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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43716	Patro-scholastiko-dikaiōsis, or, A justification of the fathers and the schoolmen shewing, that they are not self-condemned for denying the positivity of sin. Being an answer to so much of Mr. Tho. Pierce's book, called Autokatakrisis, as doth relate to the foresaid opinion. By Hen: Hickman, fellow of Magdalene Colledge, Oxon.	Hickman, Henry, d. 1692.	1659 (1659)	Wing H1911A; ESTC R217506	59,554	166

admiration Hist of the Counc of Trent lib. 2. pag. 212. he speaking of the debates in that Assembly concerning these two opinions thus expresseth himself The first opinion which is the opinion Mr. P. so declaimes against as it is hidden and mystical keeping the minde humble and relying on God without any confidence in it self knowing the deformitie of sinne and the excellencie of divine grace so the second was plausible and popular cherishing humane presumption and making a great shew it pleased more the preaching Fryars then the understanding Divines and the Courtiers thought it probable as consonant to politick reasons it was maintained by the Bishop of Bitonto and the Bishop of Salpi shewed himself very partiall the defenders of this using humane reason prevailed against the others but coming to the testimonies of the Scripture they were manifestly overcome The other story I find in the Preface to the Parallells drawn up as I suppose by Doctor Featly and Doctor Good Accacius Baron of Dona residing some months in England to solicite the recovery of the Palatinate was often set upon and much laid at by a stranger there named Roerghest a man deeply engaged in the Arminian party who though he could not draw him from the truth to that side yet cast such mists of doubts before him that his Lordship for better clearing desired the conference of some English Divines versed in Controversies of this nature and opportunely meeting with two at once he demanded of them why the Divines of England so generally distasted the Doctrine broached by Arminians their answer was that albeit those tenents were plausible to corrupt reason and set out to the best advantage by the wit and art of the Patrons thereof yet that the sacred Scriptures to which naturall reason must bow and stricke sail throughly searched and impartially scanned gave no support at all to the new modell of Gods councells framed in mans braines and that the prime Fathers of most eminent note in the Church above twelve hundred years ago at the first birth of those mishapē brats dashed them against the stones and consequently that by the same Orthodox ancient Church the new Revivers of those errors at this day were damnati antequàm nati precondemned in the loines of their parents The Baron somewhat affected with this answer replied certe si Arminius Pelagium refodit merito vos Arminium defoditis Not long after the said solicitor came to the Baron again hoping to make him his Proselite the Baron acquainting him with the English Divines answer he was at first so confident as to say quid tandem Arminio cum Pelagio But when those Divines had exhibited to the Baron a Paralell betwixt them since printed this confident Gentleman though he undertook to returne forthwith a direct and punctuall answer quitted the field took Sea and returned into Holland and was never heard of more I know Mr. P. also doth very much fume to be accounted Pelagian Semi-pelagian Massillian c. But if his feet were not crooked how came their shoes to fit him so well I remember a saying of Doctor Sanderson in his fifth Sermon ad Populumi that the Prophesies of saint Paul and saint John make it so unquestionable that Rome is the seat of Antichrist that they who will needs be so unreasonably charitable as to think the Pope is not Antichrist may at least wonder by what strange chance it fell out that these Apostles should draw the picture of Antichrist in every point and limbe so just like the Pope and yet never think of him Mr. P. his quick wit hath prevented me in the application never did the stile of an unfortunate writer belong to man if not to him supposing him to have no communion with those old Hereticks for he hath formed no weapon against which I cannot furnish my self with armour from the Magazine of Austin and others who had to do with Pelagius and his Disciples But it may be the party with whom he supposeth me to say a confederacy are the Puritans for those he cannot name with any patience or moderation he tells us advertisement to Mr. Baxter that they were defined at Hampton Court to be protestants frighted out of their wits such as are known to be painted sepulchres having the forme onely of godlinesse without the power of it thought by judicious Hooker to be fit inhabitants for a wilderness not for a well ordered City Such as have ever despised dominion and spoken ill of dignities have been formerly boutefeus and men of bloud the proverbiall Authors Fautors of sedition and violence in Church and state The words of the relator of the Hampton Court conference are these Pag. 37. This and some other motions seeming to the King and Lords very idle and frivolous occasion was taken in some by-talke to remember a certain description which Mr. Butler of Cambridge made of a Puritan A Puritan is a protestant frayed out of his wits And must what is said in some by-talke be called defining If I were minded to pay Master P. in his own coine how easily might I tell him that the Arminians were defined by a wise King in a premeditated declaration Atheisticall sectaries that many of them are known to have neither the forme nor the power of godlinesse of whom judicious Amyraldus saith that they can scarce be supposed ever to have felt the power of the Holy Ghost concerning whom the foresaid King said that if they were not with speed rooted out no other issue could be expected than the curse of God infamy throughout all the reformed Churches and a perpetuall rent and distraction in the whole body of the State concerning whom also the States themselves said that they had created them more trouble than the King of Spain had by all his wars And one would think the King and the States should know better how to set the saddle upon the right Horse then Master P. Ob. These were Presbyterated Arminians our English Episcopall Arminians are free from any such guilt Ans Concerning them not I but the Viscount Falkland shall speak who as he had more courage than to be afraid of them so had he more ingenuity than to wrong them in the before commended speech to the house of Commons Pag. 3 4. Master Speaker he is a great stranger in Israel who knows not that this Kingdome hath long laboured under many and great oppressions both in Religion and liberty and his acquaintance here is not great or his ingenuity lesse who doth not both know and acknowledge that a great if not a principall cause of both these hath been some Bishops and their adherents Master Speaker a little search will serve to find them to have been the destruction of unity under pretence of uniformity to have brought in superstition and scandall under the titles of reverence and decency to have defiled our Church by adorning our Churches to have slackned the strictnes of that union which was formerly between

us and those of our Religion beyond the Sea an action as unpolitick as ungodly And because I know the Reader will not account me tedious whilest I use the words of so eloquent a Lord I shall recite more passages from him to the same purpose Pag. 9. We shall find of them to have both kindled blown the Common fire of both Nations to have both sent and maintained that book of which the Author hath no doubt long since wished with Nero utinam nefcissem literas and of which more then one Kingdome hath cause to wish that when he writ that he had rather burned a Library though of the value of Ptolomies We shall find them to have been the first and principall cause of the breach I will not say of but since the pacification at Barwick we shall finde them to have been the almost sole abettors of my Lord of Strafford whilst he was practising upon another kingdom that manner of Government which he intended to settle in this where he committed so many so mighty and so manifest enormities as the like have not been committed by any Governour in any Government since Verres left Sicilie And after they had called him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England all things here being governed by a Juntillo and that Juntillo governed by him to have assisted him in the giving of such counsels and the pursuing of such courses as it is a hard and measuring cast whether they were more unwise more unjust or more unfortunate and which had infallibly been our destruction if by the grace of God their share had not been as small in the subtletie of Serpents as in the innocence of Doves But in entitling the honest Puritanes to the manifold violences that have been attempted or practised in Church and State he borrows a piece of policy from the Jesuits who if they had prospered in blowing up the Parliament house had intended to give it about that that so horrid and hellish a fact was perpetrated by he knows whom Honest Bishop Carleton in his Examination of Mr. Montagues Appeal saith That albeit the Puritans disquieted the Church about their conceived Discipline yet they never moved any quarrel about the Doctrine of our Church and that till Montague there was no Puritan Doctrine known Mr. Wotton saith in his answer to the Popish Atti p. 33. Hee that makes difference between the Protestants and Puritans in matters of Faith doth it either ignorantly or maliciously Mr. T. Fuller 610. p. 99. We must not forget that Spalato I am confident I am not mistaken therein was the first who professing himself a Protestant used the word Puritan to signifie the defenders of matters doctrinal in the English Church Formerly the word was onely taken to denote such as dissented from the Hierarchy in Discipline and Church-government which now was extended to brand such as were Anti-arminians in their judgement So that by Puritanes in all probability must be meant non-conformists And if Mr. P. dare say that such men as Mr. Paul Baine Mr. Arthur Hildersham Mr. Dod and Mr. Cleaver the Decalogists Mr. Tho. Hooker Mr. John Ball Mr. Tho. Shepheard were void of the power of godlyness or that they had not more of it than had their persecutors he must either expect not to be believed or seek some other place than England to vent his passion in If by the Puritanes he meaneth the giddy Brownists I have not a word to say in their excuse but this that the Prelaticall oppression was such as might have made wiser people than they madde Had they not a colourable pretext to call some of our Prelates Antichristian whose Courts vexed sundry laborious Preachers because they could not bow at the name of Jesus when as sundry idle sots whom they might frequently observe to stagger in the streets were never questioned But the most probable ground of his fury is yet behind my being noted by Mr. Barlee in the Margin to be a man of his own Colledge for doe but observe the phrases and periods of the man upon this occasion For ought I know he may be also in possession of mine own Fellowship and mine own Chamber and mine own meat and drink and those yearly revenues which are mine own too and for the which I may the rather expect to have some satisfaction because it seems the Visitors made him one of my Receivers and Usufructuaries for my legitimate heir or successor they could not make him And I have reason to be glad that he is thought such a pious and learned man because if he is pious he will the sooner pay me my Arrears and if he is learned he will not object against my known and indisputable right pag. 155. and Div. Phil. p. 147. I suffered the loss of what I thought to be the pleasantest possession on earth for being secretly suggested to be the Author of some bookes which to this very day I could never hear named and though I earnestly desired that I might hear my self accused and know distinctly my accusation and be heard speak for my self yet Dr. Reynolds could not obtaine that for me Thus he hath thrown his fierie darts at me at farre the greater part of Heads and Fellows of Colledges in Oxon at the Visitors and at the two Houses of Parliament But I know not how I am so little sollicitous concerning the quenching of these Darts that I find my self carried away with a very pleasing diversion concerning two different kinds of sober distraction or melancholy the one wherein the brain is generally and equally ill affected to all objects the other where the distemper is confined to some one object or other the brain being otherwise very sound and sober upon all other objects and occasions So Laurentius tells us of a Noble man that otherwise had his senses very perfect and would discourse of any sub●ect very rationally but was perswaded that he was glass And Huartus tels us of a Noble mans foot-boy in Italy that thought himself a Monarch And Josephus Acostae tells us a sadder story of a Doctor of Divinity who would affirm that he should be a King and a Pope too the Apostolical See being translated to those parts of America which together with some other frantick distempers made him condemned to the fire for an Heretick Farre be it from me to wish or presage any such kind of punishment to Mr. P. for his impudence against the supream Authority of the Nation but I am under some temptation to think that Mr. P. how discreet and sober soever in other matters is fallen into some Hypocondriacall conceits much of that nature for what else could make him after that he hath been known for some years to be an Husband and peaceably to have enjoyed the Rectory of Brington to talk of an indisputable right to a Fellowship chamber meat and drink yearly revenues in Magdalene Colledge Nay he prints as if he had

diab c. 10. So that we are but where we were at the first setting out For the actions in which the evill of sin is subjected I 'le grant to be positive but from God as well as the creature the evill of sin from which they are denominated sinfull is but a privation and requireth no proper efficient cause at all such as it hath man is and not God But I have obstructed his good nature in working Pag. 157. He goes on further to tell me that res in Metaphysicks hath three acceptions in the first of wich it comprehendeth entia rationis as opposed to nihil Before he tell what the other two acceptions are he corrects himself my design is to convert and not confound him this charity as is more than probable did both begin and end at home had any benefit been intended to me by it you should have ceased sooner For I was confunded before that politick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was made For let any one tell mee how this discourse about ens rationis is here brought in First was it to let the World understand that our Author knew what ens rationis meant That 's but a low design and yet he cannot accomplish it neither for he placeth the model of an house to be built hereafter among entia rationis yet that is as far from being onely objective in intellectu from not being longer than it is thought on as the East is from the West Secondly hath he a mind to insinuate that sin is ens rationis if so it must either be privatio which is that he all along denieth or a negation against which his arguments militate with more strength or a relatio rationis which is affirmed by Vasquez but against all good reasons as I shall soon shew him if forced to so great severity by his owning such a paradox Thirdly was it his businesse to intimate that all the entia rationis are so the works of men as that God cannot be termed the cause of those actions by which they are made I will not torture his ingeniolum with that perplexed question whether the Divine intellect do fabricate ens rationis but without all peradventure the action of the understanding though not the imperfection is from God are not all our notiones 2 ae in Logick entia rationis yet is the act of the understanding causing them so far from not being from God that God hath indeed a more than ordinary common concourse to it The privative nature of sin may be thus further evicted If a thing be therefore sinfull because it wants some perfection that it ought to have and cease to be sinful when it hath all the perfection which it ought to have than is sin a privation but a thing is therefore sinfull c. Ergo the consequence of the proposition is as clear as the noone day light the assumption also needs rather explication than confirmation ther 's not a novice but knows the old rule bonum ex integrâ causâ malum ex quolibet defectu To make an action good there must be a concurrence of all the three goods object end circumstances the mere want of any of these three makes the action sinfull because the Law requires that all the three goodnesses should be in the action the want of that which the Law requires to to be in any subject is a sin or else we must reject not onely Aristotle but the Apostle who saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This argument is used by Greg. Arim. a noble and ancient Schoolman and largely insisted upon by Faventinus the most acute Scotist I 'me not ignorant that various replies are made to the argument but answers also are commonly given to those replies which to transcribe would be a matter of more trouble than profit My fourth and last argument against the pretended positivity of sin I dispose in this enthymem Original sin is not positive ergo sin as sin is not positive The consequent I conceive will be yeelded sine sanguine sudore otherwise the old Canon a quatenus ad omne valet consequentia would soon command it as to the antecedent I deny not but our Protestant Divines in their disputes against the Papists doe make a positive as wel as a privative part of original sin but how that terme may be understood so as not to prejudice my assertion in the least is largely shewed by Gisber Voetius in his accurate discourse de propagatione peccati originalis He that calls it a privation of Gods image saith the whole nature of it is a sentence of Mr. John Calvin That I may prove original sin not to be positive in the sense we now use the word positive I must lay down this as a postulatum That the soul is not by propagation or ex traduce as they speak but immediately created by God If this postulatum should not be granted me I should not fear the demonstrating of it by evidence of Scripture and strength of reason to any gain sayer but such my charity forbids mee to think Mr. P. This supposed I thus argue If original sin be a thing positive 't is either the soul it self or some of its faculties or some accident or adiunct agreing immediately to the faculties mediatly to the soul it self but none of all these ergo To say with Flaccius Illyricus that it is the soule it self were with more than heathenish impiety to calumniate the goodnesse of our Creator and the like absurditie will follow if we assert it to be one of the faculties of the soul If we say it is an accident inhering in the faculties of the soul then it was either put into them by God which will make God the Author of the worst of sins or else it is caused in them by the souls presence in and union to the body or from some action of the soul it self Not by any action of the soul it self for it's faculties are sinfull before it put forth any one act of reason Not from its presence in or union to the body for who can imagine how the soul which is spiritual and immaterial should be defiled by being joyned to a body which thoughfull of naturall imperfections is not sinfull and if it were sinfull could nor communicate its sinfullnesse to the soule that informes it But now holding original sin to be a privation in an active subject we do avoid all these inconveniences by saying that Adam by his first transgression did sin away the image of God from himself and his posterity who were in him not onely as a naiurall but as a federal head also and so God createth the souls of men void of his image and yet justly looks on them as sinners for wanting this image because they ought to have it and by their own folly deprived themselves of it As for the reasons Mr. P. hath against the privative nature of sin he hath so slipt glided them