of his Scene whereunto it is fit he should be serviceable And as for the two Articles here mentioned wherein they are said unanimously to agree and which he calls maxima gravamina It is true they doe agree herein but it may be in a farre other sense then he is willing should be taken notice of For as for the first 1. That the moving cause of reprobation is the alone will of God and not the sinne of man originall or actuall 1. This is true in proportion to election that like as no good work of man is the moving cause of election but only the will of God so no sinne or evill work of man is the cause of reprobation but only the will of God 1. That so it is of election the Apostle both 1. Saith Election is not of Workes but of him that calleth 2. And proveth thus Before Esau and Iacob were borne or had done good or evill it was said The Elder shall serve the Younger therefore Election is not of Workes that is of good workes but of him that calleth 2. That so it is of reprobation I prove by the same argument of the Apostle thus Before Esau and Iacob were borne or had done good or evill it was said the Elder shall serve the Younger therefore reprobation stands not of workes that is of evill workes but of the meer pleasure of God 1. And like as this is farther evident by Gods course of calling in the point of Election as the Apostle intimateth for as much as God calleth effectually whom he will in bestowing faith and repentance upon them For as the Apostle afterwards professeth He hath mercy on whom he will 2. So it is as evident in the point of reprobation in as much as God refuseth to call whom he will by denying faith and repentance unto them as afterwards the same Apostle professeth saying that God hardneth whom he will 2. And this doctrine we doe explicate by distinguishing that which our Adversaries desire to confound least their cheating carriage should be discovered as formerly I have shewed For Predestination and Reprobation may be considered either quoad Praedestinantis Reprobantis actum or quoad Praedestinationis Reprobationis terminum as much as to say quoad res praedestinatione reprobatione praeparatas that is either as touching the act of Predestination and Reprobation or as touching the things decreed by Predestination or Reprobation Now as touching the act of Predestination never any man saith Aquinas was so mad as to say that the merits of man are the cause of predestination And why so Because the act of predestination is the act of Gods will and formerly saith he I have shewed that there can be no cause of the will of God as touching the act of God willing but only as touching the things willed by God Now apply this to reprobation For is not reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating the very act also of Gods will This cannot be denied and herehence it followes that like as there can be no cause of Gods will as touching the act of God willing so there can be no cause of reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating And like as it was a mad thing in Aquinas his judgement to say that merits were the cause of predestination as touching the act of God predestinating so it is no lesse madnesse in his judgement to maintain that either sinne originall or actuall can be the meritorious cause of reprobation as touching the act of God reprobating And what are the reasons hereof in School-divinity Why surely these 1. Predestination and Reprobation are eternall but good workes and evill workes of the creature are temporall but impossible it is that a thing temporall can be the cause of that which is eternall 2. The act of Predestination and Reprobation is the act of Gods will and the act of Gods will like as the act of his knowledge is the very essence of God even God himselfe and therefore to introduce a cause of Gods will is to bring in a cause of God himselfe 3. If works or faith foreseen be any moving cause of Divine election then either they are so of their own nature or by the meer constitution of God Not of their own nature as it is apparent therefore by the constitution of God but this cannot stand neither For if by the constitution of God then it would follow that God did constitute that upon foresight of mans faith he would elect him that is ordaine him to salvation And what I pray is to constitute Is it any other then to ordaine And herehence it followeth God did ordaine that upon foresight of mans faith he would ordaine him unto salvation Whereby the eternall ordination of God is made the object of his eternall ordination whereas it is well known and generally received that nothing but that which is temporall can be the object of divine ordination which is eternall In like sort I dispute of reprobation if sinne be the cause thereof then either of its own nature it is the cause thereof or by the ordinance of God Not of its own nature as all are ready to confesse if you say by the ordinance of God then it follows God did ordaine that upon the foresight of mans sinne he would ordaine him unto damnation For reprobation is Gods ordaining a man unto damnation as touching one part of the things decreed thereby which we come to consider in the next place and that both in election and in reprobation having hitherto considered them as touching the act of God electing or reprobating and shewed that thus they can have no cause But as touching the things decreed thereby they may have a cause as Aquinas professeth and we professe with him As for example to begin with election The things decreed or destinated to a man in election are two Grace and Glory Now both these may have a cause For both Grace is the cause of glory and Christs merits are the cause both of grace and glory But let grace be rightly understood For in the confuse notion of grace many are apt to lurke thereby to shut their eyes against the evidence of truth For no marvail if men be in love with their own errours and in proportion to the love of errour such is their hatred of Divine truth opposite thereunto Now by grace we understand the grace of regeneration whereby that naturall corruption of mind and will commonly called blindnesse of mind and hardnesse of heart which we all bring into the world with us through originall sin is in part cured More distinctly we call this grace the grace of faith and repentance whereby our naturall infidelity and impenitency is cured Now this grace we say God bestowes on whom he will finding all equall in infidelity and impenitency For so the Apostle tells us that God hath mercy on whom he will And as God bestowes it on whom he will not finding any
of God is it a Christian course to renounce it or to question the integrity of it because he finds no footing in Antiquity for it What then shall become of the faith of Laicks and such as are unlearned Must the writings of the Fathers be translated into all vulgar Languages and the unlearned addict themselves to the study of them least otherwise their faith prove a wavering faith for want of finding Antiquity to favour it Belike the writings of the Prophets and Apostles are no part of Antiquity in this Authors more mature judgement But if formerly the doctrine of absolute reprobation were received upon the evidence of Gods word as it is fit the faith of every Christian should be grounded thereupon especially the faith of a Divine called to be a Teacher of others I should think there were no just cause of alteration but upon discovery of the errour of those grounds whereupon formerly it was builded and the discovery hereof alone were chiefly to the present purpose namely to shew just cause of change of mind alteration of judgement but no such course doe I find taken here These motives and reasons here proposed may carry a shew of reason why a man being yet to chuse his faith in these particulars possessed with neither way but indifferent might preferre one way before another one opinion before another but nothing sufficient to justify a change unlesse the weaknesse of former grounds be laid open For it may be that the former grounds might be such as upon due comparison would be found to overweigh these pretences For upon view that I have taken of the discourse following I find not one argument drawn from those places of Scripture that treat of election and reprobation these I find are purposely declined as so many rocks as if the Author feared to make shipwrack of his errours pardon my boldnesse in so naming them Austin is my precedent in this saying Hoc scio contra istam praedestinationem quam secundum scripturas defendimus neminem nisi errando disputare posse but in the mean time while he fears to make shipwrack of his errours let him take heed least he make shipwrack of a good conscience But proceed we with him about the inquiry what footing this doctrine finds in Antiquity He saith he cannot find it but it is more then I find that ever he made any convenient search after it his whole discourse hereupon is of so hungry a nature The absolutenesse of election and reprobation we conclude in Christian reason from Gods absolute carriage in giving and denying grace understanding thereby the grace of regeneration Now the absolutenesse herein as we suppose consists in bestowing this grace on some and denying it to others according to the meer pleasure of the Lords will Now hath not the Apostle more ancient then all the Antiquity he speaketh of professed in expresse termes that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth What need we seek farther amongst the Ancients for the iustification of this And that mercy here is meant such a mercy in bestowing faith on some which is denied to others in converting the wills of some unto good when others are not converted I could prove by variety of places out of Austin whose authority in this case is farre more worthy then all the authority this Author produceth Neither is this the voyce of Austin only but of Ambrose also in that famous saying of his Quem vult religiosum facit so much magnified by Austin And not Ambrose alone but Nazianzen also and Cyprian are alleaged by him as concurring with him in the foundation of the doctrine of predestination which he makes to be the freedome of Gods grace in converting whom he will And which is farre more then this yea farre more then all that can be produced to the contrary by the very Prayers of the Church every where in use he iustifies the generall concurrence in that which he accounts the foundation of predestination As when their common course was to pray unto God that he would be pleased to convert unto the faith of Christ the hearts of Heathens and wherein did this conversion consist but in giving them faith and repentance manifestly giving us to understand thereby that the whole Catholique Church did concurre in this Article of Faith that it was in the power of God according to his free grace to convert whom he would unto the faith of Christ and consequently not to convert whom he would For if there were any cause on mans part why he doth not convert some converting others then there were also on mans part a cause why God doth convert some not converting others and consequently grace should be given according unto works that is in the phrase of the Ancients Gratiam dari secundum merita as Bellarmine acknowledgeth which was ever accounted expresse Pelagianisme and was as expressely condemned in the Councel of Palestina above 1200 years agoe and Pelagius himselfe was driven to subscribe unto it by shamefull dissimulation so to prevent Anathematization of his own person But the upper way saith this Author was never taught or approved by any of the Fathers for 600 years Here breaks forth another reason of this Authors or his that directed him cunning carriage in distinguishing the two waies of our Divines in maintaining the absolutenesse of election and reprobation to wit that in the course of his discourse he might serve his turne with both and where Antiquity served not his turne against the one yet might it serve his turne as he thought against the other But the truth is there was no such question at all ventilated in those daies as touching the obiect of predestination no nor in Austins neither nor many hundred years after that I know And no marvell For it concernes the ordering of Gods decree aright which is meerly Logicall as I have shewed in my Vind. Grat. Dei It s true that S t Austin doth usually accommodate that of S t Paul Rom. 9. 21. concerning the Masse unto mankind considered in Massa damnata as he commonly calls it that is in the corrupt Masse but not alwaies but sometimes he speaks of it and accommodates it cleerely unto the Masse of mankind uncorrupt yea as yet not created as there I have shewed And as for the right ordering of Gods decrees and the right stating of the object of predestination and reprobation We desire no better nor other ground then that of the Apostle God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth that is he cures infidelity and hardnes of heart in whom he will by bestowing faith and repentance upon them and leaves it uncured in whom he will by denying faith and repentance unto them And as for the rigour of this Tenent as it is commonly accounted of making the Masse of mankind not created the object of predestination I have already shewed the vanity of that
have I received this from three severall hands of Arminians each giving the same interpretation of it as if it were called a strange work because it is alienum a naturâ Dei I know none but Papists doe justify them in this interpretation in my judgement a most unreasonable exposition the Lord taking unto himselfe the execution of judgement as his peculiar saying vengeance is mine and I will repay And Magistrates are but Gods Ministers for this And he professeth his delight in this as well as in the execution of mercy It is true he doth not inflict judgement without cause for that were not a work of judgement in proper speech but of power and absolutenesse rather as in turning a holy and innocent creature into nothing And in that respect he is said not to afflict willingly sinne alwaies deserving it Mercy is of another nature and supposeth free grace though I find little or no notice this Author takes of this throughout his discourse Neither doe I find that he or any Arminian acknowledge that the change of a mans heart is wrought in a man of the meere grace of God without any motive cause in the creature Neither doe all Papists concurre in this interpretation for Lyra and Burgensis are together by the eares hereabouts and our Divines as Junius and Piscator doe render it opus insolens terribile an unusuall and terrible judgement interpreting it of bringing the Babylonians upon them so strange a worke that they should wonder at it And as Moses foretold that God should bring upon them Wonderfull judgements Deut. 28. So the Prophet Abakuk sets it forth in like manner Abak 1. 5. Behold among the Heathen and regard and wonder and marvaile for I will worke a worke in your daies you will not believe it though it be told you For loe I raise up the Caldeans that bitter and furious nation which shall goe upon the breadth of the Land to possesse the dwelling places that are not theirs And Jer. 19. 3. Behold I will bring a plague upon this place which whosoever heareth his eares shall â—ingle For seeing Gods lawes are strange things unto them Hos 8. 12. God would bring such judgements upon them that should be as strange unto them And in the same phrase it is said that destruction is to the wicked and strange punishment to the workers of iniquity Job 31. 3. Yet be this granted him it is nothing to the purpose For be it never so deere unto God yet if he restraineth his chiefe mercy which consists in changing the heart whereof this Author seems unwilling to take any distinct notice only to the Elect called accordingly in Scripture vessells of mercy in distinction from vessells of wrath which are the Reprobates this nothing prejudiceth the absolutenesse of reprobation And as for the frequent exercise thereof we read Zeph. 3. 5. That every morning God bringeth his judgements to light and as for the mercy which consists in regenerating man which alone is to the present purpose it is apparent that it is farre lesse frequently shewed then the contrary judgement in obduration And certainly the vessells of mercy are by farre fewer then the vessells of wrath and as for temporall mercies the more frequent they are the worse where the spirit of regeneration is wanting through the corruption of man that makes him thereupon the more obdurate The vanity of the next as touching the amplitude of the objects whereto mercy is extended though this alone is to the present purpose I have already sufficiently discovered it being apparent that in Scripture phrase only the Elect are counted vessells of mercy and all the rest vessells of wrath As there be examples of Gods long suffering and patience so we have fearfull examples of the suddainesse of Gods judgements taking Men and Women away in the very act of sinne Thus the Israelites in the Wildernesse when the flesh of Quailes was in their mouth the heavy wrath of God came upon them and sent them to the graves of lust Zimri and Cozbi perished in their incestuous act and gave up both lust and ghost together Balshazzar a King cut off in his drunken revells to make good the Prophecy of Isaiah The night of my pleasures hath he turned into feare unto me And in like manner the wrath of God seazed upon Herod in his pride But above all this appears in Gods dealings with his Angells who sinned once and fell for ever without all hope of recovery And as for Gods sparing a man in case God gives not repentance what will be the issue but filling up of the measure of their sinnes For to speak in Austins language Contra Julian Pelag. lib. 5. cap. 4. Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis agit paenitentiam Now the case is cleare God gives repentance to a very few who are in Scripture called vessells of mercy which nothing at all prejudiceth the absolutenesse of reprobation 5. Of the riches of Gods mercies to his children we nothing doubt but what doth this prejudice the absolutenesse of reprobating those whom he never meaneth to make his children But here it is to be suspected that this Author accounts all and every one the children of God for forthwith he confounds this notion with the notion of creatures quite contrary to the most generall current of Scripture not of the New Testament only which teacheth us that we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Gal. 3. and if children then heires even heirs of God and heirs annext with Christ Rom. 8. But of the old Testament also Gen. 6 2. The sonnes of God saw the daughters of men that they were faire c. Exod. 4. 22. Thou shalt say to Pharaoh thus saith thè Lord Israel is my Sonne my first borne wherefore I say let my Sonne goe that he may serve me if thou refuse to let him goe behold I will visit thy Sonne even thy first borne Deut. 14. 1. Ye are the children of the Lord your God 2. Thou art an holy people to the Lord thy God and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a precious people to himselfe above all the people that are upon the earth That of the Hen though we give him liberty to amplify her naturall affections as one of the most affectionate Females among unreasonable creatures yet doth it nothing profit him for it represents Gods love appropriated to his Children which nothing prejudiceth the absolutenesse of his power reprobating others Nay rather as it justifies his absolutenesse in electing them if we consider the meere grace of God to have made the difference as the Scripture sheweth Deut. 7. 7. The Lord loved you because he loved you and Deut. 9. at large he beats them out of all conceit of any righteousnesse in them moving the Lord to plant them in the Land of Canaan so by consequent it justifies the Doctrine of absolute reprobation also for as much as the Apostle
repentance on whom he will because he finds all equall in naturall corruption and no difference in any whereby to move God to bestow grace on him rather then on another The case is not alike when God comes to bestow salvation and inflict damnation for some he finds dying in sinnes others dying in the Lord yet we deny not but by power absolute and secluding the determination of his own will he could annihilate the righteous as well as the wicked In like sort the whole course of nature depends meerely upon the pleasure of God yet we say it is naturall for a Leprous person to beget a Leprous person and so as naturall it is for that which is borne of the flesh to be flesh though each depends upon the constitution of God For albeit Adam lost the spirit of God by his transgression and all supernaturall graces wherewith he was endued yet like as God by regeneration of his meere pleasure restored them afterwards to Adam and in due time doth restore them to every one of his Elect so in their very conception if it pleased God he could for Christs sake infuse them notwithstanding the sinne of Adam and consequently it is the free act of God in refusing after this manner to deale with them Yet this nothing hinders but that the propagation of spirituall corruption unto all Adams posterity may be as naturall as the propagation of any hereditary disease from the Father to the child and over and above that it is not in the way of meer pleasure but in the way of justice for the sinne of Adam which was the sinne of our nature bereaving him of that originall righteousnesse wherein he was â—reated and causing all mankind to be 1. Derived from him whereas he could have otherwise provided 2. And that from Adam after his nature was corrupt with sinne whereas he could have derived posterity from him before his fall had it pleased him And therefore I approve the second Canon of the Synod of Dort whereunto our English Divines with many others subscribed where they professe that the corruption derived from Adam to his posterity was per vitiosae naturae propagationem justo Dei iudicio derivata This I take to be much different from saying Adams sinne is made ours by meer pleasure or by imputation only So the fifteenth Article in the confession Ecclesiarum Belgicarum runs thus Credimus Adami in obedientiâ peccatum originis in totum genus humanum diffusum esse quod est totius naturae corruptio vitium haereditarium quo ipsi infantes in matris suae utero polluti sunt quodque veluti radix omne peccatorum genus in homine producit ideoque ita foedum execrabile est coram Deo ut ad generis humani condemnationem sufficiat Our Brittain Divines in their second Thesis upon the third and fourth Articles explicate themselves concerning the condition of originall sinne in this manner Lapsae voluntati inest non tantum peccandi possibilitas sed etiam praeceps ad peccandum inclinatio Nec aliter se potest res habere in homine corrupto nondum per divinam justitiam restaurato cùm ea sit natura voluntatis ut nuda manere nequeat sed ab uno cui adhaeserat objecto excidens aliud quaerat quod cupidè amplectatur ideo per spontaneam defectionem habitualiter adversa a Deo creatore in creaturam effraeni impetu fertur ac cum ea libidinose ac turpiter fornicatur semper avida fruendi utendis ac vetita moliendi ac patrandi Quid mirum ergo si talis voluntas sit Diaboli maneipium I find indeed in Corvinus such a profession of his namely that ex puro Dei arbitrio qui Adami peccatum nobis imputare voluit etiam in nos reatus derivatus est And Walaeus in answer unto him writes thus Nec quinto illo ad Rom. Capite ad quod nos hic Corvinus remittit quicquam tale dicitur aut innuitur nempe quod ex mero Dei arbittio pendeat haec primi peccati imputatio 2. The Second thing he puts upon our Divines is That God hath determined for that sinne to cast away the farre greater part of mankind for ever and so they make God to doe that by two acts the one accompanying the other which the other say he did by one To which I answer First that if they say that God doth no more by two acts then the other say God did by one seeing I have proved that the other doe no way maintain that God doth punish the righteous with the wicked which is his immodest and unshamefac't crimination no nor doe they maintain that God determined to damne any but for sinne and which is more then that supposing humanum genus nondum conditum to be the object of reprobation yet doth it not follow that in any moment of nature the decree of damnation is before the consideration of sinne surely neither will it follow by the Sublapsarian Doctrine that God doth not decree to punish any man with damnation but for those sinnes wherein he dyeth unrepented of much lesse that God doth punish the righteous with the wicked which is the crimination of this Author proposed I doubt against his own conscience T is true some perish only in originall sinne and that justly for if they be borne children of wrath is it strange if they dye children of wrath And is it not just with God to inflict eternall death on them whom this Author professeth to be guilty of eternall death only he saith that God of his meer pleasure makes them guilty of eternall death That is his saying not ours For though we say originall sinne makes a man guilty of eternall death by the free constitution of God yet we say not that this free constitution of God was made of his meer pleasure but justo Dei judicio like as whosoever believes not shall be damned here damnation is by the free constitution of God made the portion of unbelievers but dares this Author inferre herehence that it is not made so justo Dei judicio indeed God gives grace according to the meere pleasure of his will but no wise man will say that he damnes men according to the meere pleasure of his will for this phrase implies that there is no cause thereof on mans part And indeed there is no cause on mans part why God should give him grace but there is cause enough on mans part why God should inflict damnation on him and yet this work of God though just is never a whit the lesse free So in damning for originall sinne only though Gods constitution hereof be just yet is it never a whit the lesse free and though it be free yet it is never a whit the lesse just And like as damnation is inflicted on finall impenitents sola Dei constitutione only by vertue of this constitution Divine whosoever repents not of his sinne shall be
be such a God A Morall efficient is twofold being only of a moveing nature to move others to doe somewhat as namely either by perswading or by meriting or deserving He that perswades moves an other to doe some what he that meriteth thereby moves another either to reward him or punish him Now to walke in the light of this distinction and not to please our selves by walking in darknesse though God be the prime principall and invincible cause of man's damnation in the kind of a cause efficient physicall which should not seeme strange to an ordinary Christian who knowes full well that vengeance is God's peculiar worke as the Iudge of all the world and that he delights in the execution thereof yet this hinders not but that man may be the cause of his own damnation in the way of a meritorious cause justly deserving it Omnis poena Deum habet Authorem All punishment hath God for the Authour of it This is a principle acknowledged both by the Arminians and Vasquez the Jesuite but never is punishment inflicted on any by the hands of God save on those who formerly have deserved it Consider we farther as touching the severall kinds of causes formerly mentioned if the question be which is the principall Aristotle answereth that this is not confined to any one kind of them somtimes the materiall cause somtimes the formall cause somtimes the efficient somtimes the finall cause is the demonstrative cause the cause propter quam the cause by vertue where of the effect hath its existence but this peculiar and speciall cause is described thus It is that whereby satisfactory answer is made to the question demanding why such a thing is Now in execution of punishment or condigne vengeance this satisfactory answer is made by representing the meritorious cause never by representing the efficient cause as for example if it be demanded why such a malefactor is executed upon the gallowes no sober man will answer because the Sheriffe cōmanded it to be so or because the Judge would have it so but because he robd upon the high way or committed some criminall fact or other which is capitall by the lawes of our land and to be punished with hanging upon the gallowes In like sort if question be made why devills or wicked men are damned is it our doctrine to referre the cause hereof to the mere pleasure of God Doe not all confesse that God inflicts damnation upon thē merely for their sinnes and transgressions wherein they have continued unto death without repentance Yet we acknowledge that God could have taken them off from their sinnes while they lived if he would by giving them repentance as he hath dealt with us and that merely of his free grace For we willingly confes that our sinnes are our owne but our faith is not our repentance is not When I say our owne I meane in respect that they are of our selves otherwise we acknowledge both faith and repentance to be our owne accipiendo in asmuch as we receive them but they are God's gifts and so they are his dando in asmuch as he gives them as Remigius speaketh Now what is become of this Authours pompous discourse Is it not the like the cracking of thornes in the fire making a great noise but the light of distinction like fire sets an end unto it and makes it appeare in its owne likenesse and proves nothing but a squib For albeit God in his decree makes the damnation of reprobates to be necessary and unavoidable yet seeing he makes it not to fall on any but for their sinnes what colour of dishonour unto God in ordaining that Iudas shall necessarily and unavoidably be damned for betraying the Sonne of God and afterwards most desperatly murthering himselfe If hereupon he could no more avoid his damnation then Astionax could the breaking of his neck when the Grecians tumbled him downe from the tower of Troy will any man that is not bereaved of common sense make strange of this It is true God did appoint both Iudas and all other wicked persons that never break off their sinnes by repentance unto destructiō of his own voluntary disposition For God workes all things according to the counsaile of his will and if it pleased him he could annihilate them upon the fresh foot of any sin or after they have suffered the vengeance of hell fire as many yeares in hell as they lived here in sinne yea and the devills in hell as Origen was of opinion and the Jewes at this day are of the same by Sir Edwin Sandes his relation whether this Author be of the same or not I know not And lastly we willingly confesse that the decree of God was antecedent to the deserts of men for reprobation is as antient as election and election was made before the foundation of the world if we believe Saint Paul rather then any other who either by word or deed doth manifest himselfe to be of a contrary opinion Still damnation is inflicted by God only for sinne and in degree answerable unto their sinnes and only because of their sinnes as a meritorious cause thereof though God makes use of it to his owne ends and the manifestation of his owne glory as Solomon professeth namely that God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill And Saint Paul tells that as the Lord suffereth with long patience the vessells of wrath prepared to destruction that he might shew his wrath and make his power known So likewise another reason hereof he specifies to be this That he might declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory For when we shall behold the unspeakable misery brought upon others by reason of their sinnes how rich will God's glory appeare unto us when we consider that had it not been for his free grace delivering us from sinne we had been swallowed up of the same sorrowes And thus Alvarez writeth disput III. The glory of God's mercy in his elect and in like manner the manifestation of divine justice on Reprobates is truely and properly the finall cause why God did permit sinnes both in Reprobates and Angells And he proves it out of this passage of Saint Paul So Aquin 1 p. pag. 23. art 5. This is the reason saith he why God hath chosen some and Reprobated others that representation might be made of Gods goodnesse towards the Elect in the way of mercy pardoning them and on the Reprobates in the way of justice punishing them And Alphonsus Mendoza a Scotist concurres with them in this and we see they make Saint Pauls doctrine their foundation And indeed albeit at the day of judgment there will be found a vast difference between the Elect and Reprobates the one having departed this life in the state of faith repentance the other in infidelitie and impenitency in such sort as God will bestow on his elect
eternall life by way of reward and inflict eternall death on the other by way of punishment yet in conferring the grace of regeneration of faith and repentance upon the one and denying the same graces unto the other the Lord carrieth himselfe not according to mens workes but merely according to the pleasure of his owne will shewing mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will in which respect he is said to make men in what condition he will as Rom 9. 20. Shall the thing formed say to it that formed it why hast thou made me thus Though indeed he makes but one sort of them after a new fashion leaving the other in the state of naturall corruption wherein he findeth them And likewise is compared by the same Apostle to a Potter who out of the same lump makes one vessell unto honour and an other unto dishonour But to returne I have I trust sufficiently shewed that in all this which he hath delivered when things are rightly understood and duely considered ther 's nothing found alien from the holy nature of God no more then it is repugnant to his holy nature to decree and execute vengeance condigne vengeance even the vengeance of damnation on men for their sinnes in such sort that it shall unavoidably overtake all those that breake not off their sinnes by repentance before their death Nothing more agreeable to Scripture nor to the nature of God revealed unto us in holy Scripture then this and consequently nothing more agreeable to Christian reason But as for naturall reason God forbid we should make that the rule of our faith as concerning the resurrection of the dead and the powers of the world to come the rewards of heaven and the torments of hell where the worme never dieth and the fire never goeth out And may it not seeme very strange that a Christian and a Divine and one magnified by the Arminian party for great abilities should undertake to prove this doctrine to be contrary to Scripture to the nature of God and to sound reason Well let us proceed to observe how well he performes what he undertakes And here he saith 1. That the Scripture makes man the principall nay the only cause in opposition to God of his owne ruine We answer the Scripture makes man the only cause of his owne ruine in the meritorious cause thus man's destruction is of himselfe But this nothing hinders God from being the cause why vengeance destruction and damnation are executed upon man for he is the God to whom vengeance belongeth he delights as well in shewing judgment as in shewing mercy Indeed did we maintaine that God damnes the Reprobate whether man or Angells of his mere pleasure this Argument of his were seasonable We know full well that God of his free grace shewes mercy but judgment only upon provocation and herein he proceeds slowly too for he is slow to wrath and easie to be intreated Yet God's afflicting is not alwaies for sinne neither doth it alwaies proceed in the way of punishment when we suffer for Christ we have cause to rejoyce that he counts us worthy to suffer for his name neither were the afflictions of Iob brought upon him for his sinnes but for the tryall of his faith and to make him an example of patience to all succeeding generations and as for that of Ezech I will not the death of the wicked It is the usuall course of men of this Authours spirit thus to render the wordes whereas our last English translation renders them thus I have noe pleasure in the death of the wicked Now as a man may will that wherein he takes noe pleasure as a sick-man takes a bitter potion sometimes for the recovery of his health so God may will that wherein he takes noe delight And whether it be meant of first or second death it cannot be denied but God wills it for he workes all things according to the councell of his owne will Then againe if we consider the infliction of death as an execution of judgment God not only willeth this but delights therein also as it is expressed That of Prosper is nothing to the present purpose we treating here of the cause of damnation not of sinning we say God is the God to whom vengeance belongeth not to whom sinne belongeth Besides sinne as sinne hath noe efficient cause at all but defficient as Austine hath delivered many hundered yeares agoe It is true it is in Gods power to preserve any man from any sinne it is in his power to take any man off from any sinfull course by repentance if he will but he is bound to none he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth and in all this he is not culpable In the next place he tels us It is contrary to God's nature but what To damne men for their sinnes neverbroken offby repentance for all our divines maintaine that God is Authour of damnation to none but such and to such God is not mercyfull nor gratious nor suffers them any longer nor shewes any goodnesse towards them while they lived he did yea much long suffering and patience inviting them thereby to repentance yea and by his word also inviting many but after they dye in sinne therewithall an end is sett to the dispensation of Gods gracious proceedings with them Much lesse doe we deny him to be good and mercifull and of great kindnesse to all that call upon him For Gods mercy doth not exercise it selfe by necessity of nature but by freedome of will yet he heareth the cry of Ravens and not a Sparrow falleth to the ground without the providence of our heavenly father and the very Lyons roaring after thir prey doe seeke their meat at the hands of God These mercyes are temporall but as for spirituall mercyes for the working and cherishing of Sanctification these are not extended unto all but to some only even to whom he will And accordingly the elect of God are called vessels of mercy Yet to the execution of damnation on any he proceeds not till after death and stayes no longer so slow to wrath he is towards the worst and no more slow to the best of them Who is a God like unto thee saith Micah that taketh away iniquity here this Authour out of wisdome maketh a stoppe leaving out that which followeth and passing by the transgressions of the remnant of his heretage That restriction belike he did not so well brooke but having leapt over that he is content to take in that which followeth he retaineth not his wrath for ever because mercy pleaseth him to witt towards the remnant of his heritage of his people But I hope nought of this can hinder God from being the Authour of damnation to all that dye in sinne without repentance without any prejudice to his holinesse though he retaineth wrath for ever against them We come to his reason which he calls soūd saying that it
abstaine from sinne when such a grace is granted him and consequently in granting such a grace he permits him still to sinne as well as in denying it and in denying he permits him to doe good as much as in granting it So that still it is not God that keepeth a man from sinne as often as he abstaineth from it but merely the power of his own free will Whereby it is evident that this Authour as well denies that God is the Authour of any good as that he is the Authour of any evill But man is Authour of the one as well as of the other The power of doing good he will grant is from God neither can it be denied but that the power of doing evill is from God He will grant likewise that God is ready to concurre to any good act if man will and I presume he will not deny but that God concurres also to the substance of every evill act The only difference that remaines is this God perswades only to good and disswades only that which is evill Now this third and last assertion we grant as well as he Yet he layes to our charge that we make God the Authour of evill but cares not at all how he denies God to be the Authour of any good in the actions of men and makes noe place for any grace save such as is hortatory which is performed usually by the ministery of men Yet consider what Bradwardine sometimes Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Elect hath written in this kind before Luther or Calvin were borne The title of the fourth chapter of his second booke is this That free will being tempted cannot of his own strength without the helpe of God and his grace overcome any temptation Of the first this that free will strengthned with what created grace soever cannot without another speciall succour of God overcome any temptation of the sixth this that That speciall succour of God is the unconquerable grace of God Of the seventh this That no man though not tempted can by the strength of his free will alone without created grace or with created grace how great soever it be without the speciall asistance of God avoide any sin all these propositions he demonstrates with variety of argument Behold the ingenuity of this Authour He flies in the face of Calvin and Beza and other our Divines for maintaining that unlesse God by his grace keep and preserve a man effectually from sinning it cannot be that he should abstaine from sinne Bradwardine maintained the same before any of these were borne yet he saith nothing to him le ts all his arguments alone but upbraides us for maintaining the same doctrine without giving any reason to convict us of our errour Adde to this which I have omitted the Corolary of that seventh chapter in Bradwardin formerly mentioned is this That it is the will of God which preserves them that are tempted from falling and them that are not tempted both from temptation and from sinne Not one of the arguments whereby he confirmes any of these positions doth this Authour goe about to answer In like manner Alvarez Positâ permissione divinâ infallibiliter peccat homo upon supposition of God's permission man sins infallibly The proposition he intends to prove in that disputation is this Therefore a man is not converted because he is not aided of God But both he and we deny that hereupon a man sinneth necessarily alwaies but only in some cases In some cases it followeth as namely a man borne in sinne and in the state of corruption the naturall fruits whereof are infidelity and impenitency untill God affords a man the grace of regeneration he cannot believe he cannot repent They that are in the flesh cannot please God Thou after the hardnesse of thy heart that cannot repent Therefore they could not believe In which case God is not the cause of infidelity and impenitency but these proceed naturally and necessarily from that originall corruption wherein they are conceived and borne God is only the naturall cause why this their naturall corruption continues uncured For none can cure it but God it being a work nothing inferior to the raising of them from the dead Yet he is no culpable cause of this For as much as he is not bound to any but he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth So that necessarily without the grace of regeneration every man continueth in his naturall corruption devoyd of faith of hope and love These being supernaturall and whereunto no man can attaine with out supernaturall grace In like manner hence it followeth that no naturall man can performe any morall good act in a gracious acceptable manner in the sight of God because â—he fountaines of such performances are not found in naturall men But they have a free power as to commit any naturall evill worke so to abstaine from it though not in a gracious manner Free power as to abstaine from any vertuous act so to performe it also though not in a gracious manner They may be temperate chast just and the like but their vertuous actions are not truly vertues in a Christian account because they know not God nor Christ much lesse doe they believe in him and performe these vertuous actions out of their love unto him If Maccovius and Whitaker and Pareus be of the same mind and the Dominicans with them and Bradwardine before them all let the indifferent Reader consider what an hungry opposition is made by this Authour not offering to answer any one of their Arguments nor of mine neither in my Vindiciae Nor saith ought by way of reply upon any answer to the like argument of Arminius The resolution of all that here he delivers determining in a rule himselfe proposeth without reason or authority to justifie it A rule as here it is applyed conteining a notorious untruth For causa deficiens in no case can be efficiens in proper speech any more then causa efficiens can be accounted deficiens unlesse it be understood in divers kinds As for example efficiens naturaliter may be deficiens moraliter and deficiens moraliter may be efficiens naturaliter An efficient cause naturally may be deficient morally and so a cause deficient morally may be efficient naturally Least of all can it have place in the present question which is of the cause of sinne For sinne as sinne evill as evill non habet causam efficientem sed deficientem hath no cause efficient but deficient only as Austin hath long agoe determined and it is a rule generally received and never that I know denied of any Againe causa deficiens in necessariis may be culpable I confesse and so interpretativè as they say may be interpreted to be as good as an efficient As in a civill consideration it is said of the Magistrate that Qui non vetat peccare cum possit jubet He that forbiddeth not a man to sinne when it
at least by the power of God all of them And as there are necessary Agents working necessarily so there are free Agents working contingently and freely as Angells and men And albeit a question may be made as touching acts supernaturall whether the creature hath any free power to performe them freely such as are the acts of the three Theologicall vertues faith hope and charity and none other which yet we doe not deny but grant upon the infusion of a supernaturall principle into our soules which we count formally the life of grace the cause whereof we take to be the Spirit of God given unto us and dwelling in our hearts yet there deserves to be no question but that as touching all actions of morall vertues and of the contrary vitious actions that there is a free power in man to performe them naturally untill such time as by a vitious disposition procured by a custome in vitious courses a man is habitually inclined unto evill whereby he is made a slave to vice and thereby hath deprived himselfe of a morall liberty unto actions vertuous For like as a man holding a stone in his hand hath power to throw him or no or to throw him which way he will but as soone as he hath throwne him out of his hand it is no longer free unto him whether he will throw it or no. In like manner before a vitious habit contracted man hath freedome morall unto actions vertuous but not after This is the doctrine of Aristotle and thus he illustrates it For certainely the habit of vertue is not an indifferent power to doe an act vertuous or vitious but it is a morall propension and inclination only to acts vertuous So is the habit of justice a morall propension and inclination to performe only that which is just The like may be said of every morall vertue in speciall How much more doth supernaturall grace consist not in a power to believe if a man will to love God if he will to hope and waite for the joyes of heaven if he will and if he will to refuse to performe any of these acts but rather an holy and heavenly habit or weight wrought in the soule of man moving and swaying it only to gracious acts pleasing acceptable in the sight of God which indeed constitutes a spirituall liberty from sinne and makes a man become the holy servant of God willing to receive direction from him and delighting to be ordered by him in all our waies On the other side with out grace a man is left in that naturall corruption wherein he was conceived borne which makes him a slave to sinne and a vassall to Satan led captive by him to doe his will Yet not withstanding there remaines in every one his naturall liberty still which consists only in the choice of meanes conducing to man's end whereas morall vertue and grace doe order the will a right towards aright end morall vertues according to the knowledge naturall which he hath of his right end naturall grace according to the knowledg supernaturall which a man hath of his right end supernaturall which is to be rightly disposed and ordered towards God his maker So that this naturall liberty still continueth the same As for example he that it vertuous so farre forth as he is vertuous continueth still free not as freedome signifies an indifferency to performe an act vertuous vitious but being thereby disposed only to vertuous actions he is free whether to exercise this or that vertuous act according to occasiōs offered or in the same kind of a vertuous disposition whether he will doe this or that in particular as to give in such a proportion or in such a season or to such or such persons in all which being of a vertuous disposition he is ready to receive directions from the dictates of recta ratio right reason otherwise called wisedome In like manner a vitious person still keeps his naturall liberty though he hath lost his morall and is become Servus tot dominorum quot vitiorum a slave to so many Lords as there are vices in him as Austin somewhere speaketh I say he keeps still his naturall liberty For let him be a Robber he still continueth free to make choice of his complices of places wherein to lye in waite for his prey of weapons and the like Let him be an impure person still he continueth free to choose whom he will corrupt to contrive what course he thinks best for the satisfaction of his lusts Let him be covetuous or ambitious still he contintinueh free to make choice of the meanes conducing to the end obtained by him In like sort let him be regenerate a child of God by this spirit of regeneration he is moved only to doe those things which are pleasing to his heavenly father but still his naturall liberty continueth the same as whether to exercise the grace which God hath given him in one kind or in another or in the same kind in what particular he thinks good If he thinks good to pray it is free to him to fall upon the confession of his sins or upon thanksgiving or upon supplication that either for blessings temporall and the releife of his naturall necessities or for grace and the reliefe of necessities spirituall or to exercise himselfe in every kind of these and that in what order he thinks good So likewise if he give himselfe to meditation and make choice of what matter he thinks good as also of time and place in all this he is free None of all these distinctions doth this Authour take notice of but hand over head talks of freedome to performe either acts vicious or vertuous whereas the vertuous man's will as he is vertuous is inclined to vertuous courses alone and the vitious man as he is vitious is inclined to vitious courses alone and not to vertuous And it was wont to be said that Habitus agunt ad modum naturae habit 's whether vertuous or vitious they worke after the manner of nature that is naturally and necessary as before I have declared of a morall necessity which still consists with a naturall liberty either in vertuous or vitious exercises to make choice of particulars in respect of all variety of circūstances according as their reason suggests unto them in the use of means conducent to the end intended whether that end be good or bad No dominion of absolute necessity in all this Much lesse is any man good by absolute necessity but by freedome of will accustoming himselfe unto good actions according to the dictates of reason But a man that is dead in sinne hath no power to regenerate himselfe this worke of regeneration is wrought merely by the power of God Like as the raising of a man from death to life whereunto it is often compared in holy Scripture as also to creation And by regeneration we are said to be made new creatures now as God workes this in
Synod of Palestine 1200. yeares agoe to this day The difference of opinions here feigned by him about the point of Reprobation amongst our Divines is like the feigning of a knot in a bulrush For what is a peremptory denying of grace and glory to some men lying in the fall other then a denyall of that grace and glory which is prepared in the decree of election to the sonnes of God though indeed neither of them make it a denyall which is done in time but rather Gods decree to deny it For do not the latter Divines maintaine it to be peremptory as well as the former For what difference doth he devise between a flat denyall and a peremptory denyall and as for the latter decree belonging to reprobation here mentioned namely a preordination of the man thus left to the torments of hell do not the latter Divines acknowledge this decree to belong to Reprobation also Only they professe that God preordaines none to eternall torments in hell but for their sinnes actuall as well as originall of as many as live to ripenesse of age Now I would faine know what Divine of ours maintaines the contrary 1. Our Divines in saying Reprobation is Decretum quo statuit non misereri do manifest that not denying grace but the decree of denying it is Reprobation Walaeus speaketh of no common endowments though that be a truth which here is attributed unto them else how should they be called common endowments 2. If he decrees to leave Reprobates without grace and consequently under that necessity of sinning into which all are cast by the sinne of Adam it is nothing strange I thinke that God should accordingly leave them therein though in a different manner the Lord prostituting some to their own lost's and to the power of Satan more then others and making some even by the ministery of the Gospell proficere ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quo mitius puniantur as Austin some where speaketh If Gods decree cannot be frustrated as here is avouched I wonder he should charge us with teaching that God decreeth this or that immutably For if he should change any of his decrees they should undoubtedly be frustrated Indeed we do not say that God decrees Hypothetically to give grace to wit upon condition that men will make themselves fit for it and for failing herein to deny them grace And I am very glad to observe so good correspondence in the suffrages of Protestant Divines in the Synod of Dort and our English also with them Sect 3. 3. God both decreeth and executeth this leaving of men to themselves of his alone absolute will and pleasure This is the third branch 1 That they say so witnesse the suffrage of our English Divines We affirme that this non election is founded in the most free pleasure of God And that no man lying in the fall is past over by the meere will of God is numbred by the same Divines among the heterodox positions To this purpose also speake The Palatinate Ministers The cause of Reprobation is the most free and just will of God That God passeth over some and denyeth them the grace of the Gospell the cause is the same free pleasure of God Thus the Divines of Hessen God decreed to leave some in the fall of his own good pleasure The proofe of this they fetch from the execution of this decree in time God doth in time leave some of mankind fallen and doth not bestow upon them meanes necessary to beleive c. and this out of his most free pleasure This they joyntly affirme and prove it by this reason especially All men were lookt on as sinners If sinne therefore were the cause that moved God to reprobate he should have reprobated or rejected all But he did not Reprobate all therefore for sinne he reprobated none but for his owne pleasure in which we must rest wthout seeking any other cause 1. Now from these two things layd together viz. 1. That God did bring men into a necessity of sinning 2. That he hath left the Reprobates under this necessity it will follow that he is the Authour of the reprobates sinnes 1. Because Causae causae est causa causati the Cause of a cause is the cause of its effect if there be a necessary subordination betweene the causes and the effect whether it be a cause by acts negative or positive But God is the cheife or sole cause by their doctrine of that which is the necessary and immediate cause of the sinnes of reprobates namely their impotency and want of supernaturall grace therefore he is by the same doctrine the true and proper cause of their sinnes 2. Because Removens prohibens that which withdraweth and withholdeth a thing which being present would hinder an event is the cause of that event As for example he that cutteth a string in which a stone hangs is the cause of the falling of that stone And he that withdraweth a pillar which being put to uphold a house is the true cause in mens account of the falling of that house But God by their opinion withholdeth from reprobates that power which being granted them might keep thē from falling into sinne therefore he becometh a true morall cause of their sinnes In whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done sayth Tertullian In cuius manu est quid ne fiat ei deputatur cum iam fit It will not suffice to say that God by withholding grace from reprobates becometh only an accidentall not a proper and direct cause of their sinnes For a cause is then only accidentall in relation to the effect when the effect is beside the intention and expectation of the cause For example Digging in a feild is then an accidentall cause of the finding a bag of gold when that event is neither expected not intended by the husbandman in digging But when the event is lookt for and aymed at then the cause though it be the cause only by withholding the impediment is not accidentall As a Pilot who withholdeth his care and skill from a ship in a storme foreseeing that by his neglect the ship will be drowned is not to be reputed an accidentall but a direct and proper cause of the losse of this ship This being so it followeth that God by this act and decree of removing and detaining grace necessary to the avoyding of sinne from reprobates not as one ignorant and carelesse what will or shall follow but knowing infallibly what mischeife will follow and determining precisely that which doth follow viz their impenitency and damnation becomes the proper and direct cause of their sinnes That God of his meere pleasure sheweth mercy on some and hardeneth others is the expresse word of God Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Now to shew mercy is to give the grace of faith and obedience as appeares
by the opposition of it to obduration which is such as whereupon followeth disobedience as appeares by the objection following hereupon Thou wilt say then why doth yet cōplaine For who hath resisted his will Now God complaineth of nothing but disobedience Againe to give faith is to shew mercy For to have faith is to obtaine mercy Heretofore ye have not believed but now have obtained mercy through their unbeliefe Where to believe to obtaine mercy are made equipollent of the same signification And in reason if God did deny faith because of some unpreparednesse in the creature then God did expect that the creature should first prepare himselfe and make himselfe fit for faith that so God might bestow it upon him so grace should be conferr'd according to workes which is contradictious to expresse testimony of holy scripture testifying that God hath saved us called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his owne purpose and grace all along hath beene condened in the Church of God for Pelagianisme Thus we have beene entertained with a discourse containing nothing but the opinion of our Divines which none of us deny Yet in the proposing hereof he hath wasted a whole leafe and more Now he comes to his argument drawen from these two layd together 1. That God did bring men into a necessity of sinning 2. That he hath left the reprobates under this necessity Hence he concludes that God is the Author of the reprobates sins But this we utterly deny Therefore this he undertakes to prove by two reasons 1. Because the cause of the cause is the cause of its effect if there be a necessary subordination betweene the causes and the effect But God is the cheife or sole cause by their doctrine of that which is the necessary and immediate cause of the sinnes of Reprobates namely their impotency and want of supernaturall grace For answer whereunto I say first begining with the minor 1. That the want of supernaturall grace is not the immediate cause of the sinnes of Reprobates nor the cheife cause much lesse the sole cause And I prove it evidently Let instance be given in any sinne committed by a Reprobate let it be the sinne of murther or of fornication or of theft or of lying For if it were then every reprobate should be guilty of murther of fornication of lying of stealing For positâ causâ principali immediatâ ponitur effectus Where a principall and immediate cause doth exist there the effect must needs exist But it is apparent that albeit every reprobate doth want supernaturall grace yet every reprobate is not guilty of murther of fornication lying and stealing Secondly If the want of supernaturall grace were the immediate and principall cause of all the sinnes of reprobates then not only every Reprobate should be guilty of committing all the sinnes formerly mentioned but at all times every one of these sinnes should be committed by them Because at all times they want supernaturall grace And the truth is every one of these sinnes may be abstained from without supernaturall grace and for carnall respects Only without supernaturall grace they cannot be abstained from in a gracious manner as namely out of faith in God and love to God He that hath neither faith nor love cannot abstaine from these vile courses out of faith and love In like sort heathen men in their generations have beene exceeding vertuous according to the worlds account of vertue in moderating their passions and ordering their conversation aright one towards another and all this hath beene performed by them without supernaturall grace Thirdly The immediate cause of all their sinnes rather of the two is their naturall corruption whereby they are habitually turned away from God and converted unto the creature in an inordinate manner Like as the immediate cause actionis laesae of a naturall function of the body imperfect is the disease or infirmity that hath seised upon some part of the body And the Physitian who is able to cure it and will not is the cause why it continueth uncured But no wise man will say he is the cause why this or that member in a sicke mans body doth not performe its operation as it should In like manner as touching the vicious actions of the soule the want of supernaturall grace is the cause why those vicious actions continue uncured because God alone by his grace can cure them but no sober man that is well in his wits should say that is the cause of vicious actions but acknowledge rather the corruption thereof to be the cause of these vicious actions And indeed all morall philosophy referres the cause of every vicious action unto the vicious habit depraving the will and inclining it to vicious courses Fourthly Yet farther to represent the wildnesse of this Authours discourse The vicious habit it selfe is not the sole cause no nor the principall and immediate cause of a vicious action in particular For if it were then that particular vicious action should alwayes be committed by it So that an impure person should alwayes commit fornication a Lyar should alwayes lye a Theife should alwayes steale a Murtheret should alwayes commit murther For it is a rule generally received that the immediate and principall cause being existent the effect must needs exist also And indeed albeit habits whether good or evill do worke after the manner of nature inclining and swaying the will to the accomplishment of them Yet the will of man being a free and not necessary Agent proceeds not to worke but according unto judgement and occasions and opportunityes from without And albeit a purser that maintaine himselfe by robbery hath a faire opportunity offered him to advantage himselfe to take a purse yet if upon consideration he finds himselfe too weake to goe through with it or that he cannot do it safely he will forbeare For albeit a vicious habit doth naturally and necessarily incline him to a naughty end yet in the choice of the meanes conducing to this end he is free How much more plainely doth it appeare that the want of supernaturall grace is farre off from being either the sole cause or the immediate or the principall cause of any sinne committed by a Reprobate Rather of the two the intestine corruption of the Reprobate is the cause of his sinnes and the want of grace is the cause why this corruption is not cured Now albeit a Physitian may sinne in not curing a sicke person when it lyes in his power to cure him For we are in charity bound to do to others as we would have others do unto us yet God is bound to none I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion 2. Observe how sluttishly he carryeth himselfe in the next reason taken from removens prohibens His rule proceeds both of withdrawing and withholding a thing which being
for me includes many things as the benefits which arise unto me by the death of Christ may be conceived to be many But let these benefits be distinguished and we shall readily answer to the question made and that perhaps differently as namely affirmatively to some negatively to others as thus Doe you speak of Christs dying for me that is for the pardon of my sins and for the salvation of my soule I answer affirmatively and say I am bound to believe that Christ died for the procuring of these benefits unto me in such manner as God hath ordained to wit not absolutely but conditionally to wit in case I doe believe and repent For God hath not otherwise ordained that I should reap the benefit of pardon and salvation by vertue of Christs Death and Passion unlesse I believe in him and repent But if question be made whether I am bound to believe that Christ died for me to procure faith and repentance unto me I doe not say that I am bound or that every one who hears the Gospel is bound to believe this Nay the Remonstrants now a daies deny in expresse tearmes that Christ merited this for any at all I am not of their opinion in this but I see clearly a reason manifesting that Christ merited not this for all no not for all and every one that hears the Gospel For if he had then either he hath merited it for them absolutely or conditionally Not absolutely for then all and every one of them should believe de facto which is untrue for the Apostle saith Fides non est Omnium Nor conditionally for what condition I pray can be devised upon the performance whereof God for Christs sake should give us faith and repentance In like sort if I am demanded whether God did decree of the meer pleasure of his will to refuse to give grace and glory unto some and to inflict upon them damnation To this I cannot answer at once there being a Fallacy in the demand But distinguish them I answer and say that as touching the poynt of denying grace God doth that of his meer pleasure but as touching the denyall of glory and the inflicting of damnation he doth not decree to doe these of meer pleasure but rather meerly for sin to wit for their infidelity and impenitency and all the bitter fruits that shall proceed from them So that Reprobation according to our Tenent rightly stated is the decree of God partly to deny unto some and that of his meer pleasure the grace of Faith and Repentance for the curing of that infidelity and hardnes of heart which is naturall unto all and partly to deprive them of glory and to inflict damnation upon them not of his meer pleasure but meerly for their finall continuance in sin to wit in infidelity and impenitency and all the fruits that proceed therehence 2. Now as for the cause of this decree as likewise of all the decrees of God when any of our Divines say that it is the meer pleasure of God as in some places it is expressed of some decrees let them be understood aright not as if they distinguished between the decree of God and the good pleasure of his will for we know full well that the decree of God is the good pleasure of his Will what decree soever it be but hereby we only exclude all causes from without moving God to make any such decree like as when it is said Deuteron 7. 7. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor chuse you because ye were more in number then any people but because the Lord loved you as much as to say The Lord loved you because he loved you Where we cannot soberly devise any distinction between love and love as between the cause and the effect only hereby is excluded all cause from without Now we are ready with open face to professe that of the Will and decree of God there neither is nor can be any cause from without all things from without being temporall and the Will of God being eternall and the Will of God quoad actum Volentis being the very Essence of God For God is a pure Act and that indivisibly One whereby he is said to Bee whatsoever he is as wee doe conceive variety of perfections in God yet all these are but one indivisible Act in God and by this one indivisible Act he both knowes all that he knowes and willeth and decreeth all that he willeth and decreeth Man when he willeth any thing as likewise an Angel when he willeth ought they produce an act of willing passing upon this or that object but it is not so with God in whom there is no accident And therefore Aquinas was bold to professe that never any man was so mad as to professe that merits were the cause of Predestination as touching the act of God predestinating and why so why surely upon this ground because predestination is the will of God and like as nothing can be the cause of the will of God as touching the act of willing so nothing can be the cause of divine predestination as touching the act of God predestinating His words are these in the same place Sic inquirenda est ratio praedestinationis sicut inquiritur ratio divinae voluntatis dictum est autem suprà quod non est assignare causam divinae voluntatis ex parte actus volendi But because like as the love of God is sometime taken for the good thing which God bestowes like as Jansenius interprets that place Iohn 14. 21. He that loveth me shall be beloved of my Father to wit of the effect of the Fathers love and we commonly say that Passions are attributed unto God not quoad Affectum but quoad Effectum in like sort the Will of God is taken for the thing willed as 1 Thes 4. 3. This is the will of God even your sanctification that is this is willed by him Therefore Aquinas distinguisheth a double consideration in the will of God one quoad actum volentis and so it hath no cause from without another quoad res volitas and so it may have a cause So likewise in predestination as considering it either quoad actum Praedestinantis and so it hath no cause or quoad effectum Praedestinationis and so it may have a cause as there he professeth both touching the will of God in generall and touching Predestination in speciall Of the will of God in generall thus Non est assignare causam voluntatis divinae ex parte actus volendi sed potest assignari ratio ex parte volitorum in quantum scilicet Deus vult esse aliquid propter aliud And of predestination in speciall thus Sed hoc sub quaestione vertitur utrum ex parte effectus praedestinatio habeat aliquam causam hoc est quaerere utrum Deus praeordinaverit se daturum effectum praedestinationis alicui propter aliqua merita Now thus
Parentemque caeterorum the Caeteri belike were such spirits as wee call Angells And that Maximi Dei leges were inevitabiles and this was called Necessity and such a Necessity cui ne Deos quidem that is inferior spirits resistere posse Quae verò ab Astris geruntur talia interdum esse ut evitari sapientiâ industriâ labore queant in quo sua est Fortuna Quae verò certis causis progrederentur ac permanerent fixa id dici Fatum quod tamen necessitatem non afferat electioni That the Manichees maintained two supreme and coëternall causes of all things we read the one the cause of Good the other of Evill and that every creature was a substantiall part of one or both and that man in his nature was compounded of both and that his corruption was essentiall from the supream Author of evill and not such as acrewed to him of disobedience We read But of their opinion that all things were determined by them both good and evill I no where read but in this Authors Legend Danaeus hath commented upon Austin de Haeresibus and to every Head of Heresy draws what he hath read thereof in other Authors But I find no mention at all of this Article amongst 21 shamefull errours of theirs which he reckons up The 19 th is this Voluntatem malè agendi quod vocant liberum arbitrium nob is à naturâ ipsâ insitam non rebellione nostrâ accersitam vel ex inobedientiâ natam Quanquam homines propriâ voluntate peccant And where Austin answereth the criminations against the Catholiques made by the Pelagians I find no mention at all of this He should have shewed from whom he takes this that understanding their Opinion aright we might the better judge of the reproachfull comparison which he makes 2 To the consideration of which comparison of his I now addresse my selfe He proposeth two things one whereof he saith must needs be maintained The First whereof is this That all actions naturall and Morall good and evill and all events likewise are absolutely necessary Concerning which I say First I have cause to doubt that this Author understands not aright the very notions of absolute necessity and necessity not absolute There is no greater necessity then necessity of nature And this necessity is twofold either in Essendo in being or in Operando in working God alone is necessary in being and his being is absolutely necessary it being impossible he should not be as not only we believe but Schoole Divines demonstrate and that with great variety of evident and curious conclusions As for the other necessity which is in respect of operation First this is no way incident unto God speaking of operation ad extrà and secluding the mysterious emanations within the Divine Nature such as are the Generation of the Sonne by the Father and the wonderfull Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Sonne But ad extra this necessity of operation is only found in the creature and that only in such creatures as by necessity of nature are determined one way as fire to burne heavy things to move downwards and light things upwards the Sunne Moone and starres to give light and the heavens to turne round all naturall Agents in a word distinct from rationall are thus determined to wit to work that whereunto they are inclined by necessity of nature but yet so that being finite they are subject to superiour powers and thereby obnoxious to impediment most of them even to powers create all of them to power increate Whence it comes passe that no work of theirs is absolutely necessary especially in respect of God who can either set an end to all when he will or restraine their operations at his pleasure We know the Three Noble Children when they came forth of the fiery oven had not so much as any smell of the fire upon them And therefore Durand professeth that these things which are commonly accounted to come to passe most necessarily doe indeed come to passe meerely contingently in respect of the will of God Neverthelesse we willingly professe that upon supposition of the will of God that this or that shall come to passe it followeth necessarily that such a thing shall come to passe like as upon supposition that God knowes such a thing shall come to passe it followeth necessarily that such a thing shall come to passe but how not necessarily but either necessarily according as some things are brought to passe by naturall agents working necessarily after the manner aforesaid or contingently and freely according as some things are brought to passe by rationall agents working contingently and freely And therefore as touching the Question of the Schooles about the root of contingency Aquinas and Scotus concurre in resolving it into the Will of God but with this difference Scotus relates it into the will of God as a free agent Aquinas resolves it into the Will of God as an efficacious agent For the will of God is so efficacious that he can effectually procure both that things necessary shall be brought to passe necessarily and things contingent contingently and according he hath provided congruous causes hereof to wit both agents naturall for the produceing of necessary things necessarily and agents rationall for the producing of contingent things contingently and freely Thus God preordained that Josias should burne the Prophets bones upon the Altar that Cyrus should proclaim liberty to the Jewes to returne into their Country yet what sober Divine hath made doubt whether Josias and Cyrus did not herein that which they did freely And as in doing so in abstaining from doing For God ordained that Christs bones should not be broken as also that when the Jewes all the Males came up to the Lord thrice in the year to Jerusalem None of their neighbours should desire their land Exod. 34. 24. Yet what sober man should make question whether the Souldiers did non as freely abstaine from breaking Christs bones as from ought else and so likewise the bordering Nations did as freely abstaine from invading the land of Israel And how often is this phrase used in Scripture Necesse est of some things coming to passe which yet came to passe as contingently and freely as ought else And unlesse this be granted that Gods determination is nothing prejudiciall to the freedome of the creatures will either we must deny faith and repentance to be the gifts of God or that they are works produced freely and so every action pleasing in the sight of God For the Scripture expressely professeth that God it is who worketh in us every thing that is pleasing in his sight And whatsoever God workes in us or bestows upon us in time the same he determined to work in us and to bestow upon us from everlasting For he worketh all things according to the counsell of his will Ephes 1. 11. and the counsell of his Will was everlasting it being the same with God
saith then for inflicting eternall death only on them that are guilty of it as we say But let we him finish the Declamation he hath begunne Is his mercy abundant doth it extend it selfe farther then justice when it is tackt up so short limited to a very few chosen ones when a hundred for one at least are unavoidably cast away out of his only will and pleasure As touching this I have already shewed how much he is out in his Algebra but let that passe unlesse this Divine take upon him to deliver truer Oracles then Saint Paul we are bound to believe that the elect only are vessells of mercy distinguished from reprobates as vessells of wrath Rom. 9. 22 23. and toward these alone it is that his mercy is abundant in the way of bestowing saving and spirituall graces It is untrue that he hath proved any such thing as he pretends namely that Gods mercy is extended to more persons then his justice And applied aright namely as touching mercy seen in pardoning sinnes in changing the heart and saving soules which are peculiar to Gods elect the most brazen faced opposite to Gods holy truth that liveth cannot deny but that they to whom these are granted are farre fewer then they to whom they are denied And if within the Church only for there only are found such as feare God his mercy extends to thousands of them that feare him when but to the third and fourth generation he punisheth the sinnes of the Father upon the Children which is all the proofe this Author brings to this purpose it followeth not herehence that his mercy extendeth any whit to more then doth his justice considering the small proportion of those within the Church and therein of them that feare him in comparison to those without the Church And like as visiting the sinne of Fathers which is commonly understood of temporall punishments so in proportion the mercy is to be understood of temporall mercy And we well know that it is nothing necessary that a man that fears God should have children And like as God doth not alwaies thus visit the sinnes of Fathers upon the Children in like sort it is not alwaies necessary that God should shew mercy to thousands of every one of them that feare him He dealt so with Abraham Isaack and Iacob they to whom the Law was delivered knew this full well then again must not they who look to have an interest in this gracious promise look unto it that they walk in the steps of their Forefathers that feared God By all which may appeare the superficiary nature of this Disputants argumentation even then when the zeale of his cause makes him as most confident so also most luxuriant Lastly doe we say that God damnes any man out of his only will and pleasure Doe we not professe that he damnes no man but for sinne And as he damnes no man but for sinne so likewise that he decreed to damne no man but for sinne though there could be no cause of this his decree but of his meere will and pleasure he made this decree namely to damne many thousands for their sinnes But let him come to an end of this his roaving discourse when he thinks good and not before Or doth his love passe knowledge when we see daily greater love then this in men and other creatures What Father or Mother would determine their children to certain death or to cruell torments worse then death for one only offence and that committed too not by them in their own persons but by some other and only imputed unto them How much lesse would they give themselves to beget Children and bring them forth that they might bring them to the rack fire gallowes and such like tortures and deaths What doe I heare Doth man or any creature shew more love to their Children then God doth towards his Elect Did they ever provide such a sacrifice to make satisfaction for their Childrens sinnes as God did provide for his Yea but reprobates also are Gods Children this must needs be his meaning though in plain termes he spared to expresse so much How unnaturall then was Christ who would not pray for the World if they were all his children And what meant he to professe that he sanctified himselfe only for them for whom he prayed Which sanctification of himselfe was in respect of the offering up of himselfe upon the crosse as Maldonate confesseth was the interpretation of all the Fathers whom he had read And in that prayer professeth of them saying they are thine and thou gavest them unto me as much as to say the World was not his And farther consider Is it safe to measure out Gods proceedings by the proceedings of men What Father or Mother would be content to execute a Child of theirs upon the Gallowes when by some capitall crime he hath deserved it How much lesse hold them upon the rack of continuall tortures what then must not God be allowed to inflict eternall death upon his creatures And what hath an earthly Father or Mother to doe either to determine or execute death on any This belongs to God not to man unlesse he make choyce of them as of his Ministers for the execution of vengeance But this Author is nothing yet awaked out of his dreames or his Arminian Lethargy Yet I hope he will grant that God did foresee all this even the sinnes of Judas in betraying and of the Jewes in crucifying the Sonne of God yet neverthelesse he was content to bring forth both him and them into the World Now what earthly Father and Mother would not make choyce rather to be Childlesse then to bring forth such children as should deale with them as Nero dealt with his Mother Proceed then and as from the affections of earthly Fathers and Mothers he disputes against the absolutenesse of Gods decrees so also in the next place let him conclude the like to the utter overthrowing of Gods foreknowledge Yet who of our Divine saith that God for one offence hath determined death and tortures to any reprobate of ripe years Doe they not all professe that as many as dye in actuall sinnes unrepented of God determined to damne them for those actuall sinnes unrepented of I doe not think he can alleadge any that denies this Againe what one of our Divines maintaines that Infants perishing in originall sinne are damned for that sinne which is made theirs only by imputation What a shamelesse habit hath he gotten to himselfe to deliver untruths yet will he not I warrant you be accounted a Pelagian neither will he plainly deny originall sinne as Grevincovius is said to have done and that testibus convinci potuit Their Tenets are nothing lesse shamefull then Pelagius his Tenets were only they have not that ingenuity which Pelagius had in professing plainly that there was no originall sinne conveyed unto us by propagation Now he comes more closely unto the matter yet but a little neither a
all causes meritorious If it be farther said that not so much the foresight of sin as to speak more properly sinne foreseen is the cause of reprobation I reply against it in this manner sinne foreseen doth suppose Gods decree to permit sinne and consequently if sinne foreseene be before reprobation then also the decree of permitting sinne is before the decree of reprobation that is the decree of damning for sinne But this cannot be as I endeavour to prove by two reasons The first is this There is no order in intentions but between the intention of the end and the intention of the means and the order is this that the intention of the end is before the intention of the means Therefore if the decree of permitting sinne be before the decree of damning for sinne the decree of permitting sinne must be the intention of the end and the decree of damning for sinne must be the intention of the meanes But this is notoriously untrue For it is apparent that damnation tends not to the permission of sinne as the end thereof for if it did then men were damned to this end that they might be permitted to sinne But far more likely it is that sinne should be permitted to this end that a man might be damned which yet by no means doe I a vouch other reasons I have to shew the vanity of this argumentation I rather professe that permssion of sinne and damnation are not subordinate as end means but coordinate both being means tending joyntly to a farther end which under correction from understandings purged from prejudice and false principles I take to be the manifestation of Gods glory in the way of justice vindicative 2. My second reason is if permission of sinne be first in intention and then damnation it followes that permission of sinne should be last in execution but this is most absurd namely that a man should be first damned and then suffered to sinne 2. My second principall argument is this Reprobation as it signifies Gods decree is the act of Gods will now the act of Gods will is the very will of God and the will of God is Gods essence and like as there can be no cause of Gods essence so there can be no cause of Gods will or of the act thereof Upon some such arguments as these Aquinas disputes that the predestination of Christ cannot be the cause of our Predestination adding that they are one act in God And when he comes to the resolution of the question he grants all as touching actum volentis that the one cannot be the cause of the other But only quoad praedestinationis terminum which is grace and glory or the things predestinated Christ is the cause of them but not of our predestination as touching the act of God predestinating And I think I may be bold to presume that Christs merits are of as great force to be the cause why God should elect man unto salvation as mans sinnes are of force to be the cause why God should reprobate him unto damnation The same Aquinas a tall fellow as touching Scolasticall argumentation hath professed that no man hath been so mad as to say that merits are the cause of predestination quoad actum praedestinantis and why but because there can be no cause on mans part of the will of God quoad actum volentis Now reprobation is well knowne to be the will of God as well as election and therefore no cause can there be on mans part thereof quoad actum reprobantis And it is well knowne there is a predestination unto death as well as unto life and consequently t is as mad a thing in his judgement to maintaine that merits are the cause there of quoad actum praedestinantis God by efficacious grace could breake off any mans infidelity if it pleased him that is by affording him such a motion unto faith as he foresaw would be yeelded unto this is easily proved by the evident confession of Arminius formerly specified Now Why doth God so order it as to move some in such a manner as he foresees they will believe others in such a māner as he foresees they will not believe but because his purpose is to manifest the glory of his grace in the salvation of the one and the glory of his justice in the damnation of the other Herein I appeale to the judgement and conscience of every reasonable creature that understands it in spight of all prejudice and false principles to corrupt him 4. In saying sinne foreseen is the cause of Gods decree of damnation they presuppose a prescience of sinne as of a thing future without all ground For nothing can be foreknown as future unlesse it be future now these disputers presuppose a futurition of sinne and that from eternity without all ground For consider no sinne is future in its own nature for in its own nature it is meerely possible and indifferent as well not to be future as to become future and therefore it cannot passe out of the condition of a thing meerely possible into the condition of a thing future without a cause Now what cause doe these men devise of the futurition of sinne Extra Deum nothing can be the cause thereof For this passage of things out of the condition of things possible into the condition of things future was from everlasting for from everlasting they were future otherwise God could not have known them from everlasting And consequently the cause of this passage must be acknowledged to have been from everlasting and consequently nothing without God could be the cause of it seeing nothing without God was from everlasting Therefore the cause hereof must be found intra Deum within God then either the will of God which these men doe utterly disclaime or the knowledge of God but that is confessed to presuppose things future rather then to make them so or the essence of God now that may be considered either as working necessarily and if in that manner it were the cause of things future then all such things should become future by necessity of nature which to say is Atheisticall or as working freely and this is to grant that the will of God is the cause why every thing meerely possible in its own nature doth passe from everlasting into the condition of a thing future if so be it were future at all And indeed seeing no other cause can be pitched upon this free will of God must be acknowledged to be the cause of it And consequently the reason why every thing becomes future is because God hath determined it shall come to passe but with this difference All good things God hath determined shall come to passe by his effection All evill things God hath determined shall come to passe by his permission And the Scripture naturally affords plentifull testimony to confirme this without forcing it to interpretations congruous hereunto upon presumptuous grounds that these arguments proceed from
of eternall life Now I pray consider who are those wicked men whom God thus gives over to their lusts Were we not all such Did not God find us all weltering in our bloud Ezek. 16. Had not we all stony hearts Ezek. 36. Were we not all blind lame deafe nay were we not dead in sinnes Ephes 2. 1. Did not the Gospell find the Ephesians so Did not the Word of truth find the Jewes so James 1. 18. How then comes this difference that Christ is a stumbling blocke to some and not to others We say the difference is because God hath mercy on some and hardens others Rom. 9. 18. Because some are borne of God therefore they heare Gods Word others are not borne of God and therefore they heare not Gods word Ioh. 8. 47. The Arminians say God giveth power to every one by an universall grace to will any good whereto he shall be excited So when the Gospell is Preached every one hath power to obey it if he doth obey it then Christ is a precious stone to him but if it disobey it then he is given up to the lusts of his heart and permitted to dash against Christ and other meanes of eternall life Here we have a phrase but we are to seeke of the meaning thereof what is it to dash against Christ It must needs be to commit some sinne or other for that is the object of Gods permition for of all other things God is acounted the Author not the permitter the object of permition is nothing but sinne now what sinne can that be whereby we are said to dash against Christ and other meanes of salvation but disobedience to Christ and to the meanes of grace so that from the first to the last the sence comes to this as many as disobey Christ and the meanes of grace they are given over to the lusts of their hearts and permitted to dash against Christ and other means of eternall life that is are permitted to disobey Christ and to resist other means of eternal life So that their disobedience to Christ and the Gospell is very punctually and juditiously set downe to precede by two degrees their disobedience to Christ and his Gospell Some may thinke that this Arminian prosilite doth not carry himselfe well in his businesse and for betraying the nakednesse of his cause may be in dainger to be excommunicated out of their Synagogue But Sir you must believe it this is the very leprosy of their Doctrine that over spreds it from the crowne of the head to the sole of the foot and they are in love with it accounting it not only sanity but perfect beauty God indeed is said in Scripture to give men over to their lusts when he forbears either courses of admonition and reproofe by his word or by his judgements in his workes or when he forbears to restraine Satan as formerly he did but disobedience to the Gospell undoubtedly is hoc ipso a dashing against Christ although God may continue to admonish and exhort even to the end as to prophane and hypocriticall persons in the Church he gives not over this course of his untill the end I have often represented the absurdity of this Authors conceit of a gracious intent in God of promoting the eternall good of Reprobates whereas it cannot be denied that God hath from everlasting intended their damnation and as for our saying that God intends they shall be without excuse that Christ is set up for their falling that the Gospell is unto God a sweet savour in Christ not only in them that are saved but in them that perish This Author is so farre from overthrowing the truth of it that besides other absurdities delivered by him in the way the Author himselfe hath no heart to deny it only saying that God intends it not primarily which is rather to grant that he intends it though not primarily as whereabouts there is no question than to deny it and that occasionally they are so whereas no man but himselfe hath said in saying that they doe effect this end that Christ or the Gospell are the cause hereof but only that they are the occasion But this hinders not Gods intention of them For undoubtedly God intends as well things occasioned as things caused though not in his first thoughts and resolutions which belongs rather to the end than to the meanes to wit to be first intended So that in plaine tearmes he hath not hitherto dared to deny that God intends them though he manifests a good mind to maintaine that they come to passe accidentally and casually in respect of God For he spares not to professe that the scorching of men and the hurting of weake eyes falls out accidentally and that to God for he proposeth this by way of distinction from that which God intends which he saith is the chearing of men by the light of the Sunne like as here he denies that mens stumbling at Christ is a thing intended by God like as in saying a sinnefull event is not properly under Gods will and decree but under his prescience only or at most under a permissive decree And this I confesse is a very plausible doctrine in the judgement of flesh and bloud save that this Authors faint carriage in the delivering of it is enough to make a man suspect it as plausible as it is yet it is hardly true and sound For he dares not say that a sinfull event is not at all under Gods decree only that he saith it is not properly under Gods decree But Saint Peter speaking of them that stumbled at the word of God through disobedience professeth in plaine termes that hereunto they were ordained 1 Pet. 2. 6. And all the Apostles there assembled Acts 4. 28. Doe professe that both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered together against the Holy Sonne of God to doe what Gods hand and Gods counsell had determined before to be done And ere I part I hope to prove that any sinfull act that comes to passe in the world is as properly intended of God as any good act whatsoever although there be a vast difference in the bringing of them forth God causing the one only permitting the other as it is evill And that because it comes under Gods prescience it is well they are not so Atheistical as to deny Gods prescience but I doubt not to make it good that either they must deny that every thing comes under Gods prescience or they must grant that every thing comes under Gods decree For consider nothing can be foreknowne of God as future unlesse it be future Now let us quietly enquire how any thing becomes future and if any cause hereof can with reason be devised without the decree of God let us all become Arminians and deny God either at all to be or to be a free agent but working by necessity of nature For if future things be future of their own
save it being no way fit that a temporall thing should be made the condition of a thing eternall such as is Gods will to save And this is more apparent by the reading of Vossius himselfe Histor Pelag l 7. treating of Gods will to save all Now if we speake thus of Gods will quoad res volitas as touching the things willed these things willed being very different wee have reason to consider them distinctly also Now these things are either grace or glory cōmonly called Salvation And as touching grace to wit the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentannee we willingly confesse that Gods will to conferre them is so absolute that he hath determined to conferre them according to the meere pleasure of his will not according to mans workes which is plaine Pelagianisme and condemned in the Synod of Palestine above 1200 yeares agoe and as he gives them to whom he will so he denyes them to whom he will according to that Rom. 9. 18. He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth But as touching Salvation or damnation in which respect this Author usually speakes of the absolute or conditionall will of God we uttererly deny that God in the dispensation or administration or execution of these proceeds or ever did decree to proceed according to the meere pleasure of his owne will but altogether according to theire workes For albeit God hath made no law according whereto he meanes to proceed in giving or denying grace yet hath he made a law according whereto he proceeds in bestowing Salvation and inflicting damnation And the law is this Whosever believeth shall be Saved Whosoever believeth not shall bedamned 2 Cor. 5. 10. We must all appeare before the Judgement Seate of Christ that every man may receive the things which are done in his body according to that he hath done whether good or evill So that according to that sence wherein this Author usually speakes of the absolute and conditionall will of God we utterly deny that God doth absolutely elect any man to Salvation or reject any man unto damnation though he doth absolutely elect some unto grace that is to the grace of regeneration to the grace of faith and repentance and absolutely reject others there from For as much as he bestowes these graces on some and denies them unto others not according to their workes but according to the meere pleasure of his owne will but he doth not inflict damnaton or bestow Salvation according to the meere pleasure of his will but according unto mans works And as he carrieth himselfe in the execution of Salvation and damnation after the same manner he did from everlasting decree to carry himselfe namely to Save no man of ripe yeares but by way of reward of their faith repentance and good workes so to damne none but for their infidelity impenitency and evill works As for the manifestation of Gods will of election and reprobation unto any we say that ordinarily man may be assured of his election For the spirit of God is given to this very end even to shed the love of God in our hearts that is Gods love towards us Rom 5. 5. And what is the shedding therefore in our hearts but his working in us a sense and feeling thereof especially considering that the sence of Gods love to us is the cause of our love to wards God according to that 1 John 4. 19. We love him because he loved us first and accordingly the spirit is sayd to testifie unto our spirits that we are the sonnes Rom. 8. And if sonnes then heyres even heyres of God and heyres annexed with Christ And the Apostle S t Peter exhorts us to give diligence te make our election vocation sure implying manifestly that men may be sure of their election otherwise why should our Saviour wish his Disciples to rejoyce not in this that Divells were subdued unto them but that their names were writen in Heaven And by what meanes may a man be assured hereof but either immediatly by the testimony of the spirit or mediatly by the fruits of the spirit as the fruits of our election one where of is faith plainly so signified Act 13. 48. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting Life And Act. 2. last God added daily to the Church such as should be Saved And repentance is another Act. 11. 18. Then hath God unto the Gentiles also given repentance unto life Giving to understand that as many as to whom God giveth repentance he hath ordained them unto life And indeed by the worke of our faith and labour of our love and the patience of our hope others come to be assured of our election how much more our selves no man knowing the things of mā so as the spirit of man 1 Cor 2. Thus S t Paul professeth his assurance of the election of the Thessalonians 1 Thess 1. 3 4. We remember the worke of your faith and the labour of your love c. Knowing beloved bretheren that ye are elect of God And hereupon he proceeds to assure them that Antichrist by all his deceiveablenesse of unrighteousnesse shall never prevaile over them in as much as he prevailes only over them that perish 2 Thess 2. 10. But as for them they are the elect of God And how doth he know that Surely by their faith and sanctification which were visible in them v 13. But we ought to give God thankes allwayes for you bretheren beloved of the Lord because that God hath from the begining chosen you unto Salvation by sanctification of the spirit and faith of the truth But as for reprobation we say that no man can by any ordinary way be assured thereof seing nothing but finall perseverance in infidelity or impenitency is the infallible signe thereof whence it followes that no way of desperation is open to one but the way of assurance and abundance of consolation is opened to the other and thereby encouragement to proceed cheerefully in the wayes of Godlinesse being assured that the more holy they are the greater shall be their reward And surely if certainty of salvation were a meanes of licentiousnesse the Apostle S. Peter would never have exhorted us to give diligence to make our calling and election sure And we manifestly seem to perceive strength of encouragement hereby unto Godlinesse as being assured that Christ dyed for us to the end we might live unto him And God receives us as Sonnes and Daughters to this end that we should purge our selves from all pollutions of flesh and spirit and perfect holinesse in the feare of God As also being assured that God will not lay our infirmities and sinnes unto our charge and will be ready to keepe us from presumptuous sinnes and however it fares with us Yet sinne shall not have dominion over us and consequently we shall have the victory over it either by obedience or by repentance because we are not under the
consolation which hath his course not only with the Devills but even with them that are already under the torments of Hell fire But let not the authority of the booke of Wisdome with thee weigh up and elevate the authority of Scriptures nor Philo the Jew be preferred before S t Paul or the Prophet Malachy by whom wee are taught that as God loved Jacob before he was borne so he hated Esau and before they were borne what difference was there betweene them Yet this passage out of the booke of Wisdome is in a Collect of the Papists Liturgy I conceive a good sence may be made thereof without any prejudice to absolute reprobation for of Papists we ate sayd to have learnt it and are reproached for it And what is that good sense they make of it Take it if thou wilt from Aquinas 1. q 23. art 3 ad 1. Dicendum quod Deus omnes homines diligit etiam omnes creaturas in quantum omnibus vult aliquod bonum non tamen quodcunque bonum vult omnibus In quantum igitur quibusdam non vult hoc bonum quod est vita aeterna dicitur eos habere odio vel reprobare Now if we take this Colect from them let us take also their good meaning with it and if we can let us make it better and not worse We commonly say that passions are attributed to God not quoad affectum but quoad effectum Now the effect of hatred is either the denyall of grace or the denyall of glory or the inflicting of damnation The two latter are executed only according to mens sinnes but the first to wit the denyall of grace proceeds meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will like as the giving of grace as the Apostle not Philo signifies that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Now to shew mercy is to bring a man to faith Rom. 11. 30. And if grace be not given according to the meere pleasure of Gods will it must be given according unto workes which is as much as to say in the phrase of the ancients according unto merits which all along hath been condemned in the Church of God as meere Pelagianisme Yet hitherto tends all the consolation that Arminianisme can reach forth unto thee which is to afford thee no better consolation then can be afforded to a Reprobate 2. As for Adams transgression let not that affright thee who art borne within the pale of the Church and of Christian parents for the children of such are holy 1 Cor. 7. when all others are uncleane Yet why should any man find it strange that some of them who are guilty of eternall death should suffer eternall death And this Author hath formerly confessed that Adams sinne hath made all his posterity guilty of eternall death Now albeit God hates many whether as involved in Adams transgression or no what matters that to thy discomfort if he hate not thee And what ground hast thou to conceive that thou art in the number of them whom he hates rather then of those whom he loves He is no good Physitian that lookes not into the cause of the desease to remoove that nor he any good comforter that lookes not into the cause of thy discomfort to remoove them It is to be thought that such an one desires rather to feed thy discomfort then to cure it Such is the practice of this comforter otherwise he should not apply his arguments of comfort which he magnifies as the strongest with as much art and cunning as can be But understand him aright this art and cunning tends not to the furtherance of thy consolation but to the advantage of his owne Arminian cause and to this end I confesse he doth apply them with as much art and cunning as he can 2. And God hath a two-fold love a generall love which puts forth it selfe in outward and temporall blessings only and with this he loves all men And a speciall by which he provides everlasting life for men and with this only he loves a very few which out of his alone will and pleasure he singled from the rest Under this generall love am I not the speciall CONSIDERATION 1. As touching the distinction hold thee to it least otherwise thou never proove capable of more comfort then a Reprobate is capable of No Arminian hath the face to deny that God saves but a very few And the reason is because very few doe believe and repent in this we all agree Againe no Arminian denies that very few doe believe and repent and finally persevere therein Againe no Arminian denies faith and repentance to be the gift of God and that hereby alone men are singled out from the rest Now the question is Whether God singleth out some men from the rest by giving them faith and repentance according to the meere pleasure of his will or according to their workes We say according to the meere pleasure of Gods will for he hath mercy on whom he will Rom 9. 18. Arminians say according to mens workes and hereupon in the issue comes all their consolations to be grounded that is upon a notorious Heresy condemned above 1200 yeare agoe 2. But as touching the accommodation of this distinction unto thy selfe saing thou art under Gods generall love not under his speciall I pray the tell me what ground thou hast for that what one of Gods elect while they were in the state of nature had not as greate cause to be as uncomfortable as thy selfe and why maist not thou be in Gods good time in as comfortable a condition as any of them and to say as John doth see what love the father hath shewed us that we should be called the sonnes of God dost thou mourne for thy sinne or no if thou dost not Why shouldest thou looke to be partaker of those comforts which are peculiar to them that mourne If thou dost thy Saviour hath said Blessed are they that mourne for they shall be comforted Dost thou hunger and thirst after the favour of God and to be made partaker of the righteousnesse of Christ which alone can give thee assurance of thine election If thou doest not hunger and thirst after this why shouldest thou be cast downe because thou hast not this assurance If thou doest desire this assurance and to that purpose hast an hungry appetite after the righteousnesse of Christ thy Saviour saith Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for they shall be filled Or hast thou a desire to have thy sinnes pardoned and thy soule saved but not any desire that thy soule may be sanctified what comfort shouldest thou or any such expect at the hands of God Thou wouldest serve the Devill but thou wouldest not goe to hell with the Devill But I tell thee God hath decreed the contrary namely that all such shall have this doome Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angells Yet
manner to command Abraham to sacrifice his sonne but it was not Gods determination that Isaack should be sacrificed In like sort he commanded Pharaoh to let Israel goe but withall he told Moses he would harden Pharaohs heart that he should not let them goe for a long time 2. But in the accommodation of these distinctions unto thy selfe What ground hast thou to affirme that God willeth not thy salvation in particular If thou believest Gods word assureth thee thou shalt be saved if thou believest not yet thou maist believe and Gods word hath power to bring thee unto faith as formerly I have discoursed And as for the best of Gods Children who doe believe to the great comfort of their soules rejoycing with joy unspeakable and glorious 1 Pet. 1. They were sometimes in as uncomfortable a condition as thou now art And the rather I put thee upon this because I see he that takes upon him to comfort thee doth take a course rather to feed thy humour then to remove it in as much as he never enquires into the cause thereof For albeit he gave to understand he would apply his argument with as much art and cunning as could be yet it may be that was rather with respect to the advantage of his own cause then to thy consolation But let us see whether he mends it in the next Minister Christ came into the World to seeke and to save what was lost and is a propitiation not for our sinnes only i. e. the sinnes of a few particular men or the sinnes of all sorts of men but for the sinnes of the whole World therefore he came to save thee for thou wast lost and to be a propitiation for thy sinnes for thou art part of the whole World CONSIDERATION Still he continues to afford thee as much comfort as any Reprobate in the world and if thou desirest no more thou maist rest satisfied with this but withall I confesse he affords thee as much comfort as he can afford any of Gods elect for he maketh elect and Reprobate all alike in receiving comfort from Gods Word Christ came into the world to save that which was lost but unlesse he came to save all that is lost it will not follow that he came to save thee We know that pardon of sinne and salvation is procured by Christ for none but such as believe and therefore be not deceived without faith looke for neither by faith be assured of both and that thou art one of Gods elect and no Reprobate And observe well he tells thee nothing of Christ meriting faith and repentance this now a dayes is plainly denyed by the Remonstrants and this Authour is content to say nothing of it when he is put to it we know what must be the issue of it if he sayeth Christ hath merited faith and repentance for thee the meaning is but this Christ hath merited that if thou wilt believe thou shalt believe if thou wilt repent thou shalt repent And that Christ hath merited that God should bestow faith and repentance not on whom he will according to the meere pleasure of his will but according to mens workes The comfort that our doctrine ministers unto thee is this If thou dost believe in Christ thou maist be assured thou art an elect of God if thou dost not believe there is no cause why thou shouldest thinke thy selfe a Cast-away for albeit thou hast not faith to day yet thou maist have faith to morrow Give thy selfe to Gods Word and waite upon him in his ordinances thou maist be so wrought upon as that unbeliever was 1 Cor 14. Who is there represented falling downe on his face and confessing that God was in the Preacher of a truth And though at first thou attendest to it but in a carnall manner yet God may open thy heart as he opened the heart of Lidia and make thee attend unto it in a gracious manner Tempted The World as I have heard is taken two waies in Scripture Largely for all mankind and strictly for the elect or believers In this latter sense Christ dyed for the World Or if for all yet it was only dignitate pretii not voluntate propositi thus only for a few selected ones with whom it is not my lot to be numbred CONSIDERATION Suffer not thy selfe to be abused by them who pretending thy comfort yet seeke nothing lesse but only the promoting of their owne cause And observe how he takes notice of no other benefits of Christs death then such as belong unto men upon the condition of faith to wit pardon of sinne and Salvation in which case the mention of Gods elect comes in very unseasonably And thus is the love of God set forth unto us so God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And if it be not thy lot to be numbred amongst believers then we can give thee by Gods Word no assurance of thy Salvation But if thou art not a believer yet thou maist be in good time as formerly I have spoken more at large and therefore no reason to think thou art a Reprobate And if once thou dost believe in Christ our doctrine gives thee assurance of Justification Salvation and Election the Arminan doctrine doth not As for faith and repentance we say Christ hath merited them also but to be bestowed how According to mens workes say our Arminians though forraine Arminians professe plainly that Christ merited not faith and regeneration for any And if thou relishest this comfort be satisfied with it we say faith and repentance are bestowed absolutely according to the meere pleasure of Gods will and accordingly Christ merited them but not for all for then all should believe and repent and be saved but only for some and who can these be but Gods elect whence it followeth clearly that whosoever believes may by our doctrine be assured of his election not so by the doctrine of Arminians but if thou believest not thou art in no worse case then the best of Gods childern have been for there was a time when they believed not therefore thou hast no more cause to think thy selfe a cast-away then they had Minister God hath founded an universall Covenant with men upon the bloud of Christ and therefore he intended it should be shed for all men universally he hath made a promise of salvation to every one that will believe and excludes none that will not believe CONSIDERATION This I confesse is to administer as much comfort as is administred to any Reprobate but how can this qualify thy discomfort and discontent which riseth from this conceit that thou art a Reprobate And the truth is that by our Doctrine wee were all in a miserable case if Gods Covenant of grace extended no farther then this But hath not God promised to be our Lord and our God that sanctifyeth us to circumcise our hearts and the hearts
commiserant grace hath not as yet raised you But if there be any not yet called whom God hath predestinated to be elected by his grace or whom his grace hath predestinated to be elected ye shall receive the same grace whereby to will and be Elect. And as for those that doe obey if you are not predestinated to be Elect the strength of obedience shall be withdrawne that you may cease to obey Thus farre the objection Austin's answer followeth thus When these things are said they ought not to to deterre us from confessing God's grace to wit which is not given according unto workes and from confessing predestination according thereunto like as we are not terrified from confessing God's foreknowledge if a man should discourse thereof in this manner before the people whether now ye live well or not well such shall ye be hereafter as God foresees ye will be either good if he foresees ye will be good or evill if he foresees he will be evill for what if upon the hearing hereof some give themselves to sloth and from labour prone to lust goe after their concupisences shall we therefore conceive that to be false which was delivered concerning God's foreknowledge And so he proceeds to justifie the truth of this doctrine which was objected against him by way of Crimination I say to justifie it as touching the substance of it though as touching the manner of proposing it he confesseth that to be unreasonably harsh in some particulars and shewes how that may be proposed in a more decent manner still holding up the same truth Thus Austine was able to answere for himselfe whilest he was living Now let us consider how Prosper answers for him after he was dead And first let us consider the objection it selfe now it is this That they who are not predestinate unto life although they live piously and righteously it shall nothing profit them but they shall be reserved so long untill they perish Now this is painely a part of the objection made by the Massilienses and they were Galli whom Prosper answereth for the objection proposed to Austine was that strength of obedience should be taken from them But in the objection of the Galli whom Prosper answeres it is set dowe in a milder manner thus They shall be reserved untill they perish Now Austine himselfe accomodates his answer hereunto in particular De bono Perseverantiae cap. 22. 1 For shewing the unreasonable harshnessein this manner of proposing it I wonder saith he if any weak man in a Christian people can by any meanes heare with patience that which followes as namely when it is said unto them yee that doe obey if ye be predestinated to be rejected the strength of obedience shall be withdrawne from you that you may cease to obey For thus to speake what seemeth it to be other then to curse or to prophesie evill after a sort Then he proceeds to she whow the same truth may be delivered in a fairer manner still holding up the truth of the doctrine of predestination If saith he a man thinke good to speake something of such as doe not persevere and need be so to doe What failes of the truth of this sentence if it be delivered thus But if some doe obey that are not predestinated unto the kingdome and to glorie they are temporarie ones and shall not persevere in the same obedience unto the end Then he proceeds to shew how the same objection may be framed against God's praescience thus Et si qui obeditis si praesciti estis rejiciendi obedire cessabtis If any of you doe obey if with all ye are foreseen to be rejected ye shall cease to obey whereby ye may observe how Austine in framing the objection leaves out the Phrase of withdrawing the strength of obedience as containing a calumnious imputation and such as Austine had nothing to doe with in the course of his opinion concerning predestination Thus Austine hath plainely answered for himselfe and needs noe other to answer for him and his answer proceeds without all colour of prejudice to his owne doctrine concerning the absolutenesse of predestination By this let the Reajudge of the ingenuitie of this Authour who conceales all this from his Reader bearing him in hand that Austine speakes in Prosper making answere to his objection whereas indeed there is a vast difference between Prosper's answer for Austine and Austin's answer for himselfe But like enough Prosper was willing to condescend to the Galli * and to gratifie them with an answer that in his judgment might be more acceptable and satisfactorie unto them To the consideration whereof I now proceed and therein to consider Prosper not Austin's mind concerning predestination as which he hath sufficiently manifested in answer to the same objection as I have shewed Therefore saith Prosper They are not predestinated because they were foreseen to be such hereafter by their voluntarie praevarication what will follow herence That foresight of sinnes was the cause why they were not predestinated unto life I answere first by denying this consequence for it may as well follow that the Creatours love is the cause why sinnes are forgiven him for the Gospell saith of the woman Luk the 7. Therefore many sinnes are forgiven her because she loved much such illations are not alwaies causall but very often merely rationall Secondly let it be causall and that foresight of sinne is the cause of non predestination unto life and accordingly of predestination unto damnation yet here I have a double answer First it is the most generall opinion that reprobation as it signifies a purpose to damne and accordingly to exclude from heaven presupposeth the prescience of sinne M. Perkins expresly professeth as much and other Divines at the Synod of Dort yet this hinders not the absolutenesse of reprobation which appeares in the purpose of God to deny grace and that absolutely to some like as he bestowes it upon others I meane the grace of faith and regeneration otherwise grace should be given according to workes Now let any passage be produced out of Prosper or any other Orthodox writer among'st the Antients to shew that God in distributing these graces unto some and denying them unto others did not proceed absolutely but according unto workes and according to this doctrine it is well knowne that Austine shaped his doctrine concerning predestination as it hath been shewed at large in the answer to M. Hord in the first section secondly that there may be a cause of predestination and reprobation Aquinas doth not deny but how quoad res volitas as touching things willed or praedestinatione reprobatione praepartas by predestination and reprobation prepared and in this sense Aquinas himselfe confesseth that foresight of sinne is the cause of reprobation the nineth to the Romans see how he explicates himselfe his wordes are these Lect 3. praescientia peccatorum potest esse aliqua ratio reprobationis ex parte poenae quae
how this Authour chargeth our doctrine after the same manner was the doctrine of Austin charged above 1200 yeares agoe let the indifferent hereby take notice of the congruity of our doctrine with the doctrine of Austin in this particular and the congruity of this Authours spirit in charging us with the spirit of the Semipelagians in charging Austin after the same manner Secondly consider the objection there made t' is this Quod quando incestant Patres filias matres filios vel quando Servi Dominos occidunt ideo fiat quia ita Deus predestinavit ut fieret When father commit incest with their Daughters and mothers with their sonnes Or when servants kill their Lords therefore this comes to passe because God hath so predestinated that it should come to passe Consider in this objection the fault of these abominable courses is not layd upon those that commit them but onely upon God as if Gods predestination did worke in such a manner as to compell men or women to commit such and such abominations And so Prosper conceives the Argument to proceed as if this were their intention And accordingly makes answer Si Diabolo objiceretur quòd talium facinorum ipse Author ipse esset incentor were it objected to the Devill that he were the Authour of such sinnes and did inflame men to the committing of them which indeed is the Devills course and not Gods yet I thinke sayth he that the Devill might in some sort disburthen himselfe of this crimination talium scelerum patratores de ipsorum voluntate vinceret and make it appeare that their owne wills were the committers of such sinnes Quia etsi delectatus est furore peccantium probaret tamen se non intulisse vim criminum Because though he tooke pleasure in the fury of sinners yet might he justifie that he forced no man to sinne After the same manner proceeded the 11. objection of the Galles Quod per potentiam Deus homines ad peccata compellit God by his power compells men to sin And as touching the notion of predestination it is true the Antients used that onely in reference to those thinges which were wrought by God Nihil ergo talium to wit of wicked actions negotiorum Deus predestinavit ut fieret Predestination being onely of such things which come to passe by Gods working of them Yet the same Austin professeth that such things which come to passe by Gods permission of which kind are all manner of sinnes even those came to passe God willing thē though not by Gods predestinating of them And as touching Senacherib who was slaine by his owne sonnes the Lord professeth saying I will cause him to fall by the sword in his owne land And upon Amaziah the Priest of Bethel the judgment was pronounced from the Lord Thy wife shall be an harlot And whatsoever comes to passe it is Gods will it should come to passe sayth Austin how much more that which comes to passe in the way of judgment 2 I come to his second reason to examine whether he carryeth himselfe any thing more handsomly in that If God be the Authour of sinne he cannot be the punisher of sin This argument is better shaped then the former but forthwith he tells us that he cannot be in justice the punisher of that whereof himselfe is the Authour Wherein are two particulars neither of which were expressed in his argument the one is the application of it to the same sinne whereof he was the Authour which was not expressed in the Argument And without this application the Argument is of no force For earthly Magistrates are sinners yet the punishers of sinne in others yea of the same kind of sinne As though a Magistrate be a profaner of the name of God yet he may execute the law on them who doe profane the name of God and that justly Then what is it that makes a man the Author of sinne It is well knowne that though it be unlawfull for a man to permit sinne if it be in his power to hinder it yet unlesse God permit sinne it cannot be committed by any Nos certe saith Austin sieos in quos nobis potestas est ante oculos nostros perpetrare Scelera permittamus rei cum ipsis erimus Quam vero innumerabilia ille permitit fieri ante oculos suos quae utique si voluisset nullâ ratione permitteret Certainely if we suffer those over whom we have power to commit sinne we shall be guilty together with them But how innumerable are the sinnes which he suffers to be committed before his eyes which if he would he could hinder so that by no meanes they should cōe to passe Or is he the Authour of sinne who is the efficient cause of the act of sinne It is Aquinas his doctrine that the act of sinne is from God and that in the kind of an efficient cause and it is commonly received to be the first cause in the kind of efficients subordinate to none and all other subordinate to him Nay more then this Scotus professeth and after him the Dominicans that God determineth the will to every act thereof though sinfull as touching the substance thereof but how Surely no otherwise then to come to passe agreeably to their nature necessary acts necessarily free acts freely So Barwardine maintaines that God necessitates the will of the creatue but how To performe acts thereof freely Suppose they did maintaine that God in his omnipotency did impose a necessity upon our wills as Suarez imputes to our Divines that they so teach Yet in this case Suarez the Jesuite will justifie them that therein they deliver nothing that either doth include contradiction or that doth exceed God's omnipotency Neither did I ever meet any colour of reason why God might not as wholy determine the will to any free act thereof as concurre with the will to the producing of the same act And that in the concurrence of God and man to the same act the first cause should be in subordination to the second or the second cause not in subordination to the first is against all reason and obnoxious to manifold contradiction as I have shewed in my Vindiciae Whereas for God to move a creature to every act of his congruously to his nature and so to determine him is most agreeable to reason and nothing at all obnoxious to contradiction And yet notwithstanding I see noe sufficient reason to conclude these determinations as touching things naturall such as is the substance of every naturall act there being a power to performe that in a naturall Agent Of supernaturall acts the case is different It seemes to me enough that God will have this or that evill come to passe by his permission For when God created the world out of nothing what transient action of God can be imagined when there was no matter at all for any such transient action to worke upon God's will was sufficient
either by doing more he understands that God doth the same which the Devill wicked mē do more or though he does not the same yet he doth that which is more then that If his meaning be that God doth the same which the Devill wicked men doe this is notoriously untrue considering thē as tempters advizers and perswaders unto sin For God on the contrary forbids sin perswades to repentance to obedience both by his word and by his spirit and indeed the spirit workes not but by the word which is called the sword of the spirit All holines of life is comprised within the compasse of ten commandements these were given by the Lord frō mount Sinai pronounced by the sound of a trūpet to these the Lord calls his people saying stand in the waies and behold and aske for the old way which is the good way and walke therein ye shall find rest unto your soules For the transgression of these the Lord expostulates with thē Heare ô heavens and hearken ô earth I have nourished and brought up a people they have rebelled against me Whē they have gone astray he exhorts the and that most pathetically to returne by repentance by promise of salvation and threatning judgment if they doe not repent O Ierusalem wash thine heart from wickednes that thou maist be saved how long shall thy wicked thoughts remaine within thee I have seene thy adulteries and thy neighings the filthinesse of thy whoredome on the hills in the feilds and thine abominations Woe unto thee ô Ierusalem wilt thou not be made cleane When shall it once be And to provoak them the rather unto repentance he represents himselfe unto them as easy to be intreated as slow to wrath and one that by his patience and long suffering leades them to repentance And to this end he gives charge to his Ministers namely by representing the gracious nature of God to admonish them of their sinnes to call them to repentance to obedience And to this purpose to represent his promises which he hath annexed unto godlinesse both the promises of this life and the promises of a better life that is to come Yea and his threats also both of judgments in the world to come to the casting both of body and soule into hell fire and thereupon to exhort us to feare him above all others And judgments of this world as famine pestilence and the sword of the enemie To deliver them over into the hands of beastly people skilfull to destroy To send Serpents and Cockatrices among them that will not be charmed and that shall sting them and that without all mercy Surely these are not the courses of Satan or wicked counsellours Therefore they doe not as God doth neither doth God doe that which they doe and more also 2. If it be said that albeit the Lord doth not as the Devill doth and wicked men doe in perswading them to sinne yet he doth that which is more then this I answer that neverthelesse he cannot be accounted the Authour of sinne in case the doing of this alone doth constitute an Agent the Authour of sinne Now as formerly I have shewed this was the opinion of Dominicus Soto and of the Divines of Salamancha yea and Vasquez the Jesuite professeth that he was ever of that opinion Againe if to doe more then this be to become the Authour of sin both this Authour and all that are of his Spirit doe maintain as well we that God doth that which is farre more then this For I presume he will not deny but that God is he and he alone who doth support our natures in the committing of sin who maintaines our senses in their vigour and quicknesse without which we could take noe pleasure in sin and that concurres to every act of sin in the way of cause efficient not morally which alone makes one to become the Authour of sin by the judgment of Divines formerly mentioned but physically and naturally which no creature can doe namely become a naturall coefficient cause to the act of another man's will Nay which is most considerable I presume this Authour hath so much accuratenes in School-learning as not to deny that when the Devill tempts us or wicked counsellours doe tempt us to sin God concurres with them in this act and that in the kind of a cause efficient physicall For in him we live and move and have our being what is it to have our being from him but that he is the Authour of it in the kind of a cause efficient In the same sense doe we live in him and in the same sense doe we move in him It stands us upon as much to maintaine this as to maintaine that God is our Creatour For unlesse all things doe subsist in him neither were all things created by him Now this is a great deale more then to perswade For a weake man is able to perswade but noe creature is able to performe these parts which God doth in the act of every thing created by by him So that hereby the Reader may evidently perceive that the discourse is as farre off as ever from proving God by this Doctrine of ours to be the Authour of sin any more then he is constituted the Authour of sin by the doctrine of this Interpolator But I am content to examine the things he proposeth particularly and severely 1. The Devill saith he doth only allure men by inward suggestions and outward temptations to fall into sinne But God doth much more if he doe necessitate and by his decree first and next by his powerfull and secret working in the soules of men determine their wills irresistibly to sinne For to determine is infinitely more then to perswade Now to this I have already answered by shewing 1. That albeit God doth more then this yet seeing he doth not this if the doing of this alone constitutes one the Authour of sin as many great Divines have concurrently maintained still God is free from being the Authour of sin This Authour barely supposing not once offering to prove the contrary 2. Himselfe confesseth that God concurres to the act of every sinne and that in the kind of a cause efficient naturall And I may be as bold as to say of this that it is infinitely more then to perswade like as he saith of God's determining the will and necessitating thereof Now I proceed to a more particular examination of his discourse And here first I wonder not a little at this Authour's distinction of the Devill 's inward suggestion from his outward temptations For I confesse freely I know noe outward temptation of Satan distinct from his inward suggestions Outward occasions and provocations to sinne I know none wrought by Satan any farther then as he in some cases is God's instrument as in afflicting Iob. For surely God hath not given over the world or any part thereof to the goverment of Satan this is in
his own hand still and hereby occasions and opportunities are offered from time to time for a man to advantage himselfe in sinfull courses either in the way of profit or satisfying his unclean lusts And Arminius confesseth that the administration of Arguments and occasions which provoke to such an act as cannot be committed by the creature without sinne if not by Gods intention yet at least according to the creatures affection and often according to the events that arise therehence This administration I say Arminius confesseth doth belong to the Divine providence And these arguments he saith are objected ther to the mind of man or to his senses outward or inward and that either by the mediate worke of the creatures comming between or by God's immediate action And that the end of this Divine administration is to make tryall whether the creature will abstaine from sinne even then when it is provoked thereunto As for the triall of David was Bathsheba going â—oâ—th to wash her selfe objected to David whereupon he was inflamed with lusts Ioseph was not though farre more strongly sollicited by the temptations of his wanton Mistris Secondly to necessitate the will or determine the will are noe phrases of our Divines The first is used only by Bradwardine as at present I remember sometimes Arch-Bishop elect of Canterbury The other is that phrase of the Dominicans Now they are of age and able to answer for themselves Why doth not this Authour answer a chapter or two in Bradwardine a chapter or two in Alvarez where they dispute this and resolve the question affirmatively Surely hereby he should performe a worke more worthy of a Scholasticall Divine then by so hungry a discourse as this Secondly consider neither Bradwardine maintaines that God necessitates nor Alvarez that God determines the will to sinne but to every naturall act in which kind of acts sinne is to be found Why then should this Auhour carry himselfe thus in his crimination We know sin is meerly privative in the formall notion thereof an obliquitie such as concerning which Austine hath long agoe deliverd that it hath noe efficient cause but deficient only And divers waies Divines have shewed how God may be the authour of the act yet not the Authour oâ— the sin and illustrated it by various similitudes As of a man riding upon a lame horse he makes him goe but doth not make him halt The sun shining upon a dung-mixton makes it evaporate but doth not make it stinke The sun makes flowers to evaporate and send forth their favours as well as a dung-mixton but that the one evaporates a sweet odour the other an unsavory is froÌ„ the nature of things themselves on which the sun beates In like sort the Sun by the heat thereof provokes all things to engender according to their kinds even frogs and toades snakes as well as other creatures profitable for the use of man in the way of food yea of vipers flesh good use is made in the way of physicke And God knowes how to make good use even of the sinnes of men and of the rage and malice of Satan If an underw-heele being out of his place the upper wheele in a jacke or clocke will set him going in a wrong way as well as all the rest in a right way his motion is from the upper whele his irregular motion from himselfe A good Scribe meeting with moist paper will make but sorry worke The writing is from himselfe the blurring from the moistnesse of the paper on this very question whether the act of sinne be from God Aquinas maintaining the affirmative illustrates it by a distinction of the halting motion of a lame legge the motion saith he is from the soule the 〈◊〉 is froÌ„ the imperfection of the Organ the infirmitie of the legge Yet this Authour carrieth it hand over head as if to be the Authour of the action were to be the sinne not considering that himselfe maintaines that God is the Authour of the action and that in the kind of a cause efficient naturall Thirdly when Bradwardine maintaines that God necessitates the will to every good act thereof he withall professeth that he necessitates it ad liberum actum suum that is to worke every act thereof freely Soe when Alvarerz maintaines that God determinates the will to every act thereof he withall maintaines that God determines the will to worke free ye and so Aquinas For when he workes upon contingent causes he moves theÌ„ to bring forth their effects contingently like as when he workes upon necessary causes he moves them to produce their effects necessarily And like as to move contingent causes to produce their effects contingently is to move them to produce their effects with a possibility to the contrary Soe to move free causes to produce their effects freely is to move them to produce their effects with an active power to the contrary But to proceed whereas he saith that sinne must needs follow the determination it is as true 1. In this Authour's judgment that it must needs follow upon God's coÌ„currence to this act If he say that this concurreÌ„ce is necessary to every act I answer it is necessary to the substance of every act but not at all required to the sinne though this Authour carieth it blindfold after this manner Secondly so say we is determination required to the substance of every act And Gods concourse with the creature is not coordinate like as one man concurres with another in moving a timber logge which is the expression of the Jesuites thereby manifesting the vilenesse of their opinion as we can demonstrate and that more waies then one by evident demonstration as I have allready shewed in my Vindiciae Let this Authour answer those digressions if he can I am confident he will never answer them while his head is hot nor all the Rabble of the Arminians We know God is the first cause and all other are but second causes in comparison to him Yet we willingly confesse that the providence of God is wonderfull and of a mysterious nature in this but such as whereunto the Scripture gives pregnant testimonie as scarce to any thing more So jealous he is least his providence should be denied in evill wherein indeed it is most wonderfull and he takes unto himselfe the hardning of men's hearts and blinding of their mindes and prostituting them to abominable courses even to vile affections and thereby to punish sinne with sin as Rom 1. Therein saith the Apostle they received the recompence of their errour This hath Austine also by Scripture suggestion testified at large in his book De gratiâ Libero arbitrio in two large chap likewise in his fifth book against Iulian the Pelagian third chap this also the Adversaries have been driven to confesse in a strange manner as to give instance first in Bellarmine whose words are these God saith he praesidet ipsis voluntatibus easque regit
for the preservation of the integrity of her mind in the opinion of the world and that they might know that she consented not unto Tarquinius but was forced by him So then the act is it they doe or choose to doe for some motive or other which whether it be pleasure or profit or credit they get thereby that makes not the act sinfull but only that it is against some law or other forbidding it And this act all sides confesse is the worke of God as well as the worke of man as in whom we move like as in him we live and have our being And Bradwardine maintaines that of every act of the creature God is a more immediate cause then the creature it selfe whoâ—e act it is This he proves of the creatures conservation of the creatures action of the creatures motioÌ„ to this he proceeds by certaine degrees And in all this God doth not transgresse any law as man doth too often in the performing of many a naturall act and only in performing acts naturall is sinne committed never in performing any act supernaturall all such acts are in a peculiar manner the work of grace 2. God overruleth no man's good projects or purposes otherwise then as when accepting their intentions he will not have them put such in execution because perhaps he hath reserved that for another time person As when David was purposed to build God an house was encouraged therein by Nathan yet the Lord sent Nathan shortly unto David to give him to understand that he reserved that work for Solomon his Son yet so well accepting David's purpose that he promised to build his house But if God at any time overruleth the wicked projects and purposes of men whether good or evill let us blesse him rather for this then curse him by cursing them that maintaine this good providence Yet in overruling them whether he doth it immediately or by the ministry of his good Angells not by working immediately upon the will as this Authour dreameth For that is not the way to worke agreably to the reasonable nature of man though so he worke also by generall influence affoarded coÌ„mon to all agents but by representing to the understanding congruous motives to divert them from that they doe intend whether in a gracious manner as he diverted David from his purpose to massacre the whole house of Nabal or only in a naturall way whereby he diverts wicked men from their ungodly designes by representing the danger thereof to make them feare so to restraine them Will the Devill himselfe be over prone to blaspheme God for this yet in this alone he doth more then either the Devill or man can doe though this be not all that he doth For he doth cooperate to every designe and execution of the creature be it never so abominable which neither man nor Angells can doe And he hath power to give over unto Satan and to harden any man and that more effectully then any Devill can doe The Devill could not say with truth that He would harden Pharaoh's heart that he should not let Israel goe Nor when he had let them goe I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall follow after them to bring them back The Devill could not say in truth as the Lord did to David I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them to thy neighbour and he shall lye with thy wives in the sight of the sunne Nor as he said to Ieroboam Behold I will rent the kingdome out of the hands of Solomon and will give ten tribes to thee Nay the very permissioÌ„ of sin so as whereby it shall infallibly come to passe is not in the power of any creature but in God alone And shall it follow that because God doth more both as touching the act it selfe and touching the sinfull condition of it then any creature can doe therefore God is the Authour of sinne whereas when God moves a man or carrieth him on to any good morall workes whether in doing that which is vertuous or abstaining from that which is vitious this man shall certainely sinne though not in so great a degree unlesse God be pleased over and above to regenerate him and to bestow faith and love on him for as much as in this case though he doe an act vertuous yet shall he not doe it in a gracious maÌ„ner though he doe abstaine froÌ„ an act vitious yet he shall not abstaine froÌ„ it in a gracious manner Let this man therefore proceed maintaine if he thinks good that except God doth bestow the spirit of regeneration upon all and every one throughout the world he is the Authour of sinne not only when he moves them to such acts which are evill but also when he moves them to the doing of such as are vertuous or to the abstaining from those that are vitious As for his phrases noe wise man will regard them but only such as are content to feed on huskes for want of better food As when he talkes of motion uncontroulable which makes a noise as if men's wills would controule his motion but cannot whereas God as the first mover moves the creature most congruously unto his nature without which motion of his the creature could not move at all The like noyses makes the phrase immutable decree as empty things many times give the greatest sound whereas by vertue of God's immutable decree it is that it cannot otherwise be then that as necessary things cannot but come to passe necessarily so contingent things cannot but come to passe contingently and the free actions of men freely But by the way he manifest's how he licks his lips at a Mutable decree of God even of that God with whom as St. Iames speaketh there is no variablenesse nor shadow of change He doth acknowledge we maintaine potentiam in se liberam but then he saith we doe not maintaine liberum usum a most absurd distinction For noe power deserves to be stiled free save that it is of free use and exercise And what a prodigious thing is it to affirme that it is not within the almighty power of God to cause that this or that shall be done by a reasonable creature freely this is it that Bradwardine proposeth to the judgment of all to consider whether it be not an unreasonable thing to deny this unto God God doth determine their will before it hath determined it selfe and maketh them doe those only actions which his omnipotent will hath determined and not which their wills out of any absolute dominion over their own actions have prescribed Thus he relates the opinion of our Divines whereas neither determining nor necessitating as I said before are the expressions of our Divines but of Papists yet he laies not this to the charge of Papist's Noe nor to the charge of Bellarmine for saying that God doth not only rule and governe but wrest and bend them and that to one evill
rather then to an other If Scholars of our Universities use any such phrases it is no other then they find in use among School-divines It is true indeed Jesuites oppose the Dominicans in this This Authour sides with the Jesuites but why doth he not take to taske any one chapter in Alvarez on this point to answer to overthrow their grounds which are no other then the very word of God and cleare reason doth justifie And the ground of the Jesuites in opposing is meerely an invention of their own concerning a certaine knowledge of God called a middle knowledge a vile invention and a palpable untruth and controulable of manifest contradiction For they suppose a thing knowable by God as future before God's will hath passed upon it to make it future being in it's own nature meerly possible and consequently cannot passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the condition of a thing future without a cause Now noe cause can be devised hereof with any colour of reason but the will of God For first the cause hereof must be eternall seeing the thing it selfe of the cause whereof we dispute is eternall to wit the fruition of any thing This I say was eternall for it is known with God from all eternity Now there is noe eternall cause to be found but in God alone therefore the cause why things meerly possible in their own nature became future and that from everlasting must be found in God alone Therefore it must either be the will of God or the knowledge of God that did make it future and seing the knowledge of God rather supposeth them to be future then makes them so what remaines but that the will of God must necessarily be the cause hereof Nay consider whether the Jesuites themselves doe not manifest more ingenuity by farre then this boisterous Theologue that thinks to carry all with the blast of his words the resolution of whose arguments generally neither having the word of God for their ground nor any confest principle of reason Whereas not the greatest Angell of God will take upon him such an authoritative manner of discourse For did we grant that God by his Allmighty will did impose any necessity upon our wills Yet Suarez confesseth that so to worke doth neither involve any contradiction nor exceed the Allmighty power of God Whereas we are ready to prove and have already proved that their doctrine of God's concourse without subordination of the second causes to the first implies flat contradiction We say the wills determination of it selfe is the worke of God otherwise faith and love and every gracious act shall not be the worke of God Againe the wills determination of it selfe is no other then the wills operation and this Authour that opposeth us dares not deny the wills opperation to be the worke of God But what School divine can he produce that delivers himselfe in so absurd a manner as to say that God first determines the will and that afterwards the will determines it selfe especially speaking of such actions of the will as are produced by the power of nature The wills determination of it selfe we say is the worke of God moving the creature agreably to the nature thereof that is to be carried necessarily to that which is it's end and appeares to be good in genere convenientis and freely to the meanes which appeare to be good in genere conducentis as fit to pronounce the end intended All confessing Durand excepted that God works the act the question whether he works the act absolutely the will a second agent subordinate unto God as to it's Creatour Or conditionally modo vellimus provided that we will it God the first agent subordinate to the will of the creature This Authour will have it to be wrought by God that is conditionally in dependence upon and expectation of the operation of the creature which we say is most absurd First because thus the first agent is made subordinate to the second agent which is most unaturall Secondly observe a manifest contradiction For the question is about actus volendi the act of willing in man Now if God produce this act upon supposition that man produceth this act then the same act is produced by God upon supposition that it is produced by man If it be produced by man what need is there of God's producing it by way of supplement Thirdly by this meanes the thing is made the condition of it selfe For hereby it is said this act is made upon condition that it doth exist so the selfe same thing shall be before after it selfe 4. Thus man's production of the act shall be noe worke of God which holds off faith and repentance as well as of any naturall act in this Authours opinion Fiftly It is not possible the will can produce the act unlesse God produceth it If then God doth not produce it unlesse the will doth produce it in this case there shall be noe act produced For if I goe not to London unlesse you goe with me nor you goe to London unlesse I goe with you here is no going at all till one saith I say I goe and his resolution carrieth the other with him if the others depend thereupon 6 Whereas to helpe at a dead lift the Jesuiticall doctrine of Scientia media middle knowledge is called in after this manner God foreseing that at such an instant the will of man will produce such an act if God be pleased to concurre and upon this foreknowledâ—e God resolves to concurre This doctrine I have already confounded by shewing the apparent falsity of this supposition For seeing the wills producing such an act at such an instant is a thing merly possible in it's own nature no more future then not future It is impossible that this should passe out of the condition of a thing meerly possible into the conditioÌ„ of a thing future without a cause And noe cause hereof can be but the will of God as I have often proved It followes that the wills producing such an act depends rather upon the will of God to have it produced then on the contrary that Gods producing such an act dependes upon the creatur's will to produce it As for that which followes of the absolute dominion that the will of the creature should have over it's action I presume he meanes independent it sounds more like the voice of the Devill then of a sober Christian Yet it is more then I know that Lucifer himselfe challengeth any such absolute Dominion over his actions unto himselfe If he doth I know noe greater sinne that hee or the creature can be guilty of unlesse in case grosse ignorance doth excuse it To deny God to be the first Agent is to deny his God-head and if hee be primum agens hee must be primum liberum too the first free agent And to make our selves to be prima libera the first free agents what is other
of Adrumetum were the Authours of it And this Interpolatour takes Vossius his part and labours by certaine arguments to make it good against he judicious observations of that most reverend and learned Arch-Bishop of Armagh It may be I shall represent my answer thereunto by waâ—â—â— digression but first I must dispatch my answer to this I have in hand Sect 6. Many distinctions are brought to free the Supralapsarian way from this crimination all which me thinks are noâ— better then mere delusions of the simple and inconsiderate and give noe true satisfaction to the understanding There is say they a twofold decree 1. First an operative by which God positively and efficaciously worketh allthings 2. A permissive by which he decreeth only to let it come to passe If God should worke sinne by an operative decree then he should be the Authour of sinne but not if he decree by a permissive decree to let it come to passe and this only they say they maintaine It is true that God hath decreed to suffer sinne for otherwise there would be none Who can bring forth that which God will absolutely hinder He suffered Adam to sinne leaving him in the hand of his own counsell Ecclus 15. 14. He suffered the nations in time past to walke in their own waies Act 14. 16. And dayly doth he suffer both good and bad to fall into many sins And this he doth not because he stands in need of sinne for the setting forth of his glory for he hath noe need of the sinfull man Ecclus 15. But partly because he is summus provisor supreme moderatour of the world and knoweth how to use that well which is ill done and to bring good out of evill and especially for that reason which Tertullian prelleth namely because man is made by God's own gracious constitution a free creature undetermined in his actions untill he determine himselfe And therefore may not be hindred from sinning by omnipotency because God useth not to repeale his own ordinances 2. It is true also that a permissive decree is noe cause of sinne because it is merely extrinsecall to the sinner and hath noe influence at all upon the sinne It is an antecedent only and such a one too as being put sinne followeth not of necessitie And therefore it is fitly contradistinguisht to an operative decree And if that side would in good earnest impute noe more in sinfull events to divine power then the word Permission imports their maine conclusion would fall and the controversy between us end But first many of them reject this distinction utterly and will have God to decree sinne efficaciter with an Energeticall and working will Witnesse that discourse of Beza wherein he a verreth and laboureth to prove that God doth not only permit sinne but will it also And witnesse Calvin too who hath a whole section against it calling it a carnall distinction invented by the flesh and effugium a mere evasion to shift off this seeming absurdity that that man is made blind Deo volente jubente by Gods will and command who must shortly after be punished for his blindnes He calleth it also figmentum a fiction and saith they doe ineptire play the fooles that use it By many reasons also doth he indeavour to lay open the weaknes of it taxing those who understand such Scriptures as speaks of God's smiting men with a Spirit of slumber and giddinesse of blinding their minds infatuating and hardening their hearts c. Of a permission and suffering of men to be blinded and hardned Nimis frivola est ista solutio saith he it is too frivilous a glosse In another place he blameth those that referre sin to God's prescience only calling their speeches argutiae tricks and quirks which Scripture will not beare and those likewise that ascribe it to God's permission and saith what they bring touching the Divine permission in this businesse will not hold water They that admit the word permissive doe willingly mistake it and while to keep of this blow they use the word they corrupt the meaning For 1. Permission is an act of God's consequent and judiciary will by which he punisheth men for abusing their freedome and committing such sins day by day as they might have avoided and to which he proceedeth lento gradu slowly and unwillingly as we may see Psal 81. 11. 12. Israel would none of me so I gave them up c. Ezeh 18. 39. Goe and serve every one his Idoll seeing ye will not obey me c. Rom 1. 21. 24. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God therefore God gave them up unto their hearts lusts to vile affections and to a Reprobate mind Rev. 22. 11. He that is unjust let him be unjust still In these places and many more we may see that persons left to themselves are sinners only and not all sinners but the obstinate and willfull which will by noe meanes be reclaimed But the permission which they meane is an act of God's antecedent will exercised about innocent men lying under no guilt at all in God's eternall consideration 2. Permission about whomsoever it is exercised obstinate sinners or men considered without sinne is no more then a not hindring of them from falling that are able to stand supposeth a possibility of sinning or not sinning in the parties permitted but with them it is a withdrawing or withholding of grace needfull for the avoiding of sin and so includeth an absolute necessitie of sinning For from the withdrawing of such grace sin must needs follow as the fall of Dagon's house followed Sampson's plucking away the Pillars that were necessary for the upholding of it Maccovius in two disputations expounding this word Permission circumscribes it within two acts The first of which is a Substraction of Divine assistance necessary to the preventing of sinne And having proved it by two arguments that none may thinke he is alone in this he saith that he is compassed about with a cloud of witnesses and produceth two The first of them is our reverend and learned Whitaker some of whose words alleadged by him are these Permission of sinne is a privation of the aid which being present sinne would have been hindred The second is Pareus for saying that that helpe which God withdrew from Adam being withdrawen Adam could not soe use his endowments as to persevere And this doctrine saith he is defended by our men as it appeareth out of Pareus lib de grat primi hominis c. 4 p. 46. Their permission therefore of sinne being a substraction of necessary grace is equivalent to an actuall effectuall procuring and working of it For Causa deficiens in necessariis est eficiens a deficient cause in things necessary is truely efficient and so is but a mere fig-leafe to cover the foulenesse of their opinion Here we have a very demure discourse proceeding in a positive manner proceeding from one that takes upon him to
That which necessitateth the will to sinne is as truly the cause of sinne as that which forceth it because it maketh the sinne to be inevitably committed which otherwise might be avoided and therefore if the Divine decree necessitate man's will to sinne it is as truly the cause of sinne as if it did inforce it 3. That which necessitates the will to sinne is more truly the cause of the sinne then the will is because it overruleth the will and beareth all the stroke taketh from it ' its true liberty by which it should be Lord of it selfe and disporser of ' its own acts and in respect of which it hath been usually called by Philosophers and Fathers too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power which is under the insuperable check and controule of no Lord but it selfe It overruleth I say maketh it become but a servile instrument irresistably subject to superiour command and determination And therefore is a truer cause of all such acts and sins as proceed from the will so determined then the will is For when two Causes concurre to the producing of an effect the one a principle overruling cause the other but instrumentall and wholly at the Devotion of the principall then is the effect in all reason to be imputed to the principall which by the force of ' its influxe and impression produceth it rather then to the subordinate and instrumentall which is but a mere servant in the production of it We shall find it ordinary in Scripture to ascribe the effect to the principall Agent It is not ye that speak saith Christ but the Spirit of my Father that speaketh in you I laboured more abundantly then they all yet not I but the grace of God which was in me And I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me saith St. Paul Gal 2. 20. In these and many other places the effect or work spoken of is taken from the instrument and given to the principall agent Which being so though man's will worke with God's decree in the commission of sinne and willeth the sin which it doth yet seing what the will doth it doth by the commanding power of God's Allmighty decree and so it doth that otherwise it cannot doe the sin committed cannot so rightly be ascribed to man's will the inferiour as to God's necessitating decree the superiour cause 4. That which makes a man sinne by way of necessitie that is with and not against his will is the cause of sin in a worse manner then that which constraineth him to sinne against his will As he which by powerfull perswasions drawes a man to stab to hang to poison himselfe is in a grosser manner the cause of that evill and unnaturall action then he that by force compells him because he maketh him to consent to his own death And so if Gods decree doe not only make men sin but sin willingly too not only cause that they shall malè agere doe evill but malè velle will evill it hath the deeper hand in the sinne God determines the will to sinne by necessitie though not by compulsion this he obtrudes upon our Devines as their opinion but quotes none is it likely that he who quotes Beza to shew that in his opinion God doth not only permit sinne but will sinne And Calvin to shew that a man's mind is blinded volente jubente Deo would not quote some or other of our Divines to prove that which he obtrudes upon them If his common place booke could afford him any such quotation out of any one of them to shew who they be and where they say that God determines the will to sinne by necessity though not by compulsion Was there ever the like crimination made against any without naming them that say so and the place where and their own words Or hath this man or any of his spirit deserved any credit to be trusted this way The very phrase of determining in Latine is no word of course with our Divines in this argument It is the phrase of the Dominicans But doe they say that God determines the will to sinne I doe not thinke he can produce one of them that expresseth himselfe so unscholastically so absurdly Alvarez saith that God by his effectuall decree predetermineth second causes to worke He saith that God doth predetermine the will to the act of sinne as it is an act That the first root of contingency is the will of God Then to what doth God determine the will in their opinion Is it to the act only and not to the manner of its production Namely to produce it voluntarily and freely Nothing lesse though this Authour counts it his wisdome to conceale this God by his omnipotency doth cause that man whose heart he moves to will and will freely Againe God's generall concourse is a divine immediate influence into second causes whereby they are foremoved applyed and determined to worke every one according to the condition of its nature The naturall cause naturally the free cause freely as I have professedly delivered Disput 18. 23. And that in such sort freely as they can choose to doe otherwise if they will and that in the very instant wherin they doe what they doe But come we to consider his answer 1. Touching that which he saith of the Ancients he gives us his bare word for it as touching the confounding of necessitie and compulsion yet Bernard I confesse willingly in talking of liberty from necessity understands by necessity coaction He saith farther that those Ancients did deny that God did necessitate men to sinne least they should grant thereby that God is the Authour of sinne But I doe not thinke he can shew this phrase of necessitating the will any way to be found among the Ancients what he hath touched before I have considered what he shall intimate hereafter I hope I shall not let it passe unsaluted And the truth is to necessitate hath such an Emphasis with it as to perswade that whatsoever a man is necessitated to do that he doth by constraint against his will And it is a rule commonly received that Voluntas non potest cogi The will cannot be forced which is most true as touching Actus eliciti the acts of the will inward and immediate and not so of actus imperati acts outward and commanded But Bradwardine who alone useth this phrase among'st School-Divines takes it in no such sense but only for an effectuall operation of God upon the will moving it to worke this or that not necessarily but freely which this Authour most judiciously dissembleth all along for desparing to prevaile by true and substantiall information of the understanding perturbundis affectibus suffuratur by a corrupt proposition of his Adversaries tenet hopes to worke distast upon the Readers affections Bradwardines position is this God can after a sort necessitate every created will to ' its free act and to a free cessation vacation from act and
as I have shewed in my Vinaiciae For Peter Lombard disputing on either side about this concurrence leaves it indifferent to the Reader to imbrace either part Either the affirmative that God doth concurre to every act though it be sinfull or the negative Yet I say as many as doe maintaine the affirmative doe so maintaine God's motion upon the creatures will as to move it only agreably unto it's nature namely to work freely not necessarily Like as he moves necessary Agents to work necessarily and contingent Agents to worke contingently And if this Authour be ignorant hereof which may well give him boldnes For who so bold as blind Bayard What doth he other in all this but betray his own shame comming to discourse on such an argument as an asse comes to play upon an harp as the proverbe speaks But if he be not ignorant of this what unshamefastnesse doth he manifest all along making bold only upon the simplicity and ignorance of his Reader to gull him and abuse him and draw him along to oppose the free grace of God in predestination and regeneration under colour of making God the Authour of sinne in the point of reprobation which yet he despaires of making good against us without notorious untruths and that undoubtedly delivered against his own knowledge For what Authour hath he produced to justifie this that any of our Divines maintaines that God necessitates the will of man to sin Not any that I know using this phrase Necessitate but Papists and among'st them none that I know but Bradwardine a man renowned in his time both for eminent learning and eminent piety as appeares by Sir Henry Savill's preface unto that book of his and he no where affirming that God necessitates any man unto sinne but only to the substance of the act that not so as to make the will work necessarily as the phrase imports in a vulgar eare and unto a popular judgment whereupon alone this Author takes his advantage most unconscionably but agreably to ' its nature that is contingently and freely For were he able to produce any one of our Divines that affirmeth this why doth he not Is there anyâ—hing throughout this whole discourse that more requires he should name the man and quote the places where this is affirmed then this Yet here we find a blank he carrieth it on magnificently upon his own bare word which deserves no credit at our hands And is it possible to believe so foule a crimination without all evidence produced unlesse faction and partiallity hath blinded his eyes Should he have laied to our charge that we maintaine that God necessitates the will to any good act and to overrule the will therein we should utterly deny it without distinction It is true he overrules the will of the flesh but not the will of the Spirit the regenerate part but moves it agreably to ' its nature and to worke not only voluntarily but freely whatsoever it worketh For albeit the regenerate part is like a morall vertue though as much transcendent to it as a thing supernaturall transcends a thing naturall inclining only to that which is good yet is it alwaies moved to this particular good rather then unto an other most freely Like as a man's naturall corruption inclines a man only to evill yet to this kind of evill or to this particular evill rather then to that Man is moved most freely So that if we maintaine not that God workes a man to every good act otherwise then freely let the very conscience of our enemies judge whether we can maintaine that God necessitates the will either of men or of Devills unto sinne For it is apparent that God hath a Double influence unto a good act One unto it as unto an act and that is influence generall Another unto it as unto a good and gracious act and that we acknowledge to be an influence speciall and supernaturall But as touching an evill act all sides confesse that God hath but a single influence thereunto and that generall namely as it is an act not as it is evill And albeit this influence which we call concurrence unto the act be joyned with an influence into the will of the creature to move it to the producing of the same act yet this motion is no other theÌ„ whereby the will is moved to worke agreably to ' its nature that is freely Like as all other Agents are moved by God the first Agents to worke agreably to their natures necessary things to worke necessarily contingent things contingently So that in all this there is no overruling of the will no liberty taken from her but rather she is maintained and established in her free condition and moved agreably thereunto like as in the eleaventh Article of Ireland it is expressed For after it is laid downe that God from all eternity did by his unchangable counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe It is forthwith added that hereby no violence us offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures and neither the liberty nor the contingency of the second causes is taken away but established rather But because of another claw that here is subjoyned by this Authour it is to be considered that the liberty of the creature is not equall unto the liberty of the Creator God himselfe But like as all other causes are but second causes God alone the prime cause All other Agents but second Agents God alone the first Agent So likewise all other free Agents are but second free Agents God alone primum liberum the first free Agent So that no liberty of the creature doth or can exempt it from the Agency of God In whom we live and move and have our being what a proud thing presumptuous were it for the creature to aspire unto such an exemption Who oppose us in the point of free will more then Papists Yet see how Alvarez disputes against this vise and presumptuous conceit so much maintained by the Jesuites and after taken up by the Arminians who live by their scraps as if they would be content to wash their dishes The Jesuites discourse thus That the will may be free she must have the Dominion of her act true saith Alvarez debet habere Dominium sui actûs non tamen oportet quod habeat primum absolutum Dominium sui actus she must have the dominion overher act but not the first and absolute deminion of her act And Disput 117 he proposeth this question Whether the will hath her dominion of her act and what dominion this is In the resolution whereof he proposeth three conclusions 1. The free will of man hath the dominion of her act as the next cause thereof In this conclusion the Divines on both sides doe concurre 2. Free will created in the actuall use of Dominion and power which she hath over her acts depends on God as of an absolute Lord predeliberating and predetermining before the foreknowledge
of the creatures future cooperation what the free will will doe in particular This conclusion is held of all those Divines who maintaine that God by his motion or effectuall grace not only morally but efficiently and physically doth cause us to worke that which is good it is proved saith he by all those reasons whereby it hath been formery shewed that God by his decree effectuall motion doth predetermine all second causes even such as are free to worke preserving their liberty and nature 3. The dominion of her act is not first in the power of free will created but in the power and dominion of God especially in respect of acts supernaturall Our meaning is that all dominion actuall use of dominion which the created will hath as causa proxima the next cause or doth exercise over her free acts which she produceth proceedeth from God as from the cheifest first cause efficient ought to be resolved into him as into the first Authour first absolute Lord thereof And the truth is the question of free will is commonly confounded though there is place of momentous distincion For as for free will unto good that is merely Morall and the resolution thereof is according to the resolution in the point of originall sinne But free will unto actions in generall under an appearance of good this is naturall liberty and the resolution thereof depends upon a right understanding of God's naturall providence in governing the world and working with all creatures in their severall kinds such operations as are agreable to their severall conditiōs The first liberty consists in disposing man aright towards his end like as morall vertues tend to this But the second liberty consist's only in the right use of the meanes unto what end soever is projected by us The appearance of good moving herein is only in genere boni conducentis in the kind of good conducing to the end propounded whether that end can be good or evill right or wrong But the appearence of good moving in the former is only summiboni of our cheifest good the enjoying whereof will make us happy But to returne this Authour with whom I deale in present stands for the will of man's absolute dominion over her acts as before he did expresse whereas Alvarez professeth utterly against this Neither doe I blame him for contradicting Alvarez in this but for carrying himselfe like a positive Theologue nor so only but like a peremptory Theologue contenting himselfe to dictate rules to others without all proofe save this that otherwise we make God the Authour of sinne Yet this is not any expresse Argument of his neither but he obtrudes premise upon us which I thinke was never affirmed by any Divines of these dayes unlesse it be by some Libertines against whom none that I know have disputed more effectually then some of those very Divines which here are traduced by him But observe the vile and abominable issue of this Authours doctrine in this particular making man as he is a free creature to be the Lord of his own free act yea and to have the absolute dominion thereof as formerly he did expesse Sect 3. For seing the act of faith of repentance and the like are free acts if liberty cannot be maintained unlesse a man hath the absolute dominion of his own act hence it manifestly followeth that God doth not determine the will to believe to repent or to any good work yet the Scripture professeth that God is he who makes us perfect unto every good worke working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Iesus Christ That it is God who worketh in us both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure So that if a man should live Methusalch his age and spend that whole time in a gracious conversation yet that God doth worke in him either the will or the deed of one gracious act more it is merely of his good pleasure so little cause have we to presume of perseverance in that which is good by out own strength And againe all this God workes in us for Christ his sake Christ hath deserved even this at the hands of God his father What then is the meaning of this that God should cooperate with us to the will and the deed provided that we will Consider the absurdity of this upon the supposall of the possibility of such a cooperation which yet by evident reason may be demonstrated to be utterly impossible Did Christ merit any thing for the Angells yet doth he not cooperate with them to every act of theirs as well as to any of ours Nay is it possible that any act should exist without God's operation And is it reasonable to subject such a course of Divine providence to the merits of Christ Thus we see whereunto this Authour tends in this discourse of his namely so to maintaine God to be no Authour of sinne as withall to maintaine that he is no Authour of that which is good no not of faith repentance or any gracious act that is freely performed by any creature man or Angell we on the other side desire endeavour so to carry our selves that while we vindicate God from being the Authour of evill we may not therewithall deny him to be the Authour of any thing that is good and gracious which is this Authours course as appeares manifestly in the issue And observe his crafty cariage foxe like Had he dealt upon predestination and the efficacy of grace and therein professed plainly that faith and repentance being free acts every man's will hath an absolute dominion over them and therefore God doth not determine the will thereunto For that were to make God the Authour of faith and repentance how many thousands would have been ready to have flowen in his face and abhorre such abominable doctrine Therefore he baulks that and deales only upon reprobation and here he layeth to our charge that we make God the Authour of sinne by necessitating and determining the will to sinne though his premises herein I have shewen to be most false therefore he maintains that God doth not determine the will so much as to the act whereunto the sinfulnesse accrewes both because man's will is free and because so he should be the Authour of sinne And if once he can make his Reader to swallow this he doubts not but to take him in the point of predestination and grace also and make him wary to take heed of maintaining that God determines or necessitates the will of man to any good act whether it be of faith or of repentance and that for feare of denying man to have the absolute dominion over his will to worke himselfe to faith and repentance at his pleasure and secondly for feare of makeing God the Authour of faith and repentance and every good act Like as by saying that God doth determine or necessitate the will to sinne we make him the Authour of sinne
Behold Reader the issue of this man's Divinity and whether he be not leading thee into the very chambers of death by working thee with him to oppose the free grace of God both in predestination and in regeneration and the power and efficacy therereof in working thee to faith to repentance and to every thing that is pleasing and acceptable unto him that through Jesus Christ Yet we have shewed a manifest difference between God's moving the creature unto that which is good and moving the creature unto such acts as are evill For in evill be moves only to the substance of the act whereof our Adversaries themselves acknowledge God to be the Authour that is the efficient cause and this he performes by influence generall But as touching every good act the Lord moveth not only to the substance of the act by influence generall but also to the goodnes thereof by influence speciall He proceeds to tell us what Philosophers teach concerning the condition of the will And because it is very absurd for a Christian to goe to schoole to Philosophers to learne the condition of Divine providence he tels us of Fathers too that maintaine the same as he saith but he quotes neither the one nor the other Now I would gladly know what Father hath ever taught that God hath no power over the will of man to convert it and ex nolentibus volentes facere of unwilling to make men willing to worke men to faith to repentance to all kind of pious obedience And as for God's secret providence in evill how plentifull is the Scripture concerning this God is said to have sent Ioseph into Egypt though this was brought to passe by the parricidiall hands of his brethren To tell David that the sword should not depart from his house though this could not be taken up or used but by the free will of men To send Senacherib against a dissembling nation and to professe that this proud King in all his bloudy executions upon the people of God was but as the axe or the sawe in the hand of God The like is testified concerning Nabuchodonosor after him Nay the Prophet demands Whether there be any evill in the Citty and the Lord hath not done it speaking of the evill of punishment though wickedly executed by the hands of wicked men that the Lord caused the King of Assur to fall by the sword in his own land though this was done by the hands of his own children And as in violent courses so in impure courses the Scripture as plainly testifies the secret providence of God to have place therein And what doth Austin observe from the like places both in his fift book against Iulian the Pelag c 3 and in his book de gratia libero arbitrio professing occulto Dei judicio fieri perversitatem cordis that the perversity of the heart or will comes to passe by the secret judgment of God And the power that God hath over the wills of men to incline them even to evill that is his phrase as I have formerly shewed abundantly representing the places where he delivers this He proceeds not so much in Scholasticall discourse as in rhetoricall amplification more like a Shrew vexing him selfe and fretting that he cannot have his will then like a disputer That which necessitates the will makes it become but a servile instrument irresistably subject to superiour command and determination this action of command comes in most unseasonably it denoting a morall action commanding not only things agreable but sometimes contrary to the will of the person commanded No such thing hath place in God's moving of the will of man did he move it unto sinne which yet is most false for he moves it only to the substance of the act But why should it seeme strange that the creature should be a Servant to the Creator and his instrument and a servile instrument Yet the notion of servility is very aliene from the matter in hand that having place only in proper speech as touching morall obedience that which we treat of is rather of motions naturall and of the subordination of the second cause to the first the second Agent to the first And was ever any sober man known to oppose this with such froth of words as this Authour doth Doth this Authour himselfe thinke it possible that the Creature can move it selfe or performe any operation without God's concourse I doe not think he doth Doe we not live in God have we not our being in God And what is this other then to say that our life and being depend on God in the kind of a cause efficient And doth not the same Apostle and in the same place testifie and that in the words of an heathen man to shew that all such did not so maintaine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condition of the will as to maintaine the exemption of it from influence Divine professe that in God we move also And the truth is all the question is about the manner of this concourse divine whereabouts this Authour spends not a word as if he kept his breath for some other purpose then to deale on that point which alone is controverted The irresistable subjection he speaks of is no more then the bereaving of the will of her liberty which is most untrue For proof whereof I appeale to every man that will but look upon Alvarez that maintaines this divine motion of will under the notion of determining And upon Bradwardine who alone that I know maintaines the same divine motion under the notion of necessitating Whereas he infers herehence that God is a truer cause of all such acts and sins that proceed from the will so determined then the will is Oftentimes he hath set before us such Coleworts but we have nothing but his bare word for it And it depends merely upon this that the action of the creature is not free Whereas both Bradwardin maintaines that God necessitates the creature to every free act of his And Alvarez that God determines the creature to worke freely Now is it a sober course hence to inferre that the act is not free As much as to say it cannot but be free therfore it is not free And yet we know that every one naturally is prone to sinne and in the best of God's children there is a principle that inclines to sinne God is confessed by our very opposites to be the true cause of the act yet not at all the cause of the sin by his concourse Only they differ from us as touching the nature of this concourse We say God concurres to the producing of the act as it becomes not an Agent only but the first Agent not a cause only but the first cause and man as a second Agent and second cause that moveth in God as the Apostle testifies like as he lives in God and hath his being in God But these
men devise God and man to move to the producing of the same act as two men in lifting a timber logge most indecently And to free this concurrence from chance they say sometimes that God workes this or that act in us modo velimus that is upon condition that we will But when they consider that God workes the act of willing as well as ought else are demanded to answer upon what condition he workes this what condition will they devise of this will he say modo velimus provided that we will As much as to say God will produce the act of willing provided that it be produced already by us Others say that God foreseeing that the will of man at such a time will produce such an act of willing in case God be pleased to concurre to the producing of it hereupon he resolves to concurre to the producing of it whereby the finall resolution is rather into the will of God then into the will of the creature I say the finall resolution of every sinfull act committed by the creature Secondly here is devised a thing future without all ground For whereas the act of willing as for example in Iudas the act of willing to betray his Master is it in ' its own nature merely possible not future how then did it passe into the condition of a thing future and that from everlasting For from everlasting God knew it as a thing future this could not be done without a cause And what cause could there be of an eternall effect but an eternall cause which is God alone And in God nothing can be devised to be the cause thereof but his will or decree Therefore to avoid this they must be driven to conclude that all future things became future by necessitie of nature if not of their own nature yet at least by the necessitie of God's nature he producing them all not freely but by necessitie of nature This is that Atheisticall necessitie whereupon our Adversaries are cast while they oppose such a necessitie as depends upon God's decree ordaining all things to come to passe agreably to their natures necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently and accordingly ordaining necessary causes working necessarily for the producing of the one and contingent causes working contingently for the producing of the other as Aquinas discourseth 1. pag q. 19 in the Article whose title is this Utrum divina voluntas necessitatem rebus imponat whether the will of God imposeth a necessitie on things that come to passe in the world The reason this Authour brings is a mere Socysme saying the same over and over againe As when he saith For when two causes concurre to the producing of an effect the one principall overruling cause the other but an instrumentall wholly at the devotion of the principall then is the effect in all reason to be imputed to the principall which by the force of ' its influxe and impression produceth it rather then to the subordinate and instrumentall which is but a mere servant in the production of it To which I answer that which he calls overruling I have often shewed how absurdly it is imputed unto us For how can that be called overruling which workes not the will contrary to ' its nature but moves it only agreably to the nature thereof As for the cause principall what Scholar of any braines ever denyed God to be the cause principall in any action to the producing whereof he concurres For is he not the first cause and the first Agent Are not all other second causes and second Agents But this Authour hopes his Reader will understand this in reference only to the sinne not to the naturall act under it whereas God as touching the sinfullnesse of it is no Agent at all much lesse a prime Agent no cause at all much lesse a prime cause Then secondly let God never so effectually work any creature to the producing of an act connaturall thereunto yet if he works the creature therunto agreably to its nature that is if it be an necessary Agent moues it to worke necessarily if it be a contingent agent moves it to worke contingently if it be a free agent moves it to worke freely then by Arminius his confesion our cause is gained For God shall be found free from blame and the creature void of excuse Now this is clearly our doctrine and in effect the doctrine of all them who say that God determines the will as the Dominicans or that God necessitates the will as Bradwardine For they all acknowledge hereby that God moves the creature to worke freely in such sort that in the very act of working they might doe otherwise if they would They confesse this providence of God is a great mystery and not sufficiently comprehensible by humane reason Cajetan professeth thus much as before alleadged and Alvarez maintaines it in a set disputation And supposing God's concourse as necessarily required to every act of the creature they are able to prove by evident demonstration that no other concourse can be admitted then this whereby God moves every creature and that effectually to every act thereof but agreably to ' its nature and condition And this is farther demonstrated by God's fore knowledge of things future Another Arminian with whom I have had to deale in this argument being pressed with this reason drawen from God's foreknowledge and urged to shew how things possible became future that from everlasting for from everlasting they were known to God as future had no way to helpe selfe but by flying to the actuall existence of all things in eternity And I have good ground for strong presumption that this Authour with whom now I deale had his hand in that Pye which was above foure yeares agoe See the desperate issue of these mens discourses who are drawen to take hold of such a Tenet to helpe themselves withall which their best freinds the Jesuites the Authours of Scientia media doe utterly disclaime And on the other side the Dominicans who embrace the actuall existence of all things in eternity are utterly repugnant to the doctrine of Scientia media So that when the Jesuites are reconciled to the Dominicans in the point of actuall existence of all things in eternity And the Dominicans to the Jesuites in the point of Scientia media then these men with whom I deale are like to prevaile which I doubt will hardly be before Elias comes Thirdly consider if when one cause is principall overruling the other the effect must be imputed rather to the principall then to the other It followes evidently that when the causes doe equally concurre without any such overruling of one the other then the effect is equally imputable unto each consequently the sin For such is this Authour's language in this Argument is equally imputable to both to God as well as man And he is to be accounted the Author of it as well as man I appeale to every man's
I consider this Authour's compounding of these termes absolutely and antecedently I begin to suspect that like as then a thing comes to passe antecedently when it comes to passe by an Antecedent decree in this Authour's language though most absurd So in his language the things are said to come to passe by absolute necessity when they come to passe by an absolute decree the decree in his opinion being sufficient to make a thing come to passe necessarily an absolute decree to make it come to passe absolutely necessarily This undoubtedly is his meaning upoÌ„ which I am stuÌ„bled are I am aware Now let the sober Reader judge how farre these odde conceits are from all sobriety Did not God decree to make the world nay did he not absolutely decree this and antecedently not conditionally and consequently What therefore will it here-hence follow that the world had it's existence necessarily and that by the way of absolute necessity I had thought this had been the peculiar and incommunicable perfection of God himselfe namely to exist necessarily and that in the way of absolute necessity As for all other things which are but God's creatures they have only a contingent existence derived originally from the free will of God the Creator For this I take to be the transcendent perfection of God To be most necessarily to worke most freely Necessity and that absolute being the greatest perfection of being So that Bradwardine conceives this to be the prime and originall perfection of God esse necessario to be necessarily On the other side freedome in the highest kind is the greatest perfection 〈◊〉 operation and God alone so workes as without subordination to any superiour Agent but no creature man or Angell so workes as without subordination to God the first Agent the first cause the first free worker Now I come 〈◊〉 the second particular of this second inconvenience 2. And that is that our doctrine taketh away the conscience of sin and this we willingly grant is consequent upon the former For if sinne be no sinne there is no cause why any man should be troubled with the conscience of sin But all this being grounded upon a vile and most untrue imputation never yet proved namely that we make all actions both good and evill to come to passe by absolute necessity there can be no more truth in the consequent then there is in the Antecedent We say that every sinne that is or ever was committed in the world is and ever was committed freely not only voluntarily much lesse doth any sinne come to passe by any absolute necessity For albeit there be some things that come to passe necessarily by necessity of nature as proceeding from Agents naturall working naturally and necessarily Yet is no worke of nature wrought by any absolute necessity God being able to set an end to nature and the works thereof whensoever it pleaseth him and while nature continueth according to the good pleasure of God he restraines the course thereof or changeth it as he thinks good How much lesse doe the actions of men not only in respect of God's agency who is the first cause but in respect of man's agency a second cause and working deliberately and freely come to passe not necessarily but contingently and freely So farre off are they from comming to passe by absolute necessity to exist by absolute necessity being the incommunicable perfection of God himselfe But I confesse this Authour sheweth some humanity in the proofe of it to wit out of the Tragedian very judiciously and learnedly Fati est ista culpa nemo fit fato nocens It is the fault of fate or destiny and what comes to passe by destiny is no fault of man's Yet Zeno the great Patron of Fate finding his servant in a fault when his servant excused himselfe upon fate saying it was destiny that he should steale made a ready answer saying Et caedo it was his destiny also to be punished So farre was he from justifying or excusing his servant upon any such ground or forbearing to punish him And doth not this Authour know that Iocasta for all her acknowledgment of fate governing all things yet in conscience of her incestuous courses destroyed her selfe in the same Tragedian But consider indifferent Reader whether this Authour doth not carry himselfe as if he were dealing with little children and his purpose were not to informe them but to abuse and mocke them For is that all waies the faith or opinion of the Tragedian whatsoever he puts into the mouthes of this or that Actor Doe not they represent the absurd pretences of some as well as the reasonable discourses of others Then againe who are they that maintaine Fatum destiny Where hath he found this maintained by any of our divines Yet I confesse this Authour deales ingeniously in one thing to wit in walking so fairely in the steps of this forefathers For thus the Pelagians accused the doctrine of Austin not only after he was dead as appeares by Prosper's Epistle ad Ruffinum but even while he was living as appeares by Austin himselfe Nec sub nomine gratiae fatum asserimus quia nullis hominum meritis dicimus Dei gratiam antecedi Si autem quibusdam omnipotentis Dei voluntatem placet fati nomine nuncupari profanas quidem verborum novitates evitamus sed de verbis contendere non amamus neither doe we maintain destiny under the name of grace in saying grace is not prevented by any merits of man But if some are pleased to call the will Allmighty God by the name of faâ—e or destiny we avoid the profane novelties of words but we doe not love to strive about words Where observe how first the same crimination was made against Austin's doctrine by the Pelagians which this Authour makes against ours 2. The doctrine which the Pelagians opposed in this crimination was this Grace is not conferr'd according unto workes 3ly Austin disavowes all antecedency of workes to the bestowing of grace how much more to the decreeing of grace to be bestowed on any which yet is the beloved Helena of this Authour therefore he talkes so oft against an Antecedent decree Then againe it is manifest that the greatest maintainers of destiny and sate did not maintaine it in any opposition to the free wills of men And Austin him selfe professeth that such a necessity as is expressed in these words Necesse est ut fiat it must needs be that such a thing shall come to passe containes no inconvenience nor is any way prejudiciall to the free wills of men His words are these Sienim necessitas nostra ida dicenda est quae non est in nostra 〈◊〉 â—â—detiamsi nelumus efficit quod potest sicut est necessitas mortis ManifestuÌ„ est 〈◊〉 nostras quibus recte aut perperam vivitur sub tale necessitate non esse Multaâ—â—im 〈◊〉 quae si nolemus non facerimus Si autem illa desinitur esse necessitas