reprobates any man who was not worthy to be reprobated All that their opinion obligeth them to is but this Not to make sin the cause of preterition or non-election comparatively considered And against such preterition there is nothing in the Prayers of our Church nothing in Latimer nothing in Hooper nothing in Cranmer nothing in the whole Tenth Chapter of the Doctor 's second Part. And it is a wonder that so ancient a Divine should trouble himself in so many pages to do execution upon a mâ—er Chimaera and yet this employment was so pleasing and acceptable to him that he falls to it again in his â—leventh Chapter In which page 64 he makes the main Controversie in the Point of man's Conversion to move upon this hinge Whether the influences of God's grace be so strong and powerful that withall they are absolutely irresistible so that it is not possible for the will of man not to consent unto the same But they that have either read the determinations of the Synod of Dort or Calvin's own Institutions know that the Controversie moves upon no such hinge but this is the Question Whether when converting Grace hath produced the whole effect God designed it unto man still remains unconverted and indifferent either to turn himself or not turn himself unto God If converting Grace do leave a man thus indifferent they say that Conversion is rather to be ascribed to man than God and that Paul made himself to differ from other Persecutors and not God But they never say that God forceth or offereth violence unto the natural faculty of the will or destroyeth any liberty that is essential to it If any violence be offered it is only unto corrupt lusts and sinful inclinations in which I hope I may have fair liberty to say that the freedom of mans will doth not consist Let but any one fairly and impartially state this Question by drawing Propositions concerning it out of the Writings before mentioned and he will find nothing in Hooper or Latimer contradictory The tenth Article of King Edward's he will find perfectly to express the mind of the Calvinists And so I might dismiss this matter had not the Doctor thought meet page 67 as also in another Writing to smite at us with a Dilemma or something like a Dilemma grounded upon the omitting of this Article in Queen Elizabeth's time Either this Article did favour Calvinism or it did not If it did not why do the Calvinists alledge it If it did why is it in our latter Editions of the Articles left out We have learnt from Logick that such Dilemma's are not to be used which may be inverted or retorted upon those that make them and such is the present Dilemma apparently notoriously such For thus I argue Either this Article is Anti-calvinistical or it is not If it be not why doth the Doctor produce it as such If it be why did our Reformers in Queen Elizabeth 's time who were as he would fain perswade us Anticalvinistical leave it out He must either answer for himself or not expect that we should answer for our selves which yet we could easily do did any Law of Disputation require it of us for this might be the reason of the omission because there was nothing in King Edward's tenth Article but what doth naturally and lineally descend from our present seventeenth Article I will follow the Doctor whither he leads me when I have first admonisht my Reader not â—o prejudice himself by what so frequently occurs among our Protestant Writers that Works done before the grace of Christ do not make men meet to receive grace For it will be found agreeable unto Scripture that Works done before Conversion may leave in the Soul a material disposition or a passive preparedness to receive grace no preparation can be wrought by them that deserves grace none from which grace necessarily flows but yet such may be wrought as from which a man may be denominated more meet and more likely to receive the undeserved love of God than if he wanted it Just as we say in Natural Philosophy that though the rational soul do not emerge out of the organization of the matter but is immediately inspired by God yet an organical matter is a more prepared subject to receive such a soul than a matter not organized I promised after I had laid down this caution to follow the Doctor and so I will to his Twelfth Chapter But in it I shall not need to stay long with him for it is wholly spent in laying down the Doctrine of Free-will as it was agreed upon in the Popish Convocation Anno 1543. Wherefore though there be nothing in the Article of Free-will there delivered but what a Calvinist allowing him but a favourable interpretation may subscribe to yet the Doctrine of the Reformed Church of England must not be measured by the decisions of that Popish Convocation In the Thirteenth Chapter entituled Concerning the certainty or uncertainty of Perseverance passing over the Council of Trent which will be of no use to us to find out the Doctrine of the Church of England Pag. 81 the Calvinists are charged to presume not only to know all things that belong to their present justification as assuredly as they know that Christ is in Heaven but also to be as sure of their eternal election and of their future glorification as they are of this Article of their Creed that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary If any Calvinist â—ver said so he erred greatly not knowing the Scriptures or the deceitfulness of his own heart But if never any Calvinist said so what shall then be done to him that so presumptuously bears false witness against them Certainly the Calvinists do not hold that the Doctrine of Perseverance is so fundamental or so clearly delivered in Scripture as the Doctrine of Christ's Nativity so far are they from holding that they themselves or any of them do as certainly know the goodness of their present state or their eternal election as they firmly believe the Article of their Saviour's being born of the Virgin Mary They are all wont to distinguish of a certitude of the object and a certitude of the subject they say 't is certain from the Word that he who is a sound Believer shall continue to be a Believer until he attain the end of his Faith But they say a man may be a Believer and yet not be certain that he does believe and if once he had a certain perswasion of his faith he may lose that perswasion and many of them I am sure say that he must lose it as oft as he falls into any conscience-wasting sin This is the Doctrine that agrees with our Articles and with the judgment of our first Reformers If any man deliver the Doctrine of Perseverance at a higher rate the Calvinists are not concerned to defend him The sixteenth Article of our Church is brought by the Dr. against Perseverance The words
of it are these Not every deadly sin committed after Baptism is the sin against the Holy Ghost and unpardonable wherefore the grant of repentance is not to be denied to such as do fall into sin after Baptism After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace given and fall into sin and by the grace of God we may rise again and amend our lives and therefore they are to be condemned which say they can no more sin as long as they live here or deny place of forgiveness to such as truly repent From which Article they may in the judgment of our Church be concluded to be in an error who hold that every sin committed after Baptism is the sin against the Holy Ghost but so do not the Calvinists hold They also are by this Article condemned who say they can no more sin as long as they live here but what Calvinists say so They finally are condemned who deny place of forgiveness to such as truly repent in which number the Calvinists cannot be placed but some of the Remonstrants may and it were to be wished that some of our Arminianizing English Writers might not also be placed among them The Article having made a therefore it s strange that any one should draw any other conclusion from it than what it self hath drawn as strange that any one should write that our Church intended by this Article to determine that the faith by which the just man lives may be totally lost Let an Argument be made The Church says after we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from the grace given and fall into sin therefore it saith we may fall into such a sin as quite extinguisheth grace or therefore it saith that grace may be quite and for ever lost Any one that understands himself will deny both these Consequents and deny them he may without danger or fear But let us view the Doctor 's thoughts about this Article Pag. 84 he bolts out a Maxime in the Civil Law Non esse distinguendum ubi Lex non distinguit that no distinction must be made in the explicating and expounding any Law which is not to be found in the Law it self I acknowledge that such a saying is commonly quoted from the Civilians and as they understand it it is very rational But how do the Calvinists willingly oppose themselves against this maxime Their Tenent is Regeniti nunquam totaliter excidunt a gratia and some of them perhaps say Regeniti non possunt excidere a gratia totaliter If any man will disprove them from the Article he must out of the Article draw some conclusion that contradicts their Tenent which if any one go about to do he will find himself at a loss and will be never able to put them to the cost of a distinction Foreseeing that this maxime might not serve his turn he tells us that for the clear understanding of the Churches meaning we must have recourse in this as in other Articles to the plain words of Bishop Hooper and Bishop Latimer But why must we have recourse to these mens Writings above and beyond all other mens of that age Bishop Latimer never resuming his Bishoprick cannot be thought to be in any capacity to sit so much as a Member of the Convocation 1552. Bishop Hooper indeed had a right to a place in the Upper House and 't is like took his place but his Exposition on the Commandments was printed four years before that Convocation saâ—e My Edition which I use was printed 1548 when he was a popular Preacher and I think an unlicenced Preacher Bishop he was not till 1550 But if this Book had been made after the conclusion of the Convocation it could be no Rule to interpret the Articles which were drawn up at least in one point quite contrary to his declared judgment If every thing in that Book pass for the Doctrine of the Church down fall all our Gentlemens Pigeon-houses down falls c. But what need all this Bishop Hooper hath not any thing in his Preface to his Exposition on the ten Commandments for total Apostasie or against Perseverance He only saith the cause of some mens damnation is this that after they have received the promise of the Gospel by accustomed doing of ill they fall unto a contempt of the Gospel Many a man receives the promise of the Gospel who doth not receive it into a good honest heart and therefore was never sanctified or justified Was not then the Doctor hard put to it when he could find no passage in Hooper to oppose to the Doctrine of Perseverance but only this If Hooper speak no more plainly in his Paraphrase on the thirteenth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans than in his Preface to his Exposition of the Commandments he speaks just nothing at all to the Doctor 's purpose As neither doth Mr. Tindal in his Prologue to his Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans whose words are brought in for sundry lines pag. 85 but tend only to prove that if a man break the Law he must sue for a new pardon and have a new light against sin hell and desperation ere he can come to a quiet faith again and feel that sin is forgiven and that the promise of mercy and forgiveness is made on this condition that we sin no more Some Followers of Islebius Agricola may peradventure enter their dissent from Mr. Tindal in this matter so may also the English Antinomians but so need not any one who embraceth the Determinations of the Synod of Dort for in those Determinations if they were searched with a candle it will never be found that men are not bound to renew their repentance as they renew their sin or that they can have a quiet conscience or sense of pardon till they have converted themselves out of every snare of the Devil It had been it seems objected by Mr. Hickman that Mr. Mountague himself both in his Gagg and his Appeal had confessed that the Church had left it undecided Whether a Saint may fall totally and finally What hath the Doctor against this Dr. H. Part 2. Pag. 45. That he doth so in the Gag I easily grant where he relateth only to the words of the Article which speaks only of a possibility of falling without relation to the measure or continuance of it Here by the way it is fairly confessed that the Article speaks not of the possibility of falling totally or finally therefore not against the Calvinists But he must needs be carried with a very strange confidence which can report so of him in his Appeal in which he both expresly saith and proveth the contrary Answ. Doth he indeed say so Where may such a man as I am find him saying so Page not 28 but 26 he saith That there is not from the Church any tie put on him to resolve in this much disputed Question as these Novellers would have it for it there be
that the Historian himself confesseth that by means of him and Dr. Whitaker the University had been quite over-run with Calvinism had not Dr. Baro a French-man born set himself to pluck up what the other two had planted and watered Of this Dr. Baro we shall hear the Historian tell us a fine tale Scilicet liberanda veritas expectabat liberatorem Petrum Baro the English Kingdom of Heaven had fallen had it not been for this Atlas that bare it up with his shoulders Let us see what the man was and what he held that we may know how much we owe unto him which yet we cannot well do till we have taken in our way the story of one Barret This Barret in a Sermon ad Clerum April 29. 1595 had vented sundry Anticalvinistical Points for which he was convented May 5. before the Heads of Houses and charged to have preached Doctrines erroneous and false and contrary to the Religion received and established by publick Authority in the Realm of England He confessed the Doctrines charged upon him but denied them to be any way repugnant to the Doctrine of the Church of England Whereupon the Vice-Chancellor and forenamed Heads entring into mature deliberation and diligently weighing and examining these Positions because it did manifestly appear that the said Positions were false erroneous and likewise repugnant to the Religion received and established in the Church of England adjudged and declared that the said Barret had incurred the penalty of the 45th Statute of the University de Concionibus and by virtue and tenour of that Statute they decreed and adjudged the said Barret to make a publick Recantation in such words and form as by the Vice-Chancellor and the said Heads or any three or two of them should be prescribed unto him or else upon his refusal to recant to be perpetually expelled both from his Colledge and the University What the form of Recantation was may be seen in Mr. Prin such it was as gave sufficient honour unto Calvin Peter Martyr and the Doctrines Preached and Printed by them Lo here we have those that were alwaies entrusted with power to judge of and to condemn false Doctrine condemning the Anti-Calvinistical opinions as false and contrary to the Articles of Religion established in England And when such an Authority has laid a Recantation upon Mr Barret how will Dr. H. get it off Why First He doubts whether any Recantation were enjoyned in so many words as are extant in Mr. Prin. This is an irrational doubt seeing Mr. Prin had the transcript under the University Register's own hand Secondly He denies it as a thing most false that ever Barret published any Recantation whatsoever it was And yet Mr. Prin tells him that he had a transcript taken out of an Original copy under Mr. Barrets own hand and tells us as also does Mr. Fuller what words he used after he had read the Recantation and words they are from which it might be infer'd that he was not heartily sorry for the errors delivered by him nor really changed in his judgment But doth it not appear by a Letter of the Heads of Houses dated March 8 that Mr. Barret had never made any such Recantation I answer It doth not appear for the Heads of Houses say not that he had never read the Recantation but that he had refused to do it in such sort as was prescribed which might make those who were in Authority in the University both to mind him of his duty and also to complain of him unto their Chancellour for not doing his duty Yet if it will do the Doctor a kindness let him enjoy his fancy that Mr. Barret Recanted not for to be sure he did not credit his Recantation returning to Arminianism and also to Popery unto which the Heads of Houses say Arminianism had been by sundry made a Bridge However here is the judgment of the Heads of Houses in Cambridge solemnly declared that he who strikes at Mr. Calvin in these points strikes at the Church of England also Yea sayes the Dr but it will not hence follow that Barrets Doctrines were repugnant to the Church of England because these Heads judged them so for if so we may conclude by the same Argument that the Church of Rome was in Light in the Darkest times of ignorance and superstition because all that publickly opposed her Doctrine were enjoyned Recantation Which evasion is so lamentable that he had much better have used none for we do not from the injoyning of the Recantation inferr the falsity of the Doctrines to be recanted but only their dissonance unto the Religion established and certainly the Church of Rome when it was at the worst did never injoyn Recantation of any Doctrine which was not contrary unto her present sentiments And so I leave Mr. Barret and his opinions under the blot justly dropped upon them by the University only taking notice that Barrets peremptoriness might occasion Baro to deliver his mind more plainly and publickly than before he had done which occasioned the University to send up Dr. Whitaker and Dr. Tindal unto Arch-Bishop Whitgift hoping that he who had been so zealous against Cartwright in a point of Discipline would be found to have some zeal against Baro in matter of Doctrine nor did their hopes fail them for he forthwith called to him sundry right worthy and Reverend Divines and drew up those Articles commonly called the Lambeth-Articles agreed upon November the 10th 1595. nine they are in number and were approved by the Arch-Bishop of York as well as by his Grace of Canterbury So that here are the two Metropolitans men no doubt considerable for Learning as well as for Authority for both of them had been Lady Margaret's and King's Professors in the University Now I ask Did these know the Doctrine of the Church or did they not If they did not how durst they call men to subscribe what they knew not If they did then either Calvinism in this matter is the Doctrine of the Church or else the two Primates commended to the University a Doctrine against their own Light and conscience And it is worth observation that the Bishop of York in his Letter to his Brother of Canterbury does give him to understand that his opinion he sent him concerning Election and Reprobation was but that in which they had both agreed while they professed and taught Divinity in the Schools Nor can it be said that Whitgift received his opinion from beyond the Seas where he never was having such favour shewed him by Doctor Perne that he never needed to leave the Kingdom More probable it is that he suckt in these opinions from his Tutor Mr. Bradford and from Bishop Ridley Master of Pembroke Hall whilst he was a fresh-man By whom also he was so principled against the tyranny and Detestable enormities of the Pope that at the time of his commencing Dr. in Divinity he gave this Thesis to be disputed on Papa
be accounted the most obedient Sons of the Church is a question in which I would most gladly be satisfied Until such satisfaction be gained it will be at least a pardonable error to suppose that that is not the Doctrine of the Church of England which for above threescore Years after her first establishment was not averred in any one Licenced Book but confuted in many FINIS Postscript I Am given to understand that I seem to some not sufficiently to have taken notice of what the Doctor brings to invalidate the Argument drawn from Barret's Recantation I drew the Argument from the Heads of Houses in Cambridge enjoyning Mr. Barret to Recant what he had delivered against absolute reprobation and against perseverance and some other Calvinian Doctrines not only as false but also as contrary to the Articles of Religion here in England established The Doctor doth not cannot deny but that such Recantation was enjoyned him Now if the Heads of Houses in the University who are authorized to judge of the Sermons preached among them and to censure what they find in such Sermons disagreeable to the Doctrine of the Church did judge Barret's Doctrine denying absolute reprobation and perseverance of Believers to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Church and manifestly contrary to it and passed this judgment upon mature deliberation I leave it to any ones consideration whether this be not a very vehement presumption that Calvin's Doctrine concerning absolute election and perseverance is agreeable to the Articles of our Church and Barret's Doctrine contrary to them If this be granted what need I contend about by-passages relating to the Recantation being in a place where I can have no recourse to the Records of Cambridge Yet to make it appear that I did write nothing in this business rashly and that the Doctor hath me at no such advantage as he pretends I will now review all he saith not already taken notice of It signifies little that he saith 1. That this process was made or procured by the Calvinian Heads inflamed by Mr. Perkins pag. 70 Part 3. Seeing there were then no Heads but what were Calvinistical and no man can think that they should all be guided and acted by Mr. Perkins a poor Preacher in the Town 2. It is to be doubted saith he pag. 71 whether any such Recantation consisting of so many Articles and every Article having its abjuration or recantation subjoyned unto it was ever enjoyned to be made But what reason have we to doubt of this when as the Form of Recantation is exemplified in Mr. Fuller from whom I had it and also in Mr. Prynne's Antiarminianism and was fairly printed in Qu. Elizabeth's daies some printed Copies of it being still extant and seeing Mr. Prynne declares that the Form of Recantation by him inserted into his Book was a Transcript taken out of an Original Copy under Mr. Barret's own hand Why he doubts because though Mr. Prynne say that the Recantation in the same manner and form as we there find it was exemplified and sent unto him under the Register's hand yet he also confesseth that no such matter could be found when the Heads of houses were required by an Order from the House of Commons to make certificate unto them of all such Recantations as were recorded in their University Register and of this Recantation in particular But first Mr. Prynne only tells us that he had been certified and informed that this Order for Recantation could not be found among the University Records 2. Mr. Prynne doth not pretend to have had in his hands the Form of Recantation exemplified under the Register's hand but only the Order for Recantation The Form of Recantation he tells us he had another way and perhaps the Form of Recantation was never put into the University Archives or Register But if the Order for the Recantation should not be found there neither I should much wonder and yet less wonder because Thomas Smith who was Register at this time is branded for one that was very careless in Registring matters that concerned the University as may be found in Mr. Fuller's Hist. of Camb. p. 49. But that which the Historian most contends for is that the Recantation was never made by Barret Pag. 72. It is to be denied as a thing most false that he never published the Recantation whatsoever it was It is to be thought that the Printer hath mistaken his Copy and put never instead of ever for if it be most false that he never published his Recantation then it is to be affirmed as a thing most true that he sometime published it which is that which we believe Let us sâ—an the reasons of the Doctor to prove that he never read the Recantation ibid. For 1. It is acknowledged in Mr. Prynnes own Transcript of the Acts that though Barret did confess the Propositions wherewith he was charged to be contained in his Sermon yet he would never grant them to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England and therefore was not likely to retract the same The Argument framed stands thus He that would never acknowledge his Propositions to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England was not likely to retract the same Mr. Barret would not acknowledge his Propositions to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England therefore he was not likely to retract the same The Major certainly is most absurdly false but the Minor cannot be proved For Mr. Prynne's Copy doth not say that he would never acknowledge but only that at first reading of his Charge he denyed his Propositions to be contrary to the Religion of the Church of England Many a man at first denies what he afterwards granteth Secondly saith the Doctor ibid. It is plain from Mr. Barret's Letters the one to Dr. Goad Master of Kings the other to Mr. Chadderton Master of Emanuel that neither slattery nor tâ—â—â—atâ—ings nor the fear of losing his subsistence in the University should ever work him to the publishing of the Recantation required of him The Doctor had in his Certamen Epistolare before told us of two Letters of Barret's written one to Dr. Goad the other to Mr. Chadderton and now he tells us that from them it is manifest that neither flattery c. Yet he gives us only a Copy of the Letter to Dr. Goad and never tells us whence he had that nor doth the Letter to Dr. Goad in the least intimate that any flattery had been used to draw him to make the Recantation but rather it manifests that he used flattery to perswade Dr. Goad to be his Friend and obtain for him that he might stay in the University on solemn promise to keep his Opinion to himself A very sneaking Letter it is and shews that he was a poor low spirited man valuing his Place more than his Conscience and yet his Credit more than his Place Nor doth he if we may judge of him by the
HISTORIA Quinq-Articularis Exarticulata OR ANIMADVERSIONS ON Doctor Heylin's QUINQUARTICULAR HISTORY IN WHICH 1. The Aspersions cast on Foreign Reformers are wiped off 2. The Doctor 's manifold Contradictions are manifested 3. The Doctrine of the Arminians in the five points is proved to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Reformed Church of England By HENRY HICKMAN B. D. The Second Edition Corrected and Enlarged Si moriens mordeat mordeatur mortuus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cato Censor London Printed for Robert Boulter at the Turks-head in Cornhil over against the Royal Exchange 1674. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER READER I Am told the following Papers are mine And really I think they be for I well remember that sundry years ago I did hastily either write or dictate to others to be written a Confutation of Dr. Heylin's Historia Qâ—inquarticularis that so I might remove a stone of offence which some told me I principally had occasioned to be laid in the way of yong students Had I thought â—o unstudied a scrible meet to be exposed to publick â—iew I could then have sent it abroad when either I â—â—uld have procured a Licence to imprint it or should â—ot have been esteemed an offender though I had imprinted it without a Licence Some Friends have now adventured to put it forth without my privity I doubt a little unseasonably but I am confident with a good intention Therefore I must not be angry with them For my self I must desire thee once for all to take notice 1. That I only relate some mens opinions Historically and defend them from unjust aggravations but am not concerned to maintain them to be true or accurately expressed 2. That I acknowledg there be some depths in the Controversies relating to Predestination and Grace which I am not able to fathom Nor are these the only points in Divinity in which I believe some things against which I have objections that I cannot answer any otherwise than by saying that every Divine Revelation must needs be true though seemingly contrary to something which my imperfect and corrupt reason apprehends to be true It is commonly laid to the charge of the Socinians that they make reason the Judg in Controversies of Faith and so I verily think it is in some sense but that it should be Judex normalis the Norma or Rule according to which we are to judge so as we are to believe nothing but what we could have demonstrated to be true or possible by meer reason is an opinion so wicked that I hope it is but falsly fathered on the Socinians I believe the Hypostatical Vnion a Trinity of persons in the Vnity of Essence if a reason of this my Faith be asked I will quote the Scriptures which clearly assert those two Articles having so done I have resolved Faith into its first Principle and I will continue stedfast and immoveable in my Faith though I cannot comprehend either how three Persons subsist in one numerical nature or how two natures can be united so as make but one person In like manner I will believe the Doctrine of Original Sin as it is explained in our Articles of Religion because I find that explication of it agreeable to Scripture though I cannot so clearly make it out to my own or another mans reason how Original sin is propagated I will also believe that God hath mercy on whom he will and hardneth whom he will bestoweth his determining Grace on whom he will and denieth it to whom he will because this is a Scripture Doctrine though the reconciling of Gods eternal Decrees and the efficacy of Grace with the liberty of mans will surpass my knowledge And I am the more confident that I am not mistaken in thinking this to be a Scripture Doctrine because as I have shewen in the following Papers it hath been so adjudged by the Ancient Fathers of the Church Nor is it a small confirmation to me that the greatest opposers of Calvinism as they are resolved to call it have after the highest straining of their wits and diligence been able to say nothing against it but what the Pelagians and Semipelagians had before objected against S. Austin and his Disciples I know there be many who think quite otherwise These will say Qâ—id tandem Arminio cum Pelagio aut quid Calvino cum Augustino Arminius learned not his opinions from Pelagius nor did Calvin owe his notions to S. Austin Such men I earnestly desire impartially to consider what I have hereafter produced and if they can answer my allegations I will thank them for undeceiving me But this I will tell them that he who hopes to make me his proselyte must be 1. No Railer nor Reviler I have read that some in old times through I know not what foolish and wicked superstition thought Garden-Basil that I suppose answers to Plinie's Ocimum would grow the sooner and better if it were sown cum convitiis maledictis with reproaches and evil speaking So many of late seem to have been of opinion that the Doctrine which they plant will prosper the better if they water it with torrents of contumely against those that differ from them Perhaps the more rank their stile is the more it may please some Readers but he was wise who said As dead flies cause the Oyntment of the Apothecary to send forth a stinking savour so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor Eccl. 10.1 A very little of any thing that is but a kin to scurrility will make an ingenuous person disgust and nauseat the most learned book Dr. Crakanthorp hath very sâ—lidly confuted Spalaâ—â—â—sis but the uncivil language be every where useth against the Archbishop hath sometimes turned my stomach and made me leave off reading Dr. Abbot hath most judiciâ—usly defended the Reformed Catholick against Wâ—â—â—â—â—m Bishop but when I find him calling Wright foul-mouthed dog when c. I cannot but wonder where a man that had all his days been bred up among Scholars learn'd such language As for Bishop Mountague he boasts that never any had handled the Papists as he had done and I verily believe him His Gag is a piece for which he may well be denominated a Matchless Scoffer Fool Goose Cockscomb Ass Horse Bâ—ind Buzard Poor Woodcock Catholick Cockscomb c. these are flowers that grow in Mr. Mountagues Garden are they not very lovely sweet will not Popery fall to the ground after one of its Patrons hath been so bespattered with so many unseemly names or will not the Papists rather be confirmed in Popery when they shall observe a dignified Minister in the Protestant Church to use such unsavoury language without check or controul from his Superiors 2. I expect if any one answer me that he faithfully relate Historical matters For let him not imagine that I will think the worse of any party because I 〈…〉 slandered Rather I shall judge men good because their Adversaries durst not speak evil
meritoriousness which the Papists ascribed to the observation of Fasts and Feasts it is true and tends to the commendation of Zuinglius but that he decryed every established Fast or appointed Festival is a most notorious slander So is it also that his Reformation began in the abolishing of set Forms of Worship unless the meaning be that he procured the abolition of some forms of worship set by the Papists as Papists And if an Historian after he hath told us that a man abolished set forms of Worship may be allowed to interpret himself of Popish Idolatrous forms of Worship then may we think he hath no mind to be understood and without any blame at all neglect him It follows the Zuinglian Reformation began in the denying of the old Catholick Doctrine of a Real Presence This charge must be intended of Zuinglius his denying the Real Presenâ—e of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and if it be so intended it is as false as what is most false Zuinglius had been at Zurick five years and reformed many things before he let any one know his mind about the Sacrament and perhaps before he knew his own mind as to the manner of Christs presence in or with the Sacramental Elements When he after long study discovered his mind about this matter he never denyed a Real Presence unless by Real Presence be understood a Corporal Presence He expounded Hoc est Corpus meum by a Trope so did our Reformers in England He thought the Bread was the â—ody of Christ Representatively And as our King may be and is said to be really present where there is any one who by his own Authority is appointed to represent him so the Body of Christ may be said to be really present where there is an Element appointed by himself to represent his Body And if Dr. Heylin did opine that the Body which our Lord Iesus united to his Divine Nature and with which he ascended into Heaven is any other way present in the Eucharist he both erred and dissented from that Church in which he was bred up For a conclusion the Historian tells us that the Zuinglian Reformation began in denying all Exteâ—nal Reverence in the participation of the Blessed Sacrament Words more strange than any that we had before For what is meant by the Blessed Sacrament Sure the Dr. was so much a Christian as to acknowledge at least two Blessed Sacraments If so which of these two would he have us to understand by the Blessed Sacrament Baptism or the Lords Supper I know not why the later should rather be called the Blessed Sacrament than the former nor why more External Reverence is necessary in the participation of this than of that supposing the Recipient to be adult If a converted Jew should come to be Baptised why is he not as well bound to kneel when he is sprinkled with water as when he takes the Bread and Wine As for Zuinglius he never denied External Reverence in the Participation of the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper The mode and form in the which he first administred it is recited in Melchior Adam and in the Historia Sacramentaria de Coena Domini and in it all needful Reverence was used But perhaps not to make the Communicants receive the Sacred Elements on their knees is to deny all External Reverence in the participation of the Eucharist If so Christ and all his Churches for some Centuries must also be affirmed to have denied all External Reverence By this it appears what false witness the Dr. hath born against Zuinglius Doth he bear a truer witness concerning Luther Of him these words are used which Luther seriously laboured to preserve in the same estate in which he found them at the present Words that either are senseless or very untrue If they have any sense it must be this that Luther seriously endeavoured to preserve the things before mentioned in the same estate in which he found them in the Papacy This sense the words do scarse afford But if we suppose that this sense was intended I then say Nothing more false could have been written Luther did not seriously endeavour to preserve any one thing before-mentioned in the condition in which he found it 1. For Images He was indeed angry that they were taken down not because he desired or endeavored to have them kept up but because he would have had the honor of pulling them down and could not endure that Carolastadius should adventure to make any alteration in his absence Yet Carolastadius created Luther Doctor and made not the alteration on his own head but with the consent and advice of Melancthon and others 2. As to Fasts and Festivals set and constant Luther had as little fondness for them as Zuinglius could have Might he have ruled the rost no Holy days had been kept but the Lords day To be sure he endeavoured not after he thought of Reformation to keep either Fasts or Festivals in the same state in which he found them He looked not on them as parts of Worship 3. He defended a not only Real but also a Corporal Presence of Christ in thâ— Eucharist but not the Antient Catholick Doctrine of Real Presence nor yet the new Roman Catholick Doctrine of Real Presence Finding in an eminent Schoolman that were it not for the Authority of the Church he should more encline to Consubstantiation than Transubstantiation Luther bethought himself that he had abandoned the Authority of that Church which kept Cameracensis in awe and so boldly maintained Consubstantiation though not to his dying day as some think Happy had it been for his Followers if so absurd an opinion had never been published by him for they counting themselves concerned to maintain whatsoever he in his fierce oppositions to Zuinglius delivered are fallen into the most monstrous tenent of Ubiquity which whoever believeth with all the necessary consequences cannot believe one quarter of the Apostles Creed But what is the External Reverence in the use of the Lords Supper affirmed by Lutherans and denied by Zuinglianists Adoration is by the Lutherans condemned as well as by the Zuinglianists So is Asservation and Circumgestation Luther himself somewhere if Wendelin abuse him not advised Christians to Receive in one Kind or Element where they could not Receive in both but the Lutherans stifly contend for the necessity of Receiving sub utraque Specie The differences not already taken notice of are 1. The Lutherans think more favourably of Stone Altars than do the Zuinglianists 2. The Lutherans at least many of them better approve of lighting Candles in the Administration than do the Zuinglianists We in England in many places set Candles and Candlesticks on the Tables but do not light the Candles 3. The Lutherans use for one Element a placenta orbicularis of which it may be questioned whether it can properly be called bread So do not the Zuinglianists 4. The Lutherans use no breaking of
Bez. in praef ad acta Coll. I hope he wronged the Lutheran Schools or else I must needs say they had strange Schools in which a man could never hear a Syllogistical Disputation In our Schools no Disputations are allowed but what are Syllogistical and the main work of the Moderator is to keep the Disputants to form And this was that which Tertullian so much commended ad lineas in gradum disputare that which St. Hierom so often called for in his Disputations against the Luciferians Rhetoricaris a disputationum spinctis ad câ—mpos liberae declamationis excurris verum define quaeso a communibus locis in gradum rursus ac lineas regredere postea si placuâ—rit latius disseremus And yet the Author of Gods love to man-kind makes this one of his reasons why he suspected the Doctrine of absolute Reprobation not to be true because the maintainers of it are so loth to have it examined But the Author before he died knew that the absolute decree did not fear tryal but was as generally entertained and as firmly held after it had endured the most severe tryals as before Buâ— if men will say We cannot endure to haave a Doctrine examined because we do not like that it should be mis-represented and then bespattered by those who had rather lose a good Conscience than a prophane Iest if we must be accouted Cowards because we tell Rabshakeh that we understand Latine and pray him not to talk to us in English in the ears of the People and answer him not a word when he hath done reviling we are content to be thought such Cowards But let those who so call us think what they would do if the Doctrine of the Trinity should be impugned They would answer him who soberly went about to shew that the Scriptures we produce do not prove a Trinity or that should go about by reason to shew that an increated infinite essence can no mâ—re be one and yet agree to three persons than the humane nature can But if any one should write such Books as Servetus did in which above an hundred times over the Trinity iâ— called â—â—iceps Cerberus diabolicum phantasma Geryonis monstrum illusio Satanae and the eternal generation is thus derided Debent dicere quod pater habeat uxorem quandam spiritualem vel quod solus ipse masculo-faeâ—â—neus aut Hermaphroditus simul sit pater mater c. and Si logos filius erat natâ—s ex patre sine matre dic mihi quomodo peperit cum per ventrem an per latus they would think it sufficient to say The Lord rebuke thee To conclude If any one who is a Scholar and will write like a Scholar will be at the pains to shew me that Arminianism in the five points is not contrary to the Doctrine of St. Austin the hammer of Pelagianism nor yet contrary to the Doctrine of our Church I shall either speedily reply or acknowledge my self his Prisoner Put if any one shall publish a Book against me stuffed only with impotent railings or malicious calumnies I shall punish him as I have done two or three already by not buying not reading his Book It will perhaps be said that the Papists against whom we should unite our forces will be too too much gratified by one Protestant 's writing against another Answ. I doubt not but the Factors for the Papacy do with much delight tell their Disciples how those that are not in Communion with them are divided among themselves But they should do well to make up their own breaches before they upbraid us witâ— ours He that being scandalised at the diversity of opinions among the Reformed shall betake himself to the Romanists will leap out of the frying-pan into the fire The Papists only agree in that in which they dare not publish how much they differ and they then let a Popes decision put an end to their disputes when they can neither say that the Pope was misinformed or that he was not in Cathedâ—a or know not how by some distinction to evade the determination that is they then let the Popes reconcile them when they have no mind to be any longer at variance They will not deny but that there is as much difference between their Dominicans and Franciscans their Jansenists and Molinists as there is betwixt Calvinists and Arminians and yet they say that their Church is one and not ours How is this to be unridled One A. D. about the beginning of King James his Reign put forth a Pamphlet which he called a Treatise of Faith near the later end of which he lets us understand that the Roman Church is alwayes one and uniform in Faith never varying or holding any dogmatical point contrary to that which in former times it did hold The learned men thereof though sometimes differing in opinion in matters not defined by the Church yet in matters of Faith all conspire in one And no marvel because they have a most convenient means to keep unity in profession of Faith sith they do acknowledge one chief Pastor appointed over them viz. the Successor of St. Peter to whose definitive censure in matters concerning Religion they wholly submit themselves The Gentlemans meaning if I can fathom it is that the Romanists are resolved to think their Church is at unity within it self For though the members thereof have 10000 differences among themselves yet those differences are not in matters of Faith because they are resolved as soon as the Church shall decide them never to differ more Well one would think that Protestants also might be at unity because they profess they will yield to Scripture determination whatever it be Nay that the Gentleman will nâ—t grant because as he had told us a little before divers men expound the Scriptures diversly As if the decisions of their Church were not expounded diversly by divers and were not as apt to be diversly expounded as the Scriptures And as if they were as much at an end after they had found out the meaning of a decision made by the Pope as we are when we have found out the meaning of the Scripture Convince a Protestant that any one place of Scripture must needs be so understood as to assert Consubstantiation he becomes a Synoâ—siast forthwith But when you have convinced a Papist that a decision of the Pope must needs be so interpreted as to cross his opinion yet he will not lay down his opinion but will say perhaps that the Pope did decide not as Pope but only as a Learned man or that it may be questioned whether he be a Pope or whether he be infallible out of a Councel or whether he was rightly informed of matter of fact Suppose a Jansenist should thus argue The Pope did not intend to condemn the Doctrine of Augustine therefore He did not intend to condemn the Doctrine of Jansenius A Molinist would be loth to deny the Antecedent and yet if he
deny the Consequent then hath the Jansenist field-room enough and is as far from being proselyted as if nothing had been determined against Jansenism In the mean time it were heartily to be wished that Protestant Ministers would vâ—ry sparingly in their Preaching touch upon those pâ—ints wherein they differ amâ—ng themselves The day is yet to come that ever I preached Sermon about Election or Reprobation and I look upon it as a great affliction that I have been by the daring provocations of others put upon it to write about them I could easily have born it that Dr. Heylin should trample upon my self but could not so well endure it that for my sake the honour of some of our best Reformed Writers should be laid in the dust If Zuinglius Calvin Beza may still be read without prejudice and quoted in the Pulpit with due respect If I can but perswade young Scholars that those who composed our Articles did understand them and would not enjoyn men to recant such tenents as were agreeable to them then have I obtained what I principally aimed at And so good Reader I commend thee to the love of God and to the hatred of Popery and Superstition and every opinion that hath a natural tendency thereunto THE CONTENTS AN Introduction giving an account of the undertaking Page 1 2. Of the Blasphemy of Florinus and whether Eusebius charge Blastus with it p. 3. Irenaeus his Arguments against Florinus p. 4. The Arguments of other Fathers against his Blasphemy p. 5. Of the Libertines and Calvin p. 6 7 8. Of Mr. Archers Book and its burning p. 9 10. Of Manes Bardesanes Colarbas Priscilianus p. 11 12 13. Luther no Manichee p. 14 15. Calvin no Bardesanist nor Priscilianist p. 16. Of Socinus denying Gods Prescience and the Iesuits Scientia media p. 19 to 23. Of Pelagius his Heresie c. p. 23 24 25. Of the Sâ—mipelagians p. 26 27. The Arminians follow the Pelagians and Semipepelagians Calvin Austin p. 27 to 35. Of Godescalk p. 35 to 38. Of the Councel of Trent p. 38 to 43. Of the Condemnation of Jansenius p. 43 to 46. The Opinion of the Piedmont Churches concerning Predestination and Grace p. 46 47. Of the Augustan Confession by whom made p. 49. not relished by the Papists ib. drawn up in hast p. 50. subscribed by Calvin and Zanchy ibid. Melancthon not against Calvin in the point of Predestination p. 51 to 55. Luther retracted not his Book De servo arbitrio p. 55. An Article of the Confession explained p. 55 56 57. Of the Liber Concordiae p. 57 58 59. Of the Conference betwixt Beza and Andraeas p. 59 60 61. Calvin not proved to make God the Author of Sin p. 62 to 66. Of his Horribile Decretum p. 66 67. Reprobation as stated by him not of such reproach among Papists nor of such offence among the Lutherans as the Doctor pretends 68 to 71. Iustified as to Castalio 71 72. No Supralapsarian at least not the first p. 72 73. Of the different opinions concerning the object of Predestination p. 73. Supralapsarians abused by the Doctor p. 74 75. Sublapsarian Opinion stated out of the Synod of Dort p. 76 to 79. Answers to Mr Hoards objections against it p. 79. to 91. Of the Remonstrants and Arminians p. 9â— to 104. The Doctor 's Parallel betwixt the Synod of Dort and the Councel of Trent disproved p. 104 to 112. Of the Deputies of Utrecht and Maccovius p. 112 113. 〈◊〉 Remonstrants not used cruelly p. 114. 〈◊〉 made the Author of Sin by those who charge others to make him such p. 116 to 120. The City of Sedan abused p. 120. Episcopius his humour described p. 121. The Remonstrants cannot joyn with any Christian Church p. 122. The Charge against the Remonstrants made good p. 123 to 127. Whether their Opinions tend to Popery p. 127 to 138. Wickliff defended p. 139 to 146. Tindal Barnes Frith justified and commended p. 146 147. Dr. Heylin's mistakes about our Reformation and Reformers in England rectified p. 148 to 157. The English Article about Predestination laid down and its sense p. 157 to 160. The Historians Observations therefrom considered and confuted p. 160 to 165. Of the Liturgy p. 165. K. Edw. Catechism ib. Of the Iudgment of our Martyrs Mr. Rogers p. 166 167. Cranmer Ridley p. 167 to 170. Philpot p. 170. Bradford p. 170 to 175. Of Peter Martyr and Bucer p. 175 to 178. Of the Geneva Bible p. 178 179. Hooper and Latimer no Friends to Arminianism p. 179 to 182. Calvin's Reprobation misrepresented by Dr. H. p. 182. as also his Doctrine concerning Perseverance p. 184. Of the sixteenth Article of our Church p. 185. to 191. Calvinists no new Gospellers p. 192 193. Of Campneys Veron Crowley p. 193 194. Of Queen Elizabeths Articles p. 196 197. Of Mr. Nowels Catechisme p. 197 to 200. Of Queen Elizabeths Homilies p. 20 0 201. Of Mr. Harsnet and Bishop King p. 202 203. Of Mr. Fox His Martyrology vindicated p. 205 206. Mr. Perkins cleared p. 206 to 209. Of Whitaker Baro Barret p. 209 c. Of the Lambeth Articles p. 211 c. Of the Questions and Answers put betwixt the Old and New Testament in former Bibles p. 214. Of the Hampton-Court Conference p. 217. Of the Irish Articles p. 219. A Catalogue of Bishops preferred by King James p. 221. Of Overal Vorstius our Divines at the Synod of Dort Sympson Tompsom K. James his directions Bridges Mountague p. 221 to the end A Postscript concerning Barret p. 232 c. HISTORIA Quinq-Articularis Exarticulata OR ANIMADVERSIONS ON Doctor Heylin's QUINQUARTICULAR HISTORY IT is an happiness rather to be wished than hoped for that the Church of God should stand in need of no. Polemical Divines for whilst Satan is Satan and Men Men and whilst the Righteous Judge of all Mankind sees meet to punish those who receive not the truth in the love of it by giving them up to strong delusions there will be Hereticks wresting the Scriptures and opposing the Faith once delivered to the Saints Against these as many as had any regard of mens precious and immortal souls have in all Ages thought themselves obliged to contend earnestly and that with two sorts of weapons The first Apodictical proving the truth and refelling the errors opposite to it by evidence of Scriptures and strength of Reason the second Historical confirming Truth by the Testimonies and Authority of men renowned for Learning and Piety The former are the weapons mighty through God to the throwing down of strong holds but the later have also been used with good success and indeed he must be a perfect stranger to all modesty and humility who doth hastily embrace any assertion opposed by all or the greatest part of the Fathers Martyrs and Reformers of the Church With these later Weapons I intend he assisting who worketh in us both to will and to do to encounter the Reverend Doctor Peter Heylin thought it seems by the many
as Anabaptists If they were not they are much abused by Historians And if they were sure either Anabaptism is falsly fathered on the Lutherans or else Libertinism also must call them fathers But why should we seek any other fathers of Anabaptism than the Papists Nothing made the Anabaptists so infamous as their pretended euthusiasms or revelations and their despising of dignities and rebelling against Magistrates And who laid the foundation of enthusiasm I shewed a young Scholar above twenty years ago when he began to be levened with that fanaticism and he will thank me for it I doubt not all the days of his life What Schools first taught rebellion against Princes Bishop Morton and twenty more have shewn As for Rebaptizing of persons Baptized in infancy whence Anabaptists have their name it is the most innocent errour of all the Anabaptists hold and yet even this oweth its rise and progress to Popish principles and practices as the Papists shall be made to know if they desire it Nor hath it been my hap as yet to hear of any opinion so wild and absurd of our late Sectaries that I could not derive from some famous Schoolman Well the Doctor himself is not unwilling to acquit Calvin from being the Parent of these Libertines and acknowledgeth that Calvin was not wanting to purge himself from such an odious imputation And I hope he hath sufficiently purged himself if a Learned and full Confutation of their opinion be a sufficient Purgation The truth is Coppin and Quintin as also Bertrand and Perseval were all Papists As for Antonius Pocquius whom Dr. Heylin according to his mistaking faculty calls page 3. Franciscus Porquius he was undoubtedly a Romanist and a Romanist in Orders a Franciscan Fryer It cannot be denied nor is it that Pocquius was for some time at Geneva and being to leave that place he would fain have obtained Letters Testimonial and Commendatory from Calvin as he had from Martin Bucer but Mr. Calvin though he then knew not the spirit of the man perfectly did so shrewdly suspect him to be a Fanatick that he would never be prevailed with to testifie any good thing on his behalf Yea when this Deceiver discovered himself he could not forbear him but chastised him and Quintin sharply and by name in his discourse against the Libertines And when the Queen of Navarre who though not tainted with the Libertines Errors was bewitched with the pretended Holiness of these two chief Sticklers took her self to be wounded through their sides this man of God wrote to her with admirable moderation so it was meet considering her dignity and the good that she had done to the Church of God but withal he reprehended her imprudence for admitting such men and by this Letter he so far prevailed that this abominable Sect which began to flock apace into France afterwards kept it self in Holland and the Countries adjacent the Epistle is to be seen among Calvins Epistles pag. 53. To conclude I do throughly joyn with the Doctor in detesting all those who either directly or by any just consequence known to them make the Holy God the Author or cause of all or any sinfulness Nor do I know any Calvinian that will not without the least hesitation joyn with us both in this detestation If there be any that will not let him be cursed with the severest Anathema's If he should publish any thing of this nature let his Book be a Victime to Vulcan as Master Archers was by the appointment of the two Houses and at the desire of the late Assembly of Divines A story of which transaction it will not be amiss here to insert from Doctor Arrowsmiths Chain of Principles In the year 1645. there was published in London an English Book wherein God was expresly made the Author of his peoples sins though not without some limitations The Assembly of Divines then sitting at Westminster took offence at this made complaint of it to both Houses of Parliament they both censured the said book to be burnt by the hand of the Common Hangman and the Assembly of Divines agreed upon a Declaration nemine contradicente by way of detestation of that abominable and blasphemous opinion which was also published under that Title Iuly 17. 1945 and in which we meet with these expressions among others that The most vile and blasphemous assertion whereby God is avowed to be the Author of sin hath hitherto by the general consent of Christian Teachers and Writers both Antient and Modern and those as well Papists as Protestants been not disclaimed only but even detested and abhorred Our common adversaries the Papists have hitherto only calumniously charged the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches with so odious a crime in the mean time confessing that we do in words deny it as well as they themselves Now should this Book be tolerated they might insult over us and publish to the world that in the Church of England it was openly and impudently maintained that God is the Author of sin than which there is not any one point whereby they labour in their Sermons and popular Orations to cast a greater Odium though most injuriously upon the Reformed Churches We are not for the reverence or estimation of any mans person to entertain any such opinions as do in the very words of them asperse the honour and holiness of God and are by all the Churches of Christ rejected Proceed we to what the Doctor saith about those who entertaining the same dreadful madness with Florinus did recommend it to the world under a disguise Of these thus he begins Page 3. Dr. H. Of this sort Manes was the first by birth of Persia and Founder of the damnable Sect of the Manichees Anno 273 or thereabouts This wretch did first excogitate two Gods the one good and the other evil both of like Eternity ascribing all pious actions to the one all sins and vices to the other Which ground so laid he utterly deprived the will of man of that natural liberty of which it is by God invested and therefore that in man there was no ability of resisting sin or not submitting unto any of those wicked actions which his lusts and passion offered to him Contendebant item peccatum non esse à libero arbitrio sed à Daemone eapropter non posse per liberum arbitrium impediri as my Author hath it Answ. Who is this Author Prateolus a Pontifician who neither took great pains in examining what the Ancients delivered concerning Hereticks nor was fearful of affixing to men what they never held It had been more comely for a man of great reading as Doctor Heylin either is or seems to be to have referred us to Epiphanius or Cyril of Ierusalem or Austin from whom we should have taken the opinions of Manes with less suspicion but seeing he hath consulted his ease more than his credit and chosen rather to take things upon trust from Prateolus than to peruse those
his Elections is as impious as irrational This is a ratiocination as loose as ever I read and yet it hath been my unhappiness to be constrained of late to read over the Pamphlets of men that made no pretence to Logick Mr. P. might assure himself any Calvinist would deny his consequence If praescience precede not Gods decrees of Election and reprobation then was there not a moment in Eternity in which he was free to Elect or reprobate How hath he proved this consequence Why with this reason Because freedom to choose must needs precede the act of choice Were this reason put into an Enthymem the most proper argumentation to prove the consequence of a conditional proposition by it would be ashamed of it self though perhaps Mr. P. might not be ashamed of it Freedom to choose must needs precede the Act of Choice Ergo Unless praescience precede Gods decrees of Election and reprobation there was not a moment in Eternity in which he was free to Elect or reprobate Baculus stat in angulo Ergo cras pluet may from henceforth be forgotten and this Enthymem of Mr. P. be made use of as the example of an absurd unconcluding argumentation The best Apology I am able to frame for it is that Mr. T. P. thought that Gods praescience did signifie Gods feeedom to Elect or reprobate Proceed we to the Heresie of Pelagius Of that thus Doctor Heylin Page 7. Pelagius a Britain born either misâ—uided by the lavishness of their i. e. the Fathers who lived before Austin expressions or otherwise willing to get a name unto himself by some new invention ascribed so much unto the freedom of the will in acts of piety ut gratiam Dei necessariam non putarer as Vincentius Strynensis tellâ—th us of him This man associated with Caelestinus and Julianus two of his Companions began to spread abroad their errours about the year 405. amongst the which those that especially concern this purpose are these two that follow 1. Non esse liberum arbitrium si Dei indiget auxilio quoniam in propria voluntate habet unusquisque facere aliquid vel non facere 2. Victoriam nostram non ex Dei adjutorio esse sed ex libero arbitrio Add unto these that Orationes quas facit Ecclesia pro infidelibus aliis peccatoribus ut convertantur sive pro fidelibus ut perseverent frustra fieri Pag. 8. These Pelagian Heresies did not hold out long being solemnly condemned in the two African Councels of Carthage and Milevis confuted by S. Augustin with great care and diligence and finally retracted by Pelagius himself in the Synod of Palestine Pag. 9. After this time we meet with no such enemies to the grace of God no such advancers of mans free-will and the power of nature as might entitle any man to the crime of Pelagianism Answ. It must be acknowledged that great care was used by the Church of God to pluck up the tares that were sowed by Pelagius and by his Scholars shall I say or Masters Caelestius and Iulianus The Learned and Holy Fathers employed their Pens against them Councels made use of their authority against them nor was the Secular power wanting to make very severe Edicts against them But why doth the Doctor say that the Pelagian Heresies were retracted by Pelagius himself in the Synod of Palestine Retractation is when a man out of conviction of judgement revokes his errour That Pelagius did in that Councel of Palestine do so appears not That Councel 't is well known is by Hierom called a miserable Synod not as erring in Doctrine but as erring in the person supposing Pelagius to condemn his opinions heartily which he condemned but feignedly Hier. Epis. 79. He essayed also to put the same trick on the Church of Rome but was not able Aug. de peccat merit remiss l. 11. c. 8. 9. And I doubt there have been too many in these two last Centuries that have too far imitated Pelagius and seemed to have no enmity against grace a word they frequently use whereas upon examination it will be found that they were the enemies of it and advancers of nature To this end I must be more careful in setting down the History of Pelagius than the Doctor hath been I must also touch upon the story of the Semipelagians which he doth not so much as mention And if after this it doth not appear that the Iesuits and Arminians deserve to be ranked with them then let the Contra-Remonstrants be accounted as egregious Calumniators as the Remonstrants are found to be in laying the blasphemy of Florinus to the charge of the Calvinists Pelagius is by the Learned Vossius more than once affirmed to be by birth a Scotchman Being such a Pestilent enemy to the grace of God unto which we owe all that we have and all that we are it might be excusable if we should let this errour go undetected but because truth is to be preferred to the honour of our Nation we will rectifie that mistake and acknowledge that he was our own Countryman called as is conceived Pelagius because born near the Sea-side Some Cantabrigians would have him a Student in their University and so ungrateful to it as to cause the overthrow and ruine of it because it afforded Orthodox Divines that opposed his Doctrines But upon the best search it cannot be found that Pelagius in person did ever vent his poison in this Nation They are in the right who assign the Monastry of Banchor for the place of his education As to his natural and acquired parts it is not unknown how sleightly Orosius speaks of them in his Apologet as if he had been a man Cui neque natales dederunt ut honestioribus studiis erudiretur neque naturaliter proveniebat ut saperet But though Orosius be not undeservedly by Mr. Mountague called Nobilissimus rerum Christianarum Historicus yet is he not in this ingenuous it being impossible that he should not have seen that Epistle of Pelagius which sheweth him sufficiently a Scholar Had he not been so the Fathers and the Church of God would never have so troubled themselves about him His conversation is by some commended by others who had as much reason to be acquainted with it as much decryed Vir egregie Christianus vir Sanctus non parvo profectu Christianus are Elogiums bestowed on him by Austin a man who seems to be raised up on purpose to confute him lib. 3. de pec merit remis cap. 1. 3 It appears also by Chrysostom in his fourth Epis. ad Olympiad that he was reckoned among the men that did live very temperately and fare hardly insomuch that the Father being at that time in exile Death approaching did grieve exceedingly when he heard of his erring from the Faith But yet I find Pelusiota a Scholar of this very Chrysostome so Holy that he was called by a peculiar name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fastning a quite contrary
Condemnation those whom he hath chosen from the foundation of the World not for any Disposition Faith or Holiness that he saw in them but of his meer Mercy in Jesus Christ his Son passing by all the rest according to the irreprehensible reason of his Free-will and Justice The twenty sixth is as followeth The Church cannot erre nor be annihilated but must endure for ever and all the Elect are upheld and preserved by the power of God in such sort that they all persevere in Faith unto the end and remain united in the holy Church as so many living members thereof In the close of this they protest That they do agree in sound Doctrine with all thâ— Reformed Churches of France Great Brittain the Low-Countries Germany Switzerland Bohemia Poland Hungary and others as it is represented by them in their Confessions as also we receive the Consession of Augsburg Therefore certainly they did not apprehend that their opinions about Predestination Grace Perseverance had any thing in them contrary to either the Articles of the Church of England or to the Augustan Confession both which it seems are by Doctor Heylin thought to be Anti-Calvinistical but without any reason as shall God willing be made to appear Dr. H. Pag. 30 31. Here the Doctor tells us That we need not take much pains in looking after the judgement of the Lutheran Churches which come so neer to that of the Church of Rome as to be reckoned for the same That he may not seem to be mistaken in making them the same he doth pag. 32 33 extract out of the Augustan Confession the Doctrine of the Lutheran Churches in the five points only adding one clause to the first Article out of the writings of Melancthon and other learned men of that perswasion Well what is this addition God beholding all Man-kind in their wretched condition was pleased to make a general conditional Decree of Predestination under the condition of Faith and Perseverance and a special absolute Decree of Electing those to Life whom he foresaw would Believe and Persevere under the Means and Aids of Grace Faith Perseverance and a special absolute Decree of Condemning them whom he foresaw to abide Impenitent in their Sins Ans. Would not any Man in the World think that we should have had the places quoted out of Melancthon or some other Lutheran Divine in which these things are affirmed But no such quotation is made or so much as attempted onely in the Margin we are referred to Appello Evangelium cap 4. as if all that Mr. Playfer faith concerning the Lutherans were as true as Gospel and must be believed without any examination Mr. Playfer hath four considerable Arguments against this which with him is the fourth Opinion Why are none of them answered For my part I see not what there is in these passages which the most strait narrow-throated Calvinist may not swallow for it is not here said that there is no other Decree of Election but that mentioned and the Calvinist will readily acknowledge that God hath decreed to save Man-kind under the condition of Faith and Perseverance but he will also maintain that there is another Decree by which God hath determined to bestow Faith and Perseverance in Faith on a certain number viz. all his Elect. Bate us but the impropriety of the phrases used in this addition which is so great that the Decrees of Election and Reprobation seem confounded with Justification and Condemnation and we shall all of us subscribe to it But to speak more distinctly about the Augustan Confession The composition of it we owe to the joynt endeavours of Luther Melancthon and Pomeranus Iustus Ionas being absent when these three set about the work but Melancthon did most in the business a man whose both Learning and Piety were admirable but being of too timorous a spirit he so drew up the Confession which is also called an Apology as that he seemed to some not to keep distance enough from the Papists which made his Friends blame him nor had it any good effect upon his Adversaries Pope Pius V. in an Epistle to Sigismund King of Poland thus writing Augustana Confusio so he calls it and not Confessio etsi similis est caeteris Haeresium pravitatibus tamen ob eam causam periculosior est quod levius quam caeterae a Catholicae Fidei professione declinans speciem quandam Religionis retinere videatur eo perniciosior aliis quo venenum ejus occultius latet nec eminet foras so true is the common saying Media via neque amicos parit neque inimicos tollit Grotius indeed tells us in his Votum pro pace that the Anathema's of the Trent Councel were not directed against the Augustan Confession but against the sayings of some private Persons and that Charls the Emperor did intercede at Rome that the Augustan Confession might not be put among prohibited Books But in this as in most things that did pass between him and Rivet he doth but delude his Reader No man that reads over the Trent Canons can choose but see that some of them are directed against the Augustan Confession As for the Emperour that ever he made any such Intercession it appears not If he did he had sure altered his mind when he commanded that a Confutation of the Augustan Confession should be written At least this is certain that the Emperour's Intercession availed not for it is sufficiently known that the Confession is put among the prohibited Books I have by me an Index of prohibited Books Printed at Antwerp 15â—0 but approved by Pope Pius IV. Anno 1554 in which I find prohibited pag. 16 Apologia Confessionis Augustanae Augustanae Confessionis Ecclesiarum causae quare amplexae sint retinendam ducant suam doctrinam and pag. 21 Confessio Fidei Augustanae Nor is it any wonder that the Augustan Confession is prohibited seeing the Epistles of Isaac Causabon who endeavored to oblige the Roman Catholicks as far as he could without forsaking the communion of the Reformed Churches are forbidden also Doctor Rivet in his Annotations on Grotius's Cassander only tells us that he had heard it so related but Hornebeck had met with the Papal Bull it self and exemplifieth it to the full in his Disputation upon the Bull of Pope Innocent V. pag. 177 178. It is most certain that this Confession was never intended whatever use be made of it now to be a perpetual rule or symbol for all Protestant Churches for it was made in great haste Scripsi saith Melancthon in an Epistle to Flachius Augustanam Confessionem tunc cum haberem reprehensores multos adjutorem neminem Melchior Adam in his life tells us he would often say That if he were to make or draw up that Confession again he would use more accurateness than before he could possibly use Melancthon himself in an Epistle to Ioachim Camerarius saith Ego mutabam resingeham pleraque quotidie Plura etiam mutatuâ—us si
very fair interpretation of it and subscribe unto it This I had thought to have shown but I am prevented by the incomparable Zanchy who descanting upon the agreement made betwixt the Divines and Professors of the Church and School of Argentine Anno 1563 concerning the Divine Prescience and Predestination doth also teach us how to interpret the Book of Concord Which yet all things considered might better have been called the Book of Discord so much variance did it create among those whose Wisdom and Piety it would have been to unite against the common Enemies of Reformation Here it may not be amiss to take notice that when Marbachius about the years 1561 1562 did accuse Zanchy's Doctrine of Predestination as heretical the judgement of Churches and Universities and private learned Men was desired and the University and Church of Marpurg the School and Church of Heidelberg the Church of Scaphusinm the Tigurine Church and School the Church and University of Basil besides many private Persons did justifie him as may be seen in his second Book of Miscellanies page 79 80 c. Object But do not many of the Lutherans decry Calvins Doctrine of Predestination as injurious to God and destructive of the power and practice of godliness Ans. I must needs acknowledge they do and that at such a rate and height that they have in virulence exceeded most of the Papists Like deaf adders they seem to have stopped their ears against the voice of all those who would have charm'd them into any moderation and to have that alway written upon their hearts which once dropped from Luther's Pen in a fit of passion Blessed is the man who hath not gone in the counsel of the Sacramentarians nor stood in the way of the Zuinglians nor sate in the seat of the Tigurines The first set and solemn Dispute I find betwixt Lutherans and Calâ—inists about Predestination happened in the year 1586 and was managed principally by the learned Theodore Beza and Iacobus Andreas a man of mean birth but advanced at last to be Chancellor of Tubing the place Mompelgard the occasion such as that no good success could be expected from it Frederick the Prince was from his youth trained up and instructed in the Ubiquitarian Doctrine but by going to Berne and Geneva and frequent hearing the Lectures and Sermons of Beza began to have some more favourable thoughts of the Calvinists and therefore gave entertainment to some French exiles at Mompelgard But as soon as it was buzzed into his ear that the Duke of Wittenberg had no Heir male that the Austrians would never endure him to be Successor if he favored the Hugonots and that he was already suspected so to do both because he had been at Geneva and also because he had received and given entertainment to the French Protestants upon these reasons he yielded to the Conference not to find out truth but to purge himself from any suspition of being Calvinistically affected I would not have charged so great a Prince with so carnal a design but that Scultetus in the History of his own life pag. 28 assures me that Toâ—sanus told all this in his hearing to Pezelius And indeed by reading the Conference it self as related by Lucas Osiander I found reason to suspect some such design for whereas the Prince in his Letters missive inviting to the Conference mentioned no other cause of it but the unhappy controversie about the Lords Supper Beza and his Associates must at the Conference be put upon it unpreparedly to discourse about Predestination and the Prince as if he could not in conscience endure to hear Beza's blasphemies forsooth must offer to put an end to his Speech had not Andreas who was confident he should be able to answer him desired his Highness not to give him any interruption lest afterwards it should be said that Beza was not sufficiently heard in so weighty and great a matter And yet I observe that Andreas so declareth himself about the Doctrine of Election as that Beza saw no reason to contradict him Andreas his Positions are these 1. Deus salvandos non modo praescivit sed etiam ab aeterno elegit ad vitam aeternam praedestinavit 2. Electio facta est in Christo priusquam fundamenta mundi posita sunt hâ—c est ut per Christum salvarentur 3. Salvandorum apud Deum certus est numerus These things he layeth down as matters that come noâ— under any Dispute Beza contradicts not any of these nor had he any reason to contradict them But Andreas saith This is the question Whether God have so predestinated his own Elect to eternal Life as that he hath also destinated some and the greater part of mankind before they were born to eternal Condemnation and that by his absolute and hidden decree so as that he would not have them repent be converted and saved This he denieth and so would any Calvinist that is in his wits till the terms be distinguished I do challenge all the Jesuits and Arminians now living to name and shew me that man who hath in Print ventured to affirm That God did Decree to Damn any one single Person but for Sin When it is charged on us that we say God would noâ— have men Repent what is the meaning Is this it that there are some whose Impenitence God resolves not to cure unto whom he decreed not to give the Grace of Repentance Why who can question this If the meaning be that there are some whom God never put under an obligation to Repent unto whom he never made Repentance a duty I must needs say I am yet to learn the name of that Divine who hath affirmed any such thing Alas that Scholars should not distinguish betwixt Gods will of purpose determining of events and his legislative will determining of the creatures duty or once imagine that there is a contrariety betwixt these two wills The Conference ended Beza desired that notwithstanding any difference they might still look upon one another as Brethren which Andreas would not yield to offering Beza dextram humanitatis but not dextram fraternitatis The summ of all that I would have observed concerning the Lutherans is That the more ancient of them do not differ from the Calvinists in the Articles of Predestination or Perseverance the latter do differ from them somewhat though not so much as the Arminians in both yet the latter and worser sort of Lutherans do so lay down the Doctrine of Free-will that they may easily be driven to grant both absolute Election and absolute eternal Non-election or Preterition For as Hornbeck well Summa Contro p. 726 727 This being once granted that it is not by our own strength or concourse that we are converted but only and meerly by the grace and operation of the Spirit it follows that men cannot be converted but by this his grace and that they are then only converted when this grace is given Now all are not converted
be content to enquire 1. Whether this Doctrine be of such reproach as is here intimated among Papists 2. Whether it be so offensive to Lutherans 1. If it be of reproach among the Papists it is so without any cause because men of the highest esteem and renown amongst them say as much in this matter as ever did Calvin or any of his Followers This I would the rather prove because it will wipe off the aspersion of singularity which was in some former words most unjustly cast upon Calvin Who are of greater esteem among the Papists than Lombard Thomas Aquinas Bonaventure Scotus 1. Peter Lombard the Father of School-men named as every Fresh-man knows the Master of the Sentences who lived about the year 1140 thus determines Lib. 1. dis 41. A. Cum gratiae quae apponitur homini ad justificationem nulia sint merita multo minus ipsius praedestinationis qua ab aeterno Deus elegit quos voluit aliqua possint existere merita ita nec reprobationis qua ab aeterno pâ—aeseâ—vit quosdam futuros malos damnandos sicut elegit Jacob reprobavit Esau quod non fâ—it pro meritis eorum quae tunc habâ—bant quoniam nec ipsi existebant nec propter futura merita quae praevideret vel illum â—legit vel illum reprobavit 2. Thomas Aquinas the Angelical Doctor Canonized by Pope Iohn XXII said to have got his Knowledge more by Prayer than Labour and Industry upon whose Scholastical Labours are publâ—shed as many Commentaries as on the holy Scripture is rather an Hypercalvinian than not a Calvinist in this matter of the absolute Decree The Supralapsarian way is by Arminius in his Conference with Iunius imputed to him Least Arminius should be thought so kind-hearted as to grant more than was needful let us hear Matthaeus Rispoâ—is Divus Thomas ubicunquâ— de ea re loquitur semper docet nullam esse causam reprobationis sed sicut praedestinatio ita reprobatio voluntatem Dei ut causam habet Quam opinionem sequuntur omnes Thomistae praecipue c. Lib. de Praefia quâ—st conclu 3. But it may be Reprobation is not the same thing with Thomas and Calvin Let Aquinas speak for himself part 1. q. 23. art 3. Reprobatio non nominat praescientiam tantum sed aliquid addit secundum rationem sicut providentia sicut enim praedestinatio includit voluntatem conferendi gratiam ita reprobatio includit voluntatem permittendi aliquem cadere in culpam inferendi damnationis poenam propter culpam 3. Bonaventure Reader among Dr. Heylin's Franciscan Friers much about the same time that Aquinas was Reader among the Dominick-Friers canonized by Pope Sixtus IV called generally the Seraphical Doctor of so much sanctity of life and integrity of manners and profound knowledge that his Master Alexander Ales was wont to say In hoc uno Adam non peccavit thus declares himself Lib. 1. disp 40. q. 1. Simpliciter loquendo quantum ad principale significatum neutra i. e. neque electio neque reprobatio cadit sub-merito quantum autem ad connotatum reprobatio cadit sub merito simpliciter praedestinaâ—io vero secundum quid By the principale significatum he means the Act or Decree of Reprobation by the connotatum he intendeth the effect of Reprobation viz. Damnation 4 Finally Iohannes Duns a man of stupendious subtlety called by the admirable Scaliger lima veritatis is very express and punctual for absolute Election and Reprobation Places twice ten might be produced but it is needless to produce testimonies in a matter confessed by the Adversaries of the Absolute Decree Let Micraelius speak Heterodox Cal. disp 40. parag 49. Scotus alias Iohannes Duns Doctor ille 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seculo 14 contra Thomam defendit illam rigidam sententiam quod Quicquid Deus operatur circa creaturas operetur beneplacito voluntatis suae ut sâ—per hoc non sit ratio vel causa petenda lib. 1. dist 41. quodquâ— Deus sola beneplaciti voluntate de tota massa perdita voluerit quosdam homines misericorditer liberare quosdam non ut bonitatem manifâ—staret in electis quidem per misericordiam in reprobis pâ—â— justitiam Et cum alii Scholastici ut Henricus istam propositionem graviter arguerent dicendo 1. Defectum culpâ— non requiri per se ad manifestationem bonitatis 2. Malitiam in mundo miseriam non esse de perfectione universi propterea non placuisse Deo simpliciter ut aliqui in malitia miseria permanerent 3. Dei intentionem non fuisse dum peccata permittit ut habeat quod puniat sed ut bonum inde eliciat 4. Malitiam praevisam esse rationem motivam ob quam damnare reprobum Deus constituerit Scotus hic sese opposuit defendit illam certam praevisionem futurorum contingentium esse ex determinatione voluntatis divinae si offerantur duo aequales in naturalibus ex iis unus praeordinetur ad gratiam vitam aeternam alter non non esse aliam rationem assignandam nisi voluntatem divinam quae quidem est ipsissima sententia Calviniana Is that a Doctrine of reproach among the Papists that hath been defended by so many learned Doctors of the Papal Church Perhaps though the Doctor will not account the Puritan Protestant worthy the name of a Protestant yet he thinks the Puritan Papist or Jesuit the onely Papist If so I cannot deny but that the Doctrine of absolute Reprobation is to them odious enough Molina in his 23. Quest. Art 4 5 having granted that his Schoolmen do commonly maintain absolute Reprobation and not daring to deny but that Austin maintained it too concludes that It s too hard and unworthy of the Divine goodness and clemency more meet for a fierce and cruel than for a most clement Prince the Author of all consolation goodness piety But yet I am sure Bellarmine and Benedictus Pererius were both Jesuits and if we may believe the judgement of learned men concerning them as learned as any two that ever were of that Order yet either I understand not their Latine which is easie enough or they do not speak with reproach concerning the absolute Decree Bellarm. de grat lib. arbit lib. 2. cap. 16 Dicimus reprobationem duos actus comprehendere alterum negativum alterum positivum siquidem reprobi opponuntur electis contradictorie contrarie Primum enim non habet Deus voluntatem illos salvandi deinde habet voluntatem eos damnandi Quod attinet ad priorem actum nulla datur ejus causa ex parte hominum sicut neque praedestinationis Benedictus Pererius in his Comment on the ninth to the Romans roundly takes up Ambresius Catharinus for reproaching the opinion of the absolute Decree with those ugly names of cruel impious desperate 2. The Doctor tells us that this Calvinistical Doctrine is offensive to the Lutherans of what sort soever Which whether
he ever intended that we should believe I know not but I cannot in the least imagine that he himself believed it For pag. 34 he told us of some Rigid Lutherans who having separated themselves from Melancthon and the rest of the Divines of Wittenberg did gladly entertain those Doctrines in which they were sure to find as good assistance as the Dominicans and their party could afford them What Doctrines were these in which they might promise themselves as good assistance as the Dominicans and their party could afford them unless the Doctrine about the absolute Decrees and some other points annexed to them Not many lines after it is acknowledged that The Calvinian Faction's so the Doctor will miscal Doctrines though condemned by the Councel of Trent yet found countenance not only from the whole Sect of Dominicans but the Rigid Lutherans What! are the Calvinian Tenents countenanced by a sort of Lutherans and yet offensive to Lutherans of what sort soever This I 'le undertake to prove that unless the present Lutherans will reject the Opinion of Luther Brentius Heshusius men whom they pretend highly to reverence the Calvinian opinion cannot be offensive to them If therefore any of them have said or written that they would sooner fall back to Popery than give way to this Predestinarian Pestilence they were sure in some high fit of passion such as they are in when they speak of the Sacramentarian Pestilence such as that Arminian was in who professed he would sooner turn Atheist than Calvinist Dr. H. Pag. 36 37. Having so great a Founder as Calvin was it came to be generally entertained in all Churches of his plat-form strongly opposed by Sebastian Castalio in Geneva it self but the poor man so despightfully handled both by him and Beza that they never left pursuing him with complaints and clamors till they had cast him out of the City and at last brought him to his grave The terror of which example and the great name which Calvin had attained unto as it confirmed his power at home so did it make his Doctrines the more acceptable and esteemed abroad Ans. Was ever more dirt cast into the face of Calvin Beza Geneva and other Reformed Churches in so few lines What! Were they who had suffered so many things from the blood-thirsty Papists so startled with Castaliâ—'s banishment as not to dare to enquire into an opinion before they embraced it Had all the Reformed pinned their faith on the sleeve of one man who never made any pretence or laid any claim to infallibility Be it so that of what account the Master of the Sentences was in the Church of Rome the same had Calvin amongst the Preachers of the Reformed Churches purchased yet we know that the Papists themselves have their Points in which they say that Hic Magister non tenetur so the Preachers of the Reformed Churches would undoubtedly have rejected Calvin in the Point of the absolute Decree had they apprehended it to be either disconsonant to Scripture or injurious to God or destructive to the power of godliness I cannot also but take notice of another Calumny viz. that the cause of the removal of Castalio was his contradicting of Calvin and Beza in the Doctrine of God's Decrees whereas upon examination it will be found that he was commanded to depart Geneva for his notorious Calumnies against those that had deserved better of the Church than himself Indeed the man was grown to that impiety that he feared not to call the Divinely inspired Song of Solomon an impure and obscene Ballad and to rail and reproach all those who would not consent to have it expunged the Canon How great a Saint soever he may seem to some the Histories of those times tell us that he was perjâ—red Page 37 38. Doctor Hâ—ylin takes notice that Though Ecclesiastical Discipline was made use of to crush all those who durst oppose the Doctrine of Calvin yet it was permitted to Beza to be somewhat wilder than his Master in placing the Decree of Predestination before the Fall which Calvin himself had more rightly placed in Massa corrupta Ans. And yet p. 38. circa sinem he tells us that The Doctrine of the Supraâ—apsarians was first broached by Calvin A contradiction so gross that whosoever can reconcile it must have a greater faculty than ever Aristotle himself pretended to or thought possible But let us to gratifie this Author and for once suppose that Iohn was a Sublapsarian and Calvin a Supralapsarian yet it would require a greater charity than ever I could attain unto to pardon his miscarriage in making the Supralapsarian Doctrine no older than Mr. Calvin Est nobis necessario fatendum non esse nuper natam aut ignobiliorum Theologorum sententiam quae ponit Praedestinationem priorem praevisione peccati saith Bishop Davenant Dissâ—rt de prae reprob cap. 1. pag. 115. This way went Scotus gone to the generation of his Fathers some centuries before Calvin yea and Aquinas somewhat older than Scotus And for a conclusion the Bishop addeth Heac a me in eum finem adducuntur non quod huic sententiae adhaerescam sed ut obiter perstringam illorum inscitiam dicam an malitiam qui Calvinum aut Bezam lacerant maledictis quasi primarios hujus sententiae Autores quae inter Scholasticos inter Pontificios ipsos non minus recepta est quam illa contraria quae ponit hominem peccato infectum subjectum Praedestinationis Which done he proceeds to produce two clear passages out of Calvin by which it appears that he made Massam corruptam or in Austin's phrase Massam damnatam the object of Predestination The next thing we shall take notice of in our Historian is the account that he gives of the Supralapsarian and Sublapsarian Opinion and the Arguments he brings against the one and the other His account is drawn by the Pen of professed Adversaries viz. the Remonstrants and Tilenus His Arguments are all of them transcribed out of that English Pamphlet called God's Love to Mankind composed by the joint labours and endeavours of two Men that were no Punies in these Controversies viz. Mr. Mason and Mr. Hoard Where first I might take notice of this as one instance of his failing that he hath not reckoned up all the Opinions about the object of Predestination For as some make it to be mankind not yet created massam nondum conditam others mankind created and corrupted so there are who make it to be mankind created indeed but yet not corrupted or fallen Nor are they who go this way so obscure as not to deserve to be mentioned by him that undertakes to write the History of these matters But this I could easily pardon did I not find him highly disingenuous in laying down the Opinion of the Supralapsarians Which he represents from their professed Enemies charge in the Hague-Conference Just as if some angry Neighbour having preferred a Bill against Dr Heylin and in that Bill charged
Mr. Calvin For granting this yea and granting further that they had been through-paced Remonstrants it need not be yielded that the Belgick Churches were Lutheran for there might be at the same time men every way as famous and as likely to draw Disciples after them that were Calvinistical It is a truth known to all that are not altogether unacquainted with the Stories of the Low-Countries that though in the dawning of Reformation the Preachers were not all of a mind yet as things grew to a settlement the Pelagian Leaven was purged out a Confession of Faith published which was afterwards called Belgica Confessio in which the Doctrine of Predestination is so explained as Mr. Calvin explained it at Geneva this was in the year 1566 or 1567. Dr. H. Ibid. Object This Confession was ratified in a forcible and tumultuous way Answer 1. This is said not proved out of any Record 2. There is usually something of disorder cleaving to the best things that are done in dissetled times 3. Anno Christi 1571 there was a full Synod at Embden the Town eâ—â—olled by the Doctor in which it was ordained That none should be admitted for a Minister till he had been examin'd and subscribed this Confession and the Catechism of Heidelberg Which Deâ—ree was confirmed in the ensuing Synods of 1576 and 1586 and approved of by the States of Holland Yet not so practised but that in the want of others more Orthodox there crept in some that taught things contrary both to the Confession and Catechism whose hard names I will not fill my papers with These men had not notwithstanding all their restless endeavours any great success all things were reasonable quiet till Arminius came to be Divinity Professor at Leyden which was Anno 1603. Concerning which Arminius or Van Harmine we must give a short account He was at first a Tapster or Chamberlain in a common Inn from whence by the care of some Guests who were pleased even to admiration with his prompt wit he was removed and set to School maintained there out of the Publick Treasury of Amsterdam where in process of time he was by the Magistrates of the City made Pastor and preached with that accurateness and solidity that every one thought him for his parts meet to be a Professor Indeed magnus esse potuit si minor esse voluit he might have been high enough had he not thought meet to raise himself higher by trampling upon those whom the Churches of Christ have most deservedly had in the greatest admiration The learned Iunius being dead Utengobard thought none so meet to succeed him as Van Harmine but the Belgick Churches knew him too well to let him easily come to such a place in which he might influence all that were Candidates for the Ministry The Deputies of the Churches did admonish Utengobard that he would cease to commend a man so suspected to the Curators of the University of Leyden but he too proud to regard such admonitions desisted not to commend Arminius till he had brought him in to Iunius's Chair But first a dismission must be obtained from Amsterdam which could not easily be got the Inhabitants of the City being taken with his Eloquence the Presbytery at least the wiser part of them thinking that he did far less hurt at Amsterdam than he would do at Leyden a place where Youth was formed and where there was more liberty of teaching and prophecying than in a particular Church However dismissed he was at last buâ— upon this condition that he should first have a Conference with the Learned Gomarus and in that Conference by a most free and open declaration of his Opinion free himself from all suspition of Heterodoxy and that he should promise if he had any singular Opinions he would not discover them to the disturbance of the Churches Arminius if we may judge of his mind by what he writes to Utengobard was not unwilling to come to this Conference for these are his words from Amsterdam to Utengobard 4. Martii 1603 Non vereor in Arnoldi Helmichii Gomari quorumvis aliorum qui istarum rerum peritissimi habentur conspectu praesentia de illis disserere probe mihi conscius de sententiae meae veritate illorum censuram minime reformidans quod tibi idcirco dico ne hoc ipse timidius urgeas Haesi quidem aliquando circa nonnullos articulos non eousque tamen ut quae de illis creditu necessaria ex Scripturis probari possunt non adprobaverim sed jam per diuturnas assiduas meditationes id consecutus mihi videor ut de omnibus singulis rationem reddere non extimescam Accordingly a Conference there was before the Curators of the University and the Deputies of the Synod in which Arminius most expresly denied and condemned the Opinions of the Pelagians concerning Grace Free-will Original Sin Perfection in this Life Predestination adding that he approved all that Augustin and other Fathers had written against Pelagius promising also to read nothing dissonant to the received Doctrine Hereupon he was admitted Professor and for some time he defended the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches in the Points of Christ's Satisfaction Iustifying Faith Iustification by Faith Perseverance in Faith Certainty of Salvation and such other matters as afterwards he denied and which he then as is acknowledged by his good Friend Corvinus maintained against his conscience He seems by all his carriage to be one that was resolved not to venture any further into the sea than thaâ— he might have opportunity to step when he pleased upon the shore Would Barnevelt have publickly undertaken his Patronage then he would have ventured to proclaim defiance to all Dissenters but Barnevelt not daring so to do the valiant Professor contented himself mostly to instil his Notions and Principles into some of his Confidents magnifying Castalio Cornhertius Suarezius and as much vilifying Calvin Beza Martyr Zanchy Ursin yet when he was accused so to do he peremptorily denieth himself to be in the least guilty of discommending Calvin or commending Cornhert as may be seen in his Epistle to Sebastian Egbert bearing date May 3. 1607 pag. 236. Which is the usual way and method of Hereticks he expressed himself in such terms as would serve to insinuate his own private Heterodox Opinions and yet if he were questioned for them he knew how to reconcile them to the Confessions and Catechism contrary to which he pretends in a Letter to Utengobard that he never did say any thing in publick He dreaded a Synod as the shadow of death and thereupon set himself to make the Authority of the Magistrate in Ecclesiastical affairs to be all in all and when he saw that all his Policy notwithstanding a Synod was like to be called and he in that Synod like to be made answer for himself seised upon with sorrow and overwhelmed with grief he fell sick and died Anno 1609 Octob. 19. Two things more
I would have observed concerning Arminius 1. That in the set Conference betwixt him and Gomarus not long before his death he declared that he had never opposed the Doctrine of the certain Perseverance of Saints and that he would not then oppose it because such testimonies might be brought for it out of the Scriptures as he was not able to answer he would therefore only propound such places as made him somewhat to scruple and doubt about that matter 2. He would not then consent to have Adolphus Venator dismissed and to take another Pastor in his place though Venator was at that time as well for the impurity of his life as his Doctrine under the just censure of the Church If the Remonstrants count it any way for their honour to fight under such a Captain or Leader let them enjoy their phantasie Had not our first Reformers been endued with more courage and resolution Religion had never made that progress among us that now it hath I 'le never think any Opinion worth embracing whose Author either doubts of it or durst not suffer for it However glad I should be if they who follow or rather out-run Arminius in the five Points would be of the same mind with him as to the Pope of Rome of whom he thus writes in an Epistle to Sebastian Egbert bearing date Septemb. 24. 1608 Aperte profiteor me Pontificem Romanum pro membro corporis Christi non habere sed pro hoste pro perduelle pro sacrilego pro blasphemo pro tyranno violentissimo injustissimae in Ecclesiam dominationis usurpatore pro homine peccati pro filio perditionis pro exlege illo celeberrimo Well had it been for the Belgick Churches if Arminianism and Arminius had both died together but they did not Breaches as the Doctor truly notes pag. 49 grew wider and wider The Remonstrants having no hopes their cause should succeed if debated in a full and lawful Synod endeavour to shelter themselves under the wing of the Civil Magistrates whose favour that they might be the more sure to gain they ceased not upon all occasions to imbitter the Civil Powers against all the Pastors that were of a perswasion contrary to theirs speaking and Printing of them as if they were enemies to Magistracy and introduced an Ecclesiastical Power collateral and equal to the Civil an Artifice that Hereticks have alway used when they have been put to their shifts Not content thus to reproach their Brethren they further propound if there must needs be a Synod it might consist not of Persons delegated by the Churches but of certain nominated by the Magistrate Thinking that by this device they had put themselves out of all fear of Synodical censure they make an open Schism and present a Remonstrance to the States of Holland and West-Friesland in which they neither nakedly and plainly declared their own Opinions nor candidly represented the Tenents of their Adversaries Much they endeavoured that no Copy of this Remonstrance might be given out but at length a Copy was got and a Contraremonstrance made The Doctor tells us that Dr. H. Pag. 49 50. The Remonstrants gained exceedingly upon their Adversaries for the whole Controversie being reduced to these five Points the Method and Order of Predestination the Efficacy of Christ's Death the Operations of Grace both before and after Conversion and Perseverance in the same the Parties were admitted to a publick Conference at the Hague Anno 1611 in which the Remonstrants were conceived to have much the better of the day Answ. But if a man may be so bold Who were they that conceived the Remonstrants had much the better of the day The Remonstrants themselves Proprio laus sordet in ore The Contra-remonstrants They never so conceived but rather reported themselves Victors When were the Differences reduced to five Heads Not before the Hague Conference I am sure for the Deputies of the Churches charged the Followers of Arminius with Heterodoxies in more Points than the five now mentioned as appears by all the complaints exhibited against them And there fell out something which might justly give the World occasion to think that the Remonstrants were leavened with Socinianism as well as with Pelagianism For care being taken to chose one who might succeed Arminius in his Professors place the Remonstrants thought none so meet as Vorstius a man strongly suspected to be a great favourer of Socinus and who had then newly Printed a Book in the which he ascribed unto God Quantity Composition Mutability Passive Power and such other imperfections as are altogether repugnant to his perfect Essence yet at the Conference the Remonstrants professed unanimously that they had found nothing in the Writings of Vorstius contrary either to Truth or Piety At the Conference also the Contra-remonstrants urged that there were more things controverted betwixt them and the Remonstrants than were contained in the five Articles I shall make a few Annotations on the five Articles of the Remonstrants 1. That Almighty God ordained to save all those in Christ for Christ through Christ who being faln and under the command of sin by the assistance of the Holy Ghost do persâ—vere in Faith and Obedience to the very end This Article is such as no Christian would deny yet the Remonstrants do lay down such Assertions as do by most necessary consequence quite overthrow this Decree For Poppius a man of note and renown among them seems much to doubt Whether a late though never so serious Repentance do avail a man to Salvation Nay he expresly affirms in praxi Consolationis aegrotantium that he is destitute of any Promise so universal as that by it any one who dies with but a death-bed serious Repentance can be assured that he shall go to Heaven and that it is uncertain whether such late serious Penitents go with the Thief into Paradise or with those that die in their Sins to Hell Nor is this the singular opinion of Poppius I can shew the same in Episcopius not to mention some of our own here in England The Sublapsarians make the object of Reprobation man fallen into Sin the Remonstrants say that man recovered out of Sin by true Repentance may be the object of Reprobation and Damnation How easily might I if I took pleasure in recriminations tell them of ascribing Tyranny Hypocrisie Respect of Persons unto God But I only desire my Reader to consider whether the Remonstrant do not Preach another Gospel than what hath been hitherto taught in the Churches of Christ Nothing was thought more undoubted than that he who believes shall be saved The Remonstrant saith this is not necessarily true and that thousands and millions of true Believers may go to Hell How will such as these deal with an Unbeliever that is but twenty years old Will they perswade him to believe in Christ He will ask them what encouragement they can give him to believe Will they reply Salvation is promised to Believers in Christ He
any such practices Answ. I know not that any one hath in print affirmed that the Arminian Doctrine doth naturally lead men to Faction and Sedition but if any one have affirmed any such thing he may prove his affirmation by an argument which cannot easily be answered viz. Those Doctrines which do encline men to Pride do naturally lead men to Faction and Sedition The Arminian Doctrines do incline men to Pride ergo The Minor hath been before confirmed the Major is undeniable as being built upon plain express Scripture But the Doctor contenting himself nakedly to affirm that there is nothing in the Arminian Doctrines which can dispose the Professors of it to seditious practices tells us from some that it is not so with the Doctrine of the other Party Dr. H. Pag. 78. By which mens actions are so ordered predetermined by the will of God even to the taking up of a straw ut nec plus boni nec minus mali that it is neither in their power to do more good or commit less evil than they do and then according to that Doctrine all treasons murders and seditions are to be excused as unavoidable in them that commit the same c. Ans. There is I remember a very noted story out of Holland concerning an Anonymous Libeller who would needs father it upon the reverend and learned Dr. Carolus de Maets that God hath decreed and determined that all things should be done in that time manner place and order that in time they are done and that according to this decree and divine determination a man cannot do more good or evil than he doth or omitteth quite leaving out the explication that was used by the judicious Professor viz. that in a divided sense a man may do more good and avoid more evil than he doth Just so doth our Historian proceed making the Calvinists to affirm that absolutely which they affirm not but with a distinction In sensu composito a man cannot do more good than he doth nor abstain from more evil than he abstaineth from but in a divided sense he may Which made our Divines of Great Britain in the Synod of Dort among the Heterodox assertions which they rejected place this Hominem non posse plus boni facere quam facit nec plus mali omittere quam omittit falsum hoc est absonum sive de homine irregenito animali intelligatur sive etiam de renato gratia sanctificante suffulto The learned Camero was charged by his angry Adversary Tilenus to hold that man could not do more good than he doth nor omit more evil than he omitteth To this what answereth he Ego vero libens agnosco multa esse c. pag. mihi 704 I willingly acknowledge that there are many things which uttered simply do and that deservedly breed offence which very things if they be expressed conditionally appear such as that no man dare contradict them e. c. If any one shall say that Pharaoh could not let Israel go he would offend the ears of all if he add not unless God soften the heart of the wicked man but God hath not decreed to do that therefore it shall not be it cannot be that Pharaoh let Israel go Now his speech will offend no man no not Tilenus himself who doth not deny but that on hardened persons there doth lie and that by the decree of God a necessity of sinning Nor can the Arminians those of them who assert Divine praescience tell how to extricate themselves out of the labyrinth but by the help of this distinction in sensu composito diviso which is made use of by Curcellaeus in his Epistle to Limburgius from Amsterdam Decemb. 13. 1653. To be short there is no Doctrine that can more encline the heart to quietness patience contentedness all which are perfectly contrary to sedition and rebellion than doth the Augustinian or if that must be the name Calvinian Doctrine For this being once firmly imprinted on our hearts that all things come to pass according to the determinate counsel of God's will that the worst of Persecutors are but the staff of his indignation do fulfill the will of his purpose when they most cross and go against his legislative will what place is there left for murmuring what place for envie or revenge against second causes or instruments It was not an Arminian but a Calvinistical apprehension of God's providence about sin which Ioseph had when unto his Brethren fearing lest after their Father's death their old unkindness should be remembred he answered Gen. 50.19 20 Fear not for am I in the pâ—ace of God but as for you ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day to save much people alive Nor would he be understood of the otiosa permissio that Mr. Calvin writes against when he saith Gen. 45.8 It was not you that sent me hither but God This notwithstanding Dr. Heylin will quote some testimonies and authorities tending to prove that Calvinism or doctrinal Puritanism is destructive to all Civil Policy and Government Some scraps he produceth from the old Lord Burley from the Bishop of Oxford Rochester St. Davids from Dr. Brooks once Master of Trinity Colledge But he is I believe afraid to come either to the pole or to the scale either to weigh or to number authorities with us We 'll undertake among English Protestant Divines and Statesmen to produce forty who deny Calvinism to have any tendency to Sedition for one who hath laid any such thing to its charge And 't is a shrewd sign that the Doctor was hard put to it to find out Abettors for his Cause else he would not have set Cerberus to bark against his Adversaries which yet to his no small shame he doth page 79 80. This Campneys was in Edward the Sixths time a Papist a railing furious Papist and as such did suffer though not unto death At the beginning of Queen Elizabeths he began to make disturbance in the Church nibling at the Doctrine that was generally received and entertained by men every way his betters in so mâ—ch that he was generally voiced to be Popish and Pelagian His Pamphlet if it might be called his unto which he was ashamed to put his name was quickly conâ—uted by Mr. Crowly and Vâ—ron men famous in their generation of more judgement and insight in the ancient Fathers than to ascribe the Questiones Vet. Novi Testamenti to St. Austin which every Puny knows to be the fruit of some Pelagian brain I had thought to have followed our Historian and to have given some account of his second and third Part in which he goes about to perswade us that the Doctrine now called Arminianism was and is the Doctrine of the Reformed Church of England But this work is already done to satisfaction by Theophilus Churchman in his Reviâ—w If any say this is but a shift I do here
desire either Dr. Heylin or any Friend of his to direct me to the best Argument in either of those two Books and if I do not presently make it appear that that Argument is either so weak as not to need an Answer or else already answered I shall then yield the Cause Till this be done I shall not think that that can be the Doctrine of the Church which was contradicted by all or the major part of our learned Divines and Professors or that the whole Church or any lawful Authority in the Church would impose it on her own Members to recant her own Doctrine Seeing the Church is wont to enjoyn Recantation to those who contradict her Articles why she should enjoyn the Recantation of Arminianism if that be agreeable to her Articles he had need have the wisdom of all the seven wise men that can shew a reason I conclude humbly beseeching all those who are entrusted with Ecclesiastical Authority that they would not be so intent on Discipline as to neglect Doctrine that they would not let Pelagianism enter in under pretence of opposing Puritanism that Calvin 's Institutions and the 39 Articles which a Convocation in Oxford joyned together may not now be put asunder Here I had thought to put an end to my Animadversioâ— on the Doctor 's History supposing it needless to wipe ofâ— the aspersion of Arminianism from the English Church which scarce any one of our own for fourscore years had the confidence to cast on her Yet having since considered that men easily believe that which they greatly desire and finding many very many mens wits at work to gather up any thing that may evince so much as the least probability that a meerly conditional election was never reprobated by the Martyrs Composers of our Homilies and Articles I have taken up a resolution to give my self the unpleasing trouble of running through the second and third Part of the Doctor 's History that so the Reader may not have so much as a straw left to stumble aâ— The first thing done in the second Part is to lay down the Doctrine of our Church concerning the fall of man and his recovery â—y Christ. Which Doctrine should have been gathered from our Articles or from some Homilies purposâ—ly written of those subjects but the Doctor gathers iâ— fâ—om the Homily of Chrâ—st's Nativity Many of his dear Frâ—ends wâ—ll conâ—â—â—im no thanks for so doing But I am conteâ—t â—o â—et aâ—l that he hath collected pag. 4 5 6 pass as the unquestionable Doctrine of our Church Yea I rejoyce to find it acknowledged that Adam by his Fall became the Image of the Devil the Bondslave of Hell and nothing else but a Lump of Sin and that this so great and miserable a Plague fell not only on him but also on his Posterity and Children for ever Hence I infer that they are no Sons of our Church who either quite deny Original Sin or make it to be no Sin properly so called I infer also secondly that the story of which the Doctor is so proud page 7 doth not represent the case in which God found fallen man For the King of Lombard found in Lamistus both a power to lay hold on his Hunting-spear and a willingness to save himself by it but if man be the Image of the Devil and nothing but a lump of Sin he hath no power till it be given him so much as to accept of Grace offered nay his carnal mind is enmity against all the Laws by which God would bring him to happiness As for the Principle laid down page 6 towards the end that as were the Acts of God in their right production so were they primitively in his intention it is very unfitly expressed and either the meaning of it is only this that as God did put forth his Acts in time so he purposed eternally to put them forth or else it is most absurd and contrary to all Principles of Philosophy and Theology The next attempt is fouly to bespatter Wickliff Frith Barnes Tindal As concerning Wickliff it is said Dr. H. page 8 9. That it cannot be proved that our Reformers had any eye at the man and that his Field had more Tares in it than Wheat and that his Books afford all the Sects and Heresies among us the grounds of their several dotages To make good this charge we are referred to Thomas Waldensis and Nicholas Harpsfield and lest we should except against them to that which is more liable to exception the Convocation in Henry the Eighth's time Anno 1536. Answ. To which I say first that neither Waldensis nor Harpsfield nor that discontented Convocation are meet Witnesses against Wickliff or his Followers for they all lay to their charge things which we can manifestly prove they alway abhorred 2. I set against these 1. The University of Oxford which in a Convocation Anno 1406 gave Letters testimonial to Wickliff declaring him to be a man of honesty and great worth 2. The judgement of Iohn Huss and Hierom of Prague who are acknowledged to have lighted their Candle at his and Iohn Huss had such an opinion of him that he wished no greater happiness than to be where the Soul of Wickliff was 3. Finally his own works whether printed or manuscript out of which or some of which Dr. Iames hath collected enough to prove his conformity with the Church of England Reformed 3. I will take a particular view of all the Errors fathered on him by these men or rather by the Doctor out of them 1. That the Sacrament of the Altar is nothing but a piece of Bread Mr. Fox makes mention of Wickliff's Wicket and I my self have it as it was reprinted at Oxford by Ioseph Barnes Prefaced by the Reverend Henry Iackson of Corpus Christi Colledge by the which any one may see he speaks reverently of the blessed Eucharist and strongly confuteth Transubstantiation It is there expresly said the Bread consecrated is Christ's Body in figurative speech which is hid to the understanding of Sinners 2. That Priests have no more authority to minister Sacraments than Lay-men This is a calumny as Dr. Iames his Apology for Wickliff will manifest Yet if he had maintained that a Lay-man or Woman in case of necessity may administer the Sacrament of Baptism he had been in an error but in an error common to him with the Popish Church and the Lutheran Church and our own Church till headed bâ— King Iames yea had he held that a Lay-man or woman may administer the Lord's Supper I hope the Doctor will not much swagger against him on that score seeing the beloved of his Soul Simon Episcopius affirms as much as that comes to making also the immortal Grotius his Vouchee for this opinion Lo his words in his Answer to the sixty four Questions page 39 It is not absolutely necessary that the Administration of the Supper should be performed by some Officer of the Church and therefore because in
is placed by Mr. Fox at the 22. of Ian. 1552 the sixth year of the King's Raign but a few moneths before the King 's own death He had indeed two years before lost his Protectorship and so as to that may be said to be fallen Before either his fall as Duke of Somerset or as Protector Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer had been in England Now both these Worthies I shall prove to be Calvinistical in the Points under debate And certainly the sending for two Calvinists is a better and stronger Argument that our first Reformers had a respect to Calvin in drawing up the Articles of Faith than the sending for one Melancthon is that they had an Anticalvinistical project especially if it be considered that Hierom Zanchy a Calvinist if not more than a Calvinist was also sent for over into England and had come over to assist in carrying on the Reformation if when he was just upon his journey a call to another Church had not diverted him Let me also ask What Writings of Melancthon be they that our Reformers had for their Directory The first Edition of Melancthon's Common places approved by Luther was written as Calvinistically as to the matter of Predestination as Calvin himself could desire Calvin's own Book against Pighius was approved by Melancthon and indeed dedicated to him If in any other writings he seems to contradict Calvin he doth but seem in these matters it is to be imputed not to any contrariety in his own judgement but to a contrariety in those mens tempers that he had to deal with and there is even betwixt St. Iames and St. Paul writing against contrary errors such a seeming contrariety as every man is not able to reconcile Something there is in what Lampadius writes in the continuation of Pâ—zelius his History page 409 Philippus rigidissime olim si quisquam alius de praedestinatione scripsit in Loc. communibus Anno 1523. Postea cum videret infirmos duris Lutheri phrasibus offendi perduelles eas passim cippo affixas ad inflammandum Evangelium traducere calumniari mitigavit sententiam suam ut qui satis esse putaret auditores deduci ad Christum vitae librum tanto magis fructus fidei deposceret urgeret viz. concordiam charitatem neque tamen ob hanc sobrietatem ab Orthodoxis unquam est repudiatus aut condemnatus neque ipse propterea a severioribus syntheticis alienior fuit sed ad Bezam se per omnia cum Genevensibus Orthodoxis â—acere scribit No Church can be more Melancthonian than the Church of Breme it answering by Pezelius to the Besâ—huldigung van Calvinischer the accusation of Calvinism hath these words translated We and our Predecessors have alway so declared our selves and by this do again declare our selves that as by the Magistrate of this City we are called to the Function Ecclesiastical to teach according to the Prophetical and Apostolical Writings the Catholick Symbols of Christian the Augustan Confession the Apology the Franckford Recess and the whole Body of the Doctrine of Philip Melancthon so we have by the grace of God hitherto taught congruously thereunto and by none have been convinced by solid reasons to teach any thing different therefrom in which kind of teaching by the help of God we have moreover decreed to persevere Yet the three Divines of this Church did not refuse to subscribe the Canons of the Synod of Dort so that in the opinion of these men who seem to have studied the five Points as much as any Melancthonism and Calvinism are not irreconcileable And if our first Reformers were regulated by Mâ—lancthon they and the Calvinists may shake hands as good Friends But how comes the Dr. in this History to speak more favourably of Luther than of Calvin It was but Iuâ—e 6th 1654 that he did write a Preface to his Fides Veterum In that thus he expresseth himself Though I had a good respect both to the memory of Luther and the name of Calvin as those whose Writings had awakened all these parts of Europe out of the ignorance and superstition under which they suffered yet I alwaies took them to be men Men as obnoxious unto error as subject unto humane frailty and as indulgent too to their own opinions as any others whatsoever The little knowledge I had gained in the course of story had preacquainted me with the fiery spirit of the one and the busie humour of the other thought thereupon unfit by Arch-Bishop Cranmer and others the chief agents in the Reformation of this Church to be employed as instruments in that weighty business Nor was I ignorant how much they differed from us in their Doctrinals and forms of Government And I was apt enough to think that they were no fit Guides to direct my judgement in order to the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church of Eâ—gland to the establishment whereof they were held unuseful and who by their practises and posiâ—ions had declared themselves Friends to neither Here 's plain downright dealing indeed sentence given impartially Luther and Calvin both 〈◊〉 by thâ—ir practises and positions declared themselves to be Friends neither to our Doctrine nor Discipline both much differed from us in their Doctrinals and Forms of Government both were thought unâ—it by Arch-Bishop Cranmer c. to be employed as instruments in the Reformation of this Church Luther was of a fiery spirit Calvin of a busie humour and yet the Doctor presently adds he was never Master of so little manners as to speak reproachfully of either Luther or Calvin All other men whatever I suppose think he hath spoken reproachfully of both those Reformers in sundry of his Books and in the passage before us he speaks not over respectfully concerning either of them and I believe vilely wrongs both and Cranmer too For where doth it appear that the Arch-Bishop thought either Luther because of his fiery spirit or Calvin because of his busie humour unfit to be employed in the Reformation of this Church Our Church was not reformed to any great purpose till Luther was in his grave for he died the 8 th of Feb. 1546 not a month after King Henry the eighth whose decease is placed by Iohn Speed 28 Ian. 1546. How far Reformation was advanced by that King may be collected from his Will signed Decemb. 30. 1546 in which Masses multitudes of Masses are appointed to be said for his Soul Indeed Mr. I. Fox acquaints us from A. Cranmer that the King the August before he died declared his purpose to abolish all Masses and in stead of them to set up the Communion Had he lived and performed that resolution and had Luther lived to hear of the Performance of it yet might not Cranmer perhaps have accounted it adviseable to keep any correspondence with him because he had written against his Soveraign more bitterly than was meet and had repented of that repentance which he sometime expressed for his bitterness
No such thing had the Arch-Bishop to charge on Calvin and therefore it is like enough would have desired his assistance in King Edward's time had he not known that Gâ—nâ—va could not or would not have parted with him Certain I am Cranmers and Calvins principles differed very little either as to Doctrine or Discipline nor did either greatly dissent from Lâ—ther unless in the matter of the corporal preâ—ncâ— of Christ in the Sacrament I have done only desiring the Râ—ader to consider 1 Whether it be not difficult to reconcile the Author of the Fides Veterum and the Historia Quinquarticularis seeing the one saith that our first Reformers had â—n eye to the Lutheran Platform and took the Articles of our Church word for word out of the Augustan Confession the other saith that Luther by a spirit of Prophecy no doubt declared himself no friend either to our Doctrine or Discipline And if any one can reconcile this contradiction then let him 2 compare our Articles with the Augustan Confession and see whether our Reformers were such plagiaries as to take their Articles of Religion all or any out of those drawn up at Ausberg And then 3 let him also well weigh whether it be not a great discouragement to all good endeavours to say that Luther and Calvin after all their prayers and study were as subject to error and humane frailty and as indulgent to their own opinions as any men whatever Learning and Piety would scarce be so earnestly prayed for if after we had attained both in some good measure we should still remain as subject to error as obnoxious to humane frailty as indulgent to our own private opinions as any men how unlearned and wicked soever Is there any one else that the Doctor thinks the first Reformers attributed much unto Yes one viz. Erasmus Of whom he tells us that he was Greek Professor in Cambridge Which every one knows as also that he is put in the Catalogue of the Lady Margarets Professors of Divinity in that University but died 1536. And though it be true which the Doctor relates out of Fox that by the Protector in the first year of King Edward's Reign it was commanded That Erasmus his Paraphrasâ—s on the four Evangelists should be set in some convenient place in Churches and that every Priest should have of his own one new Testament in English and Latine with the Paraphrases of Erasmus on the same yet it doth not follow as is inferred that our Reformers intended not to advance any other Doctrine than what was countenanced in the writings of that Learned man I say this follows not or if it do follow then if follows much more from the Canon of our Convocation 〈◊〉 that our Church never intended to propagate any Doctrine but what had countenance in the Martyrology of Fox But that consequence the Doctor will at no haâ—d allow but sets himself against it totis viribus Part 3. â— 56. See the difference King Edward's Council in the first year of his Reign when the Church was scarce crept out of Popery if crept out of Popery placed Erasmus his Paraphrases in Churches therefore the Church intended no Doctrine but that which was countenanced in Erasmus This is a good Argument Queen Elizabeth when Reformation was come to a great height by the advice of her whole Convocation placed Mr. Fox in Churches and Houses of great resort therefore the Church intended no Doctrine but what was countenanced in the writings of Mr. Fox This is no good Argument because the case is altered But I hope the Doctor thinks the Protector did intend to propagate some other Doctrine than what was countenanced in the Writings of Erasmus Why else did he go to fight against the Scots which War was unlawful on the Principles of Erasmus If the Protector warred against his conscience yet I trow the Articles were not drawn up against the minds of those that form'd theâ— yet in one of them War is justified Yea I heartily wish that the Article of the Trinity were not against some Doctrine countenanced in the Writings of this learned man Erasmus The blot of Arianism shall not fall on his face from my pen but our new Arians the Socinians do boast of him as their own I hope not upon so good grounds as they may boast of Hugo Grotius his Countreyman But boast of him they do The Ministers of Transilvania in the most cursed Book of the Knowledge of one God number him among their Ancestors and Socinus himself in his Epistles saith of him that he was not undeservedly suspected by the Trinitarians of Arianism and of the Antitrinitarians reckoned among those who somewhat darkly renounced the Trinity But now at last that Dr. Heylin may say that he hath met with a very good natured man I will give but not yield that Erasmus his Paraphrases were eyed by our first Reformers in making their Confession of Faith What will he gain thence Truly just nothing at all or less than nothing if nothing more be found in them than what is picked out and set before us pag. 109 110 111 For in all those collections there is not one phrase or sentence that doth contradict any one of the five Points as stated by the rigidest Calvinists Even those who say that Christ died only for the Elect in which number I never put my self will bring themselves off from all and every thing that is here alledged out of Erasmus Dr. H. Pag. 110. Of universal Redemption saith the Doctor he tells us thus This Lamb is so far from being subject to any sin that he alone is able to take away all the sins of the whole World Answ. Will Amesius Gomarus or any other that most restrains the death of Christ deny this Do they not all distinguish betwixt the worth of the death and the will of him that died and say that the worth of the death was such that God might without any indecency have accepted it for the redemption of ten thousand Worlds if there had been so many But Erasmus further adds Dr. H. Ibid. He is also so gentle and so desirous of mans salvation that he is ready to suffer pains for the sins of all men and to take upon him our evils because he would bestow upon us his good things Answ. This is so dilute a speech that I will strengthen it and say that he did suffer pains for the sins of all men and yet dare peremptorily aver that no Gomarist would refuse to subscribe the saying for he can grant that Christ died with an intention to purchase some benefits for the very Reprobates and he will further say that for ought appears to the contrary Erasmus might by all men mean the genera singulorum and not the singula generum for doubtless that phrase in Scripture sometimes signifies no more than men of all sorts ages countries I wish men would either not at all dispute for the amplitude of Redeeming grace or
else bring more apposite and concluding testimonies and authorities than any that the Doctor hath here brought Nor is the Doctor more advantaged by any thing that he alledgeth out of the Institution of a Christian Man for if the Reformation in Henry the Eighths time were looked on as a standard which it is not by any Protestant yet is there not a tittle in all the five particulars gathered by him Par. 2. p. 21 22 that hath so much as a face of opposition to any opinion of Mr. Calvin's concerning Predestination Had the Authors of that part of the Institution put the Pen after they had made it into Calvin's own hand he would not have dashed out any one period or expression in it Many and just exceptions might be taken against sundry passages relating to the Composers and composition of the first and second Book of Liturgy and the Book of Homilies of King Edward pag. 23 24. But being aprosdionysous to our main Controversie let them pass Nor will I wrestle with the Historian concerning any thing he saith about the Composers of the Articles or the Articles themselves or the authority they carry in respect of the making or how they are to be understood in respect of the meaning from pag. 25. to pag. 33. Though if I should wrestle I were sure to lay him on his back I will also submit to every Rule by him laid down for the interpreting of the Article concerning Predestination pag. 34. Let this be agreed on 1. That that only is the Doctrine of our Church which is laid down expresly in our Articles or by good consequence may be thence deduced 2. That if any phrase occur about which there is any doubt that be taken for the meaning that shall be found agreeable to the mind of those who first composed or were authorized to review the Articles or were familiarly acquainted with such and may be presumed to know their meaning or to have received their notions from them 3. Let this also be taken for granted that none are to believe or think themselves elect but those who find in themselves a faith working by love or that none can take unto themselves the comfort of being given to the Son by the Father's decree but only those who are come unto him and that no ones reprobation can be known by himself or another in any ordinary way unless by discerning some such sin as is alway accompanied with final unbelief and impenitence such is only the sin against the holy Ghost But the thing to be enquired is Whether God's purpose to save out of fallen man all that believe and persevere in believing be his whole decree of Predestination and his purpose to condemn all who continue in unbelief the whole of his Reprobation So say the Remonstrants If our Church acknowledge no other decree of Election or Reprobation but this Dr. Heylin then hath got the day But if the Church besides this general purpose do acknowledge a decree to give to a certain number of persons grace and glory and a decree to leave others in that sin and misery that they brought on themselves by the fall then he loseth the day But do the Remonstrants acknowledge no other Election and Reprobation besides these Answ. Sometimes they do not and then all their Election notwithstanding no one man may be saved but sometimes they are in a better mood and give us notice of another Election according to which some shall certainly be saved This their decree is terminated to singular persons but it is nothing else but God's purpose to save S. Iames or S. Clement for example whom he eternally foresaw persevering in faith unfeigned to the end of their lives This latter decree they speak of but rarely what our thoughts are of it will be seen by and by Nor doth it honour Divine election at all for when they are closely examined they say the designation of S. Iames to salvation was founded on the foresight of a faith not which he attained unto by virtue of any grace prepared for him by Divine election but which he attained unto by the good use of his own Free-will Never do I find them or any that follow them acknowledge an Election of the Son of Zebedee or any other person unto Faith or unto any other part of Holiness Other Questions there be betwixt the Calvinist and Anticalvinist besides the Question of Election but such as are reduceable to it or at least such about which they would easily agree could they but agree in this I for my part would only ask that angry man who calls me Manichee Blasphemer c. Why did Iames believe why did he persevere why was he ordained to eternal life If in answering these he fly to a special discriminating love and mercy then will I never look on him as an Adversary But if he shall say the cause of all is to be referred to Iames his own using of such sufficient means as were vouchsafed to Iudas as well as to him then must I needs think that he taketh from God to give to man I must also needs think that he shapeth his Notion of the Divine decree and grace neither according to Scripture nor according to the Doctrine of the Fathers who wrote against Pelagius nor according to the English Church As to our English Church thus runs her Article according to the Doctor Dr. H. Pag. 27. Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly ordered by his Council secret unto us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honour Furthermore we must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and in our doing the will of God that is to be followed which we have expresly declared to us in the Word of God One would think that the many words used in this Article were sufficient to determine what kind of Predestination the Church meaneth For 1. If she had meant nothing but God's purpose to save all Believers it had been but bringing some one Scripture in which eternal life is promised to Believers and all had been done Nay what needed any Article at all concerning Predestination and Election when we had one before concerning Justification which according to this Notion very little differs from Election God's Justification considered as an internal immanent act in himself was nothing but his purpose to justifie fallen man believing in Christ. How much Mr. Playfer is gravelled with this Argument may be seen App. Evan. pag. 360. 2. If Election be nothing but God's purpose to save Believers why is it said that as many as are endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season they through
And the Protestant cause was not credited by him for he plaid such a prank as any ingenuous Heathen would have been ashamed of his Keeper shewing him more favour than he deserved he ran away from him and brought him into great danger Thus you may see sayes Careless the fruits of our Free-will-men that make so much boast of their own strength but that house which is not builded surely upon the unmoveable rock will not long stand against the boisterous winds and storms that blow so strongly in these dayes of Trouble This is the only Sufferer I know of that held conditional Election and surely his carriage was not so commendable that we should envy him unto our Adversaries But whereas the Doctor thinks that the strong confidence which Careless had of his own salvation and of the final perseverance of all those who are the chosen Members of Christ's Church was a thought of his own unto which the Doctrine of the Church gave no countenance It will appear that this was no singular opinion of his but a kindly derivation from the Article of Religion concerning Predestination unto Life and it seems to be that which he had learned from holy Bradford who in a Letter to Mistress M. H. under great heaviness and sorrow teacheth her That we should use all God's benefits to confirm our faith of this that God is our God and Father and to assure us that he loveth us as our Father in Christ and that God requireth this faith and fatherly perswasion of his fatherly goodness as his chiefest service Adding that no suggestion of Satan grounded upon our imperfection frailty and many evils should make us doubt of God's savour in Christ and that obedience giveth us not to be God's children but to be God's children giveth obedience And finally that as certain as God is Almighty as certain as God is merciful as certain as God is true as certain as Jesus Christ was crucified is risen and sitteth at the right hand of the Father as certain as this is God's Commandment I am the Lord thy God so certain she ought to be that God was her Father pag. 327 328. To another Gentlewoman page 330 thus he writes If he had not chosen you as most certainly he hath he would not have so called you he would never have justified you he would never have so exercised your faith with temptations as he hath done and doth if I say he had not chosen you If he have chosen you as doubtless Dear heart he hath in Christ for in you I have seen his earnest and before me and to me they could not deny it I know both where and when if I say he hath chosen you then neither can you nor ever shall perish And in the same Letter page 331 he sayes Your thankfulness and worthiness are fruits and effects of your Election they are no causes If once you had a hope in the Lord as you doubtless had it though now you feel it not yet shall you feel it again for the anger of the Lord lasteth but a moment his mercy endureth for ever In another Letter page 349 the same blessed Martyr sayes that One man which is regenerate well may be called alwayes just and alwayes sinful just in respect of God's seed and his regeneration sinful in respect of Satan's seed and his first birth Betwixt these two men there is continual conflict and war most deadly the flesh and old man by reason of his birth that is perfect doth often for a time prevail against the new man being but a child in comparison and that in such sort as not only other but even the Children of God themselves think they be nothing else but old and that the spirit and seed of God is lost and gone away where yet notwithstanding the truth is otherwise the spirit and seed of God appearing again and dispelling away the clouds which cover the Sun of God's seed from shining as the clouds in the air do the corporal Sun Many things to like purpose follow in that Letter by all which and by several Treatises in the printed Works of Mr. Bradford it sufficiently appears that he favoured the Doctrine of absolute Predestination And let any man judge whether he thought the term of a man's life to be moveable or no by some passages in his Examination page 286. As for my death my Lord there are twelve hours in the day as I know so with the Lord my time is appointed and when it shall be his good time then shall I depart hence but in the mean season I am safe enough though all the People had sworn my death Page 291 he desires them to proceed on in God's name he looked for that which God appointed them to do Upon which the Chancellor le ts fall these words This Fellow is in another Heresie of Fate and necessity as though all things were so tied together that of meer necessity all must come to pass What replies Bradford Things are not by fortune to God at any time though to man they seem so sometimes I speak but as the Apostle said Lord See how Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Prelates are gathered together against thy Christ to do that which thy hand and counsel hath before ordained for them to do Consider we next the judgement of Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer who though Foreigners had a great hand in the English Reformation As to Peter Martyr methinks there should be no question made of his judgment In his Commentary on the Romans and in his Common places he hath gone as high in the matter of God's decree as ever Calvin did But the Doctor tells us that Dr. H. Part 2. page 110. It s more than probable that Peter Martyr was not Peter Martyr whilst he lived in England Answ. If he would prove it but probable he must prove that it hath seemed so to all or to the most or to the wisest or to the most famous among those that are wise which I despair of ever seeing him prove so far am I from thinking that he will prove more than this The London Edition of his Common places is not now in many mens hands yet it is to be found in England and elsewhere and never did any one that was a possessor of it so much as adventure to affirm that in that Edition any thing was delivered concerning Predestination that was in the least contrary or seemingly contrary to what we find in the Editions more commonly used This answer the Doctor himself was somewhat diffident of and therefore did not give it until he had before made way by disparaging Peter Martyr as one Dr. H. pag. 109. Of whom there was little use made in advising and much less in directing any thing which concerned the Articles and who having no authority in Church or State could not be considered as a Master-builder Ans. Is the Doctor of the Chair of no authority in Church or State
any it is for a possibility of total falling as we shall hear anon Is this to say expresly that the Church hath so determined then farewel the study of Logick I am sure however that if he said it he hath not proved it Pag. 29 he quotes the words of the Article After that we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart away from grace and fall into sin and by the grace of God we may rise again and amend our lives After quoting of them as if his heart had misgiven him he addeth Haply you will quarrel at the sense of the Articles but then you must remember that the plain words sound to the meaning for which I have produced them and that until the Church it self expound otherwise it is as free for me to take it according to the letter as for you to devise a figure Which done he goes on most untruly to tell the World that this Article was challenged for unsound by the Ministers at the Hampton-Court Conference Of which untruth and sundry others relating to Dr. Overal and the Bishop of London he hath been told by so many that it is a wonder any man should not be ashamed to plough with his Heifer The Arguments out of the Liturgy whether in the form of Baptism or in the publick Catechism or Rubrick before Confirmation are quite besides the Controversie which is by many Calvinists restrained to the grace bestowed on Adult persons and by none understood of that Sacramental grace given to the Seed of Believers in Baptism His Reasons from the Homilies if they were of any force when managed by another do lose their whole strength when they come from him who hath told us That he willingly admits the Homilies as containing certain godly and wholsome Exhortations but not as the publick dogmatical Resolutions confirmed by the Church of England They may seem to speak somewhat too hardly and stretch some sayings beyond the use and practice of the Church of England But let it suffice that he hath trampled upon our Homilies with a foot of pride I dare not so do honouring the memory and reverencing the judgment of those who made them and much more the Authority that hath enjoyed them to be read in Churches Let Mr. Mountague and Dr. Heylin argue from the Homilies as if they had never traduced them Mr. Mountague argues from the title of one of the Homilies which is Falling away from God as if the very title were a sufficient warrant for his opinion Whereas no one of our Homilies is entituled Of falling away from God but only Of falling from God Ridiculous it would be adds D. Heylin p. 88. to write a Sermon de non ente to terrifie the people with the danger of that misfortune which they were well assured they should never suffer By which addition he makes himself more than ridiculous for people are not by the Calvinists well assured that they shall never suffer the misfortune of falling from God but are told that they fall from God as oft as they turn away from God's Law and that by every such turning away from God's Law if wilful they lose some degree of grace and expose themselves to the wrath of God and lose all sense of his favour and this is sufficient to terrifie any man that is in his right wits and senses Nor doth the Homily it self more favour them than the title of it Out of which neither collects more than a conditional If they be unthankful If they do not order their lives c. Now the very Rule of the Logicians is Conditionalis nihil ponit in esse Will Doctor Heylin quarrel against this Rule Yes for Mr. Yates having brought such a kind of Answer he saith of it that it is a sorrier shift than any before for if such conditional Propositions conclude nothing positively what will become of all those Propositions in the Scriptures by which we are assured If we repent we shall find mercy of the Lord Do they conclude nothing positively neither Most miserable were the state of man if these conditional Propositions should conclude nothing to the comfort of a troubled conscience pag. 96. O dreadful ignorance Can a conditional Proposition conclude nothing positively and determinately unless it conclude that its antecedent shall actually come to pass or may come to pass When Paul saith If an Angel from Heaven preach another Gospel let him be accursed this conditional will conclude that whoever preacheth another Gospel is accursed it will not conclude that ever any Angel can or shall preach another Gospel What pity it is that men should adventure to write Books after they have forgot the common Elements of Logick and what shame is it that men should dare to bring in passages out of our Homilies and omit a material Parenthesis that occurs in all Copies of them as any one may see that both Mr. Mountague and Dr. Heylin have done I only desire seeing the Homilies are commonly to be had that my Readers would be pleased to compare them with the quotations of Dr. Heylin p. 89 and remember that the thing he is to prove out of the Homilies is that real Saints may fall totally and finally from sanctifying grace received and then let him be deceived if he can provided that he will also consider what passages Mr. Yates and Mr. Prin have collected out of the Homilies to confirm Perseverance One more Authority Dr. Heylin produceth and it filleth up pag. 90 91. It is the Authority of Lanceiot Ridley Archdeacon of Canterbury out of whose Comment on the Colossians he collects something relating to all or most of the controverted Points but the Collections if all truly made have not in them so much as a seeming contrariety to any of Mr. Calvin's Tenents But in this very Arch-deacon's Comment on the Epistle to the Ephesians Mr. Prin finds personal Election and if Election then Perseverance also The Doctors not medling with that Commentary his not mentioning Bartholomew Traheron Dean of Chichester and Library Keeper to King Edward nor Thomas Beacon nor Anthony Gilby nor Stephen Garret all famous in King Edward's Reign and whose Books might easily have been procured by one that lived so near Oxford as Lacy Court is an undeniable evidence that he himself did not think King Edward's Divinity and his own to be the same In all the third Part our Historian is put to horrible shifts and plays a very low game indeed And no wonder for he finds the opinions he contends against delivered out of the Chairs in the University countenanced by all Authority Civil and Ecclesiastical his own opinions he finds censured recanted never printed but in hugger mugger and by stealth and yet I do not find him much changing countenance but rather with confidence enough asserting himself a Son of the Church and his Doctrine a Doctrine of the Church His first attempt is to disgrace the Calvinists by calling them Gospellers For thus
he phrasifieth Dr. H. Part 3. Pag. 2. There were some men who in the beginning of King Edward 's Reign busily stickled in the maintenance of Calvin 's Doctrines and thinking themselves to be more Evangelical than the rest of their Brethren they either took unto themselves or had given by others the name of Gospellers Of this they were informed by the Reverend Prelate and right godly Martyr Bishop Hooper in the Preface to his Exposition of the ten Commandments Our Gospellers saith he he better learned than the Holy Ghost for they wickedly attribute the cause of punishments and adversities to God's providence which is the cause of no ill as he himself can do no evil and over every mischief that is done they say it is God's will In which we have the men and their Doctrine how the name of Gospellers and the reason why that name was ascribed to them It is observed by the judicious Author of Europae Speculum that Calvin was the first of these latter times who searched into the Counsels the eternal Counsels of God Almighty And as it seems he found there some other Gospel than that which had been written by the four Evangelists from whence his Followers had the name of Gospellers for by that name I find them called frequently by Campneys also in an Epistolary discourse c. And finding it given them also by Bishop Hooper a temperate modest man I must needs look on it as the name of the Sect by which they were distinguished from other men Answ. All this I have at large transcribed because I have sundry observations to make thereupon First I observe that in all probability the Doctor never read Hooper but trusted to other mens eyes for he quoteth that as from the Preface of Mr. Hooper which is not to be found in the Preface but rather in his Postscript or Appendix to his Declaration of the ten holy Commandments or his Answer to certain Objections that keep men from the obedience of God's Law the fourth of which is Curiosity Nor is this the first time that he hath suffered himself and his Reader to be abused Secondly I observe that he attributes â—hese words to the Reverend Prelate and right godly Martyr Bishop Hooper whereas Hooper when he did write these words was no Prelate but only a licenced if licenced Predicant But I am glad however to find Dr. Heylin speak of honourably of the Ring-leader of the Non-conformists It seems when he is pleased he can allow one that scrupled the Habit and expresly condemned the Civil Offices of Bishops to be reverend and right godly and temperate and modest Thirdly I observe that he chargeth Mr. Calvin from the Author of Europae Speculum to be the first in these latter times that searched into the Counsels the eternal Counsels of Almighty God That the Author of Europae Speculum hath any such observation I am not sure If he have it no way contributed to procure him that esteem with which the World reads his Book for as all eternal Counsels are the Counsels of Almighty God so all the Counsels of God Almighty are eternal And to say that Calvin was the first who in this latter age searched into the Counsels of Almighty God is in effect to say that none of this latter age before Calvin regarded God's glory or mans salvation I suppose instead of eternal Counsels the Doctor intended to say hidden unrevealed Counsels But the assertion of absolute Election and Reprobation is no searching into the secrets of God Almighty or if it be Mr. Calvin cannot by any one that hath the least skill in History be thought to be the first that searched into God's secret Counsels seeing both Luther and Zuinglius had done it before him Fourthly I observe the unrighteous censure or calumny of the Doctor that Calvin by searching into God's Decrees had found out another Gospel than that which had been written by the four Evangelists from whence his Followers in these Points had the name of Gospellers Neither Calvin nor Calvinists ever found out any other Gospel than this He that believeth shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned Nor was the name of Gospellers given to Mr. Calvin's Followers on the account of their bringing in a new Gospel or on any other account but it was the general name by which all that joyned in opposing Popery called themselves Let any one but consult the word Gospellers in the Index of Mr. Fox's Martyrology and compare the places there referred unto he shall find Papists and Gospellers still opposed Gospellers used not as a name of ignoming but as a name of honour Let him also read Bishop Ridley's Letter to his Chaplain he shall find the same word used and contradistinguished to Papists Likewise in Latine no more usual distinction than Pontificii and Evangelici So that the Historian in making the Calvinists the only Gospellers makes them indeed the only Protestants Finally I observe that the words quoted from Bishop Hooper are inexcusable if they be not qualified with some distinction The Scripture doth not oftner ascribe unto God the Creation of the World than it doth ascribe unto his Providence all the Punishments and Adversities that befal either good or bad men yet it must be granted that God does not willingly afflict the sons of men and therefore never punishes them but when he finds something in them which deserves the punishment so that they may thank themselves for all the evil they suffer from God The Doctor 's next design is to vindicate one Campneys a Fellow that was made to bear a Faggot at Paul's Cross in King Edward's time the learned and pious Miles Coverdale preaching a Sermon when that punishment was inflicted on him This man it seems having either complied in Queen Mary's time or saved himself alive by flight when Q Elizabeth had restored the true Religion began to play his old pranks i. e. to cause disturbance by nibbling at such who were deservedly honoured and preferred in the Church publishing a Pamphlet but unto which he had not courage enough to affix his name against Predestination This Pamphlet was encountred by Mr. Iohn Veron a Chaplain to the Queen and Reader of the Divinity Lecture in S. Paul's Church as also by Mr. Robert Crowley sometime Fellow of Magdalen Colledge in Oxon at that time a famous Preacher in the City of London Both these put out Answers unto Campneys and their Answers were both licenced and approved and Veron's Dedicated to the Queen her self whereas Campney's virulent Pamphlet came forth surreptitiously neither Author nor Printer daring to put their names to it All this notwithstanding the Doctor would have us believe that Campneys defended the Doctrine of the Church Veron and Crowley opposed it as if the Church had so soon lost all her zeal for her Religion and would give no countenance at all to those that contended for it yet would vouchsafe to authorize the writings
of those that vigorously fought against it We need not say that Campneys deserved all the ill names that Veron and Crowley bestowed on him perhaps their zeal might be in some particulars too bitter yet we cannot think that men of so great repute and learning would charge Pelagianism and Popery upon one that had honestly declared himself against both Popery and Pelagianism The Doctor tells us that Campneys hath sufficiently purged himself of both these crimes And indeed by reading his Book I find that he hath declared himself against Merit but so hath many a professed Papist done He doth also muster up the errors of Pelagius publickly recanted by him in the Synod of Palestine declaring them or at least one of them to be vile and abominable This notwithstanding it is possible he might be a very Pelagian Austin himself doth not speak more sharply against Pelagius than do the Ring-leaders of the Semipelagians and yet they erre as bad an errour as the Pelagians do But of all these matters let indifferent Readers judge by comparing Campneys Book with the Answers made to it More I need not say about the sixteenth Chapter had it not pleased the Historian to defame Calvin Beza and Knox. Calvin and Bâ—za he charges with unworthy practices used against Sebastian Castalio a man he says of no less learning but of far more modesty and moderation than either of them yet they never left persecuting and reviling him till they had first cast him out of Geneva and afterwards brought him to his grave meerly because he differed from them about Predestination Calvin and Beza's learning modesty and moderation are sufficiently vindicated by others Castalio discovered little either of modesty or moderation in his bitter censures of the Book of Canticles or in the help and assistance he afforded unto the cursed Socinians Beza and Calvin are not the only persons that have condemned him nor did they condemn him meerly or principally for differing from them in the point of Predestination as the Doctor might have known if he had rather consulted the impartial Historians of that time than Castalio's own writings For Mr. Knox styled pag. 5 The great Incendiary of the Nation and Kirk of Scotland I will not undertake an Apology His own Country-men who were better acquainted with his principles and practices may better do it Yet because I find him to have taken great pains in promoting our Reformation here in England I shall adventure to mind the Doctor that Spotswood purposely employed by our King to write the History of the Kirk of Scotland and having also by the King liberty given him to write truâ—h impartially doth make very honourable mention of Mr. Knox. And our own Bishop Ridley joyns him with Latimer Leaver Bradford and commends them all for their sharp reproof of all sins and sinners in King Edward's days Dr. H. Part 3. pag. 18. No sooner had that gracious Lady Queen Elizabeth attained the Crown than she took order for the reviewing of the publick Liturgy appoiâ—ting for the review Dr. Parker Drâ— Gâ—indaâ— Dr. Pilkington Dr. Cox Dr. May Dr. Bill Mr. Whitehead Sir Thomas Smith Answ. 'T is true such a revision was appointed and performed by the men here mentioned I intend not a character of them they have their characters already given them by abler Pens but so principled they were that if any thing had been left in the Liturgy favouring conditional Eâ—lection or the Apostasie of Saints it had not failed to be blotted out The Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth are mentioned by the Doctor pag. 19 in which he observes that Erasmus his Paraphrases were appointed to be provided for every Church Injunct 6. and Injunct 16 that every Parson Vicar Curate Stipendiary Priest he omits under the degree of a Master of Arts should provide and have of his own the New Testament in Latine and English with the Paraphrases the Injunction saith only with Paraphrases The conclusion he hence infers hath been before considered I must take notice that the 51. Injunction straitly chargeth and commandeth that no manner of person shall Print any manner of Book or Paper of what sort nature or in what Language soever it be except the same be first licenced by her Majesty by express words in writing or by six of her Privy Conncel or be perused and licenced by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York the Bishop of London the Chancellors of both Universities the Bishop being Ordinary and the Archdeacon also of the place where any such shall be Printed or by two of them whereof the Ordinary of the place shall always be one and that the names of such as shall allow the same be added to the end of every such work for a testimony of the allowance thereof From this Injunction I infer that Campneys had no respect at all unto the Queens Order or else he would not have published his Papers without Authority I also infer secondly that neither Queen nor Councel nor Archbishops nor Bishops were of Campneys mind because else he would have prevailed with some of them to authorize his Book that it might have been more passable And now if the Doctor have got any thing by these Injunctions much good may it do him Dr. H. Pag. 20. Here he gives us a very merry conceit that the Zuinglâ—ans being increased exceedingly both in power and numbers and notice being taken thereof by those that were of most Authority in the government of the Church it was thought necessary that the Articles of Religion published 1552 should be reviewed accommodated to the use of the Church and made to be the standing Rule by which all persons were to regulate and confirm their Doctrines Answ. He would have extreamly obliged us had he but vouchsafed to name any one person intrusted in the government of the Church at that time who was in the least offended with the Zuinglian Doctrine We have Records from which it may appear who were Anno 1562 Archbishops and Bishops amongst them all it will be hard to find any one that was not a cordial Friend unto the Doctrine of Zuinglius and Calvin some of them are blamed for agreeing too well with them in matter of Discipline and Ceremony also the names of almost all may be found in Mr. Fuller Book 9. p. 69. But the Historian would have done no less than wonders if he had informed us how the passing of the Articles in Queen Elizabeth's first Convocation could be a probable means to suppress the growth of the Zuinglian Doctrine Certain I am that if they were designed for any such use they had no prosperous success but were in the days of Queen Elizabeth and King Iames made use of to suppress the Antizuinglian Doctrine Indeed the seventeenth Article plainly lays down such a Predestination as the Anticalvinistical ear cannot hear and the Homilies so much commended in the Articles have a little too much Calvinism in them for they place Faith in such a
me how it appears that Mr. Harsnet and his Sermon was so censured and condemned I answer It appears from the plain testimony of Mr. William Prin page 304 of his Perpetuity printed at such a time when Prudence as well as Conscience would have restrained him from uttering an untruth against so great a man as Harsnet was then become Can it be imagined that if this had been a slander so great a Prelate of our Nation would not have demanded reparation and satisfaction As for the Doctor 's Argument that seeing the Sermon was preached at the Cross the University could take no cognizance of it it is such as I suppose upon second thoughts he will wish he had never made use of And he hath as much reason to wish that he had never troubled his Book with any thing of Bishop King's Lectures upon Ionah in which nothing is to be found against absolute Predestination nor yet any thing from which any probable collection can be made that the Bishop had conceived in his own mind any opinion about it contrary to Mr. Calvin's nor could the Doctor himself collect any thing from them till he had first supposed which no one will grant him that there is the same reason of God's eternal Election and his Promises as of his eternal Reprobation and his threatnings This done the Historian fills his nineteenth Chapter with lamentations and weeping bewailing the sad condition of the Church that was feign in her Reformation under Queen Elizabeth to make use of any Learned man that had zeal against Popery to discharge the places of greatest trust and Authority in the Church how Calvinistical soever they were for Doctrine But when was that it the Church was put to this strait was it not in the first years of Queen Elizabeth and particularly in the year 1562 when the first Convocation was held If so what a piece of boldness was it to say that that Convocation drew up Articles with any purpose to give check to Doctrinal Calvinism and what uncharitableness is it to affirm that our learned Divines did change their minds when for a few years they were forced to change the air in the Reign of Queen Mary What men of note had they to converse with beyond the Seas whose Opinions and Arguments they had not read and considered while in England They must needs be clouds without water if the breath of Calvin and Martyr could so easily toss them to and fro But we know those that went over Conformists came home Conformists and those that went over Non-conformists came back Non-conformists though somewhat strengthened in their Non-conformity by the communion they had with the Protestant Churches beyond the Seas I shall hereafter shew that not only Non-conforming Divines but also the most zealous Conformists did set themselves with all their might to declare against and crush the Arminian Doctrine as soon as in any place it began to be be delivered And the Doctor may do well to remember that Mr. Hooper and Mr. Bradford whom he hath before made so much use of though to little purpose were both of them Non-conformists in King Edward's days and Mr. Latimer whom he also challengeth for his own was litle better than a Non-conformist letting fly sufficiently at the Dignities of the Reformed Prelates So that if these three men had been as much for him as he pretends a man might say English Arminianism did spring out of the root of Non-conformity but it will appear that it did spring from opposition to those wholsom Doctrines in which all our Reformers how much soever differing about Ceremonies agreed Mr. Iohn Fox his Martyrology though dedicated to the Queen and by her accepted graciously though highly honoured by a Canon of the whole Convocation 1571 the Historian expresly saith he looketh on as the first great Battery which was made on the Bulwarks of this Church in point of Doctrine by any Member of her own page 58. A piece of confidence suitable to that which carried him to say King Edward was an ill principled Prince and that his removal by death was no infelicity of our Church And it is the more inexcusable because in all his Histoâ—iâ—s about our Reformation he lighteth his Candle so oft at the Martyrologist's It seems he loveth darkness rather than light if it come from Geneva Bishop Hall to whom Episcopacy oweth far more than to Doctor Heylin calleth Fox a Saint-like Historian and for such he will be accounted as long as any one drop of good Protestant bloud runneth in our English veins But did the Convocation appoint no balm for that wound made by the Martyrology Yes that it did he thinks What was it Another Canon page 60 that men should teach no other Doctrine in their publick Sermons to be believed of the People but what was agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and had from thence been gathered by the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops I say If this Canon had been observed Mr. Harsnet had never preached his Sermon He thinks Calvinism had never been preached because maintained by none of the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops but Saint Augustine only who was but one Bishop but one Father All Calvinists will now easily forgive him his reproaches against Calvin seeing he spares not St. Augustine But I hope he will not forgive himself that passion which produced so great an untruth Had he said none before St. Augustine maintained Calvin's Doctrines the mistake had been excusable so is it not to say that no Catholick Father or ancient Bishop maintained it besides St. Augustine Doubtless Prosper and Hilary were both Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops yet they as much maintained Calvin's Opinions as St. Augustine doth Who are the Bishops and Catholick Fathers that the Doctor follows in these Points of Predestination and grace In his second Part page 36 he quotes three ancient Writers The first Ambrose on the Epistles yet every one knows that those Commentaries on the Epistles are not his but the work as some think of a Pelagian as others of one Hilary no Bishop though a Catholick He also quotes the Commentary upon Saint Paul's Epistles ascribed to St. Hierom but he is not ignorant or if he be ignorant few other Scholars be that those Commentaries however formerly fathered on Hierom do call Pelagius himself Father and he I trow was no Cathotholick Father or ancient Bishop but a most vile Heretick He also refers us to St. Chrysostom in Ep. 14. By which I know not what he means but am sure it is little credit to a Doctor in Divinity living so near the University to bring Chrysostom in Latine whose Greek is so easie as that School-boys are able to understand it so that if this had been any piece of a Sermon I might certainly hâ—â—e concluded that the Doctor had violated the Canon and would fain know of him how our ordinary Countrey Preachers should be in any capacity to
observe this Canon whose Libraries scarcely afford a Father of any Edition to be trusted to The best advice I can give them is to buy such Books as contain a Confession of Faith confirmed all along with Scriptures and Fathers in which I cannot but commend the Orthodoxus Consensus dedicated by Gasper Laurentius to the Prince Elector Palatine bound up with the Corpus Syntagma confessionum Fidei printed at Geneva 1654. There is also published by Cyril late Patriarch of Constantinople a Confession of Faith as Calvinistical as if it had been extracted out of Calvin's own Institutions which is now extant confirmed all along by Scripture and Fathers Catholick and ancient in a little Piece put out by the learned Hottinger where also there is enough said of Cyril's life troubles and death to free him from the aspersions cast on him by the Iesuits and by Grotius We have brought off Mr. Fox and must now see whether the Historian do charge Mr. Perkins with more success of whom it is affirmed page 62 That he did open wider the great breach that had been made by Mr. Fox Sure it may easily be pardoned him that he made that breach wider which was made by the Church it self by putting so much honour upon the Acts and Monuments as did if we may believe this Doctor manifestly tend to the subversion of that Doctrine that she had about ten years before so solemnly ratified But as it may well be presumed that the Church would not consent to the picking out of her own eyes so we have great reason to think that Mr. Perkins did design all his Treatises only to commend that milk unto others which he had with so much delight and nourishment sucked from the Breasts of his Mother the Reformed Church of England The Treatise of his quarrelled at is called Armilla Aurea composed by the Author in Latine translated into English by Dr. Robert Hill at the request of Perkins himself saith our Historian but tells us not whence he had that information nor indeed is it probable that Mr. Perkins would request another to do a work that might easily be done and yet could be done so well by no hand as his own The Translator tells us plainly in his Epistle Dedicatory unto the Judge of the Admiralty Court that he made the Translation at the request of some well disposed that his own Countrey-men might by it reap some profit and perhaps also he had a design to reap some profit by his Countrey-men presaging that it would be of very quick sale as indeed it hapned being printed fifteen times in the space of twenty years Many of the greatest learning and judgment thought this left-handed Ehud did by this his Book wound the Pelagian Cause to the very heart Our Historian thinks not so and tells us page 64 that it found not like welcome in all places nor from all hands Parsons the Iesuite is brought in thus sleighting him By the deep humour of fancy he hath published and writ many Books with strange Titles which neither He nor his Reader do understand as namely about the Concatenation or laying together of the causes of mans Predestination and Reprobation And then Iacob van Harmin he acquaints us wrote a full discourse against it I know not what he means by it Arminius his Examen as we all know being not designed against Perkins his Armilla Aurea but against another Piece called a Treatise of Predestination and of the largeness of God's grace And that Examen of Arminius hath been so confuted by the learned Dr. Twiss that no Remonstrant hath as yet had confidence enough to rejoyn All the wind hitherto sent from the Doctor hath shaken no corn We can contemn Parsons and not value Arminius He therefore further acquaints us page 65 of a very sharp censure passed upon Mr. Perkins by the Doctor of the Chair in Oxford What is this censure No more but that Mr. Perkins otherwise a learned and pious Person therefore surely able to understand the Title of his own Books did err no light error in making the subject of Divine Predestination to be man considered before the fall adding also further that some by undertaking to defend Mr. Perkins in this opinion had given unnecessary trouble to the Church This censure is very gentle in comparison of what the same Reverend and Learned Professor afterwards Bishop of Salisbury thought meet to pass upon Arminius Bertius and all their Followers whom he accuseth of most detestable Sacriledge The same Doctor had before undertaken a Defence of Mr. Perkins his Reformed Catholick calling him a man of very commendable quality and well deserving for his great travel and pains for the furtherance of true Religion and edifying of the Church which Reformed Catholick also is learnedly defended by Mr. Wotton For a parting blow the Doctor tells us that Mr. Perkins scarce lived out half his days and that in the pangs of death he spake nothing so articulately as Mercy mercy which he hopes God did graciously grant him in that woful agony And I for my part do not at all doubt that God shewed him mercy and had shewed him the very riches of his mercy many years before for God is not unrighteous that he should forget that labour of love with which Mr. Perkins had laboured in Cambridge As little do I doubt that there are hundreds in Heaven blessing that Providence that placed a light so shining and burning in that University His dying so soon is not to be imputed to his bloud-thirstiness or deceitfulness but to his hard studies and unwearied diligence which must needs wast his natural spirits and bring him sooner to his grave than he would have come if he could have satisfied himself as some do to enter into the Pulpit no oftner than the High Priest entred into the Holy of Holies He always desired that he might die praying for the pardon of sin and he had his desire If in his Sermon he pronounced the word damned with a more than ordinary Emphasis it was only to forwarn his Hearers to flee from the wrath to come If he so pressed the Law as to make the hair of the young Scholars stand upright it was only that being awakened oâ—t of their security they might seriously ask the question How they should do to be saved The Law was designed to be a School-master to bring us to Christ and would not have that effect if it should not be preached with some of that terror with which it was at first delivered But he made the infinitely greatest part of all mankind uncapable of God's grace and mercy by an absolute and irrespective decree of Reprobation So it is said page 66. but no such thing can be proved out of Mr. P's Writings Had he framed any such decree as made any one man or woman uncapable of grace and mercy he must needs have affrighted away his Disciples and Hearers which he was so far from doing
est Antichristus Wherefore let not the Historian spend time to prove that those Articles do not bind the Church as those did that solemnly passed in the Convocations for I ascribe no such Authority to them only urge them as Declarations of the Articles of our Religion just as I would urge the judgment of the two Lord Chief Iustices calling in to their assistance others learned in the Law for the expounding of a Statute 't is not impossible they should be mistaken in their exposition but it would be strongly presumed by all modest men that they were not mistaken And so I could let go these Articles had it not pleased the Historian to tell us of a mighty offence taken at them by the Lord Burleigh and a resolution of having all that acted in them attainted of a praemunire from the danger of which the Arch-Bishop could not get release until he had promised speedily to recall and suppress those Articles All which we have laid down page 81 82 as things affirmed by Mr. Mountague from the Remonstrants in an Answer of theirs published 1618. But where did these Remonstrants hear this story Why possibly they might have it from the mouth of Baro or some other Cambridge men Will any man believe so great things upon so slender proofs as the possibility of the Remonstrants hearing them from the mouth of some Cantabridgian when they do not so much as pretend to have heard any such thing from any member of our Church nor doth any one ever since offer to tell us when and where the Arch-Bishop was forced to make any such submission The Heads of Houses in their Letter to the Lord Burleigh own the sending up of Dr. Tindal and Dr. Whitaker to conferr with the Lord of Canterbury and write of the great and comfortable quiet that by the coming down of the Articles was brought unto the University until that Baro in January following contrary to restraint and commandment gave some new disturbance In the same Letter also subscribed with their names and bearing date March 8. 1595 they resolutely tell the same Lord that Baro had determined preached printed diverse points of Doctrine not only contrary to himself but also contrary to that which had been taught and received ever since her Majesty's reign and agreeable to the errours of Popery Wherefore they pray his Lordship to vouchsafe his good ayd and advise to the comfort of themselves and all others of the University truly affected and to the suppression in time of those errours and even of gross Popery like by such means to creep in among them And upon this Letter or something else Baro left his place in the University because he could not keep it say Dr. Ward Mr. Fuller and all other Cantabridgians that ever I read but this Oxford Historian who can easily affirm any thing that he much desires tells us he left his place neither because he was deprived nor because he had any fear of being deprived but meerly because he had no mind to keep it any longer Nay he sticks not to affirm that in case it had pleased him to continue any longer Lecturer it is probable he might have carried the Lecture from any other Candidate or Competitour of what rate soever But by what mediums did he bring himself to this probable perswasion or whence did he collect that Baro had so great a number of adherents Only from Dr. Overals being chosen to succeed Dr. Whitaker But if they were the Anti-calvinists that carried it for Overal why did they not rather carry it for Baro himself seeing they had such fair presidents of preferring those who are Lady Margarets Professors to be King's Professors Hutton had been so preferred so had Whitgift so had Chaderton Or if Baro's interest were so great how came he to use so little care and Conscience as not to provide a Successor of his own mind Did he think his opinions were not worth the knowing If he did not why did he trouble the world with them If he did why would he so tamely yield to the chusing of Doctor Playfer than whom there was not a man in all the University more opposite to him The truth is Doctor Overal had not then declared himself to differ from Calvin and therefore was by the University employed to convince Barret and afterwards when he delivered such things as some Calvinists condemned him for yet he never deliver'd his mind so as to deny personal election or the certain perseverance of all the elect Something more of his mind we shall hear hereafter in the Hampton-Court Conference In the mean time I must mind the Doctor of a certain Catechism consisting of Questions and Answers touching the Doctrine of Predestination bound up with our English Bibles printed by Robert Barker Anno 1607. but not then first bound up with our Bibles as the Doctor seems willing to think pag. 101 102. The Questions and Answers are to be found in the Church Bibles commonly called the Bishops Bibles printed by Christopher Barker I my self have seen Bibles printed twenty years before the coming in of King Iames in which they were and for ought I know they were as old as any Translation of the Bible used in Queen Elizabetbs time He asks by what authority those Questions and Answers were put in betwixt the Old and New Testament and so I remember he somewhere asks by what Authority the Metrical Translation of the Psalmes was allowed to be Sung in Churches I am not able to give him a satisfactory answer either to the one or the other question no more than he is able to answer me who made our second Book of Homilies Yet he thinks I suppose that those who made that Book were Authorized to make it and so I think that those who first bound up those Questions and Answers and Singing Psalmes with our Bibles had Order and Authority so to do All this while Cambridge hath took us up We must now look into the other University in which we are told that all things were calm and quiet no publick opposition shewing it sâ—lf in the Schools or Pulpits The reason of this quiet is guessed at because the Students of that University did more incline to the canvasing of such Points as were in difference betwixt us and the Romanists For witness he calls in many Papists and on the other side Bishop Iewel Bishop Bilson Dr. Humphry Mr. Nowel Dr. Reynolds and many others which stood firm to the Church of England This last clause sure slipped from him unawares Upon second thoughts I fear he will scarce affirm that all these stood firm to the Church of England If they did no lot or portion hath he or any of his in the Church of England most of them having declared their minds point blank against conditional election c. Iewel hath told us his mind about Election in his Comment on the Thessalonians so hath Mr. Nowel in his Catechism Dr. Humphries
at Dort as he was sure would be sufficiently active in their i. e. the Remonstrants condemnation and have you now so soon forgot your self as to say that he instructed his Divines thither commissionated not to oppose the Article of Universal redemption which accordingly they performed and make this an argument that King James condemned not the Arminian Doctrines in themselves Was that Universal redemption which you say King James instructed his Divines not to oppose and which they did not oppose an Arâ—inian Doctrine or was it not If it was nor how is King Iames his directing his Divines not to oppose it any evidence that he condemned not the Arminians opinions in themselves If it were and that our Divines did not condemn it why is the King charged with sending Divines that would be sufficiently active in condemning the Arminian opinions Again you say expresly pag. 107 that he gave command to his Divines sent to the Synod of Dort not to recâ—de from the Doctrine of the Church of England in the point of Universal Redemption by the death of Christ a point so inconsistent with that of the absolute decree of reprobation and generally of the whole Machina of predestination and the points depending thereupon as they are commonly maintained in the Schools of Calvin that fire and water cannot be at greater difference Sir I beseech you consider whether you do not contradict your self whilst you think you only contradict Calvin Universal redemption by the death of Christ overthrows the whole Machine of the Calvinian predestination and the points thereon depending Thus I argue from this They that were sent with Order to assert Universal redemption by the death of Christ were sent with order to destroy the whole Machine of Calvinian predestination Our Divines by King James were sent with Orders to assert Universal redemption by the death of Christ. Therefore Our Divines were sent with Orders to destroy the whole Machine of Calvinian predestination Again They that asserted Universal reâ—emption by the death of Christ destroyed the whole Machine of â—he Calvinian predestination Our Divines at the Synod of Dort asserted Universal Redemption by the death of Christ. Therefore Our Divines at the Synod of Dort destroyed the whole Machine of the Calvinian predestination The premises in both Syllogisms are your own Yet I suppose you disown the conclusion naturally and necessarily flowing from them Or if you do not why did you say that our King thought it a piece of King-Craft to contribute to the suppression of the weaker i. e. Remonstrant party and sent Divines that would be active in their condemnation Finally you tell us that this point of Universal Redemption was together with the rest condemned in the Synod of Dort Now nothing was in that Synod condemned but what our Divines consented to they have subscribed to all the determinations of the Synod relating to the death of Christ Therefore either the Synod did not condemn Universal redemption of our Divines did not aâ—cording to their Orders The Reader by this time sees what terrible executions the Doctor hath done on himself and more need not be said about the Synod of Dort as it relateth to our English affairs Some things done in England and misrelated by the Doctor must be rectified Pag. 105 he essays to make a Salve for the Recantation imposed on Mr. Sympson for some passages in a Sermon before the King at Royston 1616 and he would fain have us think that the King took no offence at his saying that the committing any great Sin did for the present extinguish grace and Gods Spirit for in that he went no further than Overal had done This is very untrue for Overal never said so nor could say so according to his principles But what then did the King take exception at At nothing but the Preachers expounding the seventh to the Romans as Arminius had done or rather his Fathering the exposition on Arminius But either the Preacher did bring this exposition of Arminius to credit an Arminian notion or he did not If he did then it was the Arminianism of the exposition that gave distast If not would it not sound like tyranny in the King to injoyn a Learned man a Recantation meerly because he used such an exposition of a place of Scripture as Arminius had used Take the place of a Regenerate man Arminius his Doctrine cannot stand as the wise King well saw and therefore he sent to the two Professors of Cambridge to have their judgment in the case who sent their judgment in favour of St. Austins exposition But the Doctor observes that the Professors did not do this of their own Authority but as set on by the King pag. 106. I wonder how they could give their judgments to the King at Royston of a Sermon Preached before him until they were by his Majesty required so to do I But the Professors were not so forward as to move in it of themselves as may appear by their not answering of Tompsons Book de intercisione gratiae justificationis though the Author of it were a member of that University but leaving it to be coâ—futed by Dr. Abbot their Brother in the Chair at Oxford so great an alteration had been made in Cambridge since the first striking up of their heats against Baro and Barret O what superfoetations of Doctrines are here upon nothing or what is less than nothing First Dr. Abbot when he confuted Tompson was not Doctor of the Chair but Bishop of Salisbury and so no Brother to the Professors at Cambridge 1616. Secondly The Professors at Cambridge then were Dr. Richardson originally of Emanuel a Colledge that in those days afforded few Arminians and Dr. Iohn Davenant a very able and zealous opposer of Arminianism as all know Thirdly The Cambridge Professors might not count themselves concerned to confute Tompson because his Book was not Printed in their University nor indeed in England and because Tompson's life had confuted his Book at Cambridge He was a man of a most debauched conversation and confirmed himself in his debauchedness by his Arminianism for when men reproved him for his prophaness he would say My will is free I am a Child of the Devil to day to morrow I will make my self a Child of God this more than any Answer to the Book would confirm the Cantabridgians that he was not an enemy to perseverance as a Doctrine leading to impiety Well but Did not King James by his Directions to the University Jan. 18. 1619. require that young students in Divinity be appointed to study such Books as be most agreeable in Doctrine and discipline to the Church of England and excited to bestow their time in the Fathers and Councels School-men Histories and Controversies and not to insist too long upon Compendiums and Abbreviations making them the ground of their study in Divinity Really he did so and I heartily wish the direction had been observed for then had Arminianism been crushed
in the shell I think next to the study of the Holy Scriptures the reading of the Fathers is the best preservative against Arminianism which came into the Low-countrys with the contempt of the Fathers As for Calvinism it cannot be condemned if sentence be passed upon it out of the Fathers those I mean who professed to set themselves to handle the Controversies concerning grace and predestination Sure I am the Royal directions notwithstanding the University continued as highly or more highly Calvinistical than ever a manifest argument that the University looked upon the Kings directions as no way tending to root out Calvinistical Doctrine but rather as a means to confirm it and so indeed they were The Doctor will not yet give over but pag. 108 tells us of certain Orders sent out Anno 1622 August the fourth designed to put a bridle into the Calvinists moâ—ths These Orders it is notoriously known were put out at such a time when the Spanish match was driving on and common people began to have thoughts of heart whither the releasing of Recusants and the Articles of Marriage might tend In those Orders care was taken among other things that no undecent expressions should be used against Puritanes but it was also provided that no Preacher of what title soever under the degree of a Bishop or Dean at least should thenceforth presume to teach in any popular auditory the deep points of predestination c. but rather leave those points to be handled by learned men and that modestly and moderately by Use and application rather than by positive Doctrine And this was a right good Order for Calvinists who never suffer so much from any thing as the declamatory attempts of men in popular Sermons In the Schools where Syllogisms must be used their Doctrine is not in much danger because he who disputes must keep himself close to the State of the Question through not representing of which Arminians get all their Advantage Mr. Hoard did make choice of that piece of Calvinism which is most liable to exception the absolute decree of reprobation And I confess when I was a young proud Graduate I had read his Book and did think it perfectly unanswerable but when I had the good hap to meet with Bishop Davâ—nants answer to it I was marvelously altered in my opinion and estimation concerning the strength of the Book keeping still an high opinion of the Author of it for I found that the absolute decree of reprobation was quite another thing than it was represented There was in Oxford after the coming out of the aforesaid Orders of the King a Sermon Preached in the University Church by Mr. Gabriel Bridges against the absolute decree this saith the Doctor was a violating of the Kings Order you must pity him he had nothing else to say and this laid him open to the persecution of Dr. Prideaux and to the censure of the Vice-chancelor But all who have searched the Register do know that violation of the Kings Order was never so much as once laid to Mr. Bridges his charge He was accused for Preaching contrary to the Articles of Religion established among us and was Ordered to maintain in the Schools the Contrary to what he had Preached in the Pulpit and he did so and never altered his mind afterwards Indeed it had been most ridiculous once to imagine that a Sermon Preached in the University Church could violate the Kings Order manifestly restrained to popular Auditories in which number the University Auditories were never placed The Doctor hath one Card more left to play which if it hit not he will have a perfect Slam What is that It is his dear friend Mr. Mountague whom he imagineth in his Gagger to have disclaimed all the Calvinian tenents and to have asserted the Church to her primitive and genuine Doctrines Creditis an qui amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt Well what of this Gagger Why information was prepared against him by two worthy men Mr. Yates and Mr. Ward A sign he was looked on as designing innovation What doth Mr. Mountague After he had got a copy of this information be flees for shelter to King James Poor man did he flee for shelter against the information of two Lecturers What shelter did he there find Why King Iames having now acted a Part at the Synod of Dort condemned the Arminians that he might save the Prince of Orange and Archbishop Abbot coming not at him and Dr. Iames Mountague being dead was Master of himself it seems before he had been a servant to others and Governed by the Light of his own most clear and excellent judgement took both Mountague and his Doctrines into his Protection and gave him a quietus est from all those Calumnies of Popery and Arminianism that were by the Informers laid on him commanded Dr. Francis White to see his Appeal he was in hand with Licenced for the Press and finally gave Order to Mountague to dedicate the Book when Licenced to his Royal self These things are very unlikely that a King should give command to have a Book Licenced before he had seen it or knew what would be in it and that he should give Order to have it Dedicated to himself and because they are unlikely I could be glad to see them confirmed by some irrefragable Authority but find no Authority alledged Wherefore I am a very unbeliever in all these matters so are most I meet with But these things I am certain of First That in Mr. Mountagues Appeal there be down-right untruths in matter of fact in which I do not find the Doctor going about to justifie or excuse him Secondly That never Book gave more discontent than his did for it was answered by no fewer than five or six all considerable in the Nation all agreeing that he had departed from the Doctrine of the Church The Book was also censured in Parliament as contrary to our Articles Archbishop Abbot indeavoured the stopping of it before it came to light Dr. White who had approved it did publickly complain what a trick the Bishops had served him promising to joyn with him in the approbation of the Book but yet cowardly slipping their necks out of the Collar and leaving him to bear the whole envy of the Midwifery of so distastful a Book Finally King Charles himself was feign both to pardon Mountague for all his Writings and at last to call in his Book as the great occasion of many unnecesâ—ary troubles So I let pass Mr. Mountague of whom Dr. Prideaux publickly said that he was more a Grammarian than a Divine As for King Iames we are sure from the Pen of Dr. Featly never used to wrong his Sovereign that not many weeks before his death he called the Arminians Hereticks and so we conclude that for all his and Queen Elizabeths days they were accounted Hereticks and their Doctrine Heresie And seeing they were then so accounted why now the broachers of that Doctrine should