyperphysica substantiâ— temperamenti viriuâ— seu facultatem hâ—minis sentientis quidem nec moventis se nec quiâ—quam agentis sed sustinentis tantum impressionem ut subjectum pations sicut ranâ— reviviscunt a tepore solis c. By this you may see what this excellent man Melanâ—â—hons Son-in-law suffered his ten years cruel imprisonment for by the instigation of Schmidelinus and other Lutherans to their perpetual shame and who was then as the Papists still are most for Physical infusions ex opâ—re operato in Word and Sacraments Not only he but all the School-men distinguish acquired and infused Faith But though the names sound otherwise the difference meant by them is in the effects only and the means and not in God He meaneth that a slight ineffectual belief may be performed by that disposition or moral power which is found before special Grace as excited by good Education and helps But an effectual saving Faith must be the product of a special impress of Gods Spirit on the Soul which is a special disposition and moral power to that act And this is true And no more can be truly meant or said 2. But I will tell you a mystery added oft by Dr. Twisse which may much moderate your judgment about the cause of mens condemnation if it be true He holdeth that no man is condemned for want of an infused Faith C. How why no man is condemned at least that hath the Gospel but for want of it For if it be only an infused Faith that justifieth then it is the want of an infused Faith by which men are unjustified And if as you say Infused and effectual or special Faith be all one sure men are condemned for want of special effectual Faith B. His words are these against Hord l. 1. p. 156. Neither have I ever read or heard it taught by any that men shall be damned for not believing fide infusa which is as much as to say because God hath not regenerated them but either because they refused to believe or else if they have embraced the Gospel for not living answerable thereunto which also is in their power quoad exteriorem vitae emendationem though it be not in their power to regenerate their wills and change their hearts any more than it is to illuminate their minds Yet I
by it self anon Before we come to that these things I here conclude of 1. That the Diversity of Nature or Receptive Dispositions being presupposed God hath an established order of means and a congruous established universal Concurse which quantum in se as far as belongeth to it to do worketh equally on all 2. That this established measure of aid or concurse recipitur ad modum recipientis and operateth variously as to the effects according to the various disposition of the Recipients from whom the ratio diversatis is to be fetcht and not from it 3. That this established measure of Concurse or aid may by the greatness of the Passive and Active Indisposition and Illdisposition of the Recipient be both resisted and overcome or frustrate 4. That as Adam did resist and overcome such Grace so do all wicked Hi praecedanâ—i effectus virtute verbi spiritusque in hominum mentibus producti rebellis voluntatis vitio suffocari penitus extingui pâ—ssuâ—t in multis solent adeâ— ut nonnulli in quorum mentibus virtute verbi spiritusque impressâ— fuit aliqualis notitia veritatis divinae c. mutentur plane in contrarium c. And even Alvarez Disp 18. n. â—0 saith Si non operatur actione qui est in praeceptâ— imputabitur illi ad culpam eo quod suâ— culpa se impedivit ne dareter illi auxilium efficax quod necessarium erat ut actualiter operaretur sicut si Deus imponeret homini prâ—ceptum volandi quantum est ex parte sua offerret illi alas adjutorium necessarium uâ— volaret ipse autem responderet Dâ—mine nec vâ—lâ— alas accipere nec volâ—re meritâ— reputaretur reus etiamsâ— non possit absque alis volare qâ—ia sua culpaâ—se impedirit ne illi dâ—narentâ—r a Deâ— men in some cases now And so do all godly men in most of the sins if not all which they commit 5. As God rarely worketh Miracles and we hardly know when he violateth his established course of nature though we may know when he worketh beyond the power of any second cause known to us and when he leaveth his ordinary way but ordinarily keepeth to his established course and use of the second causes even in his wonders So it is very probable that in the Works of Grace Recovery and Salvation he ordinarily keepeth to his established order his Ordinances and fixed degree of Concurse 6. Yet as God is still above all his Works and a free Agent and is no further tied to one constant order and measure of Concurse than he tieth himself by his Wisdom and Free-will so God is free in the conveyance of his Grace and can when he please forsake that order and work Miracles by Grace as well as on natural things above nature He can strike down Saul and convert him by a voice from Heaven and in a word can do what he will 7. And as in most wonders its past our power to know whether and when God doth indeed forsake his established order and work contrary to it or without such second causes as are unknown to us though we can tell when he acteth unusually So is it in this case about his works of Grace A Comet or Blazing Star is an unusual thing whose necessary antecedent cause we know not And yet it is but a natural effect of second causes operating in their established course so are ecclipses better known and unusual Tempests and terrible Lightnings c. So great and sudden unusual and wonderful changes may be made by Grace on sinners and yet all in Gods established course of working and by those second causes which are to us unknown C. But God is not a natural but a voluntary Agent and Grace is hiâ— immediate work or off-spring B. 1. He is a voluntary Agent in Creation Preservation and in all the works and changes of nature and yet he operateth constantly in his appointed course 2. It s unknown to us what means he useth out of our reach in his operations upon souls as well as in nature 3. We find that Grace keepeth a harmony with nature yeâ— as morality is but the modality of things natural so we may conceive that God may possibly work it by the modifying of physical Agents and their actions and the recipients 4. Immutability and constancy is one of Gods perfections and the expression of it in the constant order of his Works is part of his glory in the world Though our mutable Free-wills are better than the fixed or necessitated appetite of Bruits that is not as they are mutable and the acts contingent but as they have a higher object But the fixed unchangeable wills of the Glorified Angels and Saints are far better than ours And why should we think unsetled mutability of efficiency to be the best discovery of Gods Immutability 5. But yet we grant that God is free to do what he please C. But it is by fixed second causes that God keepeth a fixed order of natural productions and alterations in the world But you can name no such universal second cause of Grace affording under God a resistible Influx as the Sun doth in Nature B. What will you say if I name you such a second universal cause though if I could not it followeth not that therefore there is none such I think I can name you one that all Christians should know and yet it seems is not well by Divines themselves considered JESUS CHRIST as MAN and MEDIATOR is Gods Administrator General of the humane world and is compared to the Rising Sun which illuminateth all the world with a light suitable to it and them So Christ is the light of the world the Sun of Righteousness that ariseth with healing Grace and enlightneth every man that cometh into the world or as Crotius and Hammond render it which coming into the world enlightneth every man supposing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the Nominative Case and Neuter Gender and not the Accusative Masculine In him was Life and the Life was the light of men not only to the sanctified who received but uneffectually though quoad se sufficiently the light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not The world that was made by him knew him not He came to his own and his own received him not yet he came to them But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God John 1. 3 10 11. It is apparent in Scripture that all power in Heaven and Earth is given to Christ Matth. 28. 19 20. that all things are delivered into his hands John 13. 3. and God hath given him power over all flesh John 17. 2. and he is head over all things to the Church Ephes 1. 22 23. C. We all grant that Christ is an universal light and Saviour 1. Objectively 2. And as to his Doctrine Covenant and Example But what 's that to internal efficient Grace which is immediately from God
as those as that Accusations against adversaries are to be believed without proof on one side and not on the other Gods Rule against receiving evil reports will be cast out and Charity and Justice will be cast away and meer siding and saction will possess the place And then all the question will be Who are those Accusers that are to be believed And if you think that it is your Teachers the Papists that have many more will think that they have more reason to believe them And â—â— the Anabaptists will believe theirs and the Separatists theirs and the Quakers theirs and what falshood and evil will not then be believed against all parties and how odious will they appear to one another and consequently all Christians to Infidels and Heathens L. A man that is set upon a sodering design may palliate any Heresie in the world and put a fair sense on the foulest words but God hateth such cloaking of sin and complyance with it R. May not Papists Familists Seekers Quakers and all Sects say the same against Concord and Complyance with you I pray you tell me what you think of these following words before you know who wrote them and take heed what you say of them lest you strike you know not whom Quest How is Justification free seeing faith and repentance are required to it Answ There are two answers given One is from Augustines doctrine Epist 105. the summ is As Justification is taken inclusively taking in Faith and Repentance as its beginning it is free because faith is free But as it is taken narrowly for Justification following faith that is for Remission of sin and Reconciliation with God it is merited by faith But the other solution I more approve and it seemeth more agreeable to Scripture to wit that even Remission of sin it self and Reconciliation with God are given freely no Merit of ours going before and that neither by faith nor repentance we do merit the gift of this grace For understanding of which Note that Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to Remit or Reconcile but all the Vertue proceedeth from the object it self that is Christ whoâ—e Vertue and Merit God hath determined to apply to a sinner for his justification by faith in him And what I say of Faith I say of Repentance and other dispositions as in the example of them that looked to the Brazen Serpent who were healed by looking not that looking as it was an act of the eye had such a healing force but the efficaâ—y was from the Serpent which God had appointed for the Ioure So we say of Faith which hath not in its nature and from its entity any power to Remit and Reconcile but as the Vertue of Christ doth this in believers And so I answer that If Faith justified as an act and of it self Justification were not free But so it doth not but is a Mediâ—m by Gods good pleasure by which the Vertue of Christ Justifieth believers therefore faith or repentance make it not lâ—ss free â— g. I give a Beggar a gift He puts forth his hand and taketh it If one tell me Thou gavest it not freely because he took it or else had not had it it were a ridiculous objection For putting forth the hand doth not of it self bring him a gift else every time that he puts forth his hand it would bring in a gift But it is from the vertue and bounty of the giver So is it as to faith and the dispositions by which the vertue of Christ and the free mercy of God do give Remission and Reconciliation to believers and disposed persons so that it taketh not away Christs Merit nor maketh Grace less free that faith or these dispositions are asserted L. I know not how much men may mean worse than they speak but these words are such as the best Protestants use R. They are the words translated of the aforesaid Fr. Tolet a Jesuit and Cardinal on Rom. 3. pag. 157 158 159. But still remember that by Justification they mean the holy effect of the Spirit on the soul and indeed by Remission of sin they most commonly mean the destroying or mortifying sin within us and ceasing to commit the act And they are dark and confused in these matters L. But do not Papists hold forgiveness of deserved punishment R. Yes but they bring it in disorderly and on other occasions But if they did not how could they hold that any sin past from our childhood till Conversion is Remitted or pardoned For the Act is past as soon as done factum infectum fieri non potest and so such past sins can have no remission but forgiving the penalty and healing the effects And wrangling Papists consider not that this is the Remission that Protestants mean who call their kind of Remission by the name of mortification And so we endlesly quarrel about words through our unhappy imperfection in the art of speaking and words being arbitrary signs the world is come to no agreement of their sense L. You confess then their confused Doctrine and you cannot excuse many of their Doctors from gross error herein R. No nor many honest pious persons that go for Protestants What Papists have more plainly subverted the Gospel by their Doctrine on these subjects than many of those called Antinomians have done by the contrary extream And who can justifie all the sentences and phrases of many eminent Divines among us yea or of many of the most wise and accurate For when all are much ignorant who can say I do not err L. But undoubtedly you will be as bitterly censured for these your favourable interpretations of the Papists in the point of Merit as if you were half a Papist your self and were but such a Mongrel as Erasmus Wicelius Cassander or Grotius or as if your Conciliatory designs would carry you as far at last as Grotius Mileterius Baldwin or at least as Mountague Guil. Forbes and such others went And others will then say that you are justly served for writing so much against Grotius and his followers on this account as you have done of which Bishop Bramhall and his Epistoler have already told you R. Truth honesty and Gods approbation change not as mens interests minds or tongues do Time will come that Truth will be more regarded when Love and Peace are to be revived unless God will forsake this contentious and unrighteous World And I am so near so very near that World where there is nothing but Truth Love and Righteousness and where God is All and the Fulness and felicitating object of holy souls and where the censures of men are of no signification that I am utterly unexcusable if I should betray the Cause of Truth Love and Concord to avoid the obloquy of men who speak evil of the things which they never understood The Thirteenth Dayes CONFERENCE Of the great errours sin and danger which many Ignorant Professours fall
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
charge them not to say all the words which I here lay down but only that the reason why I my self do above all others shun their principles is because I take this following to be the true sense and complexion of them which I must also believe if I do believe them And I suppose the Reader to be acquainted with their own words and to have their Books at hand * * * At least that he have read Bradwardine and Alvarez and Dr. Twisse and Rutherford de Prov. Better saith Joh. Racon in 1. sent d 40. art 2. Deâ—s aliqua futura non vult vâ—lie efficaci sed soluâ— permissive respectu sic productorum voluntas divina est Causa per Generalem trâ—buens agenti particularâ— facultatem agendt sic vel sit non tamen determinat agens ad aliquam neque efficienter vult banc vel illam istâ— modo Voluntas divina est causa actuum nostrorum quantumcunque deformium Talium actuum est causa determinans Voluntas humana praesuppositâ influentiâ generali Del Unde ideo pecco quia volâ— pèccáre ità quod actus voluntatis mâ—ae est jam determinans me ad peccandum And Gab. Biel post Scotum Ità est caâ—sa effectiva rectitâ—dinis quod quantum est de se daret illam actâ—â— sâ— voluntas cooperaretur Universaliter enim quicquid Dâ—us dedit antecedenter daret etâ—am consequenter qâ—antum est ex sâ— si non esset impedimentum Vcluntas autem quantum est ex sâ— non dat rectitudinem actul Gal. in 2. d. 37. a. 3. q. 1. dub 1. Ità Okam in 1. d. 46. 38. ferâ— iisdem verbiâ— Orbellis m. 2. d. 37. ita Fr. Mayro 1. d. 37. q. 1. ad 4. q. 2. ad 4. q. 3. concl 4. Greg. Arim. 2. d. 37. q. 1. a. 3. d. 28. q. 1. a. 3. ad arg 12. alil quamplurimi â— Bradwardine l. 1. c. 34. p. 300 301 c. speaketh too plainly to this purpose with Hugâ— 1. de Sacâ— 4. part 1â— being more careful to make people think well of his Deus vult malum than to deny it Non quia quod dicitur non bene dicitur sâ—d quia quod bâ—ne dicitur non recte iâ—telligitur And his mollification is that God willeth sin only secundum quid for Gods Velle simplicâ—ter as it 's commonly taken is to Love and approve it as good and to reward it And because the Vulgar so take it we must not before them say that God wiâ—â— leth sin because they too much abhorr it No act is unjust simply but all just and all the consequents of it just in respect of God the Author Therefore simply in the Universe there is no sin or deordination God willeth sin as a Physicion doth poyson in his medicine for the exercise of the good the punishment of the evil the contemplation of the beauty of the world He is not the author of evil as he is of good for of that he is the sole giver of faith charity c. creating it And God constraineth not men to sin against their wills nor doth he cause it unjustly and culpably c. Is not this meer Hobbs 1. Doth God will any thing but good Is not sin good then if he will it 2. Is Gods not Rewarding it a not willing it What if he rewarded not men for loving him You feign God to will and cause all sin and then damn men for it and then prove that he is not culpable or did not properly will it because he damned men for it 3. Do you not make God as much the cause of evil habits and acts as of good when you make him the total cause of all that is in them 4. Do you not say that the sinner doth evil for good ends and not for evil as well as God 5. Is not man an agent in Loving God as well as in hating him 6. Is it any better to make a man sinful and miserable by making him willing than to make him so by force against his will Nay could a man be made a sinner by force without making him willing Is it not a contradiction 7. Why call you it poyson which God maketh a medicine of You mean not that there is any evil in it which God caused not as you say more immediately than man and so that God first made it poyson and then put it into his medicine 8. And why are you afraid of speaking your opinion to the world Is it not because you are conscious that you speak against the common principles of nature in which the vulgar are founder than your self 9. And much of this is because you cannot tell how God punisheth sin with sin unless he cause sin What if by the Law of nature in Creation he ordain that he that is a glutton shall be sick and that Arsenick shall corrode his bowels that eateth it c. and drinking too much Wine shall breed the Gout c. Doth he therefore cause men to eat and drink too much or is not the excess from them and yet the penal relation and consequents from God And suitably to all this he defineth Grace and Free-will viz. Grace effectual without which no one sin can be avoided is Gods will that it shall be done And so no man can any more do any thing than what he doth than he can make a world And free-will li. 2. c. 1. is Potentia rationalis rationaliter judicandi voluntarit exeâ—quendi so that to will and freely to will is all one And so man is moved to every sin by necessitating premotion to do it freely that is he is made willing that is sinful So c. 32. In omni nonactione Deo creaturae communi prius naturaliter est Deum non-agere quam ipsam quia Deus certam actionem per creaturam non agit ideo creatura illam non agit non è contra So that all omissions of faith repentance obedience c. are fully resolved into Gods first non-agency p. 611. Quis nesciat quod quia Deus non fecit unum Angelum aliam Stellam coelum majus ideo non facta sunt Ità quioquid non fit à causa secunda Deus vult non fieri non vult positivé Scilicet habet nollâ— illud fieri ab ta Prius ergo naturaliter causaliter est Deum nolle positive quare non vâ—lle non facere causam secundam agere quam ipsam non agere This is plain dealing All men that Love not God and all that hate him are such because God will have it so and make them do as they do It would save many tedious volumes and intricate disputes if all would speak as plainly But what is the Christian Religion then I. Their fundamental Principle is that It is naturally Impossible for any agent Natural or free to do any act or vary any comparatively or
circumstantially but by the Immediate Physical efficient adequate predetermining Premotion of Gods Omnipotency as the first Cause besides his Influx by which he sustaineth their natures and concauses and affordeth them his general Concurse or premotion to the act as an act in genere only And it is Impossible for any Agent so predetermined by physical premotion not to act in all the circumstances that it is so moved to act in II. To say that any creature can act without this physical predetermination to all the circumstances or can forbear to act when so predetermined is by consequence to say that such a creature is God the first cause For it is as impossible as to be God or to make a World III. Yea the creature that will forbear any act which God so predetermineth him to must be stronger than God and overcome him or do contradictions IV. And if God had not decreed so to predetermine by physical efficient premotion he could not have known any future acts No though with Scotus we say that he willed all those Acts antecedently to his prescience it would not serve unless he willed so to predetermine the agent in causing them V. Yet we will say that the Will is free but we mean only that to will and to will freely are words of the same sense For a man is said to will freely in that he willeth and his Willing is not a Nilling VI. Free-will then is nothing but Facultas Voluntatis rationis â—d utrumlibet agendum vel non agendum ad agendum unum vel alterum sed tantum prout à prima causa physice praedeterminatur That is it is such a faculty as God can predetermine to act which way he will by making it will yet its Indifferency is not only objective or passive but also Active because it is an Active Power of the will which God predetermineth God predetermineth the will to determine it self VII We will call this the wills Power but it is but hypothetically a Power viz. It can act if God physically predetermine it else not at all As the Wheels of the Clock can move if the Poise or Spring move them or rather as the hand can move if the Will and the Spirits in the Nerves do move it VIII The will is said to be free partly by reason that its active power is capable of being determined by God and then by it self ad utrumlibet and partly in that it is not lyable to coaction IX The will that is by Omnipotent physical premotion efficiently predetermined by God is not constrained because it willeth not unwillingly that is so far as it is willing it is not unwilling and reluctant X. Yet the will that was one way enclined habituated and acted in the precedent instant is oft physically premoved and predetermined by Omnipotency to the contrary act in the next instant which it could not resist As he that in this instant wilâ—eth Chastiâ—y may in tâ—e next instant be predetermined by unresistible Omnipâ—tency to will fornication or he that Loved God may be predetermined and premoved by God to hate him the next moment But we will not call this irresistible efficiency coaction because it is ad Volendum and so in ipso actâ— there is no reluctancy or resistance XI When God hath given man a Power with liberty to will or nill or not will to will this or that and also giveth him all necessary objects and concauses and also as the first cause of natural and free action giveth him all that Influx which is necessary to an Act as such yet the moral specification of that Act to this proposed object rather than that as to hate God rather than to hate sin or to this Act rather than to that as to hate God rather than to Love him or to speak a lye rather than the truth hath so much Entity in it that it is a blasphemous deifying man to say that man can do it without Gods fore-described unresistible predetermining physical premotion XII God made the Law which forbiddeth sin and God made mans nature Intellectual and free to be ruled by Law and God made and ordereth all the objects temptations and concauses and God by the said efficient physical premotion causeth irresistibly every act of sin in all its circumstances As when David was deliberating Shall I do this Adultery and Murder or not God first by omnipotent motion determined his will to it or else he could not possibly have done it And sin in its formale is nothing but the Relation of Disconformity to Gods Law which can have no cause but that which causeth the subjectum fundamentum terminum nor can it possibly be but it must exist per nudam resultantiam hisce positis And yet though God make the man the Law the act the object and all that is in the world from whence sin resulteth as a meer relation we are resolved to say that God is not the Author or Cause of sin XIII Yea though the Habits of sin are certain Entities and therefore God must needs be their first cause in their full nature according to our principles who account it proper to God to be the first and principal cause of any such entity yet we are resolved to say that God is not the Cause or Author at least of sin XIV Yet we will say that he is an enemy to Gods Providence that holdeth that man can possibly do any wickedness unless God thus predetermine both Will Tongue Hand and every active part to every act which he hath forbidden with all its circumstances XV. Sin is caused by God as to the circumstantiated Act which is the materiale but not as to the formale And yet we must confess that the Relation is caused by causing the subject foundation and term all which God principally doth and can be caused no otherwise XVI But the formale of sin is but a defect or privation which is nothing Therefore man and not God is the cause of it For God cannot be a deficient cause nor have any privation And yet we cannot deny but that 1. There is as much positivity of Relation in disobedience as in obedience in curvity as in rectitude in disconformity as in conformity 2. Nor that God can be a Cause of Privations such as death is though not a subject of them even such a cause as they can have 3. Nor that some of ours even Alvarez say that sins of commission and habits are positive in their formale 4. And sin is such a Nothing as is mans misery and he is damned for and by And if it be such a Nothing as can have no cause man can no more be the cause of it than God 5. And that the Reason of non existences negations or privations is as notoriously resolved into the will or non-agency of the first necessary cause of the contrary as existences and positives are resolved into his will and agency And if a man cannot