and means appointed of God for that end and one would think that this man were a little of my mind in this by what falleth from him in the close of this second Argument using these words at least for the moving of God to elect Sir If here where you make mention of any Instrumental cause you intend onely the Instrumental means of salvation then I joyne with you for as I have before asserted That as God hath decreed the end so likewise hath he decreed the means conducing to that end But as there is no external cause at all and therefore none Instrumental for which he doth elect before all time but all arising from within himself even his own love and good pleasure so when that decree comes to be put into execution in time then there are subordinate causes but all set on work by the first cause which is God himself but not as to election but all as tending to salvation And therefore that fell very advisedly from me when I said at least for the moving of God to elect where I place a vast difference between election and salvation God elects without respect had to faith works or use of means as to the decree but yet he saves with by and through faith works and use of means as in respect of the end 2 Thes 2.13 1 Pet. 1.2 You pack up these your fardles of exceptions thus Now if he do not hold that it is some cause by which men come to be more peculiarly interessed into the favour of God by believing then they are without believing why did he not rather say it must not be accounted any cause at all upon any account whatsoever But it is that which the Lord Christ hath said in Ioh. 16.27 which perswadeth me to be of that mind in that he hath said the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God and therefore If I should say that loving of Jesus Christ and believing in him were no cause at all by which we came to be chosen into the Fathers love I should sin against Christ in speaking contrary to his word But this is more then was in the Position and yet it is no more then truth Answ Sir now I will give you an account why I used that expression at least for the moving of God to elect my meaning was not that any man came to be interested into the first favour and love of God which is the good pleasure of his will immanent and eternal in himself more by believing then without believing For in election God lookt upon men as sinners enemies ungodly in their blood in a doleful plight and the objects of pity and compassion and not as on believers And therefore my words carried this sense that though there were no cause or motive at all why he should elect one rather then another because all were in an equally lost condition yet in the decree of election wherein there was a love unto and a purpose to save some he likewise decreed to save them by such means which in his wisdome he had ordained to be suitable for the attaining of the end so that salvation should have adequate causes for the effecting of it viz. faith works and use of means though election it self had none but singly and simply the love of God arising onely out of his own bosome And therefore it excluded causes as to election but did admit of causes as to the accomplishment of salvation For the rest of this paragraph of yours it trips up the heeles of all the former your seeming fair concessions and plainly discovers the secret guile and fraud of your heart For now you begin to speak plain enough saying If I should say believing were no cause at all by which we come to be chosen into the Fathers love I should sin against Christ Here indeed is plain dealing though all along before you have juggled with me and denyed all causes as to election And this indeed though you are not aware of it moâ—lders to nothing all your former exceptions which have still denied all causes motives c. And now you grant loving and believing to be causes and confirms every argument that I have raised and fortifies every of those absurdities that I have charged upon you as following upon your position to any of which you make not the least appearance of an answer But I tell you as before God in electing lookt upon men as in the corrupt mass and lumpe of perdition regarding nothing what they could be as of themselves for they must unavoidably be in a lost condition till by his own act transient flowing from that of Immanent in himself he made them believers by giving of them faith and all of this for the greater advance of his own free grace which he did not do to others For that place of Ioh. 16.27 brought to confirm their purpose I answer that the love of God hath a two-fold acception The first is amor benevolentiae which is the foundation and fountain of all the good his people have and receive t is the wombe that conceives and sends forth all the good things we do enjoy of which Ier. 31.3 I have loved thee with an everlasting love and so 1 Ioh. 4.10 we love him because he loved us first and of this no cause or reason can be rendred besides the good pleasure of his will The second is amor complacentiae when in time the Lord is delighted with the persons of those that he loved from eternity Ezek. 16.14 thy beauty was perfect through the comeliness I put upon thee Cant. 3.1 Behold thou art fair c. and thus the Lord crowns rewards and delights himself in those graces given to his elect ones and of this love of complacency is this text to be understood and not of the everlasting love spoken of Ier. 31.3 in electing of us before all time and whereof onely this controversie is And now gather up altogether and make up your accounts and see to what an excrescency of advantage your numerous exceptions against my arguments will amount unto and you shall find that the Summa totalis will be just o Hitherto have we fayled in that still river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God Psal 46.4 Psal 87.7 Rom. 11.33 and from whence all our springs flow viz. Gods electing of us to life eternal But now we are to lanch into that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that unfathomable gulfe of the wisdom and knowledge of God whose judgements are unsearchable and his waies past finding out viz. that of non-election or Reprobation Concerning which this Gentlemans Position did assert this viz. That God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief yet haply not without the exact form of godliness but denying the power those he reprobated to everlasting destruction from the foundation of the world But In
but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous Will who will do with his creature what he will do neither can any expostulate why hast thou done thus Esa 45.9 It is true that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but yet not the causes of their reprobation that is solely and singly in the good pleasure of his Will Ephes 1.5 which I prove by these Arguments 1. Arg. That which the holy Ghost in the Scripture ascribes unto the sole will and good pleasure of God that we are not to assign other causes to But the Scripture assigns reprobation solely to Gods will Therefore For proof of the minor proposition see these texts Rom. 7.18 whom he will he hardeneth ver 20 21. Nay but O man who art thou that replyest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour ver 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and make his power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted or made up for destruction Matth. 11.26 Even so O Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Matth. 10.15 Is it not lawful to do what I will with mine own ver 16. Many called few chosen Prov. 16.4 The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Rom. 9.11 12 13. for the children being not yet born ver 17. for this same purpose have I raised thee 2. Arg. That which is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation cannot be the cause of it But sin unbelief and rejecting the means is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation Therefore The major is as clear as the sun The minor proposition is proved from these texts Math. 11.25 26. I thank thee father c. for so it seemed good in thy sight He hid those things not outwardly but inwardly Ioh. 6.36 37. Christ to the Capernaites I said unto you that ye also have seen me believed not all that the father giveth me shall come to me signifying that they are not given to him of the father and therefore reprobated Ioh. 8.46 47. Christ to the Pharisees If I say the truth why do ye not believe me he that is of God heareth Gods word ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God i.e. ye are reprobates Ioh. 10.26 Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep i. e. not of the number of my elect Ioh. 12.39 40. Of the whole company of the Jews Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts viz. God according to his decree Rom. 9.18 whom he will he hardens and ver 33. Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence Rom. 11.7 8. the election hath obtained it the rest are hardened for God hath given them the spirit of slumber c. 1 Pet. 2.8 which stumble at the word being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed 3. Arg. If sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means of salvation are the onely causes why God reprobates any then there is no such mystery in the decree of reprobation neither are Gods waies herein so unsearchable and past finding out but that the true and undoubted cause may be assigned But yet they are mysterious and unsearchable See Rom. 9.14 What shall we say then is there unrighteousness with God God forbid Rom. 1.33 34. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellour 4. Arg. If the foresight of sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation then these absurdities will unavoidably follow 1. That no child dying in infancy can possibly be reprobated 2. Neither such Gentiles or Turks Indians or Salvages that never heard of Christ who never enjoyed the Gospel nor ever had the means tendred to them for how can they believe in him on whom they have not heard Rom. 10. and how can they reject that which was never tendred unto them as many nations in the world who are strangers from the life of God Ephe. 1.12 3. If the foresight of sin should be the cause of Reprobation then the elect should be equally lyable to the decree of reprobation as the Reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams transgression Rom. 9.21 22 23 24. Iohn 15.19 20. If ye were of the world c. Ephes 2.1 2 3. children of wrath as well as others Rom. 3.10 and there is none righteous no not one 4. Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.11 in not assigning sin to be the cause of Reprobation 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to those objections Rom. 9.13 14. The first is if God reprobated Esau because he hated him then he was unjust The second ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will For he might in one word have answered to both the objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both of Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. When they had done neither good nor evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Mal. 1.2 6. Hereby we confine Gods infinite soveraignty over his creatures to the narrow scantling of our subordinate power as though he might not do with his own what he lists without our controll and not make a vessel either of honour or of dishonour unless he were accountable to us for the reason of his so doing For the fourth and fifth Positions These may pass with a grain of Salt bating some impropriety in the expressions and I am not so at leisure to teach such men to express themselves after a Theological manner either in their teaching or writing For the sixth Thesis I must ingenuously confess it is such a Mystery or Paradox and so involved with seeming contradictions that I want an Oedipus to unriddle the meaning of it I have been a little acquainted with the opinions of the Pelagians Semipelagians Papists Arminians Socinians and Anabaptists and amongst them all can observe none of them jumping in with this mans judgement for thus he writes All men are sometimes convinced of sin and the state of nature What his meaning is by the state of nature I cannot divine If his sense be that every man is at one time or other convinced that by nature he is a child of wrath and disobedience and dead in trespasses and sins and so t is false for most men have not such convictions Next And are made alive by the works of the spirit by this all men should be
that mind that those people or any other people whatsoever were appointed or designed of God by his purpose and decree from before the foundation of the world that unavoidably they must and can do no other but despise Jesus Christ and the means of salvation by him for if he had been of that mind then certainly he would not have bad them beware or take heed of that which they could not help But notwithstanding this ver 45. they speak against those things which were spoken by Paul contradicting and blaspheming and although through Jesus Christ was preached unto them the forgiveness of sins and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses yet as they had said before that they were Moses disciples Ioh. 9.28 29. and they knew that God spoke by Moses but as for this fellow we know not whence he is so yet they were resolved to dwell upon the law of Moses together with being children of the stock and seed of Abraham according to the flesh for justification in the sight of God and to the very same people Paul speaketh Rom. 2.17 18 c. saying Behold thou art called a Iew and restest in the law and makest thy boast of God and knowest his will and approvest the things that are more excellent being instructed out of the law and art confident that thou thy self art a guide of the blind a light of them which are in darkness and to those people he speaketh also Rom. 9. at the beginning and so forward saying in ver 7 8. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children but in Isaac shall thy seed be called that is saith he they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of God but the children of the Promise are counted for the seed And this he proveth in shewing that Ismael the son of the bond-woman Gal. 4.22 23. verses and Esau also that was born of Rebecca which together with Iacob was conceived in the womb of her to wit Rebecca by one even by their father Isaac all descending from Abraham according to the flesh and yet Ishmael and Esau must be cast out of Abrahams house or family And that which he saith ver 13. Iacob have I loved but Esau have I hated was written by the Prophet Malachy many years after they were born brought forth and became two nations as it was said to Rebecca Gen. 25.23 and the ground or reason shewed by Obadiah ver 10. and this is to shew that God hath not bound himself by any purpose decree or promise to elect justifie or eternally to save them by their keeping the law of Moses and in being the seed of Abraham according to the flesh and therefore there could be no unrighteousness with God in casting them out or breaking them off from their own Olive-tree notwithstanding all that they could plead for themselves in these things But it was that vain confidence that Paul knew they had in these things before mentioned in Chap. 2. Behold thou art called a Iew and restest in the law and art confident c. and therefore Paul might well say thou Iew that restest in the law and art confident wilt say unto me Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for being so confident in these things they would be apt to say Why should God find fault with us Is it not the will of God that the seed of Abraham being circumcised and keeping the law of Moses should be his people and hath not God himself commanded these things and annexed promises thereunto who hath resisted his will in all this But Paul having before fully proved that God had not bound himself either by purpose decree or promise to elect justifie or eternally to save them upon that account might well say thou must not reply against God for he having made no such promises unto thee upon those terms he is at liberty to break thee off as an unfruitful branch and to make of thee a vessel of dishonour For notwithstanding all the means that God had used towards them in order to their conversion they having all heard Rom. 10.18 and God having stretched forth his hands unto them all the day long and yet notwithstanding all that God had done for them in tendring unto them such precious promises in Jesus Christ yet they were a disobedient and gain-saying people and thus walking stubbornly against God all the day of Grace they are now in the hands of God as the clay was in the hand of the porter to make of them vessels of dishonour for the Potter did not take a piece of clay into his hand on purpose to make such a vessel at the first as it was made by him afterwards but Ier. 18.4 the vessel which he made of clay was marred in the hand of the Potter and so he made it again another vessel as it seemed good unto the Potter to make it and so in like manner those people the Jews that Paul speaketh of in the Epistle to the Romans being stubborn in the hands of God and disobedient unto his righteousness even when his hand was stretched forth unto them all the day long it was now just with God to make of them vessells of wrath fitted or made up for destruction and thus it is plain to any rational man that will but look on these things with a single eye and with an upright mind judge of the same that the good will and pleasure of God is not solely and singly the cause of Reprobation without having any other ground or reason assigned thereunto in Scripture but that the rejecting the means of salvation to wit the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel continuing in sin and unbelief and denying the power of godliness is assigned by the holy Spirit in the Scripture as a cause thereof And as God thus dealt with the Jews because they sought not righteousness by faith in Christ so doth God in like manner deal with all the world for the like cause He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the onely begotten Son of God and this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light because their deeds are evil and 2 Thes 2.10 11 12. Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness Answ I have here presumed much upon the Readers patience and therefore must crave his pardon in obtruding upon him so much of nothingness vanity and incongruity as to the Apostles scope as is contained in this answer of my adversary being not ad idem but a rambling discourse not any whit
of a horse is a horse c. and therefore by the name of the Son of man is understood him not which is simply a man as Adam was but him that is born of a man Adam was a man made not born and therefore he is called a man but not the Son of man It is observed therefore that the Hebrews in this their manner of speaking when they say thou art a son or child of disobedience a son of perdition c. that they assign as it were disobedience and perdition to be as the father and that thou art born of that and therefore that such expressions do not barely signifie that thou art disobedient but that thou wert born disobedient not that thou art in a perishing condition but that thou wert born a son of perdition not that thou art a sinner but that thou wast born a sinner So likewise in those words a child of wrath not that thou art obnoxious to wrath and condemnation because of thy sins but that thou art born a child of wrath guilty of eternal condemnation so much of the first The second thing considerable is how they were by nature the children of wrath The word nature hath several acceptations First sometimes it is taken for the substance and essence of a thing but thus acording to his essence and substance man is not a child of wrath because the substance is not sin though it be infected with sin Secondly for the first principle of motion and rest in every thing whether that principle be in the substance or that it be the natural quality and propriety of the thing And after this manner the first nature of man was good yea very good for in that the Lord did imprint a power of motion to that which was good to know love and worship God and thereby to have life everlasting but this nature was lost by the sin of Adam and instead thereof there succeeded a naughty quality whereby it comes to pass that there is no natural motion in us but unto that which is evil viz. against God and against his son Jesus Christ and no rest but in that which is not good This evil quality came by the temptation of the Devil and it is as a pestilence that hath infected both the soul and body of man man I say remaining the same in his essence and substance is infected with the venome of this evil quality so that he can effect or work nothing but that which is like himself because from this he is moved unto all actions Hence it is that there arise all the evil thougths in the mind all the perverse and distempered affections in the heart and all wicked motions and desires in the will And this corruption of the whole nature which is otherwise called concupiscence the Apostle cals in this place nature viz. the first principle or beginning of all evil actions and motions whether external or internal and therefore whereas this is sin it doth deservedly make such the children of wrath Thirdly nature is oftentimes taken for nativity or birth natura a nascendo because that every one being conceived in sins and born in iniquities Psalm 51.5 and that we are born ungodly and enemies to God and therefore most worthy that God should be angry with us and inflict eternal punishments on us and therefore in this sense likewise are we said to be the children of wrath i. e. rom our first conception and nativity and because we are descended from Adam and sinned in him and all are born children of wrath even infants likewise though they have not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression i. e. actually Rom. 5.14 yet because they are born of sinful parents the infection becomes hereditary to them and they likewise children of wrath as well as others After this manner of speech is that of the Apostle Gal. 2. We which are Iews by nature i. e. Jews by birth and nativity And by this I hope the judicious Reader will find that I have both confuted your reasons and confounded your gloss so that the third absurdity will stick as close to your proposition as the spots do to the Leopard and now I shall have leisure to attend your motion in the removal of your quarters to the fourth absurdity which is this Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.21 in not assigning sin to be the cause of reprobation Answ Paul was not mistaken for he hath assigned continuing in sin and unbelief to be the cause of reprobation Rom. 9.32 and 11.20 and 1.2 6 28. Answ Sir this hath been your dealing in all this tract of reprobation wherein you make no distinction between non-election or negative reprobation which is before all time whereon your position is built and against which my undertakings are as you deliver it and whereof there is no cause assignable besides the good pleasure of Gods most holy will and that reprobation which is in time and whereof sin is the cause and whereunto those Scriptures by you quoted do answer which no man contradicts But yet this last reprobation or that in time is not immutable as is the other Jer. 6.30 Isa 1.25 Zac. 13.9 Ro. 11.23 for a man or a nation may be as reprobated silver today and yet refined from the dross to morrow they may be broken off to day and grafted in again to morrow for God is able to graft them in again But for that reprobation whereabout our dispute is as it is immanent in God and eternal so it is also immutable and unchangeable as is God himself And so I pass to the fifth absurdity which is this Absurd 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to these objections Rom. 9.13 19. The first is If God reprobated Esau because he hated him he was unjust The second ver 19. why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for he might in one word have answered to both objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. when they had done neither good nor evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Answ To the first when I shall hear any say that God reprobated Esau because he hated him without assigning any other cause and prove it I shall say more to it and in the mean time I shall desire to have this question resolved Whether those that shal preach such doctrine As that God reprobated Esau because he hated him and for no other cause do not make God much like the envious Jews Ioh. 15.25 who hated the man Christ Jesus without cause Answ Sir for the resolving of your question and satisfying of the scruple I must tell you first that God is said to have hated Esau before he was born or that he had done either good or evil that is called hatred comparatively in respect of that love he shewed unto Iacob he may be said to hate him
though the ill digesting and composing of them will not deserve a Schollars eye much less answer yet because if it be possible that the Authour may not further befool himself or further delude his over credulous proselytes and lead captive 2 Tim. 3.6 silly women laden with sin I will draw a line of confutation over his more remarkable Errors and willingly pass by his smaller faults of incongruous or improper expressions First I do consent that the most holy and high God from all not in Eternity by one sole and single act did see all whatsoever he purposed to do or permitted to be done by any of the creatures he intended to create for else he could not be Omniscient Omnipresent Infinite and Eternal But whereas it is said That God saw some men embracing the means of salvation and those he elected in Christ from the foundation of the world to everlasting life this is so far from soundness that it is flat Pelagianism an old Heresie exploded forth of the Church for many ages since by which it must be concluded that the eternal decree of Gods unchangeable election must be dependent on the intervention of mans liberty of willing and working but no proof from Scripture brought to evidence it nor appearance of any colour of reason Whereas the Scripture when it speaks of election makes it to be altogether independent on the creature or from ought at all wrought by or in the creature but wholly resting for the ground thereof in the bosome and holy will of God himself and therefore it is called Ephes 1.5 the good pleasure of his will and Ephes 1.11 the purpose and counsel of his will Nay so absolute and irrelative is this decree of election from any thing out of God besides his good pleasure as to be any motive or incentive for which God elects as a meritorius or a procuring ground or cause of it that even Christ himself is excluded as for whose merit man should be elected and therefore we are said to be elected in Christ not for Christ But because Socratical discourses are not so convincing I shall produce some irrefragable Arguments to which if the adverse party shall give any the least colour of answer to satisfaction then I shall say as they believe that learning is good for nothing but to puffe men up and gull the world but till that be done which I am certain will never be I shall bless the God of my salvation who Ephes 4.8 11. hath given such gifts unto men 1. Arg. If the rise of our election be grounded in the free grace of God then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing of the means of salvation but it is founded on the meer mercy and free grace of God therefore not upon the foresight of the embracing of the means The first proposition or major is unquestionable for that there is but one cause to produce the effect The second proposition or minor viz. that our election is founded on the meer mercy and free grace of God see for proof hereof Deut. 7.7 8. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself the Lord did not set his love upon or choose you because you were more in number c. but because the Lord loved you where the single love of God is pitcht upon as the cause of their election exclusively from any other outward causes See further Deut. 10.15 Matth. 20.15.21 Luk. 12.22 Rom. 9.11 18 21. Ephes 1.5 11. 2 Tim. 1.9 2. Arg. If the Patriarch Iacob was elected meerly out of grace without any respect had to any of his faith works or use of means then all others are likewise so elected for there is the one alike motive for the election of all as of one But Iacob was elected meerly out of the good will of God without any respect to faith works or the use of means at least for the moving of God to elect him Therefore all others are so likewise elected The minor proposition is confirmed out of Rom. 9.11 for the children being not yet born neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth It was said the elder shall serve the younger 3. Arg. If the decree of election be absolute without any respect had to faith works or means Then God did not elect upon a foresight of the embracing of the means but the decree of election is absolute c. Therefore See for proof Rom. 9.11 Rom. 11.5 6 7. Ephes 1.4 5 11. Matth. 20.16 and 22.14 4. Arg. If faith and works be the fruits and effects of election then they are no wayes causes of it for which God should elect but they are fruits and effects Acts 13.48 as many as were ordained unto life believed Ephes 2.4 7 8 9 13. 5. Arg. If our foreseen faith works or embracing of the means were the cause of our election they should be likewise the cause of our vocation and justification but the later is false therefore the first The major is proved by that undeniable axiome Quicquid est causa causae est causa etiam causati That which is the cause of a cause is also a cause of the thing caused i. e. of the effect The minor is proved 2 Tim. 1.9 and Ephes 2.8 Rom. 3.24 justified freely by his grace 6. Arg. If our election were dependent on mans embracing of the means then these absurdities would follow 1. Then the will of God should be moved and determined by an external cause i. e. the first cause should be ordered and guided by the second and thereby the first is made the second cause and e contra which is against the rules of all Philosophy and Divinity 2. God hereby is supposed to be capable of passion i.e. when thus moved but God is altogether immutable and impassible 3. Then there should be somewhat in the creature out of God before greater and better then God because that every cause is before and better then the effect 4. If there might be imagined to be any thing in the creature which might move God to the decreeing or appointing of this or that then it would follow that the actings or issues of things have not a dependence upon the decree of God contrary to Iam. 3.37 5. Then man might have just cause of boasting in himself 6. What then would become of children dying in infancy before they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of the means and which never were to have a being to act therefore they were never to be foreseen For the third Position That God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief those he reprobated to everlasting destruction But this hath the like unsoundness in it as the former of election there being no other ground or reason assigned for it either of sin or unbelief or rejecting of the means
every man in the world In this likewise the novice leads me in a mist for if his meaning be that the death of Christ and the shedding of his bloud is sufficient for every man in the world but effectuall onely to those to whom it is intended then I joyn with him but if he be otherwise minded then the close of that Position trips up the heels of the former part But I could have heartily wisht that this Seraphical Doctor had not so magisterially dogmatized and after an Apostolical manner sat in his Cathedral Chair by delivering his dictates like an ipse dixit I say unto you but rathet that he had endeavoured to have proved out of the sacred Scriptures what he hath so crudely ventilated so might we better have tryed the spirits whether they be of God or no 1 Ioh. 4.1 Truly I do profess by what I find in these positions I cannot discern of what sect he is for by what he writes he is neither pure Pelagian Papist Arminian Socinian nor Anabaptist but a hotch-porch of them all jumbled together And that as it is written of Mahomet at the first he framed his Alchoran by the advice of Sergius the Monk a renagado partly of the Jews partly of the Christians and partly of the Gentiles opinions so hath this Evangelist composed his doctrinals So that in this we may see what fruits may be expected at Cockolds-pit and all such places of such illiterate and confused assemblies ex ungue leonâ—m ex pede Herculem If the blind lead the blind both must fall together into the ditch Matth. 15.14 But so it was in the Apostles time there arose such amongst them who desiring to be teachers 1 Tim. 1.7 understood not what they said themselves nor wherof they affirmed yea this was foreprophesied 2 Pet 2.1 that false teachers should arise up amongst them who should bring in damnable heresies but never so fully accomplisht as in these our dayes wherein many unheard of formerly and blasphemous opinions are daily ventituted under some specious appearances of truth and holiness The God of love and truth lead us into all truth So prayeth he that is the less then the least of all Saints James Rawson Short heads of the subsequent discourse THe title of the Pamphlet examined Page 1 2 The Preface examined 4 Toleration rightly stated 5 Magistrates power to interpose in matters of Religion 6 Bishops vindicated 7 Matth. 23.29 30. interpreted 8 Whether the doctrine of the Anabaptists be tolerable 9 Who are inconstant in their profession 11 2 Cor. 10.4 5. Examined 12 Eph. 6.11 12. Examined 13 Universal redemption offered to consideration 14 Isa 53.4 5 6. Interpreted 15 16 Psal 145.8 9. Cleared 17 Joh. 3.16 17. Opened 18 Rom. 5.18 19 2 Cor. 5.14 15. Interpreted 20 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Discussed 21 Tit. 2.11 Examined 22 Heb. 2.9 and 1 Pet. 3.9 Opened 23 Baptisme of Infants confirmed 24 c. Whether the Anabaptists be fixt to their principles page 27 Or at unity among themselves 28 Thom. Tazwells first position questioned 29 Whether the second position be not Pelagianisme 30 Ambiguity in the stating of the position 31 Psal 4.3 Explained 31 Who they be that are elected 32 Psal 37.9 c. Opened 34 Pro. 3.33 and Mar. 16.16 Discussed 34 Of the decrees of God 35 Of Gods foreknowledge and predestination 36 Of election 38 Of reprobation 39 My first Argument confirmed 40 Gods foreknowledge Independent 41 The pamphleter plowes with another mans heyfer page 42. As God decrees the end so likewise he decrees the means 43 Election to be distinguished from justification 44 Arminians make faith a foreseen cause of election page 45 c. Deut. 7.7 8. Expounded 48 Faith no foreseen cause of election 50 What place faith hath in justification 52 Rom. 9.1 c. ad ver 19. Analysed and interpreted page 53 c. The laws impotency to satisfie 57 What efficacy faith hath in justification 58 How God a respecter of persons to be understood 59 Absolute justification flows from Absolute election 60 Faith as much as works excluded from election 61 Gods alone will the cause of cause of election 62 Grace flows from the decree of election 63 Acts 13.48 Vindicated 64 c. Absurdities following foreseen faith in election 68 Other absurdities following that doctrine 69 What God did foresee in election 71 Marks of election no causes of election 72 Instrumental causes of salvation no causes of election 73 As God decreed the end so he decreed the means 74 Joh. 16.27 Explained 75 Of reprobation 76 Eph. 1.5 Discussed 77 Of the decree of election 78 Isa 45.9 Opened 79 No contradiction in what I do assert 80 What place Gods foresight in election and reprobation 81 God as he decrees the end so he decrees the means 82 The pamphleter begs the question 83 A twofold reprobation one before all time another in time 84 The pamphleter interferes with his own positions 85 Could Reprobates truly believe they might be saved 86 Reprobation includes both a denyal of the end and means of salvation 86 God the immediate worker of all spiritual graces 87 Sin foreseen not the cause of Reprobation 89 Sin the efflux not the effect of reprobation 90 Sin the consequent of reprobation 91 Our doctrine intrenches not on the divine attributes 92 Reprobation inforceth not to sin 93 A threefold necessity 94 Reprobation as by us stated not against the mercy of God 95 Nor against the truth of God 96 Ezek. 18.23 32. and 33.11 Explained 97 Absolute reprobation and exhortation to repentance argue no Hypocrisie in God 99 Absolute non election not against the wisdome of God 100 Isa 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Interpreted 101 God may expect the performance of our duty though we cannot do it 103 Matth. 11.25 26. Vindicated 104 What God doth in time he decreed to do before all time 105 What power we have to do good we have from God the redeemer 106 Those whom God decrees to save he decrees to save them by faith 108 Sin the cause of positive reprobation viz. of damnation 109 1 Pet. 2.8 Vindicated 111 c. Rom. 9.19 c. Analysed and interpreted 116 c. Thom. Tazwells uses upon the doctrine of reprobation 124 What use the Saints may make thereof 125 Though there be no external yet there is an internal cause of reprobation viz. the will of God 128 Arminian positions very aequivocal 129 Rom. 11.33 44. Vindicated 139 Mille narianism not inconsistent with the Articles of faith 132 Absurdities cleaving to Tho. Tazwells positions 132 Whether sin foreseen be the cause of reprobation 133 c. Whether Infants may have faith though not the use of faith 135 c. Whether any Infant can be damned 137 Infants elected or reprobated as well as others 138 c. Hope onely of such Infants as are within the covenant 140 The Spirit of God and not the word that doth regenerate 141 Rom. 4.15 and 5.13 Opened
who by the inward working of his spirit he hath made Godly For himself i. e. to do him service and live to his glory See Exod. 33.16 Or else this may be understood and that the scope of the place bears necessarily That the Lord hath set apart for some place 〈◊〉 of eminency office and trust him that is Godly as David was foâ— to be more Instrumental for the glory of God and good of his people What you write that there is no more ground or cause tâ— call the words of this position Pelagianism or an old heresy thaâ— there is to call the words of David so is but meer vapour and smoke because the words of David beare no proposition nor do not in the least degree carry any correspondence with the position To what you write for if him that is Godly or believers oâ— those that imbrace the means of salvation be not those that God hath elected in Christ to eternal life then shew me by plain Scripture-proof if you can who they be and what be their names that we may know them I answer roundly thus Answ That such as are thus qualified i. e. that are Godly that are believers and that in sincerity and truth such carry the evidence in themselves their faith and Godliness are arguments symptomes signes to them that they are elected And that as Eph. 1.4 he is said there to elect some that they should be holy so God hath elected such numerical persons that he will withâ—l in his good time make them godly make them believers make them to imbrace the means of salvation by working all their works in them Esa 26.12 Yet God hath not elected any whom he foresaw that by the power of his own free will and liberty of choosing and refusing would be Godly or would believe or would imbrace the means no the object of election was of men in their blood Ezek. 6.16 enemies Rom. 5.10 ungodly Rom. 4.5 sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 And this indeed is the main that I so zealously contend for to beat down all worth or excellency in the creature and to ascribe the sole glory unto God in making him the Alpha and Omega the first and the last in the whole transaction of mans salvation and which my Adversary implicitely denies though in express terms he is ashamed to profess it with a full mouth 1 Sam. 15.14 what meane else the bleatings of these words in my ears page 13. I should sin against Christ if I should say that believing in him were no cause at all and page 39. as it is the good pleasure of God to let the sons of men enjoy a sufficiency of means c. so he gives them liberty in the right use thereof in the day of Grace to choose or refuse and it cannot be otherwise so a choice must needs be at liberty and if there were not a liberty given of God in these things c. Mary hath chosen the better part c. But of these in their several places What further you write Shew me by plain Scripture if you can who they be and what be their names that we may know them is a question more suitable to be proposed by a boy of four years old for if he had been older a rod had been fitter for him then an answer And yet let me tell you Rev. 2.17 Rev. 5.1 Kev 20.12 that those which are elected when once they come to be believers they have a new name given which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it and the book wherein their names are written is as yet a sealed book But when the book shall be opened which is the book of life then it shall be legible even in such great Characters that he that runs may read who they be and what be their names In the mean time the secret things belong to the Lord our God Deut. 29.29 but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our Children for ever that we may do them You further say and if these Scriptures to wit Psal 37. from vers 9. to vers 21. Prov. 3.33 34 35 and Mar. 16.16 together with many other of the sayings of the holy Spirit in the Scripture that have the like sound be not for substance a true coppy of Gods decree of Election and Reprobation from the foundation of the world then shew us a true Copy of it if you can Answ Alas Alas what will not ignorance at least mixt with impudence 2 Tim. 3.6 endeavour to obtrude upon a simple people by creeping into houses and leading captive silly people laden with sin But tell me Sir though it may be possible for you to delude your dull-sighted proselytes with such fopperies as these is it with you imaginable that men of parts and gifts will swallow down such gudgeons such Camels revise the Scriptures that you there cited and see whether any part of any one of them breath the least aire as to matter of Election or Reprobation whether any of them carries any import either in express words or by way of consequence to these eternal decrees And that it may appear that I charge you not unadvisedly let us take a view of the Scriptures apart 1 For that Psal 37.9 to vers 21. The scope of that Psalm is to direct the Godly how to deport themselves especially in reference to the wicked when flourishing in prosperity and to this end 1 He sets down what their duty is 2. He presseth that duty by several Arguments Their first duty is that they beware of angâ—â— and envy whereto they might be tempted upon that occasion oâ— the wickeds prosperity ver 1.7.8 2 That on the contrary they fortifie themselves with faith and hope in God ver 3 5 6. The arguments he useth for confirmation are drawn 1 From the end and issue of both their conditions how both the Godly and wicked shall succeed viz. it shall fall out well for the Godly but ill for the wicked ver 9 10 11. A 2. Is drawn from the cause of this issue and event viz. the efficatious providence of God from the 12 ver to the 21 ver which is illustrated by the effects as 1. The confusion of the wicked in their evil counsel ver 12 13 14 15. 2 By blessing of the little which the righteous man hath beyond all the riches of many wicked ones 3 by a protection and deliverance of the Godly man from those evils wherein the wicked are overwhelmed vers 20 23 24. now what is all this to Election or Reprobation For the place of Prov. 3.33 c. Solomon in all the former part of that chapter exhorteth to an endeavour after divers Graces as the contents thereof do imply The argument whereby he presseth it is from the diverse end and issue of those who are adorned with and those who want those graces which are exprest in these three last verses by you cited But what is this likewise
tend to the glory of God for to that end was man created Prov. 16.4 Ephes 1.15 And therefore neither have the elect cause for which they should boast because what they do receive is of undeserved grace 1 Cor. 4.7 neither are those who are pretermitted cause to complain whiles they have but their deserved reward Rom. 9. the Potter having power over his lump of clay to make one vessel to honour another to dishonour That which hath the fourth place is Election which is not to be understood of an election to a civil or sacred place or office as 1 Sam. 10.24 Iohn 6.70 Nor of a people separated to a special Covenant as Deut. 4.37 Nor onely of such as were called to the outward profession of the Gospel whereof a Church may consist as 1 Cor. 1.27 But it is A personal definite and immutable separation of certain singular men from the rest of mankind and preordaining them to salvation by such means as it hath pleased him to appoint in his most wise decre Matth. 20.16 and 24.24 Mar. 13.20 Rom. 11.7 And means for the execution of this decree of election are Redemption by Jesus Christ effectual vocation justification by faith and sanctification joyned with perseverance Rom. 8.29 30. Eph. 1.4 1 Thess 5.9 1 Pet. 1.2 Act. 13.48 Tit. 1. 1. Phil. 1.6 In election Christ is the basis and head thereof Eph. 1.4 5. both in that he was designed by the Father as a Redeemer of the elect 2 Cor. 5.18 Esa 12.2 As also because that such so elected were given to Christ to be redeemed by him and to be brought unto glory Ioh. 17.6 and 10.16 So that Christ is inrolled in the decree of election not as a meritorious cause of it nor as the foundation thereof but as executing that decree and the meritorious cause of grace and glory to be conferred upon the elect according to the decree of God Faith likewise sanctification good works and perseverance are ingredients in the decree consequently as means ordained to the end by that decree but not antecedently as the foundation or causes upon foresight whereof our election doth depend For if upon the foresight of our faith or foreseeing who would believe or embracing of the means or continuance therein our election should depend then were it necessary that the same should be foreseen in us either as those graces or works wrought in us by our selves and of our own innate strength or else wrought in us onely by God and of his grace and gift alone If you l ' say they proceed as from our selves as from the innate activity and choice of our own free-will then have we whereof to boast and then have we made our selves to differ from others contrary to that of 1 Cor. 4.7 for what maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou didst not receive now if thou didst receive it what dost thou glory is if thou hadst not received it But if we have received that grace from God and that it be onely of his working in us to give us faith and repentance from dead works c. Then God hath decreed to give us those graces which since they are infallible means unto salvation therefore they are to be drawn and derived from infallible election wherin salvation is decreed unto us for the further clearing wherof consult these places Matth. 11.25 26. Luke 12.32 1 Tim. 1.9 Rom. 9.11 12. and 11.5 Eph. 1.4 Rom. 8.29 Ioh. 15.16 Acts 13.48 1 Cor. 7.25 Ioh. 6.37 and 8.47 2 Tim. 2.19 Matth. 24.24 1 Ioh. 2.19 The last proposed is Reprobation which is the eternal Immutable and most free decree of God wherein a certain company of men considered in an alike lump and mass of corruption and guilt with all others he hath decreed to pass them by and not to have mercy upon them neither to confer on them the means tending to salvation but leaving them in their sin whereinto they had cast themselves for the same sin to condemn them for the manifestation of his liberty and justice and power This reprobation by a metonymy is styled in Scripture Hatred Rom. 9.13 So the purpose of God Rom. 9.11 that determined counsel of God Acts 2.23 the good pleasure of God Mat. 12.25 26. And the Reprobates are called vessels of wrath fitted to destruction Rom. 9.22 men of old ordained to condemnation disobedient whereunto they were appointed 1 Pet. 2.8 Appointed unto wrath 1 Thess 5.9 wicked made for the day of evil Pro. 16.4 All which do argue that God is the efficient cause of Reprobation and that hell fire is prepared for such Goats as well as for the Devil and his Angels Matth. 25.41 that God must be the efficient cause of Reprobation as well as of election appears in this that as he elects i. e. decrees to save some so likewise he decrees to Reprobate i. e. to pass by and leave others and not elect them as Matth. 24.40 41. For else had not he fore-determined what to do with a great part of mankind but to have left them to an uncertain event which is unsuitable to his wisdome Now the act of God in Reprobating may be distinguished into a negative and privative act i.e. of not granting salvation nor conferring means of salvation and into an affirmative or positive act i. e. of inflicting damnation and of blinding and hardening After both these waies the Scripture sets forth Reprobation 1 Negatively Mat. 7.23 and 25.12 I know you not Ioh. 10.26 you are not of my sheep Ioh. 17.19 I pray not for the world Matth. 13.11 to them it is not given to know the mysteries of the kingdome of heaven 2 Affirmatively Rom. 9.13 Esau have I hated Rom. 9.22 vessels of wrath sitted to destruction Rom. 9.18 whom he will he hardens Ioh. 12.39 40. They could not believe because he had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts So that if it be demanded wherefore God when he saw all men in an alike condition sinners and children of wrath Reprobated some i. e. did not elect them or suffered not his face to shine on them as he did on others viz. those which he did elect no reason can be assigned for this but the absolute good pleasure of his will But if it be demanded why he doth not confer salvation on them or glorifie their persons in heaven but contrarily inflicts upon them eternal torments in hell here the cause is assigned to be their own sinnes Matth. 25.41 42. Go ye cursed into everlasting fire for I was hungry c. and Rom. 6.23 the wages of sin is death And therefore in the matter of Reprobation God is to be lookt upon partly as a sovereign who hath the sole power and dominion over his creature Psal 145.17 Gen. 18.25 and partly as a Judge who is righteous in all his waies and doth right to every man As a sovereigne and so according to his absolute power and liberty dependent on
to tender unto fallen mankind by his son Jesus Christ and did not look at any thing that was in the creature or should be acted by the creature as any motive by which he was drawn thereunto but the moving cause was the fountain of everlasting love that was in himself towards his poor perishing creature freely to enter into an engagement by purpose and decree and from that purpose and decree to make forth promises in the Scripture that are 1 Cor. 1.20 yea and Amen in Christ Jesus to the glory of God by us that all sort or kind of people that do embrace the means of salvation to wit the free tenders of grace in the Gospel and continue in the faith and way of Jesus with a single heart and humble mind to the end of their lives Matt. 24.13 shall undoubtedly be saved and God can as soon cease to be as that he should fail in making good these promises to that sort or kind of people aforesaid because they flow from his purpose and decree which is unchangeable like unto himself as I shall by the assistance of God hereafter make appear in the following discourse Answ Here I will intreat the intelligent Reader considerately to take notice how this merchant of rags endeavours to juggle with me and by acting the Gypsies part to play fast and loose with my first Argument for howsoever it is by me affirmed that Gods election is absolute in it self irrespectrive and irrelative as to the end viz. salvation to which there was no motive or incentive whether of faith foreseen or embracing of the means or continuing therein or any thing else yet withal as before hinted I do maintain that the same God that determined of the end did likewise decree unto such persons so elected fit and suitable means conducing to that end viz. that he would send his Son to become a propitiation for them that he would effectually call them by his Gospel that he would give them faith to answer that call by believing that he would justifie their persons and sanctifie their natures and keep them by his power through faith unto salvation And whereas he writes although mans believing and obeying the Gospel be not a motive incentive or procuring ground or cause for which God elects c. who would not think here but that this man meant plainely and honestly but tuta frequensque via est sub amici fallere nomen for mark what followes but it hath been the good will and pleasue of God to engage himself by purpose and decree to elect justifie and save all those men and women that did or should in time embrace the means of salvation Answ Here is his warping for see how he fumbles together the decree it self of salvation with the means for the execution of that decree no waies distinguishing but confounding election with justification and embracing of the means It is very true and it is a Gospel-declaration that God will save all those that he doth justifie and who do embrace the means in sincerity and truth Rom. 8.29 Eph. 6.24 But if he prove out of any part of the Bible from Genesis to the Revelation that God will elect all those that do or shall embrace the means of salvation I will give him the cause and cry peccavi and it is to be marked that we are about the point of election and not of justification and therefore all such proofs that speak onely of justification and not specifically of election are alien to the point For all the rest of his words if the grant may gratify him I will freely give him viz. that all sorts of people that do embrace the means to wit the free tenders of grace in the Gospel shall undoubtedly be saved But what 's this to the Argument of Election You further add But if by these words Then it is not upon Gods foresight of mens embracing the means but onely that the embracing of the means is not a motive or moving cause for which God elects then his Argument is true in every part of it but I have some cause to except against the sequel of his major proposition viz. then it is not upon Gods foresight of mens embracing the means not so much in respect of any untruth I find in it if his meaning be as aforesaid but the exception that I make against it is in respect of the terms of it because it varieth from the position not answering the expressions of it for the position doth not say that God elected men upon the foresight of their embracing the means but the substance that is in it is that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected and therefore if it had answered to it it should have spoken thus Then God hath not elected those men which he saw embracing the means of salvation and then it had been so palpably false that it must needs have been denied without any further trouble but as it is it may be a truth and yet proves nothing in the position to be false Sir what need all these frothy words to wast time and to spoile clean paper you know my sense is that the embracing of the means is not a motive or moving cause for which God doth elect and howsoever it is that you are ashamed to outface so much clear light of the Scripture which confirms this truth but that your pretence is that you except against my Argument in respect of the terms of it because as you say it varieth from the Position not answering the expressions of it The substance whereof is this that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected Therefore now I must deal plainly roundly with you and shall unkennel you our of yout fox-holes You know the Water-men on the Thames when they cry Westward Hoe they have their faces Eastward So whiles you here pretend against motives incentives or procuring causes of election yet in very deed and truth you are most mainly for them as I shall God assisting me make plainly to appear Sir possible it is that you may not dive into the bottom of this mystery of Iniquity nor foresee at such a distance as you are into the depth of this design and therefore may with the more confidence protest against and utterly disclaim all motives incentives or procuring grouds or causes why God elects any but ascribe all to the good pleasure of his will as in words you seem to assert But if we cast a reflexe eye upon this Heresie I mean for eternal causes of election as it was at first hatched by Pelagius though shortly after it was crushed by a Councel and next again revived in part by the Semipelagian Papists and at last refined and put into a new garbe by those Interpolators your correspondents the Arminians it will be very visible to all considerate men that howsoever in words you deny any moving cause in respect of election yet so long as
the substance thereof is contained in your Positions and that you grant the force and virtue of a moving cause unto faith in respect of Gods electing it must thence be concluded that you assert some moving causes and That faith is lookt upon by you as a moving cause will appear by these ensuing Arguments 1. I know it will not be stood upon by you nor any of your gang that faith is a condition or qualification so lookt upon by God as that without which he doth not elect no as we affirm that to such persons so elected he decrees to give it but according to you that where he finds it which is the sense of their foresight there or those he will elect and if thus tell me in sober sadness what difference can you make between a qualification or condition wherein God placeth his purpose and decree and that which we call a moving cause 2. In election you make believers the adequate object thereof and faith is made the formal reason of this object now this is a known axiome to those versed in these controversies Ratio formalis adaequati objecti semper est specificans causa illius habitus potentiae vel actus cujus est objectum That the formal reason of the adequate object is alwaies a specifying cause of the habit power or act whereof it is the object So a thing that is good being apprehended by the intellect is the cause of willing because it hath the reason of its formal object So after the same manner when you set down faith in respect of election as the formal reason of the object and that as you teach God hath from without himself proper causes of willing you can give no just reason why we may not say that you make faith the cause of election 3. This moreover I believe you wil not deny that what place infidelity hath in the point of Reprobation the like should faith have in the point of election as being opposite species But according to you infidelity is not onely affirmed to be the cause of Reprobation but the contrary doctrine is cryed down by you as most abominable and therefore in election should faith be the cause thereof 4. If faith doth determine the will of God being otherwise indifferent to choose one rather then another then it is a cause of election But according to you faith hath this determining power for with you besides faith and the embracing of the means nothing antecedes the decree of election which is not common to the non-elect and nothing that is common doth determine and therefore it is necessary that the reason of the determination be placed in faith and embracing of the means so that notwithstanding all your fair flourishes of denyal of motives causes and inâ—entives I must needs conclude that you do at least implicitly assert faith foreseen in those that will believe is the motive cause and procuring ground of Gods electing any to salvation And thus I conceive my first Argument stands in its full strength notwithstanding the assaults of your dudgeon dagger drawn aginst it So that this may be enough to those who are wise to understand that which is good and for others I shall sit down quietly upon Solomons account Prov. 27.22 Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a morter with a pestle yet will not his foolishness depart from him But in the close of this you except against some of those portions of Scripture by me cited saying It is to be minded that the people spoken of in those Scriptures by him quoted out of Deut. 7.7 8. and 10.15 are said in the first verse of the seventh Chapter to be a holy people unto the Lord their God and those people which are said at that time to be a holy people and chosen to be a special people unto the Lord their God above all the people that were upon the face of the earth afterwards for their murmuring against God and tempting of him ten times and not hearkening to his voice were destroyed in the wilderness and their carcasses fell in the wilderness through their unbelief and doubtless saith God you shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein Numb 14.29 30. and thus they came to know his breach of promise vers 34. See also Heb. 3.16 17 18 19. Sir this excursion of yours I imagine is intended upon another account viz. to lay a stumbling-block in the Saints way that they may fall away from grace received for in so far as I made use of them to prove that there was no external motive in the object neither of holiness nor believing for which God did set his love upon them to elect them those places alledged will carry it clear enough And therefore to what you mind that they are called ver 6. a Holy people I hope you will distinguish of the holiness of a people There is first an external and federal holiness and this they had by circumcision outward profession and as being visible covenanters Secondly Internal and real holiness wrought onely by the finger of God in changing of their natures and making of them new creatures t is the first that is here meant and not the second And whereas you write that these people which are here called a holy people fell in the wilderness through unbelief Sir I must tell you that I do not take you to be so excellent at Chronography as to make it appear that they were these numerical people here spoken of See 1 Cor. 10.5 with many God not well pleased that so fell in the wilderness But admit they were it is said their carcasses fell in the wilderness i. e. they died in the wilderness but what followes hence did they all therefore fall into hell Absit God forbid that any one should make such a desperate conclusion But youl 'e say they fell through unbelief yet I must tell you that though they wanted that historical faith in not believing the relations of the searchers of the land of Canaan See 1 Cor. 10.4 they drank of that spiritual rock and that rock was Christ Numb 23.19 yet they might have a saving and justifying faith in believing Christ should be crucifyed for them notwithstanding what is here or can be alledged to the contrary But why you set these words and thus they came to know his breach of promise in words at length and not in figures I am unwilling to deliver my thoughts But do you think that God is a man that he should lye or as the son of man that he should repent hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good Isa 46.10 no his counsel shall stand and he will do all his pleasure But this is spoken by an Anthropopathy bringing in God to do after the manner of men for our weak capacities For the temporal promises of God are but conditions
embracing of the means then these absurdities would follow then 1. The will of God should be moved and determined by an external cause i. e. the first cause should be ordered and guided by the second and thereby be made the second cause e contra which is against the rules of all Philosophy and Divinity 2. God hereby is supposed to be capable of passion i. e. when thus moved but God is altogether immutable and impassible 3. Then there should be somewhat in the creature out of God before greater and better then God because that every cause is before and better then the effect 4. If there might be imagined to be any thing in the creature which might move God to the decreeing or appointing of this 〈◊〉 that then it would follow that the actings and issues of things hâ—â— not a dependence on the decree of God contrary to Iam. 3 3â— 5. Then man might have just cause of boasting in himself 6. What then would become of children dying in infancy bâ—fore they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of thâ— means and which never were to have a being to act thereforâ— they were never to be foreseen To which you frame this answeâ— If our election were so much dependent on mans embracing 〈◊〉 the means as that there might be imagined to be any thing in thâ— creature which might move God to the decreeing or appointinâ— of men and women to eternal life then I deny not many absurdities would follow and this Argument may do something where it hits but as it happeneth it hits not us for we hold no such thing neither is there any thing asserted in this Position as that our election is dependent on mans embracing the means 〈◊〉 as that God should be thereby moved to elect Answ This is no more nor other then what was said against the former Argument onely the baby is swadled in other clouts Nor is that ere a jot the better which follows But any rational man that shall read these Arguments with a single eye and with an honest and upright heart and with a single mind compare them with the Position they are brought to answer cannot certainly but judge that either the man did not well mind what was in the Position or else had forgotten what was in it when he writ his Arguments or otherwise it must be his folly for all the expressions he seemeth to quarrel at be of his own making for not one of the expressions be found in the Position as that anything wrought in or by the creature is any motive or incentive for which God elects as a meritorious or procuring ground or cause of it but the whole substance of it is that God saw some men embracing the means of Salvation and those he elected in Christ c. Answ Whereto I say that I did seriously weigh the fraud of your Position before ever I put pen to paper and was now again very considerate of what I had undertaken and though in terminis motives and incentives causes are not therein exprest yet in that you say that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected it is necessarily implyed that those must be singular and numerical persons who must be elected for or because of their embracing of the means for why God did chuse those that he did foresee would embrace the means rather then those rhat he did foresee would reject the means and whether in this is not embracing of the means according to you a cause of election I leave it to any unbyassed man to Judge Besides I do demand whether in this your supposed foresight that you ascribe to God did he foresee that which he himself would work in them viz. this embracing of the means or did he onely foresee that which they themselves that were so foreseen would woâ—k by their own power viz. that they would of themselves embrace the means If you ascribe it to God then I demand why he works that power in one rather then another 1 Cor. 4.7 wherein at last you must ascend to the good pleasure of his will But if you ascribe this power to man himself then man hath made himself to differ and hath that in himself which he hath not received and hath cause whereof to boast But upon this account besides the absurdities before mentioned the whole doctrin of predestination would be quite overturned for 1. So it might come to pass that notwithstanding any decree with you yet possible it were that no one might be saved viz. if no one would embrace the means which was in their own power to resist 2 So might there be an election unto life and yet no one elected to life 3 Those onely should be the persons designed to salvation who were objectively and antecedently believers and embracers of the means before their election not considered as such who by vertue of their election should consequentively and effectively be made to be believers thereupon the effects of election to be taken for antecedent conditions necessarily prerequired in the object 4 So should the whole fabrick of divine predestination be dependent on the free will of man which is abhorrent to all religion 5 So there would not be such a considerable difference between Iacob and Esau those to be saved and those to be damned as to a meer performance of the condition under which men are to be saved and damned 6 Upon this account predestination and election of men is to be adjourned even to the moment of death it being suspended not onely on the embracing of the means but continuance therein I could burden you with many more absurdities and evil consequences flowing from your opinion but these are enough for you to beare That of yours which follows is a chip of the same block But if he do or shall at anytime say in plaine words that which he seemeth to intimate in his Arguments that we hold that our faith works or embracing of the means is a motive incentive or procuring ground or cause for which God elects or that there is any such thing held forth in this position that God elects men in Christ for these things then let him receive the words of Solomon for an answer in Prov. 10.18 he that hideth hatred with lying lips and he that uttereth slander is a fool Answ Prov. 24.7 Sir I shall onely return upon you in Solomons language that wisdom is to high for a fool these absurdities and many more do unavoydably follow upon the position though your eies be so blinded that you cannot see it Prov. 26.3 and therefore a whip for a horse a bridle for the asse and a rod for the fools back that when he is told of it yet will not see his own error Answ For that which follows for we know and are sure that the Lord hath set apart or chosen to himself Psal 4.3 a godly man which godly
nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas Corpora c. Having taken counsel of his pillow by his second thoughts he hath transformed the terms of his position by putting it into a new dress and at his peril be it if it prove to his own disadvantage The Position is new moulded thus God saw some rejecting the means to wit the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel continuing in sin and unbelief denying the power of godliness those he reprobated to everlasting destruction but the foresight of God did not nor doth necessitate the thing seen To which my answer was Answ This hath the like unsoundness in it as the former of Election there being no other ground or reason assigned for it either of sin or unbelieving no other rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy Will who will do with his creature what he will do neither can any expostulate why hast thou done thus Isa 45.9 It is true that sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but yet not the causes of their Reprobation that is solely and singly in the good pleasure of his will Ephes 1.5 His reply is this especially to that Text of Ephes 1.5 This Scripture saith nothing at all of Reprobation or mans destruction but of the Predestinating or appointing of believers to the Adoption of children by Jesus Christ Answ T is very true Sir that the letters and syllables of that word Reprobation is not in terminis exprest in that text cited of Ephes 1.5 but if by a necessary and an unavoidable consequence it may be thence concluded I hope it will be as sufficient as though in express words it had been so declared The words are recorded as for the comfort and encouragement of elect believers in beholding of the certainty and stability of their Predestination and Election resting in the bosome of God and the counsel of his will So likewise to keep them in an humble posture and engage them to a continual duty of thankfulness that when as they were in the same corrupt mass and lump of perdition with others the worst of men yet the Lord meerly out of the good pleasure of his will and from no other argument or motive out of themselves did fix his love upon them and predestinated them to the Adoption of children But was there not then the same good pleasure of his wil in the preterition non-election or not predestinating to the Adoption of children the rest that were past by who in respect of themselves were in as great and as good a capacity of partaking of any indulgence as those that were elected and what will this then amount unto but to be non-elected which is the same as to be Reprobated according to the good pleasure of his will I presume all the art you have cannot assign a medium between the decrees or at least make two decrees of predestinating of some men and the not predestinating of others but that if some men were not predestinated or not elected they must thence necessarily be reprobated He give you a familiar instance Suppose ten men for the evil deeds that they have committed be arraigned indicted convicted and adjudged to death but that immediately before the time of execution an act of Grace or special Pardon issues out from the supreme Magistrate and relaxes and freely remits the punishment to five of those ten I hope you may hence safely conclude that the other five shall be executed So let us suppose that the number of mankind are two Millions of men If out of these by the eternal and unchangeable decree of God one Million onely be infallibly appointed and ordained to eternal life they being all alike equally culpable and liable to eternal wrath and death who can deny but that the other Million are also as absolutely comprised under that sentence of eternal death whereinto they had hurled themselves as the decree of predestination or election saves some of meer good pleasure so the same decree of preterition non election non predestination leaves the rest where it found them weltring in their own gore and so reprobates them I hope you will not with the Papists in another like kind make a limbo non praedestinatorum seu non electorum such as shall neither go to heaven or hell And this of the decree of God before all time But when it pleaseth God who separated such from the mothers womb to reveal his Son unto them in time Gal. 1.16 then it is after this manner He brings his elect ones to eternal life by giving of theâ—â— faith repentance and perseverance and the manner of Gods permitting the non-elect to run themselves on the rock of eternal death is by leaving them in their own natural blindness and perverse enmity of their own imbred corruptions and nor supplying them with any restraining assisting or saving grace being not bound unto his creature so to do without which they must unavoydably wallow in their own mire and out of which they are never able to extricate themselves but are justly by God suffered to continue in their infidelity and impenitency Farther I say that the formal decree of election contains an absolute and an eternal decree of preparing of effectual grace for those that are so elected But the formal decree of negative Reprobation or non-election an absolute eternal decree of not preparing this effectual grace for those who are so pretermitted From whence is plain that the divine prevision of faith works and use of means in the elect so likewise the continuing in sin and unbeliefe in the nonelect doth not nor cannot go before the forementioned decree as you vainly imagine but are concomitant and coordinate in and with the decree and that when some are predestinated and elected to the Adoption of children out of the good pleasure of Gods will Eph. 2.12 Others are not predestinated not elected but reprobated according to the same good pleasure of his will and still remain aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the covenant of promise having no hope and never made partakers of the joy of the elect Pro. 14.10 From the canvassing of this text you proceed to another but with the like success of which thus you dictate Neither is that In Isa 45. at all to the purpose for it speaketh not at all of Reprobation or mans eternal destruction but of Gods calling and raising up Cyrus to subdue nations before him and that he would direct all his waies that he should build his City and let go his Captives and it was his will so to do and therefore woe be unto him that should strive with his maker to go about to hinder or frustrate the designe of God in that thing as doth appear from ver 1. to ver 15. Answ Sure Sir whatsoever mine is I am sure this is little to
the purpose and therefore to clear the point between us I shall give you a brief Analysis of this part of that chapter From the 1. ver to the 20. of it is comprised a prophesie of deliverance to the people of Israel from the captivity of Babylon In the 6 first verses this is declared that God will do it That which was the main obstruction which hindered the work was the murmuring of the people that they were so long in captivity as though that God had dealt unjustly with them in suffering the Babylonians to oppress them so long Against this God asserts his own justice partly from the baseness and vileness of them that did so murmur partly from the Majesty of him against whom they did murmur both of which he illustrates by two examples one was feigned where is brought in the potsheard contending with his maker ver 9. woe unto him that striveth with his maker let the potsheard strive with the potsheards of the earth shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it what makest thou or thy work he hath no hands Wherein expostulating with the murmuring Israelites because he suffered their captivity so long he vindicates his own power and sovereignty over all his creatures the work of his hands and therefore that he hath a free disposing power over them to do with them what shall seeme good in his own eyes They were but as clay in the hands of the potter base vile contemptible compared with God their maker fram'd of a lump of earth and therefore if the potter have so much power when he hath made a vessel to dash it in pieces hath not God much more power to dispose of his own fabricke without a dispute had with sinful flesh and to be made obnoxious to render an acount for his so doing And I pray wise Sir revise my writing again and see whether this text of Isa is not most apposite to prove so much as I intended it for which howsoever it was not specifically to Reprobation in terminis yet it clearly proves the absolute sovereignty and power that God hath over all his creatures that he hath made to put them into what condition he shall please without any replication to be made by the creature he is Lord Paramount of our lives estates and fortunes and hath the Keyes both of Hell and death Rev. 1.18 and as he is Lord of his creatures may dash in pieces and send to hell the greatest majesty on earth without the control of any Job 9.12 who can hinder him or who shall say unto him what dost thou And did I cite that text to any other purpose then to prove this absolute sovereignty as most expresly it doth notwithstanding your put blind eyes could not discern it That which follows is a chip of the same block and hath as little marrow in it as this which is before where you write And how this which he hath here set down will agree together I shall leave to reasonable men to judge viz. That there is no other ground or reason assigned for Reprobation either of Sin unbelief or rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy will and yet say it is true that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments Answ Sir I shall with as much confidence expose my self to the censure of any reasonable men whether there be any inconsistency or not rather a sweet harmony between those two assertions viz. That there is no other ground or reason assignable for Reprobation but the meer good pleasure of Gods will and that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments If these two positions be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why had not your wisdome assigned where the irreconâ—ileable discord did lye Judg. 7.22 1. If they are like those forelorn Midianites that sheathed their swords in each others bowels and like Iacob and Esau trip up the heels one of another why had not you like another Solomon determined the controversie Hos 12. 1 King 4.16 but leave things thus as you found them and so to the judgement of reasonable men And surely Sir if you be a man of reason whereof your writings give me cause to doubt I must tel you that your supposed error either must be in the first assertion viz. That there is no other ground or reason assigned for Reprobation either of Sin or unbelief or the rejecting of the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy will and this is but Idem per idem a trifling of words or barely without proof of contradiction to deny it is but petitio principii a bare and base begging of the question Or else it must be comprehended in this viz. That sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the proper and meritorious causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments which so far as I perceive by you neither of us do deny And yet I must put in some caution because you are so apt to misunderstand 1. That Gods foresight of sin unbelief and rejecting of the means which he is no waies bound to prevent is not affirmed to be a cause why this man rather then another is not elected it is only as a certain note and infallible consequent of men not elected Causa probationis non rei ipsius And whereas I do assert that negative Reprobation which is Gods absolute eternal and immutable decree of not electing depends only on Gods free pleasure as he is Lord and Soveraign over all his creatures and may annihilate all or do with them else whatsoever he pleaseth Yet damning or decreeing such persons to hell and eternal torments being an act of Judiciary power and proceeding according to the tenor of the revealed Gospel that never proceeds according to the forementioned good pleasure but is suited according to mens several actions and demerits 2. I do not affirm that this decree doth impose any necessity upon the non-elect or reprobated that they should unavoydably sin or that it excludes all such persons from all possible means of salvation that so they may justly and immutably be damned Onely I assert that together with this free good pleasure of non election or reprobation God foreknoweth that such persons not elected or reprobated wil out of the freedom of their own wills neglect and abuse such means of their salvation and thereby commit such sins as for which so foreseen of God is unto him a just cause of their damnation whereby he will glorifie himself in the manifestation of his justice upon them In short I do readily acknowledge that God as he adjudicates none to eternal torments but sinners unbelievers and rejecters of the means so hath he not decreed to adjudge any but such unto hell and eternal
torments from both of which it follows that sin and unbelief is the cause of the adjudication to hell and eternal torments and that by the decree of God but is by no means the cause of the decree it self that singly proceeds from his good pleasure And as it is an undoubted truth that God as he never saves any adult person but such as are penitent and studious of good works so he hath not decreed to save any but such so qualified with repentance and good works whence we argue that repentance and good works are truly the causes of salvation 2 Thess 2.13 and that by the decree of God who hath from the beginning chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth but it doth not thence follow that repentance and good works are causes of the decree for upon that account election should be dependent not onely upon faith foreseen as you would have it but likewise upon good works as antecedent to it which hitherto for ought I see you have not that impudence to affirme The like must be said of reprobation That as he never damns or decrees to torment and adult person but such as are impenitent unbelievers and rejecters of the means so he hath not decreed to damn any but such so qualified and whence the like Argument may likewise be taken up that impenitent unbelief and rejecting of the means are truly the causes of damnation Heb. 11.6 Heb. 12.14 and that by the decree of God who hath declared that without faith it is impossible to please him and that without holiness no man shall see the Lord But it doth not thence follow that impenitence unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the causes of the decree reprobates were not sinners at least in existence when the decree of non election or reprobation first pâ—â— upon them which was from all eternity as the elect were not penitents at the first instant of their election in the mean time God hath not decreed to adjudge any but sinners and unbelievers unto eternal torments as he hath not decreed to reward any with eternal life but penitents For what God doth or permitteth to be done in time the same and no otherwise hath God decreed to be done or permitted to be done before all time so that the prevision of sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means did no more antecede negative reprobation then the prevision of repentance and good works did antecede the decree of election So that I hope reasonable men will or may now judge that I have reconciled the enmity that your dim deluded sight had imagined and broken down that partition-wall which your Panick fears raised between these two positions and by the good hand of God have so reconciled your supposed difference between them that they go neer like Hippocrates twinnes hard â—n hand together though that the one ordine naturae not temporis have a priority before the other to which the last is subservient So that now I am at liberty to attend to what you will say to my first Argument which is this That which the holy Ghost in Scripture ascribes to the sole will and good pleasure of God that we are not to assigne to other causes But the Scripture assignes reprobation soley to Gods will Therefore To which you answer His Major proposition he bringeth nothing at all to prove for proof of his Minor he alledgeth these Texts Rom. 9.18 20 21 22. Mat. 11.25 Matth. 20.15 16. Rom. 9.11 12 13 17. Answ to which I answer The Scriptures which he quoteth and all that he can find in all the book of God cannot prove his argument for it is false in the Minor proposition therfore the Scripture cannot prove it for 1 Ioh. 2.21 no lye is of the truth although the Scripture doth speake of the will of God as a cause concerned in mans reprobation in having his eyes blinded and his heart hardned and the like yet the Scripture doth not assign it solely and singly to the will of God without assigning it to any other cause but on the contrary it doth assign the continuance in sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means of salvation as a cause thereof Answ I pray learned Sir what need I prove the Major that is unquestionable even to you i. e. would you have me beat the ayre and fight against mine own shadow No Sir t is the Minor that sticks in your sides so that you cannot breath out any one thing in a probable way of contradiction to any one of those texts by me alledged Yet with a face as full of impudence as ignorance you adventure to say but do not to which I answer c. This passage of this Doctor-like undertaker calls to my mind a Doctor of Oxford whom I well did know and to this day he is well remembred for it by some who in an University sermon of his falling upon a point of controversie wherein he found Bellarmine his adversary uttered words to this effect I will saith he confute him in two words mentiris Bellarmine and marke I pray whether this Gentleman tread not in the same steps he begs the question by saying it is false therfore the Scripture cannot prove it And what doth he do less than give the lye to the Spirit of truth when by his own confession the Scripture ascribes reprobation to the will of God which though afterwards he palliates by saying that it doth not assigne it solely to the will of God but that sin unbelief are concomitant causes yet he might have shewed some ingenuity in alledging of such places of Scripture which had done as he did say that so there might have been some appearance of an answer and not that Pythagoras-like his ipse dixit should be taken for currant coyne when as I am certaine it is but counterfeit but to give the lye and that to his betters as I am informed is as ordinary a dish with him as his dayly bread Well Sir but to attend your procedure which is thus But whereas he saith that sin and unbelief and the rejecting the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but not the causes of Reprobation I do understand that the decree of God which was before time resteth for the ground thereof more peculiarly in the will of God without assigning other causes to it than reprobation it self which is the execution of the same purpose and decree of God in time â—â—en and where the continuance in sin and unbeleif and the rejecting of the means of salvation is found in men Answ Here like a Sorbon Doctor speaking ex cathedra you tender your simple sense of the decrees of God wherein your mistake is supposing that we confound the decrees of God with the execution of those decrees which is not ours which hath been your errour all along For this reprobation which I
insist upon is to be understood not for the execution of the decree but for the decree it self of non electing which we call negative reprobation though I will yeeld you thus far that according to some places in Scripture and acceptation of Divines the word reprobation may be understood either of temporal reprobation in time which is a denyal of effectual vocation but in stead thereof a hardning of the heart and a withdrawing of Grace and favour formerly bestowed upon a man 2 Chron. 15.2 in poenam peccati in regard of his ingratitude and other sins and in this sense Deus non deserit nisi desertus when we forsake him then he will forsake us Or otherwise it is to be understood of eternal reprobation before all time which is Gods eternal and peremptory decree of not preparing for some that grace which would preserve them from forsaking God and consequently permitting them to lose eternal life which we deny to be founded upon any foreseen sins or unbelief of men but refer it wholly to the absolute good pleasure of his will for the alone cause of it Now good Sir if you will vouchsafe to call your self to remembrance by looking into your own position the matter in debate between you and me is not about this temporal reprobation that transient act which is or may be done in time after the grace of the Gospel rejected But t is onely about that reprobation which is eternal immutable and immanent in God before all time even before the foundations of the world were laid And therefore I cannot blame you to write what follows for I dare affirm that notwithstanding any decree that God had made before time there should be none reprobated in time if they did not continue in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation till the day of Grace were at an end which God is pleased to give unto them accompanying of them with means in the same day of grace in order to their everlasting good Answ Suppose I yeild you all this yet you may put your gains in your eyes and be no blinder then you are which God knows is blind enough and therefore as you before so I now do appeal to reasonable men to judge whether this your daring affirmation doth not extremely enterfere reconcile it how you can with your own positions In this your third position you maintain that some are reprobated to everlasting destruction from the foundation of the world and in your fifth position that those so reprobated Christs mercies and merits shall never save them and yet here you do affirme that notwithstanding any decree of reprobation before time yet none should be reprobated in time did they not reject the means of salvation until the day of Grace were at an end Make up a fair concord between these jarring strings and then I will say you are good at the shutting up of a broken bone unless you will come over to my side and affirm as I do which is this that notwithstanding any such decree of reprobation before all time yet there shall be none reprobated in time nay none damned after that time shall be no more if they did truly and unfeignedly repent them of their sins and undoubtedly believe in and accept of Jesus Christ for their redemption and reconciliation and so cleave unto God with a purpose of heart Act. 11.23 2 Cor. 6.2 now whiles it is the accepted time and whiles the day of salvation is shining on them Nay I shall add further had Esau or Pharaoh or Cain or Iudas Ro. 1.28 or cull out any other or take all of those forelone hope of caitifes and cast-awaies that are given over to a reprobate sense had they or any of them in their several generations truly repented of their sins and from the heart believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for pardon and acceptation not one of them so repenting should have been damned And indeed to affirme otherwise were but to throw stones against the Gospel of Christ the terms whereof are delivered indefinitely Believe in the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shalt be saved Act. 16.31 If you confess with your mouth the Lord Iesus and shall believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10.9 Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out Act. 3.19 And indeed there was so much of the Gospel revealed even under the law Ezek. 18.21 If the wicked man will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dy But then worthy Sir if you go along with me thus far I must lead you a little farther We have an infalible axiome in the Schools wherein you are a stranger that Suppositio conditionalis nihil ponit in esse Conditional propositions infuse no hability or put no capacity in the subject to accept of or to perform the condition Further we have commonly in use a vain saying if the skie fall we shall catch Larks now it doth not hence follow that either the skie shall fall or that a man may catch Larks where shall a man set his footing or hold his larking-net if the skie falls My allusion is this that whiles I do consent that such who are Reprobated before all time if they did believe and repent should not be Reprobated in time nor damned after time yet I do not say that therefore it is in their power either to believe or to repent notwithstanding they may be accompanied with never so much outward means in the day of grace in order to their everlasting good Nay I say it is impossible that ever they should either believe or repent if once the decree of non election was past Do you chew the cudde upon those words Ioh. 10.26 You believe not because you are not of my sheep and Ioh. 12.39 Therefore they could not believe because that Esaias said He hath blinded their eyes and hardned their heart that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them Sir for your own sake let me perswade you to understand a little better that non-election or negative Reprobation is not onely a denial of salvation it self unto those that are non-elected but pretermitted and left weltring in their own corruption but likewise that it is a decree of withholding of all grace which would be de facto effectual unto the avoidance of sin and such an ordering of circumstances and occasions as God certainly knoweth will make them freely run into their sins and obstinately continue in them And therefore here is that stumbling-block which becomes an offence yea in truth it is the main knot in this business you very fondly imagine that whiles God accompanies persons non-elected or Reprobated with outward means in the day of Grace as you
phrasifie it in order to their everlasting good that then it is in the power of that mans freewill to accept or refuse of that means so tendered whereas this is a heavenly writ from the truth of Gods revealed will in the Scriptures God in his eternal purpose hath denyed decreed not to give to such the use of that freedom to good which was lost in Adam 2 Cor. 3.5 Phil. 2.13 so that now we are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God who worketh in us both to will and to do according to his good pleasure Joh. 6.44 Phil. 1.29 1 Pet. 1.21 Tit. 1.3 and no man can come unto Christ except God the Father draw him So that when a man believes it is given him to believe and faith is the gift of God Eph. 2.8 and peculiar to the elect And so likewise it is God that gives repentance unto Israel Act. 5.31 and so he grants it to the Gentiles Act. 11.18 2 Tim. 2.25 Now tell me in sober sadness how it is in right reason imaginable that God will give these things which in his eternal purpose he hath decreed not to give but to leave them in their own lost and ruined condition for the manifestation of his glory when he shall render justice upon them according to their demerits They are held as captives to the devil fast coopt up in his prison 2. Tim. 2.26 Isa 45.13 so that unless the Lord by his almighty power shall let go those captives and open the prison door and proclaim liberty unto them they have not so much as a will to help themselves Isa 61.1 1 Cor. 2.14 for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned And in vain it is to talk of a day of grace Deut. 3.6 Act. 16.14 Ezek. 36.26 Ezek. 11.19 Psal 110.3 and means of salvation for except the Lord circumcise the heart and open it and pour in his spirit and cause them to walk in his statutes and take away their stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh and of an unwilling people make them to become a willing people in the day of his power all the outward means in the world though never so powerful and effectual elsewhere when God is pleased to adde a blessing to it yet without this particular operation of the Spirit of God inwardly enlightning inclining perswading new molding and new creating and sanctifying the inner man all the outward actings do become like water spilt on the ground 2 Sam. 14.14 2 Cor. 3.6 It is but a dead letter it cannot work that which it hath not in it and of it self It is onely the finger and almighty power of God that must effect it And now you seem to make a retreat or be at a stand for thus you write But I shall forbear to proceed any further in this place by way of proof because it will fall in to be spoken to more at large in answer to his following arguments in which I shall have occasion to shew the plain sense of those Scriptures in Rom. 9. and others that have the same sound with them which are mustered up for the proof of every Argument Answ In good sooth Sir if you like a chieftain maintain your cause no better then already you have begun and if you acquit not your self with more dexterity in the routing or discharging of my mustered forces now in the rere otherwise then you have done in the van surely the Infantry of the Anabaptists will coâ— you little thanks I am confident they will never inforce that honour upon you as to make you the Defender of their faith You conclude this paragraph thus In which I shall by the help of the most high God make it appear that Gods act of Reprobation in time in hardening the hearts of men giving unto them the Spirit of slumber eies that they should not see and ears that they should not hear breaking them off from their olive tree hiding the things which did belong unto their peace from their eyes that they could not attain unto the law of righteousness giving them up to their own hearts lust and to all uncleanness and vile affections and to a reprobate mind and the like cometh not upon men meerly solely singly and alone by the will of God as the onely and alone cause without assigning any other thing as a cause thereof but that these things come upon men as the just and righteous judgement of God upon them for their continuing in sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means as aforesaid Answ Noble Sir take it not amiss that here again I pull you by the sleeve and tell you that you are like a stragling sheep making a frivolous digression from the matter in contest keep your wits about you and mind this that our dispute is about reprobation before all time and your deviation here is by a discourse of Reprobation in time wherein we little differ Onely I must informe you of a mistake in you in this likewise in conceiving that there can be no decree of God of leaving men to the liberty of their own wills in committing of sin that can be antecedent to the guilt of actual sin I pray kind Sir be pleased out of your vast knowledge to inform me what foregoing or foreseen sin was there in our first Parents Adam and Eve for which God out of his vindictive Justice did give them over to the liberty of their own wills and so suffered them to eat of the forbidden fruit thereby breaking the most holy and righteous law of God Or those non-elect Angels who are now reserved in everlasting chains under darkness Jud. 6. what antecedent sin can there be imaginable to that their first sin for which they were forced to leave their own habitation and were delivered unto chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgement 2 Pet. 2.4 And what I say of these the like may be spoken of all the non-elected there is not any one sin that the heard of Reprobates ever did or shall commit but that Gods decree of suffering them to fall into those very same sins is antedated infinitely before any such sin is acted Though I shall withall confess that in the very Reprobates God often in a judiciary way punisheth sin with sin turning malum culpae into malum poenae and so Vons avez to my first Argument Your next motion of course is to my second Argument which is thus That which is the efflux and consequence of Reprobation cannot be the cause of it but sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the efflux and consequence of Reprobation Therefore The Major is as clear as the Sun The Minor is proved by these Texts Matth. 11.25 26. Ioh. 6.36 37. Ioh. 8.36 37.
the supply of those graces without which they cannot expect such graces necessary to salvation But I wonder much what vertigo possessed this mans brains when he writes thus of the wisdome of God Is it not below the wisdome that is in men of the world c. do they expect grapes when they plant nothing but brambles do they look for an harvest of wheat in that field in which they sow nothing but tares c. Reverend Sir be serious and tell me who own such a doctrine as teacheth that God plants brambles and soweth tares No Sir for the brambles and tares they were never of Gods planting and sowing but the envious man i. e. the Devil did it and mans nature freely contributed assent unto it we say with Solomon Eccles 7.29 God made man righteous but they have found out many inventions The decree of reprobation implants no evil what it finds not but it doth onely deny to remove that evil that it doth find God in that decree sows no tares but as a righteous Judge he appoints the tares to be bound in bundles and cast into the fire and now let those that have understanding judge what nerves or sinews there are in this your crimination Neither is there much more in that of yours which follows thus But God that excelleth in wisdome doth not so read and consider Isa 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. and see what the Lord himself saith ver 4. what could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes brought it forth wild grapes See also vers 7. and he looked for judgment but behold oppression for righteousness but behold a cry See also Ier. 2.21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine wholly a right seed how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me Answ But I pray kind Sir what would you infer from these places by you alledged for you have drawn no conclusion thence but suspend it wholly upon the readers good liking and therefore by your good licence I will take the boldness to thrust my sickle into your harvest and thence glean these not inforced consectaries 1. That here hence the doctrine of absolute non-election or negative reprobation is strongly confirmed in that those who are so reprobated notwithstanding all the outward means used towards them yet they will not cannot believe or repent but continue in their sins 2. That nothing more on Gods part could be expected either of desert or of right then what he had done to his vineyard onely this that God did do more to that part of the vineyard which he did make fruitful then towards that part which remained barren and that in order to and that antecedently to its fruitfulness 3. That something more was necessary to the conversion of them that were not converted it manifestly appears from hence because that God beyond that which was common to all made a reservation of some according to the election of grace Rom. 9.19 and 11.4 5. viz. by taking away the vail from off their hearts 2 Cor. 3.45 Isa 25.7 and by giving of them a new heart and a new Spirit and writing his laws in their heart Ier. 31.33 Ezek. 11.19 and 36.26 27. 4. That howsoever it be taken yet might God well demand of those unprofitable and disobedient people what could he do more then he had done that he might make them fruitful 1. Because he owed them no more nor so much in exact justice though he might have done more of meer grace and favour 2. Because those means already used were the chiefest in respect of outward means 3. Because they had not done so much as by reason of the means they both ought and might have done 4. Because that none of them herein appealing to their own consciences had askt any thing more of God which he had not granted to them And this I hope will be satisfactory to the ingenuous and from hence I could willingly proceed to his exceptions against my third argument and pass a slur upon some of his frivolous objections and answers wherein he doth onely verba dare wasts time and spoils clean paper with nothing but vapour and smoke But because it may be pretended 1 Cor. 3.12 that there was something substantial in it what wood hay stubble I can find in it I will bring it to the fire that it may be burnt The first objection is thus languaged But it may be objected that God knew that such effects would follow notwithstanding and therefore he could not wait in expectation of better things Answ I deny not but that God in his foreknowledge did know what would come to pass and doth know what men will do before they come to act and yet nothing as from God in respect of his foreknowledge or decree before man had any being doth necessitate or is the cause that doth produce any such effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. and therefore I say that the oppression and unrighteousness that was committed by the house of Israel and men of Iudah was not unknown unto God before it was â—ommitted or that it came to pass without or contrary to his knowledge but it was brought forth directly contrary to the mean that God used towards them or afforded unto them which was of such a nature and tendency had it not been abused to b ing foâ—th those good things that God said he looked so but the contrary was b oâ—ght forth by them and upon this aâ—co m iâ— is th t the Lord hath said to Israel Isa 65. 2. I have stâ—eâ—câ—ed forth mâ— hands all the day unto a rebellious people which wâ—â—â—â— in away that was not good after their own thoughts Yea so â—â— w â—th â—â—ouâ—in â—â—â—ce in â—n from being the effect of Gods de râ—â— of reprobation from before the foundation of the world that he plainly saith Ier. 19.5 that he commanded it not nor spake it neither came it into his mind Answ My very good friend what you say as that nothing in the decree of Reprobation did necessitate or was the cause that doth produce any such effect as a continuance in sin and unbelief c. I yield you as to cause and likewise to necessity so far as to co-action and compulsion But as before I have affirmed as it was a decree of the immutable wil of God which changeth not and proceeding likewise from his prescience resting on that decree and so I say again that it was necessary necessitate immutabilitatis et infallibilitatis that such things would follow notwithstanding expectation of better things which word expectation is used by the Prophet but by an anthropopathy after the manner of men for our better apprehension which signifies nothing else but that God expects and requires from us what our debt and duty is which yet nevertheless is done without any frustration of
his end though that be not done which he requireth of us What you write of the means that they were of such a nature and tendency had they not been abused to bring forth those good things that God said he looked for c. I grant it true in respect of the outward means viz. soyle fruitful place fenced stones gathered choycest vine planted tower built and a wine-press in it But all these were but outward graces common to all the Israelites alike for there was that unum necessarium wanting viz. the inward working of his holy spirit in their hearts by changing of their natures and making of them new creatures taking away their stony hearts and instead thereof giving of them hearts of flesh Ezek. 11.19 and 26.26 without which all the other outward means though elevated to the top of Pisgah will prove altogether ineffectual Your progress holds yet further after this manner But that it doth sometimes seem good in the sight of God to hide the things concerning the kingdome of God and the name of Jesus from the wise and prudent men of this world according to the Scripture by him quoted out of Matth. 11.25 26. I freely grant as he did hide these things from the men of Corazin Bethsaida and Capernaum as a great woe unto them or as the just and righteous judgement of God upon them because they repented not for proof thereof read ver 20. and so downwards Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done Because they repented not and it doth appear that as mighty works were done amongst them and great means given forth of God by Jesus Christ unto them the greater is their condemnation because they embraced it not Answ I wonder Sir what your meaning is to take cognisance of a text of Scripttre by me quoted and yet not to give the least colour of answer to it but onely to pervert the scope of the place and the truth of the thing 1. The scope of that portion of Scripture is an expression of a consolation wherein Christ supports himself as in reference to the Incredulity of the Jews The consolation is raised from the good pleasure of Gods will which had so appointed it It seemed so good unto thee which you altogether obscure without taking notice of it 2. The truth of the thing is by you concealed which rests principally in the distinguishing of persons into two ranks and that arising meerly from the will of God it so seemed good unto him 1. Because to some it is said that it is revealad to others not and that not so much by the preaching of the Gospel for that was common to them both alike but by the inward illumination of their minds by the spirit of God 2. Because the discrimination that is made in the rendring of it to some and hiding of it from others is attributed to Gods separating those parties in the decree of election and reprobation 3. The prime and chief cause of that separation is placed in the good pleasure of Gods will which is the alone foundation and cause of election and non-election Eph. 1.4 5. Rom. 2.11 c. And upon this account was it that the place was by me quoted and so by you slubbered over And the like fair dealing I find in that which followes in your English thus And thus I do confess that God giveth to men the spirit of slumber darkeneth and blindeth their eyes not outwardly but inwardly as this man hath said and also hardeneth and maketh fat their heart but not from before the foundation of the world or from eternity as some do vainly imagine but as the just and righteous judgement of God upon them in time when they come to shut their own eyes and harden their own hearts against the truth in their day of grace see the words of Christ Luk. 19.42 saying If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Also read and consider well for the better clearing of this truth Ps 81.11 to the end Luk. 13.34 35. Rom. 1.24 to the end and mind well the 26. ver for this cause God also gave them them up to vile affections and also ver 28. and even as they did not like to believe God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind And in this sense I do not deny but that sin unbelief may be an effect and consequence of reprobation but this reprobation or being given over of God to a rep obate mind is not solely and singly to be ascribed to the will or decree of God from before the foâ—ndation of the world without any other ground or cause being assigned thereunto by the holy Spirit in the Scripture for there we may see that mans default in not improving what he hath received oâ— may obtain if he be not wanting to himself in good eaâ—nest to seek the grace that God doth so freely tender to the sons of men by Jesus Christ in the Gospel is a cause of it Answ Sir you that have such rare notions who ere did imagine that God from eternity should give men up to a spirit of slumber darkness and blindness of mind that he should harden and make fat hearts T is but one of your slanders which your dull-sighted proselytes will to easily swallow Yet this I do affirm that what you say that God doth all these things in time as a just and righteous judgement So I say all these things did God decree that he would do or permit to be done before all time for there is no new Immanent act in God but all whatsoever he in time doth or that he doth permit others to do those very samethings are so decreed by God to be done and likewise so decreed to be permitted to be done by others Ruminate on this and for the rest I may dismiss without contradiction having not much to say to reprobation in time Your next objection that you make to your self is this Obj. But this tendeth to the exaltation of the creature Ans That indeed is that false report that is cast upon us in these dayes and upon the truth that we profess but I know not what gâ—ound they have for it except it be this because we sometime use the word self in our speaking or writing but upon that acâ—ount they may as well say that Peter was a Free-willer or one that exalted the creature because he said Acts 2.40 save your selves from this untoward generation and also they may as well charge the same upon Paul because he said 1 Tim. 4.16 Take heed unto thy self and to thy doctrine continue in them for in so doing thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee But we are so far from setting up any wisdome strength or power of our own that we do aâ—knowledge that we 1 Cor. 4.7 have
of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his wayes past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his counsellour To which I answer first that had I not been acquainted with the blindness of these men that love to be called of men Rabbi or Master I should have been taken up with admiration that one boasting so much of schollarship should make a parcel of Arguments directly against the truth and yet should appear no better the one with the other In this first Argument in answer to this Position he giveth out as if the will of God were solely and singly the cause of reprobation and that no other cause can be assigned for it either of sin unbelief or rejecting the means but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous will as in the preamble to his Argument and in the minor proposition of the Argument it self he saith the Scripture assignes Reprobation solely to Gods will and yet in this third Argument he strongly calleth in question the truth of all this in giving out as if the true and undoubted cause cannot be assigned or as if that which solely singly was the cause of Reprobation were not the true and undoubted cause of it what a piece of confused stuff is this let them that have understanding judge Answ Truly I do not malice but rather pity this simple sophister who doth Nodum in scripo querere peeps about for contradictions in my Arguments whereas if a man be not blinded through prejudice he shall find a most harmonious concord Sir I willingly pass by your scandalous Ironies of blindness Rabbi Master boasting of scholarship as unworthy of a return but I now tell you t is very true that in my first Argument and so indeed al along I do ascribe non-election or Reprobation solely and singly to the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous will But I pray Sir make it to appear how in this third Argument I do trip up the heels of my former Argument calling into question the truth of all this as though the true and undoubted cause could not be assigned or that the will of God were not solely and singly the cause of Reprobation Curious Sir learn this from me that he that doth exclude all outward causes as to Reprobation which are transient and in time are acted in and by the creature doth not thereby exclude all inward causes which are immanent immutable and eternal resting in the bosome and breast of God himself which we call his will and good pleasure now the first we deny this later we affirm to be the alone cause of Reprobation That which makes the decree of non-election or Reprobation to be mysterious and unsearchable is not because there is no cause of it at all for I have affirmed the will of God to be the inward and eternal cause thereof but this is that for which the Apostle calls it mysterious because that no external cause can be assigned but that the further that men out of curiosity or rather desperate boldness have attempted to find out an external cause the more they have entangled themselves and the more have they intrencht upon the holy majesty of God And therefo e where in all the holy Scripture the Spirit of God hath not a tongue to speak of any such external cause or causes of eternal reprobation there must not Gods people have an ear to hear but in defect of an external cause to ascribe all to the internal viz. the good will and pleasure of God himself 2 Thes 1.7 1 Cor. 13.12 Phil. 3.15 who hath no otherwise been pleased in his revealed word to give any other account unto us of such his actings besides his own will But when the Lord Iesus shall be revealed and that we do behold him face to face this which now is unto us a mystery and unsearchable by reason of humane frailty God shall then reveal even this unto us and in the mean time let us lay our hands upon our mouthes Rom. 11.33 and with admiration say O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out And now my good friend let those that have understanding judge whether this of mine be a piece of confused stuff or that it rather be not simplicity in grain in you to suppose a contradiction in that which doth most strongly confirm what is most destructive to your Position but such crude stuff as you have here vented is as ordinary with you as your meat and drink But you proceed further 3. Again why doth he say If sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are the onely causes why God reprobates any what need he put in that expression onely since the position doth not say expresly that it is any cause at all but that God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation c. and these he reprobated and if that sort or kind of people that continue in sin and unbelief and reject the means of salvation be not those that God doth reprobate then let him shew us by plain Scripture-proof who or what sort of people they be that so they may be known But the truth of it is that he can find no expression in the position that he can except against and therefore he putteth expressions into his Arguments which be of his own making and them he quarrels at and shews what great absurdities follow when there is no such thing in the position But I have followed him a litle in owning his expressions as far as they will stand with the truth viz. that rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief are in some measure the cause of Reprobation and through the good hand of my God upon me have proved it by Scripture And notwithstanding this man hath so strongly opposed it in his two first Arguments in answer to this position yet one would think by what he saith in this third Argument that he were a little inclinable to be of my mind or otherwise why doth he use those words the onely cause if he do not in some measure grant these things to be a cause of Reprobation Answ Sir if the word onely disgust your palate let it be expunged and yet the Argument will hold well enough without it and when so I will never stand quarrelling upon the punctilio of a word And whereas you say that the position doth not say expresly that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are causes of Reprobation I yield you for surely every one of your positions are as so many gins and snares and that generation of men that are of your judgement ordinarily your positions are so intricate and involved so full of Amphibologies equivocations and mental reservations that you onely stand at the catch
9.21 22 23. Ioh. 15.19 Ephes 2.1 23. Children of wrath as well as others Rom. 3.10 and ver 20. None righteous no not one 4. Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.11 in not assigning sin to be the cause of Reprobation 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to those objections Rom. 9.13 19. The first is If God Reprobated Esau because he hated him he was unjust The second ver 9. Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will for he might in one word have answered to both objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. When they had done neither good no evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated 6. Thereby we confine Gods infinite soveraignty over the creatures to the narrow scantling of our subordinate power as though he might not do with his own what he list without our controll and not make a vessel either to honour or dishonour unless he were accountable to us for a reason of his so doing Answ 1. I cannot but take notice of his evil dealing in the making of his Arguments that he should make no less then ten Arguments against two Positions and not one in all the ten that answers to either of them now as I have said before I must be constrained to say yet once more that the Position doth not say that foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejection of the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation but the Position saith God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation to wit free tenders of Christ in the Gospel continuing in sin and unbelief c. which word continuing is forgotten and not mentioned in all the Arguments but I must not abate him that expression Continuing lest I should be guilty of letting the truth suffer through my negligence for if he had put in that expression into his Argument and framed his Argument accordingly to have answered the Position as it lyeth there could not one absurdity have followed but yet I shall examine your absurdities particularly to see whether they follow from the Position or any thing that we hold or whether they will all prove to be absurdities yea or no. Answ There are a sort of beggers that give them what you will to yield to their craving natures yet they are never satisfied Some of our children are of such pettish and peevish dispositions that answer what you will to their wanton fancies yet they are never contented Sir take it not amiss that I must rate you with one of these two though I have given you ten to two the least of which might have been satisfactory to a rational man yet nothing will convince you but that you are stil grumbling that my answers and Arguments hit not your positions because I bring not every several word of your Positions into my Arguments severally therefore you say they are not framed against what you do hold Sir before this I did not conceive that the rules of arguing limited men to such punctilioes of words but if that any thing might be necessarily deduced from the Positions besides the bare letters and words of the Position it might have been a warrantable way of argumentation let the word continuing be put into any or every of the Arguments and you will get nothing by it nor will it abate any of those absurdities I have already marked out to flow from your doctrine If the subtilty of any of your party have drawn out and stated your Positions so as to lye at the catch for a starting-hole when you feel your selves pincht by an Argument it will prove but a jadish trick to shift your necks out of the collar by saying such expressions are not in the position or this contains not all that is in the position Howsoever it is these your concessions and owned by you as they are stated by me will convince you that though your position be God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation c. and those he reprobates c. yet your reserved meaning is that the foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejection of the means of salvation be the cause of Reprobation and indeed what can be less collected thence God saw some men rejecting of the means of salvation those he reprobates and why did he reprobate those that did reject the means rather then those that did embrace the means of salvation but onely for this because they did reject the means so that the rejecting of the means according to you must be the cause of their Reprobation and hence it is that p. 33. of your Pamphlet you set down these words in a great and distinct character because they receive not the love of the truth and for this cause God shall send them strong delusions But I will quarrel no more about words but see how you will shake off those absurdities laid at the door of your position But hereby the way let it be taken notice of that you have not swept the door of your former position clean from those absurdities which cleave fast unto it but you have skipt them all over because in deed they were too hot for your fingers onely you make an adventure to have a fling at the sixth absurdity flowing from that former position by comparing it with the first that flowes from this concerning which thus you write Absurdities answered And I shall compare the first absurdity as he calleth it with that sixth or last absurdity which he putteth to his sixth Argument in answer to the second position viz. God saw some men embracing the means of salvation those he elected in Christ c. and there he giveth out as if such an absurdity must needs follow that no children dying in infancy could be saved saying what then would become of children dying in infancy before they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of the means which never had being to act and to this he saith that such an absurdity as this must needs follow that no child dying in infancy can possibly be reprobated Now whether two such different things can follow these two positions I shall leave to the judgement of others that have understanding Answ Sir if any Lyncean eyes can spy out the least inconsistency or contradiction between those two absurdities laid to your charge to say they clash one against another according to your principles ce do quemvis arbitrum I appeal to any that hath understanding to judge And yet you have not so much confidence as to make out this your supposed enterfering you onely speak to the absurdities apart thus To the first of these he seemeth to make their election to eternal life very doubtful if at all possible and the ground or reason is because that children dying in infancy have not the use of faith or works Answ T is true Sir I do so according to
universal assurance of their happiness in case there were and that all this that you have said were truth I suppose there were much more cause for believers to beg of God their infants death then with David in prayer to seek their life there being as you say full assurance of their happiness dying and so much fear of their condemnation living to see the temptations to which in their growth they are subject Nay if no child dying in infancy shall ever be cast into the lake of fire what should then deny but that it should be enrolled in the Chronicles as the mercifullest act that Herod ever did in all his life Mat. 2.16 when he commanded that all the male children in Bethlehem from two years old and under should be murthered for had they live to ripe years probably they would have filled up the measure of their fathers Mat. 23.32 and contributed as much and had their hands dipt as deep in the blood of Christ as any other of their brethren and therefore Herod to be as a blessed memorable butcherous murtherer that sent so many poor souls as Martyrs to heaven by the sleight of hand who had been like never to come thither had it not been for his merciful cruelty Yea you your self might be registred as the most indulgent father who for the saving of the souls of your children would expose your own to loss by cutting of your childrens throats as soon as they were born and so posting of them to heaven before their due time whereas perhaps if they had lived so long as with their mothers milk to have suckt in the venome of your principles and positions they might have endangered both body and soul from ever coming thither But what horrible things are these to think of I am amazed to write it and yet consectaries that without any inforcement might very well flow from your positions viz. that no child dying in infancy before they come to have a being to act shall ever be cast into the lake of fire which is the second death Whereas we do affirm that children as well as others being the objective subjects of Predestination and so considered as in the corrupt lump and mass of perdition with the rest of all the posterity and brood of old Adam according to the eternal and immutable decree proceeding from the sole good pleasure of Gods most holy will 1 Sam. 25.29 the souls of some of them are bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord their God and the souls of the rest being past over or not elected they shall be flung out as out of the middle of a sling But yet for confirmation of what you here assert you do endeavour cum ratione insanire to have some reason for this your wild assertion and next you basely prostitute the pure and undefiled word of God to fortifie your first I shall undertake them both in their order and by Gods assistance shall first prescribe you a pill to purge this your melancholy frenzy and next shall rescue those Scriptures by you alledged out of your hands giving them to speak in that peculiar sense they were at first intended by the holy Ghost And first my learned Antagonist had you placed the ground of your hope distributively viz. upon the children of believers you might have had some foundation for it because the promise of the Covenant doth no less appertain to Infants then to those of ripe years Gen. 17.7 I will be a God to thee and to thy seed The promise is to you and to your children Acts 2.39 Acts 2.39 But whereas you take it collectively and universally including therein the children of Turks Jews Pagans Infidels you have neither rule nor word nor promise for any such hope that they shall be saved And now the first reason that you produce for your Infantissimous assertion that no child in infancy shall ever be cast into the lake of fire is Because they not having the use of those faculties as hearing together with the use of reason to understand what is spoken and being not capable of any embracing of the means and which never had a being to act therefore they cannot reject the means of salvation Sir for this time admit it so that children cannot hear nor have not the use of reason Sir neither can those that are born deaf nor Ideots nor madmen in what state or rank will you then place them And for the rejecting of the means of salvation neither can they that never enjoyed the means reject it and in what squadron will you place them And therefore this assertion of yours is grounded on a false supposition that God cannot or at least he will not or doth not regenerate without the word heard understood and embraced but good Sir I must tell you that what expressions are used in Scripture as necessarily requiring the hearing of the word and receiving of the means it speaks of to such as are in a capacity so to hear it and receive it viz. those of ripe years and rationalists and where the Scripture is silent viz. as to children deaf or fools do not you undertake to determine without Gods advice and counsel but leave all the work as I do to Gods secret decree of predestination wherein he may do with his own what his good will and pleasure is either to save or to damn without the control of any And though we in a charitable way may hope the best of all those children that are born within the compass of the Covenant viz. of believing parents yet how God is pleased to bring his purpose to pass in the saving of any one of them is to me and sober-minded men as inscrutable as is the fashioning of their tender bodies in their mothers wombs and it is enough to me that we may hope well of them because God by his promise hath ingaged himself wherein he cannot lye 2 Tim. 2. Tit. 1.2 nor deny himself to be a God in covenant not with us onely but with our children likewise and were it not upon the account of the decree of election which is the foundation of all the promise wherein God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardens and that not for any thing of good either done or foreseen but meerly out of his own good pleasure we should have just cause to doubt that all children dying in infancy should unavoidably be damned Besides my good friend have you yet learnt or do you understand what it is that doth regenerate If you ascribe this work to the word heard as it seems you do you are mainly mistaken 2 Cor. 3.6 The word of it self is but a dead Letter at best it is but a moral instrument and therefore it can never operate unless it be understood which can never he by one that is as yet unregenerate 1 Cor. 2.14 for the natural man receiveth not the
a can or a will I mean power or desire that there is neither of them in professed Christians Phil. 2.13 but what is of Gods own working who giveth both to will and to do according to his good pleasure And as for the heathen instead of doing or any desires thereunto as to good there is nothing but backwardness indisposition aversness yea an enmity against any thing that is really good at least in a saving way But alas what persons or cause is there in the world that are so base and degenerate that cannot suborne some luxuriant tongues to plead their case though never so abominable I have now done with this and so proceed to hear what you can speak for your selfe in the defence of the position from the third absurdity which is this The third absurdity If the foresight of sin should be the cause of reprobation then the elect should be equally lyable to the decree of reprobation as the reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams transgression Answ See how he minceth his argument that he may bring forth absurdities from his own expressions and then father them upon us In the front of his argument he putteth in unbelief and the rejecting of the means but leaveth out the word continuing and now he hath thrust out all except it be this one single term Sin that he may bring reprobation to eternal destruction to the narrow scantling of Adams transgression but that shall never be granted by me until I see a better proof for it than he hath yet brought and I can allow him more Scriptures then he hath set down to his argument Iob 14.4 and 15.14 Psal 51.5 all which together with the Scriptures he bringeth do I confess prove that the whole lump of mankind is polluted with Sin and I deny not but that this pollution or corruption is in a measure from Adams transgression but that any ones being reprobated to everlasting destruction in the lake of fire which is the second death is for Adams transgression I deny for although all the fruits and effects of that sin in the first Adam do accompany us untill we come to the dust from whence we were taken which is Gen. 3.16 17 18 19. Womens sorrow being multiplyed and their conception and bringing forth children in sorrow together with the curse that is upon the ground for mans sake so as that man must eat of it in sorrow all the dayes of his life eating bread in the sweat of his face being accompanied with pain and sickness which are the companions of death till he return to the ground for out of it was he taken for saith God dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return and this was the sentence of that condemnation that God hath pronounced against the first Adam or 1 Cor. 15.27 earthy man and we being then in him when the sin was committed and the sentence pronounced we have our part with him in these things as our portion in this life for the original sin or first transgression But the holy Spirit in Scripture doth no where declare as I could ever yet find nor as any one could ever yet shew me that mans reprobation to the second death is for being in Adams sin nor for sin in their own persons no nor yet for unbelief simply so considered but for continuing in sin and unbelief For if they do repent confess and forsake their sins they shall find mercy and be saved as hath been already proved and if the elect should continue in sin and unbelief and not repent and believe or imbrace the means of Salvation they should be equally lyable to the decree of Reprobation as the reprobates themselves and there would be no difference but they in repenting believing and embracing the means of salvation fall under the unchangeable decree of Gods election so as they cannot miss of salvation as hath been already shewed Answ Truly Sir before this I did not rightly apprehend where the shooe did wring but now I find that it is Original sin that pinches you so sore that you cannot well endure the name of it which had I foreseen I would not have minced any thing in the Argument no not so much as the continuing in sin for howsoever it is that we affirm that Original sin is an hereditary disease which every soul brings with it into the world yet it leaves not a man suddenly no not when he is regenerate but continues to the end of a mans dayes It is the very last enemy of ours that death destroyes so that in respect of this Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet dici beatus Now what you have to say against our doctrine of Original sin I find not much in this your discourse for this you grant First that the whole lump of mankind is polluted with sin and which pollution as you say flows from Adams transgression And secondly that all the fruits and effects of that sin do accompany us till death there is onely then your bare denial that eternal death is not the reward or wages of this sinful pollution the contrary whereof is incumbent on me to prove to make my charge good against you with that third absurdity Now to prove that the first sin of Adam was ours not because he is our father by nature though that be a ground of the imputation also but because he is such a father by Covenant and law the law and Covenant of works being laid in pawn in his hand we are to understand that there be three parts in Original sinne 1. First a partaking of the first sin of Adam we all sinned in him Rom. 5.12 14 15. 2. Secondly the want of the Image of God Rom. 3.23 called the glory of God or original righteousness 3. Thirdly Concupiscence or a bentness or proneness of nature unto sin Rom. 7.7 14 17 23 24. As to the first Adams sin is ours really and truly not so much because it is ours as because it is imputed to be ours by God who so contrived the law of works as that it should be made with Adam not as a single father or person but with Adam as a publique person representing all mankind and having our common nature as a father both by nature and law which came from the meer free-will of God He was as the root and stock of all mankind Rom. 5.19 By one mans disobedience many were made sinners i. e. morally and legally but not physically and personally the fruit and effect of which is death and damnation for Rom. 6.23 The wages of sin is death not onely temporal or natural death but as the Apostles Antithesis necessarily carries it spiritual and eternal death in opposition to eternal life acquired by Jesus Christ the second Adam Yea and the whole series and purport of the Apostles discourse Rom. 5.12 to ver 19. carries this clear that every mouth may be stopped
because he loved him less than he did Iacob Gen. 29.31 Thus Leah was said to be hated by Iacob comparatively with the love shewed to Rachel because she was less beloved then Rachel so he that serves two masters will hate the one and love the other i. e. will love him less then the other And thus God loves the reprobates less than he doth the elect but it cannot hence be concluded that the Lord doth absolutely hate any creature of his own making â—en 1.31 for they were all good yea very good and Wisd 11.24 thou lovest all things that are and abhorrest nothing that thou hast made T is true God hates sin because he made it not and this hatred hath an influx upon the sinner as he is a sinner because God made him not so But God hates not a non-elected person or a reprobate as he is a reprobate neither doth he condemne him or decree to condemne him for his negative reprobation which is Gods act Isa 55.8 but for his sin which is mans act Secondly I say that this hatred in God his wayes not being like our waies is not to be considered as to hold proportion with the passions and affections of men in their hatred For this confusion or indistinct consideration or comparison of divine things with humane is that great witchcraft that puts such a stumbling-bloâ—k in the way to the knowledge of things that we cannot discover the truth thereof with so discerning an eye as otherwise we might And therefore though I do attribute hatred to God yet that hatred in God anteceding reprobation or which is assigned as a cause of reprobation is nothing else but Gods absolute will of denying that special benefit of effectual grace and infallible direction unto eternal life and permitting some men by their own defective freewill deservedly to fall under the misery of eternal death And therefore in some sort I may say that the hatred of God is as much visible and doth as sensibly discover it self in the denyal of effectual grace as in the inflicting of the torments of hell For God the Father wounded bruised tormented the soul of his dear Son for our sins without any diminution of his love unto him But he never denied him effectual grace whereby he had an immunity from sin And therefore say some It is more desirable to have the benefit of effectual grace whereby we are preserved safe in the love of God than to obtain an immunity from the torments of hell Christ was not exempted from this last though he was never excluded from the former Thirdly I would here distinguish of the hatred of God as it signifies in him first his affection or secondly his effection if I may use such a word or otherwise the effects of his affection though I do confess that these affections as of love hatred anger c. are not properly in God but are attributable to him ex anthropopathia by similitude and resemblance First for the hatred of God as it is an affection so it doth precede Reprobation it being the will and purpose of God to deny grace to such whom he will not elect which is that whith we call reprobation Secondly the hatred of God as it signifies an effect to wit the execution of that hatred anger wrath inflicted on sinners and so it follows reprobation To summe up all in a few words that God bare less love to his creature Esau then to Iacob is manifest That that lesser degree of love which he bare to Esau may comparatively to that manifested to Iacob be called hatred That God may deny some grace to one that he bestowes upon another without injustice that equall grace is not given to Esau as to Iacob That those who from the love of God are not elected by a necessary consequence must be reprobated or not elected Ephes 1.4 5 6 7. 2.4 5. or loved with a lesser love The love of God was the cause of our election and therefore the lesser love or hatred the cause of our reprobation And now Sir if you peruse this what I have here said you may easily answer your own frivolous question And yet I must withal tell you that though I do affirm that God reprobated Esau or did not elect him onely because he would not it was not the good pleasure of his will so to do or it was his wil absolute not to do it that he denied that favour to him that he shewed to Iacob and so may be said to hate him without any external cause lookt upon as in Esau why he should be reprobated rather than Iacob neither of them having done either good or evil yet there was an internal cause of the hatred or reprobation namely the good pleasure of Gods most holy will for the manifestation of his own glory in his power and justice And therefore God cannot without blasphemy be compared to the envious Jews who howsoever they hated the man Christ Jesus without a cause yet God had a cause motive or incentive from within himself even the manifestation of his own glory in shewing his power and justice on those so reprobated which glory of his is more precious and to be prefered before the saving and preserving from the torments of hell the persons of all both men and Angels and yet withal I say that the vindictive punishment of God or positive reprobation which is Gods appointing to torments and hatred of God as it is an effect of the former is never inflicted without a just and meritorious cause viz. the sin of man And thus much to what you answer to the first objection to the second you write thus To the second I have already shewed that Paul directed his words to the Jew who rested in the law and made his boast of God and was confident that he was in the way of God and thence it was that he said thou wilt say unto me who hath resisted his will But Paul had more than the single term sin to assigne as a cause of their being reprobated blinded or broken off from their own olive-tree to wit a continuance in sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation when the hands of the Lord were stretched forth unto them all the day long and yet they were a disobedient and gainsaying people Answ To this I have already answered pag. 115. that the words were directed to the Gentiles to which I refer the Reader And whereas afterwards you say that Paul had more then that single term to assigne as a cause of their being reprobated blinded broken off c. to wit a continuance in sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation Sir this is but gratis dictum you onely say but cannot prove it shew me any such expression in this whole chapter wherein this text alledged lies yea or any where else in all the Scripture It is true those words of yours of the Lords hands stretched
when I meet it in its due place I shall then encounter it In the mean time for what is comprehended in this Section If I should yield you all I should receive no loss by it not your cause any advantage and therefore I shall dismiss it with the appendant question and answers without further trouble to my self or the Reader Onely let me tell you that so far as I perceive by your discourse you have not dived into the bottom of the absurdity contracted to your self by your Position which doth assert that the rejection of that means of salvation viz. the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel and continuing in sin and unbelief are the causes of reprobation as conceiving it inconsistent with the justice mercy and wisdom of God to reprobate without these causes whereas our constant affirmation is that the sole good will and pleasure of God is the alone and single cause of non election or negative reprobation from eternity God having that absolute power over his creature as that it rests solely in his will not to elect him but to suffer him to sin and so to run himself into eternal perdition and that therefore those who are contrary minded that do imagine that this absolute non election cannot well consist with the divine attributes as his justice mercy wisdom c. as you do in your strange acclamation p. 16. Then you do confine the infinite soveraignty of God that he hath over his creature as though he might not do with his own what he list without our controll but as I have shewed he may either annihilate or cast into hell whom he pleaseth as Lord Paramount But to this you have spoken nothing at all as to this reprobation all that you have said is to a Gospel declaratory way that no man gainsayes neither is it the subject of this our present discourse But you further write And so it cometh to pass that those two different events which do or shall befall the sons of men which is salvation to all that sort or kind of people that do imbrace the means and believe in Jesus Christ and reprobation and everlasting destruction to the other sort or kind of people that do continue in sin and unbelief rejecting the means of salvation and these two different events come to pass according to that purpose and decree of God which was from before the foundation of the world but the decree of God which was before time doth not necessitate thse different actings of men that came forth in their generations in time which is the penitency faithfulness and obedience of those that thereby come to be under the decree of election to everlasting life nor the impenitency unbelief and disobedience of those that for that cause fall under the decree of reprobation to everlasting destruction no more then the law and decree that was made by the Governours of this Nation many ages and generations past concerning the protection of honest men and the punishment of them that do evil But as the decree that was made as aforesaid many ages and generations past since it was made is yet a tendency and conducement if it be considered of to lead all men to live honestly So the decree of God that was before time and published or made known to the sons of men in time is so far from the necessitating men to do wickedly viz. to continue in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation that it is of such tendency and conducement upon the right consideration thereof in respect of the great benefit on the one hand to be the portion of penitent and obedient persons believing in Jesus Christ and the great woe and misery on the other hand that doth and will befal all those that continue in sin and unbelief and reject the means of salvation that it doth I say being considered of as aforesaid tend strongly to the perswading of all ungodly persons speedily to break of their sins by righteousness and their iniquities by cleaving unto Jesus Christ in believing and walking in that truth undoubtedly they shall be saved Answ T is right Sir what you say that there is salvation for one sort of people and destruction for another sort of people and that according to the decree of God from all eternity But when you are put to it notwithstanding the decree all may be saved and none damned or all may be damned and none saved for you do not affirm that God hath purposed any thing as to persons but meerly as to qualifications T is likewise true we say as you that he that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned and this is according to decree but this is not all that is decreed for some particulars he hath elected others he hath not elected but reprobated those whom he hath elected he hath likewise decreed to give them faith and therefore it is called the faith of Gods elect Tit. 1.1 The rest he hath decreed not to give them he hath denied them that grace he did not bear so much of love unto them as to those he did elect It is likewise true what you say that the decrees of God do not necessitate the different actings of men if you mean such a necessity as of compulsion or coaction but if we have a respect unto a necessity either of infallibility or immutability and so Quicquid fit necessario fit in respect of these all things that are are necessarily so as they are for Gods foresight cannot be deceived and his decrees cannot be changed But of this sufficiently hath been spoken before pag. 95. and 96. To what you say that the published decrees of God are of such a tendency and conducement to the perswading of men to forsake their sins and believe in Jesus Christ I deny not but that those decrees which are so published in the Scriptures may be of the like import as some other portions of Scripture are viz. of tendency to perswade men to forsake their sins and believe in Jesus Christ But I must tell you that they are onely morally and instrumentally so and not physically they work onely on the outward man they cannot change the heart that is Gods chamber of presence Prov. 21.1 there is his throne alone t is he alone that changeth that and turnes it as the rivers of water Phil. 1.29 2 Tim. 3.25 Ezek. 11.19 Rom. 8.15 2 Co. 5.14 Joh. 1.12 Cant. 8.6 Were those decrees published unto men every houre yet they can never work faith until that God shall give them to believe and repent and take away their stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh Somewhat they may do by setting forth the danger and horror of a reprobate estate and so to bring a man under the Spirit of bondage to fear but surely it is the alone love of Jesus Christ that hath a constraining power to put a man into a capacity
he doth not say that they might have it out of their own strength without special grace but this exhortation implicitly teacheth First what duty is incumbent on us for our part to performe and yet it doth not acknowledge strength enough in us to performe the duty Secondly it shews us what is best for us viz. to choose life rather then death Thirdly such places are as tutors to us to informe us of our natural infirmity when therein we find that we are no waies able to do as we are commanded Luk. 17.10 but that when we have done our best we are unprofitable servants Fourthly this will be as a spur to put us on to prayer to seek that at Gods hands which we cannot compass by our own strength Da Domine quod jubes et jube quod vis Give us Lord power to do what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt Fifthly such exhortations the Spirit of God ordinarily makes use of in converting of sinners there accompanying the inward energetical working and power of the Spirit of God with the outward ministery of the word it was the power of Christ Joh. 11.43 Ro. 1.20 and not the bare words of Lazarus come forth that raised him Sixtly yea such exhortations are useful to make the wicked inexcusable Seventhly t is to this end that when the wicked are punished the justice of God might be vindicated Isa 5.4 What could have been done more Those two other places Heb. 11.24.25 and Luk. 10.42 where you set out the word choosing in capital letters as though they would have beheaded al the arguments brought against your freewil yet speak little to the purpose as to a liberty of choosing that which is good in a person unregenerate for that they must speak or else it were as good that they held their peace as to your cause now in hand For as for that of Moses First I look upon him not as then an unregenerate person but as one of the people and houshold of God Secondly neither are you ever able to prove that this was his first choice as to the waies of God but that he was better principled before this Thirdly the choice which he is here said to make was but a meer civil choice viz when Pharaohs daughter had adopted him for her child when he came to years and well understood his pedegree whence his descent was he then disclaimed this adoptive honour and was not further willing to dissemble his nation and to act for the Egyptians against his own brethren according to the flesh but chose rather to profess himself an Hebrew of the Hebrews Heb. 11. though he suffered affliction with them T is true it s said he had an eye to the recompence of the reward but then surely that must be in his heart before ever he could make any such choice and then what will this place be to the purpose as to persons unregenerate And for that choice of Maries likewise the most you can make of it is but an external spiritual good to choose rather to hear a sermon than to provide a dinner to prefer to hear Christ preaching than how she might give him curious entertainment and this its possible for one to do and yet to go to hell after the sermon is ended Mar. 6.20 Act. 12.21 Herod made choice to hear Iohn Baptist and the text saith that he heard him gladly and yet what became of Herod it is an easy matter to judge without any breach of charity And thus you shake hands at parting with freewill and return to your in and out discourse after this manner And thus when men and women come to repent and be changed from dead works and embrace the means of salvation and believe in Jesus Christ they then come to be such a sort or kind of people that it was in the purpose and decree of God which was from before the foundation of the world to elect justifie in the end eternally to save and the decree of God which was from before time cometh to be actually put in execution upon them in order to their being made vessels of honour when they come to embrace the means as aforesaid and will be fully accomplished when it shall be said unto them Mat. 25.34 Come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdome which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world Answ Surely Sir a man had need to have a great deal of patience and much time to spare that can be content to follow you up and down with your so many wrenches and turnings and windings that at first sight one can scarce discover what the subject is you have in hand for here you hunt counter and tell us what sort or kind of people those are whom God did decree to elect justifie and save from before the foundation of the world which hath been often answered to and proved that they were such persons whom God had a love unto and from that love did elect them out of the corrupt lump and likewise did decree to give them faith and repentance to sanctifie their natures and justifie their persons and at the last eternally to save them Yea even those individual persons were so decreed as aforesaid and no other Rev. 21.27 13.8 20.15 whose names were found written in the Lambs book of life and that whosoever were not found written in that book that they should have their portion in the lake which is the second death God did not decree to elect and justifie and save individuum vagums or qualifications to be found no man knows where nor when for so it might be that for all that election by you imagined yet no man might be saved if no man would believe or repent and indeed no man could if God did not give them to believe and give them repentance to salvation And having done with this extravagancy you have one fling more at the business you should look at and this it is And this is that which God hath done not in order to any confinement of himself to any subordinate power in us but in order to the doing of that which he purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began for our good and it hath been the good will and pleasure of God to be so far accountable unto us of these things for our comfort and consolation in Jesus Christ that if any shall say unto us who be the vessels of mercy which God hath afore prepared unto glory that we can say Rom. 9.24 even us whom he hath called not of the Iews onely but also of the Gentiles Yea it hath been the good will and pleasure of our God so to make known the mystery of his will unto us in the Scripture that he or they whosoever they be that do with delight embrace the mean of salvation and retain the words of Christ Heb. 2.1 See the margin and not let them slip or
run out as leaking vessels and 2 Tim. 2.21 purge themselves from error sin and uncleanness shall be vessels unto honour sanctified and meet for the Masters use and prepared unto every good work And we do find in the Scripture that all those actings of God in a way of mercy in order to the everlasting good of his creature come from him with abundance of willingness freeness and delight for he is a God that delighteth in mercy Mich. 7.18 Answ Sir you onely speak here of Gods not consining himself to any subordinate power but you prosecute not the point as it is laid to your charge We with the Sctiptures do affirm Gods absolute purpose or the good pleasure of his most holy will is the alone cause of non-election or Reprobation and not the rejecting of the means to wit the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel and the continuing in sin and unbelief are not the causes as you assert pretending that if these be not assigned causes then God would be unjust or unmerciful to the creature hereupon we say that if God may not do with his creature what seems best to him in his own eyes without rendring a reason of his actings but that his attributes must be called into question this is to limit and confine the infinite soveraignty that God hath over all the creation and to suffer worms and dust to controll majesty But to this Sir hitherto you have said nothing To what you say of that place 2 Tim. 2.21 that it is the good will and pleasure of our God whosoever they be that delight to embrace the means of salvation and purge themselves from error sin and uncleaneness shall be vessels unto honour is very true and good in that sense it was intended by the Spirit of God but neither true nor good in that sense it is by you applied and made use of For first of all you suppose that it is in their own power to purge themselves from error sin and uncleanness whereas this is Gods peculiar work to purge us from our sins and purely to purge away our dross and to wash us with clean water and to turn us to himself and then we shall be sure to be turned all our strength to performe such a taske is else altogether insufficient Your second couchant error here is that you conceive this purging of themselves will hereby make them vessels of honour but I say this their purging was no cause at all of their being vessels of honour but it was onely a means of the discovery of it wherein they might have comfort and consolation Before even from all eternity by that decree of election they were out of that lump of perdition made vessels unto honour or vessels of mercy which God had afore prepared unto glory but when the times of refreshing come Rom. 9.21.23 Gal. 1.16 Heb. 9.14 and that the Lord is pleased to reveal his son in them and that such his secret decree comes to be put in execution in time by God his giving of faith and repentance and purging their consciences from dead dead works to serve the living God then they shall be vessels unto honour unto their own comfort and to the good example of others Such a manner of speech there is Ioh. 5.8 Herein is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my Disciples Now they were his Disciples before but the meaning is that by bearing of fruit they should approve themselves both to their own consciences and to the world besides that they were the Disciples of Christ Neither is that which follows altogether so sound where you write But on the other hand in respect of what he doth in the making forth of his justice in the punishment of his creature for sin and impenitency he doth it not until he is provoked thereunto even 2 Chron. 36.16 untill there is no remedy for the Lord is Psal 19.1 and 145.8 slow to anger and of great mercy and hath Ezek. 33.11 no pleasure in the death of the wicked And therefore although that the embracing of the means repenting and believing in Jesus Christ be no procuring ground or cause of any the least mercies we do enjoy yet the continuing in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation is a procuring of punishment see Ier. 2.17 Hast thou not procured this unto thy self in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God when he led thee by the way also ch 4.18 thy way and thy doings hath procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness because it reacheth unto thine heart Answ Sir though it be very true that the continuing in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation be the procuring cause of punishment in time but not the cause of the decree of negative reprobation before time Yet where you say that God doth not make forth his justice in punishing until he be provoked Sir I cannot allow you so much to take this universally For tell me if you can how those infants had provoked God in the general deluge Gen. 7. when they were swept away with the rest of the wicked world or those infants in the combustion of Sodom Gen. 19. how had they communicated in pride fulness of bread and idleness with the rest of the citizens or what confederacy was there in those infants in the rebellion of Corah Numb 16. that they descended likewise with their fathers into the pit or how had those women been a provocation whose wombes were shut in the case of Abimelech Gen. 20. 2 Sam. 24.17 or those sheep the people of Israel what had they done when they suffered that havock by the pestilence when seventy thousand men were destroyed No Sir in many cases there is no visible provocation besides the original depravation of corrupt nature which through the want of original righteousness doth justly deserve wrath and punishment In some it is not for any sin either in them or their Parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in them Joh. 9.3 But for other cases take the rest and make the most of them And now to fill up your pamphlet and for want of better stuffe you obtrude upon us a leathern tale of your own observation and this it is And I can yet remember when I have been a hearer of these men which have taken unto themselves the title of Clergy as if they onely were the heritage of the Lord and none besides them speak much to this purpose that God was abundantly more prone to shew mercy than to execute wrath and have earnestly prest their hearers to the use of means calling upon them to be careful to come to Church as they call it and to heare sermons saying thou dost not know when Gods time is therefore give attendance to the means If thou art careless in coming and wilt come but now and then thou mayest be