owne image this is no more true of man then of Angels even of the very Angels of darknesse And men also are borne the children of darknesse and so continue untill the time that God calleth them and enlightneth them Or will you say that in speciall sort he is the father of man by way of redemption yet I finde hitherto in your discourse no intimation of this fatherhood But will you say that all and every one have redemption in Christ through his bloud you may as well say that all and every one have the remission of their sinnes in Christ thorough his bloud For this is it which in Scripture phrase is meant by redemption Arminius who maintaines that Christ dyed for all and every one professeth plainly that the immediate effect of Christs passion is but this that God now may his Iustice nothing hindring him give pardon of sinnes and salvation upon what condition he will Which upon the matter is all one as if he should say that seeing faith and repentance are the conditions whereupon God gives forgivenesse of sinnes none but such as beleeve and repent doe obtaine the forgivenesse of sinnes that is doe obtaine redemption in Christ through his bloud Now consider are not faith and repentance the gifts of God It cannot be denied but they are the Scriptures evidently give testimony hereunto namely that faith is the gift of God that repentance is the gift of God And doth God give faith and repentance unto all All experience of the world doth manifest that he doth not no nor so much as the outward meanes unto all whereby faith and repentance are wrought I wonder you blush not in setting downe such incongruities as first in saying that God as he is willing to be called the father of the sonnes of men so he is ready to doe the kinde office of a father unto them and for proofe hereof alledge that of the Psalmist As a father pitieth his owne children so the Lord pitieth them that feare him In which passage the fatherly love of God is not extended unto all but restrained to those that feare him And yet I pray consider what father would torment his children with everlasting fire though never so unnaturall towards him or would not keepe him from it if it lay in his power without sinning against God Yet God torments even those whom you call his children justly for their sinnes in the torments of hell fire that never shall have end We willingly grant the love of God the Father and the love of God the Sonne is such a love as passeth knowledge but it is enlarged onely towards those that are his children by faith in Christ Iesus This is the filiation alone which the Apostle takes notice of you take no notice of this at all And againe Because ye are sonnes God hath sent the Spirit of his Sonne into your hearts crying Abba Father Now is this common unto all as you make Gods fatherhood common unto all So saith the Apostle in another place As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sonnes of God Here is a description of that sonneship we have in respect of our heavenly Father And againe The Spirit of God witnesseth with our spirits that we are the sonnes of God Of these passages I sinde no accompt made throughout this whole discourse of yours And towards these sonnes of God wee shall willingly give you leave to extend and intend the love of God as much as you thinke fit But you still continue to extend the fatherhood of God unto all as it were in despight of all these passages formerly alledged Where doe you finde throughout the Scriptures that the title of the sonnes of God is attributed to the uncircumcised or to the Heathen To the contrarie we reade both before the flood that The sonnes of God saw the daughters of men that they were faire where we have a manifest distinction opposite to your confusion And after for this is the message which God sent unto Pharaoh Israel is my sonne even my first borne and if thou refuse to let him goe I will slay thy sonne even thy first borne How much more under the Law Is Ephraim my deare sonne or pleasant childe yet since I spake unto him I still remembred him therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have compassion on him saith the Lord. Most of all under the Gospell Behold what love the Fathe hath shewed us that wee should bee called the sonnes of God What have you here said of Gods love to man that may not as well be said of his love to the very Angels of darknesse For is it not true in respect of them as well as in respect of us that having given them being he doth much more love them after they are enstamped with his image For he sowes not wheat to reape tares nor did he give life to Angels that he might bring forth death God gave both man and Angels life for the manifestation of his owne glory and for the manifestation of his owne glory doth he punish transgressors amongst men and Angels with everlasting death 3. You would willingly draw Heathens to the acknowledgement of this fatherhood in God towards all though thinking it too narrow to comprehend all references of loving kindnesses betweene him and demy gods which demy gods you take to be men I thinke rather they were conceived to be inferiour spirits like as Aristotle makes all inferiour intelligences to depend upon the first mover And what reference of loving kindnesse is comprehended in this that Iupiter is said to be both male and female you may at leisure dilate of when you please Gods affection to his children exceeds the affection of any mother towards the fruit of her wombe For God was content to purchase his Church with his owne blood Your next sentence containes meere non sense I rectifie it thus And as if his love could not be sufficiently expressed by these dearest references amongst men c. hee hath chosen the most affectionate female c. Thus I make sense of it but the poorest sense that ever was vented in so grave a matter of discourse As if the greatnesse of place or curiosity of education did make mothers so little compassionate towards their children that God is faine to seeke out for more proper resemblances Thus you fetch about for matter as Balaam did for divinations as if there were no women in the world but delicate Ladies or such nice curious dames whose nicenesse hath made them so unnaturall that our Saviour was driven to compare his tender affection unto the affectionof a hen towards her chicken which creature is magnified by you to hold up the jest for the most affectionate female amongst reasonlesse creatures implying that reasonable creatures may in tendernesse of affection right well exceed the henne and so you quite marre your owne
bene betweene vs for as much as I have learned bothe of my great Mr. in knowledge naturall Amicus Socrates amicus Plato amicior veritas And of my farre greater Mr. in knowledge spiritual to whose blessing allso I cheifly owe my progresse in knowledge naturall that he who loveth his Father or Mother more then him is not worthy of him whose peremtory voyce is this also If any man come to me hate not his Father Mother Wife Children Bretheren Sisters yea his owne life allso he cannot be my disciple God forbid the mayntenance of truthe shoulde be interpreted to proceede from hatred or want of love to a mans person thoughe in the manner of cariage offense may be given bothe to God man For he is a perfect man that sinneth not in word Luther was conscious of this when before the German Princes in a meeting at Woormes a part of his protestation was this that he was not a man that made profession of holynes acknowledginge that as a man he might erre but I am verily persuaded he was conscious off a good heart towards God The cause that mooveth me herunto is partly the profession which you make in your Epistle Dedicatory that diverse passages in your discourse doe manifest that what I accoumpt the â—ower leven of Arminianisme is very tastfull unto you which nowe you beginne to sett a broach in print as hertofore you have uttered them in the pulpit afterwards by writing communicated unto others wherof diverse particulars have lately come unto my handes which have put me to some paynes to the spending of some precious time in the scanninge of them As for the passages tending that way in this booke of yours I reserve them to be considered in their place But as for the profession which you make in your praeface I purpose here to take that into consideration before I passe on farther in my way It is not so unusuall you say nor so much for you to be censured for an Arminian as it will be for his Lordship to whome you dedicate it to be thought to patronize Arminianisme Herby you seeme praepared to stand upright not couched under the burthen of this censure as Isachar was by Iacobs prophecy to couche under his withall you doe imply that that honourable Lord to whose patronage you inscribe this your Treatise may herby be thought to patronize Arminianisme And you doe well to signifie that his Honour is not like to take it well to be so conceaved off as who hath ever hitherto bene accoumpted both orthodoxe himselfe a Patron of those that are such Yet these insinuations of yours seeme to me some thâ—nge strange on your part For I have founde by experience in other writings of yours that you hertofore have affected to be the inventor of a midle way soe the report goeth of you though I confesse I never founde the issue of your discourses answerable which hathe made me conceave that practise of yours to have bene but a praetence herin I am confirmed by this your praesent profession For ought I perceave you are more foule then Arminius himselfe bothe as touchinge your Tenets the manner of maynteyninge them they more voyde of truthe this more voyde of Scholasticall argumentation to proove what you undertake It may be you take more boldnes to professe your opinions nowe then hertofore allthough I see no reason for it nor can believe that Arminianisme is like to finde more countenance under the reigne of King Charles then it did under the reigne of King Iames who professed Arminius to be the enimy of the grace of God as I have heard King Charles himselfe hath taken notice of his Fathers distast that way sometimes made profession of it But satisfaction you endeavour to give unto his Lordship which you say you are not bound to give to others Yet it is well that for his Honours sake your reader is like to pertake of this courtesie in the way of satisfaction unto many as well as unto one For my part I desire not to oblige you unto any thinge but rather to entreate you that you would be pleased to take notice of those morall obligations that belong vnto all in the way of honesty namely that you would undertake lesse proove more as in this particular when you professe that all other contentions in the point of Gods Providence Praedestinatâ—on betweene the Arminians their opposites will be only about wordes in case they doe all agree in this That your Allmighty Creator hath a true freedome in doing good Adams ofspring a true freedome of doing evill I thinke since the beginninge of these differences never any neyther Papist nor Protestant neyther Lutheran Calvinist or Arminian was of this opinion besides your selfe but the more transcendent and supereminent shal be your sufficiency in being able to perforforme this And indeede I have founde you wonderously conceyted of the force of consequence which these propositions as you imagine doe conteyne in two treatises of yours you have spent a great many wordes in dilatinge upon them shaping consequences from them but as inconsequently as an Adversary coulde expect abusing your selfe with the confusions of those thinges which being distingnished the consequences you frame woulde streite-way vanish into smoke proove to be no better then mere imagination of a vayne thinge And this confusion of yours dothe appeare in that opposition which you make of other positions to these as when you say If any in opposition to Arminius will maynteyne that all thinges were so decreed by God before the creation of the world that nothing since the creation coulde have fallen out otherwise then it hath done or that nothing can be amended that is amisse then you must crave pardon of every good Christian to oppugne his opinion that not only as an errour in Divinitie but as an ignorance In which wordes of yours I doe observe first that you doe not herin oppose Gods decreinge all thinges but only a certeyne manner of decreinge all thinges as in denyinge that all thinges were soe decreed by God Secondly you doe not well to couple your selfe which Arminius in this For I never founde that Arminius maynteyned that God did decree contingency but not any thing contingent which is your Tenet in diverse pieces both printed manuscript He excepts I grant against Perkins for saying God did will that sinne shoulde be Yet he himselfe professeth that Deus voluit Achabum mensuram scelerum suorum implere wheras the Iewes went farre enoughe in their ignominious handlinge of Iesus Christ he confessethe that Deus voluit Judaeos progredi quousque progressi sunt Thirdly I woulde this were all to witt sinne that you are pleased to exempt from being the object of Gods decree But the case is apparent that you deny faithe repentance every
judgement then invention though formally it is a quality of the will as all morall vertues are and not any habitt of the understanding But suppose he miscarry in all then a mans patience must needes bidd farewell to invention to support it and it is high time to relye upon judgement Yet I trust patience which must have her perfect worke Iam. 〈◊〉 may have course in this case allso though it be an hard matter you say to keepe from fowle play if the game whereat a man shootes be fayre and good and most of his stringes allready be broken It is good they say to have two stringes to a mans bowe A vertuous man hath more then two you suppose as much for you suppose many to be broken yet not all And surely vertue is not vertue if it keepe not from foule play The Stoickes mainteyned that a vertuous man might descend into Phalaris bull without the interrupâ—ion of his happines We Christians are taught and disciplined to rejoyce even in tribulation and marke well our bow stringes because tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayth S. Paule I am able to endure all thinges by the power of Christ that enables me and herupon he exhorts Timothy to be partaker of the affliction of the Gospell to witt by the power of God The power of Christ and the power of God are two such stringes to our blowe of patience as can never be broke We know his grace to be sufficient for us and when his power is made perfect in our weakenes we shall have cause to rejoyce in our infirmities For when we are weake then are we strong In a mans owne strength no man shall be strong But blessed art thou o people who art the saved of the Lord who is the sheild of thy strength and the sword of our glory He can make us to be as a Gyants sword and he is a wall of fire round about Ierusalem All that sight against it theyr fleshe shall consume away though they stand on theyr feete and theyr eyes shall consume in theyr holes and theyr tongues shall consume in their mouthes But to returne The contingency of the issue is within the horizon of our fore sight As for horizons of contrivances let such as fancy them make themselfes merry with them All this while the matter of your discourse being of Gods infinite wisedome and to that purpose preluding of the imperfect wisedom of man I have wondred what you meant to enter upon the consideration of patience unlesse it were to prepare your reader therby with a more willing entertaynment of your discourse But now I perceive you desire to gratify God with a commendation of his patience which that it might seeme the more congruous you pretend that the infinitenes of his wisedome carries him herunto And this patience consists in bearing with sinners which as you say every minute of theyr life 's violently thwart and crosse some particular meanes ordeyned for his glory and theyr good Gods patience in forbearing us and our sinnes in provoking him are greate enough in theyr proper colours they neede no inconsiderate amplification to bombast them by saying that every minute of life we violently crosse them For surely eyther you must suppose man every minute of his life to be waking or els you delivered this as it were slumbering But to touch upon something more materiall I pray remember that you treate of the wisedome of God as exercised in intending a right end and prosecuting a right choyse of meanes for the effecting of it Now would you be so good as to consider what is the end that God aymes at in this and particularly whether it be all one in bearing thus with all and that of an ambiguous nature thus that in case they doe at length repent and turne unto God he may magnify his mercy in theyr salvation if still they stand out and dye in impenitency he may magnify himselfe in theyr just condemnation And withall I pray consider whether this be the course of any wisedom finite or infinite in God or man to intend ends after this ambiguous manner I mention no other end of Gods patience and long suffering because I know no other end agreable to your opinion That which followeth tendes rather to the commendation of the goodnes of Gods will then the wisedome of his understanding therfore so much the more heterogeneall and extravagant as when you say out of the Apostle that He is light and in him is no darknes and that He distingvisheth the fruites of light from fruits of darknes before they are even before he gave them possibility of being An amplification partly idle partly unsound For God must eyther distinguish them before they are or not at all For there is no change in his understanding unsound in saying God gives them possibility of being The being of things is from the gift of God but not the possibility of being But you proceede in the same stringe As impossible it is for his will to decline from that which he disernes truly good as for his infinite essence to shrinke in being God indeede cannot shrinke for he is indivisible and you well know what thereupon you have wrought for the amplification of his power in the former chapter But I would you had told us what is that truly good discerned by God from which you say his will cannot decline I cannot be satisfied with your concealments in this particular What I pray is more truly good then the setting forth of Gods glory eyther in his patience and long suffering or in ought else whatsoever And is it impossible thinke you for Gods will to decline this If so then it were impossible that God should decline the making of the World Is not this a faite way to Atheisme Many thinges you say may and every thing that is evill doth fall out against Gods will but nothing without his knowledge or besides his expectation In Scripture phrase we find that many thinges fall out not onely besides but contrary to Gods expectation as Esa. 5. where God complayneth of the house of Israel that while he looked for grapes they brought forth wilde grapes And Arminius urgeth this as if it were spoken in a proper speeche By the proposition in this place it must be sayde that God expects sowre grapes as well as sweete for otherwise they shoulde fall out besides his expectation which you here deny So then God did expect that Shimei should rayle on David that Absolon should defloure his Fathers Concubines that Iudas should betray his Master that David should defile his neighbours wife and cause hir husband to be slayne by the sword of children of Ammon and that the Iewes should crucify the Holy Sonne
hath taken up the hearts and tongues of his Prophets and Apostles to deliver his oracles unto his people And though God is not bound to reveale himselfe unto any yet if it be his pleasure to reveale himselfe he is not capable of any such inducement to deliver an untruth as man is man may advantage himselfe by untruth when by other meanes hee cannot it is not so with God who needs not untruth thereby to advantage himselfe But whereas you say that Gods veracity is coeternall to his essence in my judgement it is a very wilde phrase For veracity hath no place where speech is not and seeing that God speakes not but by his Ministers it followeth that before the world was he never spake at all and seeing he could have forborne the making of the world hee might have never spoken at all so farre off from truth is it that veracity which supposeth speech is coeternall to his essence For if speech be not coeternall to his essence how can truth of speech or truth in speech be coeternall to his essence Yet veracity taken fundamentally as a disposition in God to deliver truth whensoever he is pleased to cause speech or to speake by his Ministers so it is all one with the nature of God and no marvell if in this sense it bee coeternall to his essence Intemperancy and consequently the opposite vertue of temperance and chastity is found onely in bodies not in spirits and as it is no commendation to the nature of an Angell to bee chaste so neither is it to the nature of God You say God could not give a law for the authorizing of promiscuous or preposterous lust Yet it is manifest that promiscuous lust in bruit beasts in all sorts hath its course without any transgression and it being a course of nature in them it cannot bee denied to bee a worke of God And Suarez though hee takes upon him to maintaine a tenet like unto yours namely that God cannot dispense as touching his morall law yet he professeth that God may make it lawfull for one man to have many wives And I pray you why may hee not as well make it lawfull for one woman to have many husbands and what then I pray you will this want of promiscuous and preposterous lust It may be plurality of husbands to one wife may bring a greater inconvenience in the course of nature as touching the corrupting of conceptions and hindring the course of generation then plurality of wives but how in morality it should be more intolerable then the other I know not And withall we reade of Massalina that notwithstanding all her luxurious courses this way yet not onely brought forth children but also those like unto her husband also and being demanded how that came to passe made this answer Non nisi plâ—na nave vectorem fero For the brother and sister to know one another carnally we count it incest yet unlesse Adams sonnes had maried with their sisters it was impossible there should have beene any propagation of mankinde And in like sort Abraham is supposed to have beene the Vncle of Sarah and doe you thinke that holy Patriaroh would have continued in so sinfull a course after his calling had it beene such that God could not any way have made it lawfull You proceed and tell us That to legitimate violence or entitle oppression unto the inheritance bequeathed to conscionable and upright dealing is without the prerogative of Omnipotencie and in stead of giving a reason of your opinion you expresse it in 〈◊〉 double phrase as if you would make up in figures what is wanting in argument and say It cannot be ratisied by any Parliament of the Trinity and indeed I read in Virgil of a Parliament sometimes called in heaven by Iupiter but I doubt you are of Ovids fault who as Seneca writes knew not when it was well But you overdoe onely in words and underdoe in argument and as if you had not phrasified enough you further tell us that The practice or countenancing of these and the like are evill not in us onely to whom they are forbidden but so evill in themselves that the Almighty could not but forbid and condemn them as profest enemies to his most sacred Majestie Thus to phrasifie with you is to fetch Divinity from the fountaine and not from the trenches though you bring neither evidence of Scripture nor evidence of reason to justifie it That which you doe bring such as it is is rather from reason then from Scripture And if it be so manifest in reason as you seeme to signifie the lesse need I should thinke there was of forbiddng it yet you say God could not but forbid it And where I pray must he forbid it and by what law Is it by the law revealed in his word or by the law of nature As for the law revealed in his word that was communicated onely to the Iewes and why God was necessitated to forbid it to one small nation and not to another I can devise no reason The law of nature I confesse is generall forbidding such things as are knowne to be evill by the light of nature but doth it teach that God cannot legitimate any such actions Iephte thought otherwise as appeares by the message hee sent to the King of Ammon Wilt thou not possesse that which Chemish thy god giveth thee to possesse So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us them will we possesse And it is observable that whereas in other particulars you have derived the absolute unlawfulnesse of such actions from the incongruitie of them to the nature of God as namely because he is true therefore he hateth falshood because pure therefore he hateth lust wheras to touch one thing more by the way that was omitted it is well knowne that God is as pure from lawfull lust as from lust unlawfull here in this place you make no mention at all of any condition in God whereunto the practice of violence should bee incongruous but in place of reason which you bring not so much as in shew you make us amends with variety of phrases Yet what more violent act then for the father to cut the throat of his most innocent childe and you well know God sent Abraham that holy Patriarch in such an errand as this Samsons faith is commended by S. Paul his first rising against the Philistins was as the subject rising against their Princes as the men of Iudah signified unto him saying Knowest thou not that the Philistins are rulers over us and thereupon they were content to deliver him into their hands to manifest themselves to be no confederates with him in this insurrection Afterwards we reade how he died flaming with desire of revenge upon the Philistins and that for his two eyes and to the end he might be revenged on them was content to be his owne assassinate and all this in an holy manner
but yee shall cry for sorrow of heart and house for vexation of spirit Yea and in making one piece rained upon sometimes and not another yet I nothing doubt but you will acknowledge God to bee as holy in these waies as in any other yea in causing two Beares to come out of the wood upon Elisha his cursing in the name of the Lord and teare fourty two children Yea in revenging Achans sacriledge not onely with his owne death but with his childrens also and in destroying suckling children and children in the wombe both in the generall deluge and in the conflagration of Sodome and when for the sinne of Saul hee caused seven of his sonnes to bee delivered into the hands of the Gibeonites to bee put to death for God is righteous in all his waies and holy in all his workes And the equity of Gods courses though sometimès discernable by man as in the case you put out of Ezechiel 18. 25. yet not alwaies so but that wee are driven sometimes to cry out with the Apostles Oh the depth of the riches of the wisedome and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out 5 I confesse that if to dictate like a positive Theologue be to instruct us you have thus farre instructed us That those paternes of holinesse or perfection which we are bound to imitate in him are not to be taken from his bare commandement or revelation of his will but from the objects of his will revealed or from the eternall practises which he hath exhibited as so many expresse and manifest proofes that his will is alwayes holy and just The paterns of holinesse which wee are bound to imitate are not to be taken you say from Gods bare commandement I finde what you say but I had rather finde what you prove When our Saviour exhorteth us to be holy as God is holy and perfect as God is perfect he speaketh it with a particular reference to a particular course in Gods providence taking thereby not an obligation to imitate him but onely an inducement to bee so much the more forward in doing that which God commands us in loving our enemies And unlesse wee have a commandement from God for the rule of our obedience it is nothing safe to imitate God For what shall Magistrates spare malefactors because God spareth them a long time Or because God causeth the children to be put to death sometime for the sinne of the father shall we do so too Or because God makes his sunne to shine as well upon one as upon another shall we therefore put no difference betweene such as are of the houshold of faith and others Wee may not imitate Elisha in cursing little children that mocked him nor the zeale of Phinees in killing Zimri and Cosbi in their lust much lesse must wee alwaies imitate God who hath greater power over mens lives then Elisha or Phinees had Yet why you should call the workes of God in the course of his providence eternall practises I know no reason or coulour of reason It may be that in stead of eternall it should be externall practises God no doubt is holy in all his waies and workes but herehence it followeth not that wee must imitate him in all his courses but rather wee must have an eye to his commandements And what I pray are those perfections whereof our generall duties are the imperfect representations Our generall duties are such as these We must not deale unjustly with any we must deale justly with all or wee must be holy Holinesse becomes thine house for ever and in the Priests forehead was wont to bee written Holinesse unto the Lord. Now are these the perfections wherein God as you say is holy and just Then t is as if you should say God is eminently and apparantly holy in the perfection which is called his holinesse God is eminently and apparantly just in that perfection which is called his justice Of all his morall commandements not one there is you say whose sincere practise doth not in part make us truely like him and we are bound to be conformable to his will revealed that we may bee conformable to his nature without conformity whereunto wee cannot participate of his happinesse for happinesse is the immediate consequent of his nature You proceede to cut out work for your Readers as many as are willing to Try the spirits and not hand over head to receive all for gold that glisters That the practise of Gods commandements maketh us like him is a plausible speech And it is true in the generall for as God is wise and holy so our obedience to his commandements is that which mades us wise and holy And as God doth nothing but that which very well becomes him so in obeying the will of God wee shall doe nothing but that which very well becomes us But as for particular duties there is little or no correspondency betweene the carriage of superiours and inferiours Wee have a God to worship by reverence and feare and by praying unto him these are moralities no way incident unto God Wee have parents both naturall and spirituall and masters and magistrates whom we must honour God hath none such to honour Wee by our authoritie may not take away the life of any be he never so great an offendor God may take away the life of any bee hee never so innocent without any blemish to his holines Matrimoniall chastitie is a vertue commendable in a Christian but this vertue is of so base a condition that the divine nature is not capable of it as who hath no lusts at all to order like as on the contrary the very Devills themselves being Spirits are no way obnoxious to unchristitie The like may bee said of temperance and intemperancie in the use or abuse of Gods creatures through gluttony and drunkennes T is theft for us to take any mans goods from him against his will it is not so with God who can send any man as naked out of the world as hee brought him into the world without any prejudice to the repuration of his justice And seeing he is not capable of any manner of concupiscence either of the eye or of the flesh for hee is a Spirit and not a body or flesh nor in the way of pride of life the contrary conditions cannot be in the way of any commendable vertues attributed unto God In a word all the goodnesse that is in God is essentiall unto him our goodnesse whatsoever we be is but accidentall unto us and therefore when we are exhorted to be holy as he is holy and perfect as God is perfect it tends onely to this even to set before us certaine actions of God as patternes and precedents to imitate him therein and that onely so far forth as they are suitable and congruous inducements to the performing of Gods commandements not to affect any conformity
But Magistrates when a malefactor is arraigned and convicted and condemned of some capitall crime though he doth repent yet may not they spare him That wherein our Saviour exhorts us to imitate our heavenly Father and to be perfect as he is perfect is in a particular case namely in loving not onely our friends but our enemies For so God not onely loveth his children and his friends but his enemies also as appeares in the pardoning of their sins and changing of their hearts as many as belong to his election And it is false to say that this is the onely reason why wee must love our enemies and not our friends onely for the commandement of God is another reason and a more chiefe reason and we may not take inducements from Gods actions to encourage us in the doing of any thing unlesse in such cases as when the actions whereabouts we set our selves are agreeable to the law of God God determined the crucifying of Christ but neither Iudas nor the high Priests nor Pilate nor the people of Israel were the more free from sinne for this while they determined to bring him to his crosse God turnes not onely the evils of some to the good of others but a mans owne sins also to his owne good according to that of Austin Utile est superbis in aliquod apertum manifestumque cadere peccatum 6. I wonder what glory of God doth appeare in the punishment of the reprobate not the glory of his mercy certainly nor say I the glory of his justice For vindicative justice whereof this is spoken hath onely place in reference unto sinners It is absurd to say that Gods dealings throughout are to be imitated by us and you have no ground for this but the saying of our Saviour Matth. 5. 48. which is applyed to a speciall case And will it follow that because wee must imitate Gods actions in a speciall case therefore we must imitate his dealings generally To intend evill to some before they have committed sinne admits a double interpretation either this to intend that evill shall befall some in which sense it is manifest that God doth intend the evill of punishment to befall none before they have sinned Or thus the very intention of evill unto some is not untill sinne bee committed in which sense it is notoriously untrue For sinne is not committed but in time but Gods intentions are everlasting Of intending the destruction of any as meanes of others good I have already spoken that which is sufficient Why should your tautologies draw me to the like absurdity The last clause is new and therefore we will consider it If God did absolutely ordaine some to eternall inevitable misery for the advancement of his owne glory we should not sinne but rather imitate the perfection of our heavenly Father in robbing Iudas to pay Paul c. Ridetur chorda qui semper oberrat eadem This argument was in the close of the former section proposed and the inconsequence thereof discovered The consequence is this God did ordaine to punish some therefore we may rob them God did ordaine this to the advancement of his glory therefore we may rob to pay our debts No proportion is to bee found in any part of this comparison For if God take away the life of any man will it follow that therefore we may doe soe also It is well known â—od may doe such a thing without all respect to sinne but it is not in our lawfull power to doe so though with respect unto their sinne And what a senslesse collection is this that because God may doe this or that to advance his glory therefore we may doe the like thing for our profit and advantage We say God intends to punish no reprobate but for his sinne yet I hope you will not say it is in any private mans power to robbe or take any mans goods from him by reason of his sinne Wee are beholden to you for your counsell in the next place when you teach us to guesse at the perfection of Gods Iustice towards the wicked and of his bounty towards the godly by the commendable shadow or imitation of it in earthly gods A proper course to search out the goodnesse and justice of God in the courses of heathen men Yet it is a rule of State Better a mischiefe then an inconvenience And by warres is procured peace but is it without intention of harme to any Can warres bee managed without harme even as well as the Fryar could bee satisfied with a goose livor and a pigges head albeit nothing for him were dead And in making Sodom and Gomorrah examples of his judgements did he not intend our good and was this without intention of harme to any And though they of ripe years amongst them had committed abomination and God tooke them away as hee thought good yet what I pray became of infants some in their mothers wombe some hanging at their mothers breasts And will you challenge God for injustice in this because we doe not finde the like course in the commendable shadow or imitation of Gods justice in earthly gods as you are pleased to phrasifie it In distribution of rewards upon the obedient and execution of punishment upon the disobedient God failes not as he will manifest at the day of judgement And as he executes so he intends to execute and no otherwise But God hath a peculiar power no shadow whereof appeareth in man or Angell and that is of giving grace of giving repentance and this he distributes to whom he will and denies to whom he will You are content to leape over this and no marvell for the grossenesse of your opinion would bee too clearly manifested to the world if you should deale on this Yet God you say drawes men to repentance by gracious promises of inestimable reward And where I pray are these herbes of grace known to grow is it any where but in Gods word And was Gods word afforded to all in the daies of the Old Testament or is it so in the daies of the New And where he doth afford his word is this all the mercy he shewes namely to perswade men to repent or is this to give them repentance And doth not Gods word manifestly teach that repentance is the gift of God Againe doe we maintaine that God damnes any but impenitent sinners T is true we say if all the world should beleeve and repent all the world should be saved notwitstanding all their sinnes and not Cain onely What more severe punishment then damnation and what precedent loving instructions or good encouragements to doe well were afforded by God to all those infants who perish in that sinne which they drew from the loynes of their parents And will you challenge God of unnaturalnesse for this or will you deny that any infants perish in originall sinne as Pelagius did And what loving instructions doth God minister to those
notorious untruth as namely that the execution of justice punitive is unnaturall unto God and that is out of Lament 3. 33. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Thus you take Scripture hand over head to serve your turne But I pray consider is it possible that God should doe any thing against his will men may have reluctations and conflicts in them and doe things volentes nolentes is such a condition possible to be found in the nature of God Yet in this case Aristotle hath defined the action to be simply voluntarie and done willingly If God be represented sometimes unto us as it were fluctuating like men betweene different resolutions of executing either mercy or justice as in the Prophet How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel how shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim mine heart is turned within me and my repentances are rowled together like as he is represented unto us as well in the shape of the members of our body as of the passions of our minde we have cause rather to take notice hereby of the goodnesse of God in condescending thus far to our infirmities to make us the better acquainted with him and the more sensible of his favour then hereby to take occasion to fashion God like unto our selves either in body or minde Yet the meaning of the Prophet is plaine enough namely that God comes not to afflict his children unlesse he be provoked by sinne and herein he differeth from earthly parents who sometimes chasten their children for their owne pleasures but God as hee doth not but in case he is provoked so he doth it for our profit as the Apostle telleth us in the same place To doe a thing willingly hath the same signification with the Latine phrase animi causa that is when nothing is the cause thereof but a mans owne will as Causabon observes out of Seneca de beneficiis 4. whose opinion was Neminem adeo à naturali lege descivisse hominem exuisse ut animi causa malus sit You further say that Nothing can provoke good men to execute punitive justice upon offenders but the good of others deserving either better or not so ill which might grow worse and worse through evill doers impunity I pray consider doe parents chastise their children for the good of others and not for the good of the children themselves God himselfe chastiseth his owne children all manner of wayes and is this for the good of others that deserve better or not so ill and not rather for the good of those his owne children themselves No chastising for the present is joyous saith the Apostle but grievous but afterwards it bringeth forth the quiet fruit of righteousnesse to them that are exercised thereby Marke I pray To them that are exercised thereby he doth not say that this fruit is brought forth to others As for the torments in the world to come who is the better for them unlesse they tend to the improvement of joy in those blessed ones while they behold in others that miserie which onely by the grace of God themselves have escaped For as for any other welfare of the Saints of God or any welfare at al of the damned crew or avoidance of grievances that is procured by the damnation of the wicked if you know it is well but I assure you it is more then I can divine of Yet doe we not say that God hath pleasure in the torture either of men or devils but onely in the demonstration of his owne glorious justice towards them and in the magnifying of his mercy so much the more toward his Saints You say It goeth against the nature of God to punish the workes of his owne hands A vile speech and withall senselesse and no marvell if when men prostitute all honesty and the feare of God in opposing manifest truth they lose their wits also and fall upon most unsober meditations For what a vile speech is it to say that any worke of God goeth against his nature who as the Apostle professeth worketh all things according to the counsell of his will Then againe what a senselesse speech is it to insinuate that it were not so contrary to GODS nature to deale thus with those creatures which were not the workes of his owne hands but being the works of his owne hands you say it is against his nature to punish them A wonderfull assertion and wherat the most barbarous people might be astonished in the consideration of the impiety shall I say or the insulsity thereof or both rather namely that it should be against Gods nature to punish sinners For it is well known that God punisheth none other nor ever did Christ Iesus the Sonne of God onely excepted And what a field have you here to expatiate in if you list to aggravate the unnaturalnesse of any action in God And with as little sobriety doe you amplifie that unnaturalnesse in God by the consideration of man especially as who you say is more deare to him then any childe is to his Father So then to punish others you are willing to grant not to be so unnaturall an action in God as the punishing of man And I pray what are those other creatures Are they inferiour as Oxen and Sheepe and all these never sinned yet is it not unnaturall to punish them if punishment may have place as being taken for the afflicting of them where there is no sinne For God gives us leave to weare them out with plowing carying riding for our necessity for our dâ—light yea to set one creature upon another the greyhound upon an hare upon a deere the hauke upon a partridge or phesant or wilde fowle No unnaturalnesse doe we exercise in all this such is the liberty which God hath given unto us But yet to punish man though a sinner for he punisheth no other this how greatly say you doth it goe against the nature of God It seemes you cannot tell how greatly neither can I helpe you herein For I doe not see how it is against his nature at all But you seeme to give a reason in saying that God is loving kindnesse it selfe But I pray consider is he not justice it selfe also as well as loving kindnesse and is it against the nature of Iustice to punish sinners no nor against his loving kindnesse neither For I hope that no attribute of God is contrary to another though according to their different notions some actions are more suitable to the one then to the other And why man should have more speciall consideration here then Angels I know no reason For if you say that God is the father of man in as much as he hath created him by the same reason he may be the father of the ignoblest creature that is To say that God is the father of man in as much as hee made him after his
play But where doe you finde if a man might be so bold to aske that an henne is so superlative a creature in her affection towards her chicken I can hardly beleeve that either Aristotle or Pliny hath afforded you any such observation but rather your comment upon them or upon the booke of Nature What is an henue more affectionate to her young ones then a Pelican is to hers who is said to let her selfe bloud to feed them or then a Storke that hath her name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the Hebrew is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a word neere of kinne to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bowels of compassion as which indeed are most tender in her A story whereof we have in the description of the Netherlands namely of a Storke that when the house was on fire where her nest was kept the fire off from her yong ones with her owne body and wings so long till she was burnt her selfe Still you proceede in amplyfying the love of God nothing to the purpose For the question is not how great Gods love is towards those on whom it is placed but whether it extend to all or no You say All the sweet fruits and comforts of love whether of fathers and mothers towards their children or of husbands towvrd their wives or of brethren to brethren sisters to sisters or of one friend to another their sinfulnesse excepted are but distillations or infusions of his infinite loue to our nature We well know the love of God exceeds all this bu◠I verily think your penne hath runne riot ere you are aware and you have written you know not or you consider not what For herehence it followeth that there is no act so abominable of the will of the creature but God may infuse it the sinfulnesse onely thereof excepted which yet is a very sory exception for sinfulnes is not a thing that can be infused by God Angell or man Of old is was determined by Austine that sinne hath not causam efficientem but deficientem onely And herein you manifestly contradict your selfe as who maintaine that whosoever is the author of the act must therewithall be the author of the sinnefullnesse thereof for as much as sinfulnesse doth result relative like upon position of the foundation And of this kinde of argument I have found you wondrous confident in a certain treatise of yours though a very weake argument and long agoe proposed and answered by Capreolus and whose answer thereunto is again rehearsed by Soncinas But here I shew onely how you make no bones of contradicting your selfe very handsomely in saying God doth infuse an act which is sinfull though not the sinfulnesse of it The love of God you say though infinitely increased in every particular and afterwards made up in one could no way equalize Gods love towards every particular soule created by him Thus you steale up without all proofe the extention of Gods love to every particular and that in infinite manner Whereas the Scripture professeth as plainely that God hath hated Esau as that he hath loved Jacob. And seeing Gods love can be but infinite towards his elect and towards his dearest Sonne and towards himselfe you make it infinite towards the very reprobates whether men or devills for every particular of them hath beene created by him Is not this good divinity and very comfortable divinity Yet no Arminian will say that God so loved the Angells that were fallen that he sent his Sonne to die for them When you say The creatures for feare doe not so much good for their little ones as they might not so much for the modell of their wit or strength as God for his part though infinite in wisedome and power doth for the sonnes of men As hee said of his Bore that was sent him Noster te non capit ignis conturbator Aper so may I say of this your eloquence that it passeth mine intelligence I can neither construe your sentence nor correct it To say that the creature cannot doe so much for his young as God doth for the sonnes of men is so vulgar a trueth that when you introduce it with such pompe and state I may well say ' Tu pulicem Gaure giganta facis yet the adversative interposed Though infinite in wisedome and power hath no congruity to this sense neither for Gods infinite wisedome and power is no adversative to this I trow but rather a coroborative thereunto Bee it that God had done as much as could bee done for his unfruitfull vineyard what is this to prove that Gods love extends to all whereas the place it selfe doth manifestly restraine this love of God unto his vineyard Yet what is there mentioned besides the well husbanding of this vineyard wherein hee appeales to their consciences whether a better course could be devised then he had taken for the well husbanding thereof But I pray consider doth the worke of grace extend no further then to planting and watering Is it not God that gives the increase also Is it not in Gods power to give faith to give repentance you that will have God to infuse that love in carnall men which is found to be sinfull and not to infuse the sinfulnesse thereof cannot indure that God should infuse faith and repentance into the heart of man But if God can doe this surely hee can doe more then ought that is expressed in that song of God concerning his vineyard Yet it is true that in the way of outward husbandry Gods course was without all exception neither could the wisedome of man devise a better course for God to take then was that which hee tooke with them And therefore you have small cause to charge your adversaries with such sorry shifts so atheisticall as if wee thought Gods serious protestations deserved no credite with us These are fictions of course proceeding from an addle braine to supply the roome of so and arguments And surely did wee not believe Gods serious protestations why should wee regard his oath For amongst men he that is found to bee no man of his word is usually little regarded for his oath Gods word without protestation is and ever shall bee through his grace sufficient ground of our faith in him Looke you unto it that you hunt not after some other foundation the tenour of whose discourse in many places and in this very place treating of his infinite love to all and every one runnes in a current of manifest opposition against the word of God though now and then you have a snatch at it and away like the dog at the river Nilus for feare of the Crocadile and content your selfe onely with a superficiall consideration of it as in this place like as in the former For what is this spoken indifferently of all of the Gentiles as well as of the Iewes It is manifestly spoken of the house of Israel concerning whom the Lord asketh this question Why
will yee die yee house of Israel And the whole proceedeth by way of answer to their murmuring against the providence of God in saying The fathers have eaten sower grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge and hereupon God proceedeth to justifie the course of his providence unto their face Now when God doth not take men upon the hippe as soone as they have sinned against him but spares them and not onely gives them space of repentance but useth meanes to bring them unto repentance by sending Prophets unto them to admonish them to admonish them of their sinnes and to denounce the judgements of God against them is not this a manifest evidence that God is not delighted in their death but rather in their repentance although he still reserves libertie to himselfe to bestow the gift of repentance on whom he will And therefore all this is only in respect of his church not in respect of those who are strangers from the common wealth of Israel and aliens from the covenants of promise then concerning those within the church All are not Israel that are of Israel Rom. 9. And though the meanes of grace have their course withall yet God intends to make them effectuall onely with his elect according to that As many as were ordeined to eternall life believed and whom he hath predestinated them hath he called and justified and glorified For as Austine saith Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis aget poenitentiam And speaking of the Non pradestinatis Istorum neminem saith hee adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritatemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorem patientiam sive non imparem praebeat Therefore we say that as concerning the elect though they sinne yet God willeth not their death but willeth their repentance and their salvation But as touching others who are mixt amongst them as tares amongst the wheat and are partakers of the same meanes of grace and invitations unto repentance in as much as he spares them and giveth them not onely time to repent but admonisheth them of their sinnes and affords them the outward meanes of repentance it is sufficient to justifie that God doth not willingly bring judgement upon them neither for their sinnes because hee comes not hastily thereunto but upon wilfull despising of the means of grace used to reclaime them like as before I shewed in what sense God is said not to afflict the sonnes of men willingly And as for this present place your selfe elsewhere hath interpreted it thus I will not the death of an impenitent sinner but that God wills undoubtedly the death of an impenitent sinner To quash this construction in this place you say this oath of God proceeds as concerning those who all their life long have hated him Here I am perswaded wee shall finde no little inconsideratenesse To hate God all a mans life time what is it but to hate him from the first hower of comming to the use of reason unto the last even unto the moment of death now I pray consider Will not God the death of such a one as dieth in impenitencie The text I confesse runnes thus I will not the death of him that dieth But doe you thinke indeed the meaning is that as for such a man as now dieth and hath lived all his life time in the hatred of God God will not the death of such a one Like enough you are content your Reader should entertaine such a conceite But I cannot bee perswaded you take this to be the meaning The text is manifestly against it for it followeth But rather that he returne and live so that it is spoken of a man living and such as is capable of repentance And wee know the whole Chapter is to justifie Gods providence in afflicting men with his judgements so that to die in this place is to be under the afflicting hand of God and so in the way to death and to destruction Our living is reputed a continuall dying for as much as nature consumeth and wasteth as the Poet wittily expresseth it Childehood ends in youth And youth in old age dies I thought I lived in truth But now I die I die I see Each age of death is one degree Whereupon he concludes his resolution to correct his former phrase of speech saying Farewell the doating score Of worlds Arithmaticke Life I le trust thee no more But henceforth for thy sake I le go by deaths new Almanaeke For while I sing A thousand men lie sick a thousand bells doring And would you know what is the difference between me and them They are but dead and I dying So that I guesse your meaning according to the articles of your owne creed is but this That Gods love is such to them that all their life past not simply all their life but all their life past have hated him that He will not their death but rather that they returne and live And I grant that this is true of many in most proper speech namely of all the elect of God though it bee long ere God calleth and converteth some of them Of others also that live in the Church I have shewed how it may have course in the same sense that God is said not so much willingly to afflict them for their sinnes as for refusing to repent and turne unto God after they have sinned When you tell us of infinite places more of sacred texts and those most perspicuous in themselves and also that The whole ancient Church with some small exception which yet may bee counterpoised is ready to give joynt verdict for you it savoureth hotly of Smithfield eloquence Pessima quò vendas opus est mangone perito Qui Smithfieldensi polleat eloquio Yet it was an old observation Multa fidem promissa levant cum plenius aequo Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces If you had some about you to justfie you in cleanly manner by some prety qualification it had beene absolute As the Gentleman who professed that he had certaine ponds wherein Carpes were taken as big as that Somer-pole which hee then rode by and withall askt his man that rode with him whether it were not so Sir quoth his man though they were so big yet I am sure they were nothing like so long and indeed the dimension of length is more suitable to the proportion of an Eele then of a Carpe As Cicero answered him that told a strange tale concerning the length of certaine Eeles which he had seene for Tully handsomely to convince him of his vanity made shew of going beyond him in his owne element of tossing and forthwith replied saying That is nothing strange for I know a place where Eeles are taken of such a length that they use to make their Angling-rods of them And this assertion of yours may come as heere to the trueth as an Eele is to an Angling rod. CHAP. XV.
her doctrine for the preventing of schismes and distractions in opinion Againe had she intended to prevent as you say distractions in opinion about the extension of Gods love would shee not have done it rather expresly then onely in such a manner as to leave it to others to draw consequeâ—s therefrom for the manifesting of her opinion about the large extent of Gods love to mankinde Who would thinke that a sober man should be caried away with such vaine and frivolous presumptions without all tolerable ground But let us come to the particular scanning of the places All of them I marke are onely the expression of prayer for others Whence it no way followeth that God will therefore save them because wee pray for their salvation The childe prayeth for his father the father for the childe the brother for the brother but hence it followeth not that God will save them though wee are bound to pray for the salvation of one another Moses prayed God to wipe him out of the booke of life rather then to destroy his people in the wildernesse God had no such resolution and what sober Divine could doubt but that Moses knew well that this could not be yet hee shewes hereby what his desire was secluding the consideration of Gods will to the contrary and what he would preferre â—f hee were left to himselfe even his owne eternall confusion rather then the glory of God should bee obscured And who ever censured this prayer of Moses for sinne I am sure God doth not so S. Paul could wish himselfe separate from Christ for his brethrens sake which were his kinsmen according to the flesh Rom. 9. 2. yet he well knew that nothing could separate him from the love of God in Christ. Our Saviour in like sort well knew that the cup must not passe from him yet neverthelesse he prayed earnestly that that cup might passe if it were possible and with finall submission of his will to the will of his Father The first place you alledge is that passage of the Liturgy where we pray unto God that it may please him to have mercy upon all men And for good reason doe we pray so for is not every one bound to seeke the salvation of all men as much as lyeth in his power did not the Apostles labour for this in their place And is not prayer a speciall meanes for this We are bound to pray for them that persecute us wee are bound to pray for them that hate us For what if God will not save all and wee know so much shall that hinder us from doing our duty in seeking by all meanes the salvation of all specially considering we are not able to put a difference and to discerne who are elect and who are not S. Paul though he saved but some yet would he become all things unto all men that he might save them Yet he well knew that the word in his mouth was the savour of death unto death unto many yea to Israel in speciall manner and yet notwithstanding his hearty desire and prayer unto God for Israel waâ— that they might be saved And albeit God should save all and every one that live in some one time or age yet were this â—o prejudice to the doctrine of election For the number of Gods chosen for all this might be but few in comparison to the reprobate And therefore we see no cause why you should upbraid your opposites as if they thought this practice of the ancient and moderne Church had need of reformation As for the restraint of the universall all men in the place of Timothy by S. Austin unto genera singulorum it is according to the usuall Scripture phrase For Matth. 3. 5. it is said that There went out unto John the Baptist Jerusalem and all Iudea and all the region round about Jordan what sober Divine doth extend the signification hereof any father then to give to understand that some from all parts of Iudea and of the region round about Iordan had resort unto him Matth. 4. 23. it is likewise said that Iesus went about all Galile teaching in their Synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdome and healing every sicknesse and every disease among the people and that his fame spred throughout all Syria and they brought unto him all sicke people Doe you thinke there was not one sicke person left in all Galile and Syria that was not brought unto him Act. 10. it is said that while Peter was in a trance he saw in a vision a vessell let downe from heaven wherein was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every foure-footed beast who doubts but that the meaning hereof is no more then this that of all sorts some or rather of most sorts some 1 Cor. 15. 22. it is said that in Christ all shall be made alive is this true thinke you of all and every one All flesh shall see the salvation of God what sober man will apply this to all and every man Rom. 5. 18. As by the offence of one man the fault came upon all unto condemnation so by the obedience of one righteousnesse came upon all men to the justification of life will you hereupon extend the benefit of Christs death to the justification of all men unto everlasting life like as all and every one are fallen into condemnation by the sinne of Adam Rom. 7. 8. the Apostle professeth that sinne wrought in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can this possibly bee applyed to every particular concupiscence But by the way what doe you meane to apply S. Austins restraint to this universall in this place whereas Austin applyeth it onely to this universall in the place following where it is said that God will have all to be saved And if no other place did afford us any such restraint of course yet wee must 〈◊〉 driven so to interpret it in this place lest otherwise we be cast upon denying the first Article of our Creed For seeing all are not saved and the cause thereof is not because God will not save them it necessarily followeth that the cause thereof must be because God cannot save them And it would have becommed you well to have answered this argument and not presumed to cary your Reader to the embracing of your construction hand over head in spight of so manifest a reason to the contrary Now if you had but accommodated your selfe to make answer hereunto I doubt not but wee should have had good matter to worke upon which I speake upon experience of another discourse of yours that passeth by tradition but you were loth to intersert it there and made choice rather to pitch upon the universall in the former place that so you might be out of danger of that gun-shot that must needs have rung a peale in your eares from this place Yet in this place alone S. Austine interprets the universall according to the restraint mentioned and not in the former And
every one I would I knew once what forme would satisfie you for I am apt to entertaine a resolution to gratifie you therein But to say that we must pray for all not in an indefinite but in an universall consideration if you could make me understand it I would soone come to capitulation with you In the meane time I appeale to your conscience did you ever pray in this stile for all and signifie that your meaning was to pray for them not in an indefinite but in an universall consideration I professe unto you if God should leave me unto my selfe and to follow mine owne desires I should desire not onely that all that now live but that all that ever lived might have beene converted and saved yea the Angels that fell might have been kept from sin or having sinned might have beene brought to repētance saved I see no cause why I should desire the contrary But considering the wil of God wherby the angels that fell are bound in chaines and kept to the judgement of the great day I dare not pray for their salvation And to pray that every one that now lives might be saved with submission to the will of God I see no incongruity but we have better grounds of faith and those sufficient to take up our thoughts especially in these daies wherein we live whereupon to proceed in the ordering of our prayers And I would be loath you should put upon us any course or forme of prayer for all which you practise not your selfe And if I knew your practice in this kinde I would soone give in mine answer whether I thought good to subscribe to your forme or no. In the next place you tell us that the reason why we are bound to desire the spirituall good of all men universally considered is because we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect Here againe you bewray your jealousie of the weaknesse of your owne cause as when you content not your selfe in saying we must pray for all men but adde hereunto that we must pray for all men universally considered the opposite member wherto before you signified to be this To pray for all men indefinitly considered Now the Apostle is farre from these scrupulosities He simply exhorts us to pray for all men hee doth not adde as you doe We must pray for all men universally considered and not indefinitely Yet in no other sense you think it will serve your turne That reason of yours drawne from the conformity to the courses of our heavenly Father whereon you so much insist I have already shewed how little it serves your turne Now I will shew you how in another respect it is rather repugnant then consonant to your Tenet For that example of conformity is onely in an indefinite consideration thus Wee must pray not onely for our friends and them that love us but also for them that are our enemies and hate us and persecute us like as God doth good unto the just and wicked and not onely to the just and good To our desires you say wee must adde our endeavours that saving truth may be imparted to all It seemes you have not failed herein Now I would gladly know what those endeavours of yours have beene hitherto whereby you have endeavoured that saving truth may be imparted to the inhabitants of terra Australis incognita or to the Negroes or to the Tartarians yea or the Turkes Saracens or Arabians Hitherto you have seemed to dispute thus God will have it our duty to pray for the salvation of all therefore God willeth the salvation of all but now you dispute in a quite contrary manner thus God wils that all should come to the knowledge of his truth therefore wee must desire and endeavour that his saving truth may be imparted unto al. The consequence of your former argument is utterly untrue as I have already shewed and as Austin long agoe discoursed mans will in an holy manner may be contrary to the will of God and againe in a most unholy manner may the will of man be concurrent with the will of God As it is the duty of the childe to pray for the life of the father though God will have the father to dye and not live On the other side a wicked childe wisheth the death of his father in an ungracious manner yet it may bee that herein he concurreth with the will of God supposing as it may well be that God willeth the death of the father at the same time that the sonne wisheth it As for the second argument we deny therein the antecedent if you understand it of all and every one For the case is cleer that God doth not bring all and every one to the knowledge of his truth not because he cannot for doubtlesse he could bestow his Gospell upon them that want it as well as upon us that enjoy it therefore the reason must needs be because he will not As he plainly professeth he will bring a famine of his word upon a Land Amos 8. 11. Behold the dayes come saith the Lord God that I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst of water but of hearing the word of the Lord. vers 12. And they shall wander from sea to sea and from the North even to the East shall they runne to and fro to seeke the word of the Lord and shall not finde it So the Lord threatens the Church of Ephesus to remove her candlesticke out of his place Revel 2. and long before threatned the Iewes to take his vineyard from them and let it out to others that should bring him the fruit thereof in due season And it is very strange that these and such like judgements should come to passe and God should not will them This is the reason whereupon Austin is moved to enquire into a commodious construction of that place left otherwise we should fall upon a direct contradiction to the prime Article of our Creed and therefore after he hath given two constructions of the place the last whereof is this which you impugne but not answer his reasons which are two the one drawne from the analogie of Scripture phrase as where our Saviour saith unto the Pharises you tithe Mint and Rue and every herbe which phrase cannot be understood otherwise then of every kinde of herbe the other reason is that formerly spoken of as if we say That God willeth such a thing to come to passe which yet doth not come to passe we shall thereby deny Gods omnipotency Yet see the ingenuity of this worthy father hee gives any man leave to give any fair construction of the place provided that God bee not made unable to bring to passe whatsoever hee will have to come to passe Et quocunque alio modo intelligi potest dum tamen credero non cogamur aliquid omnipotentem statutum voluisse fieri factumque non esse qui sine ullis
Ezek. 14. 23. They shall comfort you when you see their way and their enterprises and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it saith the Lord God Secondly when God doth chastise not as parents for their owne pleasures but with an eye to the good of those whom hee chastiseth Rom. 12. 10. According thereto is that of Augustine Qui trucidat non considerat quemadmodum laniet sed qui curat considerat quemadmodum seret This is my answer following the course of your owne reading of the place whereas Piscator blames the vulgar translation in this place which you follow for saith hee in the Hebrew it is not I will not the death of a sinner but this I am not delighted in the death of a sinner But saith he A man may will that wherein he takes no delight as a ficke man may will to drinke a bitter potion wherein he takes no delight For he may will to take it not for it selfe but for something else to wit to recover his health And so God willeth the eternall death of reprobates for his owne glory to wit for the manifestation of his just wrath in punishing of their sinnes And Iunius reades it and translates it in like manner and with these accordeth our last English translation As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his way and live Ezek. 33. 11. And the 18. of Ezekiel doth cleare the meaning of the Holy Ghost where the same phrase is used and in the same manner translated by our worthiest Divines and followed in our last translation vers 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that hee should returne from his waies and live and verse 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turne your selves and live ye Now in this chapter the Lord justifieth himselfe against an imputation of harsh if not unjust dealing as if hee punished the children for the sinnes of their fathers which in a proverbiall manner was delivered thus The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge which might occasion a desperate disposition in them and provoke them to cast off all care of amending their waies and turning to God by repentance because all was one whether they repented or repented not because the sowre grapes which their fathers had eaten were enough to set all their teeth on edge Against this the Lord made a solemne protestation that all soules were his even the soules of the children as well as the soules of the fathers and that the soule that sinned that should dye and hereupon expostulates with them thus Have I any pleasure in the death of a sinner to wit so as to bring death upon him notwithstanding his repentance because forsooth his father had eaten sowre grapes No no the Lord hath no delight in their death but if they returne and live hee delights in that and therefore concludes with exhorting them to returne unto the Lord that they may live Now when you forsake the translation of our Church and slicke unto the Vulgar corrupt translation to hold up your odde conceits doth it become you to make question whether they that oppose you in your extravagant tenents and proofes have subscribed to the booke of Common Prayer Piscator proceedeth further and saith that the meaning is not simply that God delights not in the death of the wicked but in case he ceaseth not from his iniquity as appeares saith he by comparing of it with that which goeth before and with that which commeth after for otherwise God takes delight in all his workes like as Lyra upon Ezech. 18. Punitio improbitatis bene est à Deo volita quia justa In Proverbs 1. 26. thus we reade I will laugh at your destruction and mocke when your feare commeth How are these places to bee reconciled Piscator answereth God is not delighted in the death of man as it is the destruction of the creature but is delighted therein as it is the just punishment of the creature which is as much as to say he delights in the execution of his owne Iustice like as wee reade Ier. 9. 24. Let him that glorieth glorie in this that he understandeth and knoweth me For I am the Lord which shew mercy and judgement and righteousnesse in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. 4. Now as if you had made all sure on your side partly out of our authorized devotions wherein you make choice of three prayers whereof two are nothing to the purpose and the third at your uttermost straining of it doth but encourage you to conclude finally that God wils not the death but the life rather of them that of Infidels are made Christians and partly out of the Catechisme where you finde that Christ hath redeemed all mankinde which hath no coloutable extent further then all men and without manifest opposition to Austin you finde this phrase will not serve your turne whom yet you oppose so as without answering any one of his arguments one whereof was drawne from analogie of Scripture phrase another from manifest reason professing therewithall that your construction of this place contradicts the prime Article of the Creed And last of all driving the naile of your discourse home with a concludent proofe depending upon a translation of the text quite different from the most authentique translation of our Church which yet must be without prejudice to your conformity having a sound heart of your owne and therefore some peccadilies may bee well borne withall and you take liberty to question others your opposites whether they have subscribed or no to the booke of Common Prayer such is the height of your imperious cariage bearing downe all before you Now you come to enquire By what will God doth will they should be saved that are not saved and you demand whether God doth will their salvation by his revealed and not by his secret will As if this were our opinion whereas neither Calvin embraceth it nor Beza nor Piscator but all concurre upon that interpretation which Austin gave many hundred yeares agoe and which you impugne and how judiciously we have already considered Peter Martyr proposeth it amongst divers others but embraceth it not neither doe I know any Divine of ours that embraceth it Cajetan indeed embraceth it and Cornelius de Lapide and Aquinas amongst other interpretations As you doubt whether your opposites have subscribed to the booke of Common prayer so if you take a liberty to put upon us the opinions and accommodations of distinctions used by Papists you may in the next place make doubt whether wee have not subscribed to the Councell of Trent We plainly deny that God doth will the salvation of any but of his elect For to
world of new Divinity communicated unto us to endoctrinate us in these latter dayes To what end soever God plagued Pharaoh for not doing that which he could not doe all possibility of amending being taken from him this action was just in God and so is the like whersoever it be found to proceed from God And although Pharaoh could not repent without the grace of God yet I make no doubt but that he could have let Israel goe notwithstanding his obduration And it appeares he did let them goe after the ninth plague which followed sometime after the seventh plague And so I doubt not but he could have refrained himselfe from pursuing them when hee had once dismissed them And yet as for not letting Israel goe God brought ten plagues upon Aegypt so for pursuing after them he drowned Pharaoh and his host in the red Sea Now in confidence of your performances in clearing your self frō contradictiōs in one point you are as adventrous to fal upon another The Iesuites pretend they can equivocate without lying and you take upon you to speake contradiction without all contradiction yet by your leave if no body else will I will take care it may not passe without contradiction There is no contradiction you say betweene these two propositions God from all eternity did will the death of Pharaoh God from all eternity did not will the death but rather the life of Pharaoh In like sort we may say there is no contradiction between these two propositions God from all eternity did will the salvation of Judas God from all eternity did not will the salvation but the condemnation of Iudas and to proceed in the straine of your subtile discourse I goe along by you step by step For albeit Iudas continued one and the same man from his birth unto his death yet did he not all that time continue one and the same object of Gods immutable will and eternall decree This object did alter as Iudas his dispositions or affections towards God or his neighbour altered There is no contrariety much lesse contradiction betweene these God unfainedly hateth sinners God doth not hate but love the elect though they be sinners For here the object of his hatred and love is not the same he hates sinners unfainedly as sinners not having made up the full measure of faith and repentance but having made up the full measure of faith and repentance and good workes and having their soules betrothed unto holinesse he loves them His love of them as elect is no less necessary or usuall then his hatred of them as sinners But though he necessarily loves them being once become elect or having made up the full measure of good workes yet was there no necessity laid upon them by his eternall decree to make up such a measure of good works No to this sufficed the liberty of their wils both to performe such a measure of good works and to carry themselves like stout champions and patrons of this power of their free wils and to gratifie the grace of God so far as to admit her activity both to admonish them aforehand and upon their propension to that which is good to concur to the performing of it He that walkes in the Sunne must needs be coloured and I have so long beene versed in the contemplation of your argumentive facultie that I am growne almost as sufficient to plead for the elects electing of themselves as you to plead for the reprobates reprobation of themselves and which of us dischargeth his part best I leave it to the indifferent reader to consider and I doubt not but his sentence will bee this Et vitulo tu dignus hic But let us run over the contexture of your discourse once more and consider it in it selfe I say there is more sobriety in saying God from all eternity did not will the salvation of an elect then that he did from all eternity not will the damnation of a reprobate For the onely qualification of your saying is this He did not will the damnation of Pharaoh as a man but the qualification of my congruous assertion on the other side is this God did not will the salvation or life of an elect as a sinner Now I appeale to any mans judgement whether there be not greater congruitie betweene the termes in my proposition then betweene the termes in yours The termes in mine are these Not will the salvation of an elect as a sinner in yours they are these Not will the death of a reprobate as a man Seeing it is well knowne and Arminius confesseth it that God can turne the holiest creature into nothing without any shew of repugnance unto his justice But to will the salvation of a sinner hath some shew of repugnancy to Gods justice But to deale with you closely and upon a point I deny that God did ever will the salvation of Pharaoh and I prove it by two reasons If hee did ever will it then Gods will is now changed for certainly now he doth not will his salvation But Gods will cannot change He is without variablenesse or shadow of change If God would save Pharaoh and did not as it appeares he did not then the reason why Pharaoh was not saved was because God could not save him This was Austines discourse long agoe For a father desiring the saving of his childe and not performing of it who doubts but that the reason is because he cannot It is enough for us that Pharaoh continued the same man for like as of the same man it cannot be verified that both he shall be saved and shall not be saved so neither can it be verified of the same man that both God will save him and will not save him Neither was Pharaoh ever in any other estate then in the state of damnation In like sort the contradiction is evident enough in those propositions which you adde to illustrate the contradictious nature as you pretend of the former as if you should say Aske my fellow whether I am a thiefe which is nimis familiaris probatio As if you should say I unfainedly love such a man and yet I hate him here is no contradiction or as if a King should say I unfainedly love such a one yet I le hang him yet this with more probability may be saved from contradiction It is true wee may parcere personis dicere de vitiis love the man and hate his qualities and manifest my love in seeking to redeeme him from his lewd conversations by prayer unto God by perswasion towards the man himselfe But to say I unfainedly love him and yet I hate him and thinke to save it from contradiction by saying I love him as a man and hate him as a lewd person is worse then for Adam to seeke with figge leaves to cover his nakednesse To say God loves men as they have not made up the full measure of their iniquity is manifestly to imply that God loves a
teach when we make the work of faith a worke of power 2 Thess. 1. And shall not the raising of men from the dead be a worke of power and is not the worke of grace such a worke Eph. 2. 2 But you doe ill under colour of magnifying the love of God to dishonour both his love and his power his love in confining it onely to promises and threatnings as if by these operations alone he moved us unto repentance his power in denying that God brings to passe those things which hee desires to bring to passe and that ardently And this latter is Austins objection as well as ours and hee makes the former to be meere Pelagianisme as wel'l as we doe In the next place you tell us We are to beleeve that Gods infinite power shall effect all things possible for them that love him but constraines no mans will to love him But doth he make mans will to love him without constraint why did you not expresse your minde on this point you are willing to acknowledge God to be the author of glory but I doe not finde you so ready to acknowledge God to be the author of all goodnesse the author and finisher of our faith of our repentance of our obedience Did you acknowledge this there should bee no difference betweene us For we doe not affirme that he works faith and repentance in us by way of constraint And when the Apostle prayeth that God would worke in the Hebrewes that which was pleasing in his sight you shall never finde in any of our Divines that the meaning of the Apostles prayer was that he would constraine them to doe that which is good and acceptable in the sight of God I know no power in God but infinite and seeing what worke soever he workes is by the exercise of his power it cannot be denied but that it is the exercise of that power which is infinite Againe is man or Angell able to circumcise our hearts so as to make us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts It is not as I presume you will confesse why then shall not this worke of Gods love in circumcising our hearts and making us to love him be accounted a worke of power infinite And Austin divers times professeth that God doth convert our hearts omnipotenti facilitate by an almighty facility and when God regenerates us he quickneth us and raiseth us from death to life Eph. 2. 2. and is said to transform us as it were of beasts to make us become men Esay 9. and how can this be wrought by lesse then power infinite as when Bernard confesseth of God saying Bernâ—n circumcis Dom. Serm. 2. Numquid non vere admirabilem experti sumus in imitatione utique voluntatum nostrarum As for Gods power to the immediate parent of our love to God it is no article of our Creed but a tricke of yours to insinuate any thing on your adversaries part that may make your owne cause seeme plausible wee rather conceive Gods grace and mercy to be the immediate cause of the circumcision of our hearts whereby wee are brought to love him Neither doe we say that he workes in us the love of himselfe immediately but rather by faith brings us first acquainted with the love of God towards us according to that of Iohn 1 Ioh. 3. 19. We love him because he loved us first and to that of S. Paul The end of the Law is love out of a pure heart and good conscience and faith unfained 1 Tim. 1. 5. No other seed of our love to God doe I acknowledge to be sowne in our soule Yet I doubt you referre this to a seed of nature and not to a seed of grace though you doe not affect to manifest your meaning so plainly as it were fit you should And no marvell For they which doe evill hate the light As for constraint we hold that infinite power cannot so worke the will Bodies may be constrained to suffer the execution of mens lusts upon them and may justly breed loathing in the parties so constrained As for the will that non potest cogi cannot be constrained And I wonder you that take notice of so many choice points of philosophy and divinity whereof others doe not should not all this while take notice of so popular a Maxime as this though I confesse your taking notice of it in this place had marred your game for the furthering whereof you are content to obtrude upon your adversaries so unreasonable a conceite as if they maintained that the will of man may be constrained yet suppose the will were constrained by God to love him would this breed in God a loathing of him Thus the foule and uncivill resemblance you make transports you Yet I have read My soule loathed them and their soule abhorred mee but I never heard the contrary My soule loathed them and their soule loved mee for while we abhorre God as enemies unto him yet notwithstanding even then hee loved us Rom. 5. 8. how much more when we love will he continue to love us and not turne his love into loathing as mens lusts turne into loathing sometimes as being satisfied and disdaining to be scorned by them whose bodies though they could force to be subject to their lusts yet could not winne their loues But God never makes us unwillingly to love him it is a thing impossible but as Austine saith Ex nolentibus volentes facit T is true God loves a cheerefull giver but who makes this cheerefulnesse but God and whose workes is it fit hee should love but his owne Like as it is said of him that Corâ—nat non merit a nostra sed donasua he crownes not our works but his owne And where there is a willing minde there it is accepted not according to that which a man hath not but to that which he hath but whose worke is this willing minde Is it not God that worketh in us both the will and the deede And that God doth not wrest any obedience from us but makes us willing and ready and cheerefull in the performing of it not onely in the way of doing what hee commandeth but in suffering what hee inflicteth or permitteth the sins of others to inflict upon us In so much that the Apostles rejoyced that they were accounted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. And if a father prevaile to worke his childe to dutifulnesse though with much a doe yet in the end masters his stubbornnesse will hee love his childe or his obedience or dutifulnesse the worse for this yet God more effectually and with a great deale more case changeth our hearts even omnipotente facilitate as Austine speaketh and shall hee love our obedience our thankfulnesse our repentance the lesse for this 5 Now wee are like to receive something concerning the maine probleme to wit In what sense God may bee said to doe all that he can for his vineyard All
upon them and because this love you accoumpt all one with mercy and that it is infinite in like sort infinite mercy may consort as before you speake with extreame severity Hence it followeth that all are vessels of merey the reprobate as well as the elect only here is the difference the elect are only vessells of mercy but the reprobate are both vessells of mercy and vessells of wrath also Now I demaund what is the fruite of this love and of this mercy of God towards the damned Can you devise any fruite of this but the preservation of them in being And may you not as well say that he loves at this day every creature in as much as he preserveth them And consider I pray doe you call this fatherly love and doe you accoumpt this the fervency of fatherly love And doth either Scripture or Eclesiasticall phrase allow you in this Yet speake your minde plainly and say that Gods will to preserve his creatures may stand with extreame severity used towards them and no man will contend with you at all in this But then consider whether you are well in your witts when you enter upon the proofe of this as of some rare notion when the issue of your meaning falleth upon a most vulgar conceyte and explication And whether this be to proove that God of a most lovinge Father becomes a severe and inexorable judge when the only fruit of his love is the holding of his childrens noses unto the grindstone of his wrath and inplacable displeasure Yet let us take notice of your illustration 2. Here wee have a large discourse of Manlius Torquatus and his severe execution upon his owne Sonne for transgressing the commaundement of his Generall therefore Martiall lawe was executed by the father being at that time Generall upon his owne sonne But were it all true that you discourse in justifying that fathers severitie upon his child Yet you miserably forget your selfe when you say That excessive love which he bare unto his person whilst his hopefull beginnings did seeme to promise an accomplishment of his Martiall vertues turnes into extreame severity and indignation after hee proves transgressor For this is not to shew how extreame severitie may stand with the fervency of fatherly unfeyned love but rather to shew how fatherly love ceaseth and severity and indignation comes in the place thereof This is rather answerable to the theame proposed how a most loving Father becomes a severe judge and answerable to the former discourse of Gods withdrawing his goodnesse from those that have once filled up the measure of theire iniquity But because in this manner it cannot be applyed unto God without acknowledging mutability in the nature of God as well as in the nature of men Therefore as I conceave your pretence was to illustrate how extreame severity may stand with the fervency of fatherly love though indeede you performe nothing lesse but rather shew how that fatherly love ceased as being turned into extreame severity and indignation Yet it seemes you did but forget your selfe in this And that your drift was to shew how notwithstanding his love towards his sonne continuing the same yet in a greater love of Martiall dicipline he caused his head to be striken of But this also will nothing serve your turne For notwithstanding this we see a manifest alteration For Manlius conceaved not any such indignation against his sonne till now never entertayned any will to cut him off till the noyse of his transgression came unto his eares All which cannot bee sayd of God as it must be if the case be alike without acknowledging as manifest alteration and innovation in the nature of God There was a time wherin Manlius desired his sonnes life and prosperitie there was a time when he willed and commaunded him to be put to death It was impossible that both those should be at once in Manlius as implying flat contradiction Yet you place them both in God eyther at once and so imply contradiction or successively and so introduce alteration into the nature of God Manlius his purpose and will was changed upon the fact of his sonne and his sonne was consumed by it But God is the Lord and is not changed and therfore the sonnes of Iacob are not consumed So Selencus never intertayned any thought or purpose of pulling out his sonnes eyes til he was found guiltie of adulterie this cannot be sayd of God without subjecting him to variablenesse and somewhat more then shadowe of change And therefore though Manlius and Selencus be justified in theire courses and God justified in his as no man makes question whether God be just in that which he doth yet this proves not that God is exempt from alteration one way in making a will to damne a man succeede in God his will to save him or your selfe from contradiction another way in making God at one and the same time both to will a mans salvation and at the same time to will the same mans condemnation yea and to inflict it also And looke by what reason God may at one and the same time will both the salvation and condemnation of the same man by the same reason he may at the same time both damne and save the same man For if you say he wills to save him as he is a man and wills to damne him as he is a sinner by the same reason you may say that he can both save him as he is a man and damne him as he is a sinner For the contradiction is as manifest in the one as in the other Yet there is a greate deale of difference betweene the course of Manlius Torquatus and the courses of God For Manlius did not cut of his sonnes heade but for an actuall and personall transgression of his sonne but God causeth many thousand Infants to perish in originall sinne through no actuall and personall transgression of theire owne What place can you find for that fervency of Gods fatherly love towards them Agayne God hath power in the course of his graciouse providence to keepe men from those transgressions which make them incurre condemnation Now let any man judge whether Manlius would not have kept his sonne from transgression in this kinde if he coulde Thirdly Manlius was not able to provide that the strictnesse of Military discipline should not be remitted by relaxation of the punishment of his sonne but God is able to procure that no discipline shall bee the more remitted by reason of his shewinge mercy on whome he will Nay there is mercy with thee sayth the Prophet that thou mayst be feared Lastly Manlius had no power to pardon whome he would without partiality but God hath power to have mercy on whome he will yea and to harden whome he will and that without injustice or partiality Yet I am content to consider the course you take in justifying Manlius First you acquaint us with your persuasions and lay them for
judge there is no chang or alteration at all in God but only in men and in theire actions Gods will is allwayes fullfilled even in such as goe most against it How it may stand with the justice of God to punish transgressours temporall with torments everlasting THe objection that by your Tenet the nature of God is made subject to change and alteration your selfe proposed in the former chapter but you addresse your selfe to make answere therunto in this yet not without fetching a greate compasse which inclines rather to a worke of circumvention then of satisfaction Love you say is the Mother of all Gods workes and the fertility of his power and essence that is the fruitfull Mother of all things and the power and essence of God by love becomes the fruitfull Mother of all things Yet to shew how apt you are to forget your selfe which usually falleth out whē men discourse quicquid in buccam venerit in the 8. chap. and pag. 91. you told us as a quaint conceyte that we may conceave wisedome to be the Father and power the Mother of all Gods works of wonder and I thinke you accoumpt few or no works more wonderfull then the creation And yet that which you say here I preferre before that which you had formerly expressed there because the love of God hath stricter sociation with the will of God then eyther wisedome or power But you have not discovered unto us if love be the Mother what is to be accoumpted the Father Or if you referre this to the loving will and affection of God why this should be accoumpted the Mother rather then the Father of the works of God Agayne we have earthly parents as Father and Mother which are indewed with wills and loves and other affections and it is out of all course to say that theire love or theire will is the Mother of theire children especially consideringe that will is found in the Father as well as in the Mother yea and love also if not in greater measure But I deny not but that God made the world out of love but out of love to whome to the creature Nothing lesse I should thinke as before I have shewed but rather out of love to himselfe as Prov. 16. 4. God made all things for himselfe And greate reason God who is the sovereigne Creator of all things should be the supreame end of all things But let this passe Your next sentence is more serious and ponderous but very preposterous and unsound First it containes a generall proposition with the reason of it and then a qualification or limitation thereof by way of exception unto a certayne time The proposition is this No part of our nature can be excluded from all fruits of his love Now the fruits of Gods love you make to be not only grace and glory but our temporall being also and the preservation therof For you make creation to be a fruit of Gods love Now this proposition so generall to my understanding is utterly untrue For not only God is not bound to give grace and glory unto any For they are merely gratuita dona and it is lawfull to doe what he will with his owne in bestowing it on whome he will and denyinge it to whome he will And therefore the Apostle testifieth that He hath mercy on whome he will and whome he will he hardneth But more then this as God was not bound to create any so neyther can any thing save his owne will binde him to preserve any thing in being But as he deales with other creatures so could he deale with men even take theire temporall being from them without any purpose ever to restore it and not only the being of theire bodyes but of theire soules also turning both into nothing Yet thus could God deale with men and Angells were they never so innocent never so holy as Arminius confesseth But let us consider the reasons wherupon you ground this Now these are two the one because God hath created our natures Now the unsoundnesse of this reason appeares by this that God hath created other things as well as man Yet who will conclude herehence that God must needes preserve them and not exclude them from this fruite of his love Your other reason is because God cannot change and this is as weake as the former For like as God though at one time he gives us life another time takes life from us yet all this is done by him without any change in himselfe like as in course of nature though he causeth changes and alterations in the seasons of the yeare in the wether in the heavens in the earth in the Sea in the states and Kingdoms of the World and in the bodyes of all creatures yet without any change at all in himselfe yea though he set an end to this visible World this can inferre no variablenesse in God so if he should take all manner of being from men and Angells and so exclude them from all fruits of his love Yet should all this come to passe without any shadow of change in God Yet you have a third reason which is this Love is the nature of God as Creator You could not be ignorant that God did freely create the World and therfore that it was not naturall to God to create it therfore you say that Love is the nature of God as Creator the sense and meaning whereof I comprehende not And I have made it already appeare that though God creats a thing yet is he not therby bound to preserve it any longer then he seeth good and what other sense you imply when you say Love is Gods nature as a Creator I discerne not You make creation to be a fruite of Gods love it is very incongruous to say that this love of God wherby he creats any thing belongs unto him as a Creator But rather creation of things belongs unto him as he loves them For fitter it is that the effect should be thus modified by the cause then the cause by the effect in denominating any subject Who ever sayd that a man was rationalis quatenus risibilis and not rather risibilis quatenus rationalis But let us proceede to the limitation of this your proposition and that is this No part of our nature can be excluded from all fruits of his love untill the sinister use of that contingency wherwith he indued it or the improvement of inclinations naturally bent unto evill come to that hight as to imply a contradiction for infinite justice or equity to vouchsafe them any favour First touching your meaning in this then touching the manner how you expresse this meaning your meaning in briefe is this No part of our nature can be utterly excluded from all fruits of Gods love untill men have filled up the measure of theire iniquity Of this your opinion I have spoken often I hope it shall be sufficient now to consider the reason whereupon you ground it And that is
fullfilled in theire suffering how is it possible that this theire suffering of death should be against the will of God which yet you boldly affirm and that with such confidence as to breake out into a censure of them that thinke the contrary as if they did rather dreame then thinke the contrary And yet when you breake forth in avouching manifest contradiction would you have your reader conceave your selfe to be in a sober discourse waking or in a dreame sleeping Yet this is usuall in your writings 4. The mayne poynt proposed to wit how God without change of a loving Father becomes a severe judge you dispatched in a few words saying the change is wholly in man and therin giveing us your word for it and afterwards served your selfe with certayne illustrations nothing to the purpose And to refresh your spirits and get some breath you turned aside to the consideration of the proportion of mens punishments to theire sinnes poynts merely extravagant And now you take liberty to maintayne your extravagant discourse by inquiring how it stands with Gods justice to inflict eternall punishments for temporall sinnes VVe must be content to follow you in your wilde goose race For seeing we are in we must goe thorough and get out as we can Yet you acknowledge the doubt proposed nothing pertinent but to make matter of farther discourse you tell us it were pertinent if the immortall happinesse wherunto the riches of Gods bounty did dayly leade them here on earth had not farther exceeded the pleasure of this life then the paynes of Hell doe those grievances which caused them to murmur against theire heavenly Father You are very bold to acknowledge God to be the heavenly Father of the reprobates Whereas the Apostle professeth that we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Iesus Gal. 3. 25. And if sonnes then heyres even heyrs of God and coheyres with Christ. Rom. 8. Much more bold if because our Saviour Christ exhorts the Apostles to be like theire heavenly Father therfore you will acknowledge him the heavenly Father even of reprobates also This is by the way I come to the maine and say first were it so as you speake yet this doubt were nothing pertinent to this place of cleering God from innovation and change of nature as often as his tender love is turned into feirce wrath Secondly your argument contracted being this Immortall happinesse doth more exceede the pleasures of this life then the pains of Hell exceede the grievances of this life therfore it is impertinent to make a doubt how Gods justice doth appeare in inflicting eternall punishment for temporall sinne I see no just consequence at all in this I will drawe it to the best forme I can devise in congruity to your meaning which I desire to picke out as well as I can And that is this Theire obedience should be rewarded with infinite joy therefore theire obedience may be justly punished with infinite sorrow and no doubt is to be made hereof And this I confesse is more suitable speaking of the protension duration of each then of theire intension as you doe For though the joyes of Heaven were never so greate beyond the degree of sorrows of Hell Yet if they were not everlasting the comparison would not hold Because there could be but a finite difference betweene theire intensions for joys of man cannot be infinite in degree But if the one were everlasting the other not there should be an infinite difference in this And albeit the joys of Heaven were but of equall degree in proportion to the sorrows of bell Yet the argument would every whit proceede as well upon supposall of inequality and that of exuberancy on the part of joyes Now I will shew what exception may be taken against this First no laws of the World the execution whereof are reputed just doe or can proceede after any such proportion Let a man take a purse upon the high way or kill a man he shall dye for it Let him give tenn times as much to the poore let him save ten mens lives they neyther doe nor can reward in proportion to the punishment Let the greatest honour or any other kinde of rewards be heaped upon him all are inferiour to his life For all that ever a man hath he will give for his life But then you will say if it be just with man to punish with death though they cannot possibly administer rewards in any proportion therunto how much more is it just with God to punish with eternall death seeing be can and will reward obediency with eternall life And I nothing doubt but that it is just but the question is wherin consisteth this justice For it seemes that justice in this kinde should stand in reference to the worke and not be measured by any aliene consideration Especially considering that the question may be revived on the part of the reward For how stands it with justice to reward with everlasting blisse a temporall obedience so that still we shall be to seeke of the right measure of justice in this kinde Agayne if a Master shall say unto a servant doe such a thing and I will give thee an hundred pound it will not herehence follow that for his disobedience the Master may make him pay an hundred pound And the reason is because it is manifest that like as a man may give what he will freely so he may reward as liberally as he will But it is not so manifest that God himselfe mai doe what evill he will unto his creature and accordingly afflict what punishment he will for the transgression of his creature And therefore the reason that you give for justifying God in this is unsound and you seeme to be sensible of it when you desire to helpe your selfe with the consideration of mens multiplyed contempts of grace all which neverthelesse doe make up but a short continuance in sinne Besides that this consideration hath no place in such infants as perish in originall sinne You cannot find any neglect in them much lesse often and yet to say and barely to say That often and perpetuall neglects turnes slames of eternall love into an eternall consuming fire is to please your selfe in your own dictates but to proove nothing The same song you sing still when you tell us the oftner God pardons a man the greater is his wrath against impenitency save that the prosequution of it is more absurd then the former For it hath reference rather to the intention of his wrath which is greater or lesse according to the qualities of mens sinnes not to the protension and duration of it which is equall to all But by the way where I pray doth it appeare that God doth often pardon the sinnes of reprobates or that he doth at all pardon them Doth God pardon any sinnes without repentance Or are the reprobates at any time brought by God unto repentance I am sure Austine professeth the
as well that it is extended to frogges and toads to Angells and Devills as well as to mankinde This is onely to professe that it extends to all Now this is a very improper interpretarion of infinite love for lesse love and lesse liberality may extend to more then greater love and greater liberality for he that gives ten shillings to one person is more liberall then that divides five shillings amongst threescore persons in giving them a peny apiece Lastly the fruit of this love can be but being and is it not a proper commendation of Gods infinite love towards mankinde to say that he gives being unto all And doth Gods love to man appeare more herein then to the vilest creature that is 2 In the next Section you discourse at large after your manner of the amplitude of Gods love in comparison which is nothing at all to your purpose whose chiefe aime is to insinuae that Gods love is alike to all Yet having proceeded thus farre my resolution is to go on and to consider what you bring What thinke you of Adams love in the state of innocency was it perfect or no Though without sinne awhile yet hee fell into sinne so did the Angells before him so should wee though as perfect as they if God should not uphold us Yet our love in greatest perfection could not be so much as a shadow of Gods love there being no resemblance betweene them our love being a love of duety Gods love to us of meere grace and mercy Besides betweene the fruits of Gods love to us and the fruits of our love towards God no colour of resemblance Man is bound heartily to desire the good of all but God is free and hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth Many widowes were in Israel in the daies of Elias when heaven was shut three yeares and six months and great famine was throughout all the land But unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta a city of Sidone unto a certaine widow Also many lepers were in Israel in the dayes of Elesaeus the prophet yet none of them was made cleane but Naaman the Syrian And if Gods will had beene to doe the best that might be hee could have cured no doubt all other lepers as well as Naaman and succoured other widows as well as the widow of Sarepta Yet I confesse Gods good will exceeds ours not intensively onely but extensively also for not a sparrow falleth to the ground without the providence of our heavenly Father hee saveth both man and beast and heareth the young Ravens that call upon him the eyes of all doe wait upon the Lord and hee gives them their meat in due season And as touching the conferring both of grace and glory therein hee saveth more then wee know or are acquainted with The number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea that cannot bee counted for multitude As touching temporall blessings all partake of his goodnesse therein in their naturall preservation and consolation therein wee must imitate him in doing good to all as it lieth in our power though chiefly to the houshold of faith yet not to them onely but to others also But though he causeth his sun to shine and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust yet pronounceth not the sentence of salvation on all promiscuously whether they be just or unjust And whereas all are equally corrupt in state of nature yet he doth not equally shew mercy on all or bestow the meanes of grace on all or where he doth bestow these meanes of salvation he doth not make them effectuall unto us He blindes the eyes and hardens the hearts of some that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts and be converted that he might heale them Whereby it comes to passe that the word of God though it be the savour of life unto life unto some yet it is the savour of death unto death unto others and the Ministers of God are a good savour unto God in both even both in them that are saved and in them that perish For God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill Mercie you say is not restrained from ill deservers in distresse so long as the exercise of it breeds no harme to such as are more capable of bountifull love and favour This is a consideration which I confesse hath place among men sometimes and in some cases Yet hardly can I devise how to suit with a fit instance For no states for ought I find doe take notice of any such distinction of times wherein the exercise of mercy will not breed harme and wherein it will but they execute condigne punishment upon malefactors according to the lawes that all may see and feare to doe the like not be encouraged malorum facta imitari but rather eorum exitus perhorrescere God doth not so His patience and long suffering is exceeding great yet if hee should give every man repentance in his death bed and save their soules what one in the world should be the worse for this And though the wicked many times spend their daies in mirth and sodainly goe downe to the grave yet by the grace of God we shall be nothing the worse for this nor provoked hereupon to condemne the generation of Gods children Yet what is it that makes one man more capable of bountifull love and favour then another I know not what makes him more capable of love in the execution of reward I know but what makes him more capable of love in the communication of grace and in shewing mercy towards him I know not Sure I am that woman who had many sinnes forgiven her loved so much the more the ninety nine just persons that thinke they need no repentance like enough love so much the lesse It is true the lawes of States take order for the just execution of punishment upon offenders for the common good yet by your leave Kings on earth by their absolutenesse doe give pardons to whom they will respecting more their own pleasure then the common good And withall I thinke Princes doe lesse offend if at all offend in refusing to pardon malefactors then in granting pardons unto them As for God to whom you say the execution of justice is unnaturall he being the Father of mercy I pray consider if God should give repentance to all on their death-beds and consequently save all what common good of mankinde would be hindred by this And as God is the father of mercy so is he also the Iudge of all the world and I conceive the execution of justice punitive to be as naturall to him as he is Iudge of all the world as the execution of mercy is naturall unto him as he is the Father of mercy Yet you seeme to have a place of Scripture to prove a