therefore gave he his Son because he loved it But it was not a love by which he loved it to life everlasting for with such love he only loved it in his Son And the world is not capable of such a love without the condition of beleeving It was therefore in praescience of our beleeving in Christ that God elected us to life eternal For Christ is not only the means as some affirm but the meritorious cause and the Head of our Election Christ was foreknown 1 Pet. 1. 2. and we in him Rom. 8. 29. Christ was praedestin'd and we by him Eph. 1. 5. 57. Thirdly I consider that there must be a Difference before there can be an Election Love indeed is an act of favour but Election is properly an act of Iudgement a preferring of the better before the worse They that say God Elected such a number of men without the least intuition of their qualifications by which they are differenced from the reprobated crew do speak illogically to say no worse how much safer is it to say That because such men as are in Christ by Faith are better then such as are out of Christ by Infidelity therefore those are taken and these are left Nor doth this derogate from God or arrogate to man to say he chooseth his own gifts any more then it doth to say he crowns them For God doth give us the advantage of our being in Christ as well as choose us for that advantage First he giveth us his Son next he giveth us his Grace whereby to enable us to believe in his Son and so beleeving he doth elect us So that here is no matter for man to boast on he having nothing which he hath not received no not so much as his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} It is God that makes the difference as well as God that chooseth And it seems this very argument from the Nature and Use of the word Election did prevail with S. Austin and Oecumenius S. Austin saith expresly that Iustification precedeth Election and his reason is because no man is elected unlesse he differ from him that is rejected 58. Fourthly I consider that the whole Tenor of the Scriptures in the Iudgement of all the Fathers who are best able to understand them teacheth no other Praedestination then in and through Christ which is respective and conditional First the Scripture gives us none but conditional promises such as If any man keep my saying he shall never taste Death Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap And we shall reap if we faint not If any man will hear my voice and open the doore I will come in to him c. Nay even the very Texts which are wont to be urged for irrespective Election do seem very precisely to evince the contrary For when God is said to praedestine according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} rendred good pleasure doth not signifie the absolutenesse but the respectivenesse of his will For it relateth to something in which God is well pleased and that is Christ It being impossible for God to please himself with mankinde or for men to be acceptable and well pleasing to God any otherwise then in him of whom it was said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Besides all those Scriptures which doâ—… teach universal Grace and Redemption which I suppose hath been proved in the prosecution of my first Principle do seem to me most clearly to inferre a respective and conditional Election For if it is true that Christ did offer up himself not only sufficiently but intentionally for all if he did earnestly desire that every one would come in upon the preaching of his Word and receive the benefit of his Death and Passion if his warnings were not in jest and his invitations serious if depart from me ye cursed was therefore foretold that every one might beware and not obtrude himself upon that sentence if he is unwilling that any one should be caught in the Serpents snare who shewes to all without exception a certain way to escape if as S. Austin speaks he is desirous not to strike who bids us look to our posture and stand upon our Guard if as S. Austin speaks again he shews his power to punish none but only those that refuse his Mercy and would not damn any one without respect to sin who gave his own Son to die for all then his refusing of the Goats in respect of that which makes them differ from Sheep infers his Election of the sheep in respect of that which makes them differ from Goats And I have made the more haste to make this Inference because as the respectivenesse of Election needs not otherwise to be proved then by the respectivenesse of Reprobation so they are both taken for granted upon the supposition of Christ's having dyed not only sufficiently but intentionally for all Towards which having discoursed so largely of it already I will only offer this one consideration which meets my pen as I am writing and even obtrudes it self upon me to be delivered It is briefly this That since our Saviour upon the Crosse did very heartily pray even for those very homicides and parricides and Deicides that Kill'd him we have no reason but to beleeve That he laid down his life even for them that took it away and that he dyed for all for whom he prayed And yet we reading of their Murders but not of their Repentance I should be loth to tell my people that those crucifying wretches were precious vessels of Election in complyance with that opinion that Christ died only for the Elect lest they should comfort up themselves in the most â—…rimson sins that can be named like some in the world as well consisting with their pretensions to the Kingdome of Heaven And yet in my shallow Iudgement which because it is shallow I do submit to those of deeper and profounder reach how dogmatically soever I may seem to have spoken in many places of this Discourse I say in my shallow Judgement Christ dyed for all for whom he prayed and he prayed for them that curst themselves His bloud be upon us said they and yet said he Father forgive them He made his Murderers Execration become his prayer He took the poyson out of their Curse and made it wholsome for them He wished as well as they that his bloud might be both upon them and upon their children but in his own most merciful not in their barbarous and cruel sense for they meant the guilt He the benefit of his bloud and would have it â—ight on them not to accuse but cleanse them And yet I dare not affirm that they were all a portion of God's Elect. 59. Lastly I consider that the main stream of the Fathers doth run this way And not to trouble my Reader with such
something moves it The Suppositive is that by which a man shall be damn'd if he die Impenitent The latter necessity though not the first does mightily well consist both with the liberty of man's will and God's Conditional Decrees E. G. I am now writing and God foresaw that I am writing yet it does not follow that I must needs write for I can choose What God foresees must necessarily come to passe but it must come to passe in the same manner that he foresees it He foresees I will write not of necessity but choice so that his foresight doth not make an absolute and peremptory Necessity but infers a Necessity upon Supposition We must mark in a Parenthesis how great a difference there is betwixt the making and the inferring of a Necessity Whatsoever I do there is an Absolute Necessity that God should foresee yet God foreseeing my voluntary Action does not make it necessary but on supposition that it is done If all things are present to God as indeed they are his foresight must needs be all one with our sight As therefore when I see a man daunce as he pleases it is necessary that he do what I see he does but yet my looking on does not make it necessary So Gods foreseeing that man would sin implyed a certainty that so it would be but did not make it an absolutely necessary or involuntary thing For that a thing may be certain in respect of its event and yet not necessary in respect of its cause is no newes at all to a considering person who will but duly distinguish Gods Omniscience from his Omnipotence and his Foresight from his Decreè and infallible from necessary and spontaneous from voluntary and that which follow's as a Consequence only from that which follow's as a consequent If I may judge by those errors which I convince my self to have been in when I was contrary minded to what I am I see as many mistakes in other men arising from the misfortune of confounding those things which I just now distinguisht as from any one unhappinesse that I can think of And from all that I have spoken upon this last subject it seems inevitably to follow that a suppositive Necessity and none else is very consistent with a free and contingent Action Whilest I see a man sitting it is necessary that he sit but upon supposition that I see him sitting His posture is still a voluntary contingent thing For he sate down when he would and may arise when he pleaseth but still with a proviso of God's Permission I desire to be taught what is if this is not exact speaking viz. That God by his prohibition under penalty makes my Disobedience become liable to punishment And by his Decree to permit or not hinder me he leaves me in the hand of mine own counsel and so in the state of peccability that I may sin and perish if I will So that by his praescience that I will sin he hath no manner of influence or causality upon my sin which infers my destruction to be entirely from my self I am a little confident that whosoever shall but read Boethius his fifth book and reading shall understand it and understanding shall have the modesty to retract an error he will not reverence the 4. Section of the 23. chapter of the 3. book of Institutions because it is Mr. Calvins but will suspect Mr. Calvin because of that Section The Question there is Whether Reprobates were praedestined to that corruption which is the cause of Damnation To which he answers with a Fateor I confesse that all the sons of Adam by the expresse will of God fell down into the misery of that condition in which they are fetter'd and intangled And a little after he professeth that no accompt can be given but by having recourse to the sole will of God the cause of which lies hidden within it self And that we may not think he speaketh only of the posterity of Adam he telleth us plainly in the close of that Section that no other cause can be given for the defection of Angels then that God did reprobate and reject them In this place I would aske Was the Angels Defection or Apostasie their sin or no if not why were they reprobated and cast into chaines of darknesse and if it were how then is God's Reprobation not only the chief but the only Cause of such a sin This is the sad effect of being enslaved to an opinion and of being asham'd of that liberty which looks like being conquer'd I beleeve the love of victory hath been the cause of as many mischiefs as have been feigned to leap forth from Pandora's Box Whereas if every one that writes would but think it a noble and an honourable thing to lead his own pride captive to triumph over his own conceitednesse and opiniastrete and to pursue the glory of a well natur'd submission there is perhaps hardly an Author of any considerable length but might think he had reason to write a book of Retractations And sure it will not be immodesty for a young man to say That many old men might have done it with as much reason as S. Austin 40. But as I have learnt of Boethius that most excellent Christian as well as Senator and profound Divine as well as Philosopher who lived a Terror to Heresie and died a Martyr for the Truth to distinguish of Necessity so have I learn't from other Antients to distinguish better of God's will then I was wont to do before the time of my Retractation First I distinguish with S. Chrysostome of a first and second will Gods first will is that the sinner should not die but return rather from his wickednesse and live His second will is that he who refuseth to return receive the wages of iniquity Secondly I distinguish with Damascene of an antecedent and a consequent will The antecedent is that by which he wils that every sinner should repent His consequent is that by which he preordaineth the Damnation of the impenitent Which distinction is not made in respect of Gods will simply in which there cannot be either prius or posterius but in respect of the things which are the object of his will For every thing is will'd by God so far forth as it is good Now a thing consider'd absolutely may be good or evill which in a comparative consideration may be quite contrary E. G. To save the life of a man is good and to destroy a man is evil in a first and absolute consideration But if a man secondly be compared with his having been a murderer then to save his life is evil and to destroy it good From whence it may be said of a just Iudge that by his antecedent will he desires every man should live but by a consequent will decrees the death of the Murderer And even then he doth so distinguish the murderer from the man that he wisheth the man
it but he did not resist it unto the end And every technical Grammarian can distinguish the Act which is imply'd in the Participle from the Aptitude which is couched in the Adjective in bilis But to hasten towards the conclusion of my Readers sufferings there is also a final as well as total resisting of such a Grace as is sufficient for the attainment of Glory For not to speak of those men who resisted and sinned against all the means that could be used Isa. 5. 4. and who alwaies resisted the holy Ghost Act. 7. 51. and who would not be gathered after never so many essays Mat. 23. 37. how many Christian professors are now in Hell who when they were Infants were fit and suitable for Heaven Shall not I spare Nineveh in which are above 120000 souls which cannot distinguish betwixt the right hand and the left Ion. 4. 11. God speaks there of Heathen Infants toward whom his Bowels did yearn within him and that upon the Impendence of but a temporal destruction But I speak here of Infants born and baptized into a membership of the Church How many are there of such who in their harmlesse Nonage were babes of Grace and yet have outlived their Innocence so as at last to be transformed into vessels of wrath I will shut up this Paragraph with the words of Tertullian Saul was turned into a Prophet by the Spirit of holinesse as well as into an Apostate by the spirit of uncleannesse And the Devil entred into Judas who for some time together had been deputed with the elect And with the saying of S. Augustine That if the regenerate and justified shall fall away into a wicked course of living by his own will and pleasure he cannot say I have not received because he hath wilfully lost that Grace of God which he had received by that will of his which was at liberty to sin And how exactly that Father doth speak my sense of this businesse I leave it for any one to judge who shall consult him De praed. Sanct. l. 1. c. 14. De bono Persev l. 2. c. 1. 6. l. 2. c. 8. 13. And I would very fain know whether the lost Groat the lost Sheep and the prodigal Son do not signifie in our Saviours Parables that a true beleever may be lost and being lost may be found and again become a true beleever Which is as much as I desire to prove the thing under consideration CHAP. V. 54. HAving evinced to my self and that is all that I pretend to First that my will of it self is inclinable to evil and that secondly of it self it is not inclinable to good and that thirdly it is inclined by the singular and special operation of Grace to the refusing of evil and to the choosing of good and that therefore in the fourth place that singular Grace doth not work so irresistibly as to compel an unwilling will but yet so strongly as to heal a sick one not so necessitating the will of God's elect as that inevitably it must but yet so powerfully perswading as that it certainly will both believe and obey and after repentance persevere unto the end I should in civility to my Reader conclude his Trouble if I were sure that some men would not call it Tergiversation and if I were not obliged by those papers which have been so frequently sâ—…falsly that I may not say so maliciously transcribed and are threatned to be laid very publiquely to my charge and which I plead in the defence of this mine own publication which I should never have châ—…sen upon such a subject as I have least of all studied and am least delighted in of any other to remonstrate the utmost of what I think in these matters For I do stedfastly beleeve what I also asserted in that extemporary Discourse which was the innocent cause of this unacceptable effect That Gods Decree of Election from all eternity was not absolute and irrespective but in respect unto and in praescience of some qualification without which no man is the proper object of such Decree And this I prove to my self from these waies of Reasoning 55. First I consider with my self that there is no salvation but only to such as are found to be in Christ Iesus in the day of Death and of Iudgement Which no man living can be unlesse he be qualified with such conditions as without which it is impossible to be so found such as are Faith and Obedience and Repentance after sin bringing forth such fruits as are worthy of Repentance and perseverance in weldoing unto the end That God will save none but such is all men's Confession And that he saves none but such whom he decrees to save is every whit as plain Therefore none but such are the object of such Decree For if he decreed to save any without regard or respect to their being such he might actually save them without regard or respect to their being such Because whatsoever is justly decreed may be justly executed as it is decreed But it is granted on all sides as I suppose that God will save none except such as are found to be in Christ with the aforesaid qualifications and therefore it should be agreed on all sides that he decreed to save none but such as they And what is that but a respective and conditional Decree made in intuition of our being in Christ and of our being so qualified to be in Christ So that although our election is not of works but of him that calleth yet good works are required as a necessary condition though utterly unworthy to be a cause of our election Nor can it be without respect to the condition of the Covenant that the Covenant is made and the promise decreed to be fulfilled 56. Secondly I consider that the Decree of the Father to send the Son to be a second Adam was in respect and regard to the backesliding of the first Adam Without which it was impossible that the Son of God should have been sent to be the Saviour of the world And the decree of God Almighty to save the first Adam was in regard of and respect to the meritoriousness of the second Adam For God adopteth never a childe nor doth acknowledge him for his own so as to give him eternal life unlesse it be for the sake of his only begotten Son First God pitied a woful world then he loved what be pitied next he gave his own Son to save what he loved and upon the condition of beleeving in his Son he gave it a promise of eternal life For so beleeving is interposed betwixt love and life in the 3. of S. Iohn vers. 26. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life From this Text it appeareth that God loved the world before he gave his Son to it for