her doctrine for the preventing of schismes and distractions in opinion Againe had she intended to prevent as you say distractions in opinion about the extension of Gods love would shee not have done it rather expresly then onely in such a manner as to leave it to others to draw consequeâ—s therefrom for the manifesting of her opinion about the large extent of Gods love to mankinde Who would thinke that a sober man should be caried away with such vaine and frivolous presumptions without all tolerable ground But let us come to the particular scanning of the places All of them I marke are onely the expression of prayer for others Whence it no way followeth that God will therefore save them because wee pray for their salvation The childe prayeth for his father the father for the childe the brother for the brother but hence it followeth not that God will save them though wee are bound to pray for the salvation of one another Moses prayed God to wipe him out of the booke of life rather then to destroy his people in the wildernesse God had no such resolution and what sober Divine could doubt but that Moses knew well that this could not be yet hee shewes hereby what his desire was secluding the consideration of Gods will to the contrary and what he would preferre â—f hee were left to himselfe even his owne eternall confusion rather then the glory of God should bee obscured And who ever censured this prayer of Moses for sinne I am sure God doth not so S. Paul could wish himselfe separate from Christ for his brethrens sake which were his kinsmen according to the flesh Rom. 9. 2. yet he well knew that nothing could separate him from the love of God in Christ. Our Saviour in like sort well knew that the cup must not passe from him yet neverthelesse he prayed earnestly that that cup might passe if it were possible and with finall submission of his will to the will of his Father The first place you alledge is that passage of the Liturgy where we pray unto God that it may please him to have mercy upon all men And for good reason doe we pray so for is not every one bound to seeke the salvation of all men as much as lyeth in his power did not the Apostles labour for this in their place And is not prayer a speciall meanes for this We are bound to pray for them that persecute us wee are bound to pray for them that hate us For what if God will not save all and wee know so much shall that hinder us from doing our duty in seeking by all meanes the salvation of all specially considering we are not able to put a difference and to discerne who are elect and who are not S. Paul though he saved but some yet would he become all things unto all men that he might save them Yet he well knew that the word in his mouth was the savour of death unto death unto many yea to Israel in speciall manner and yet notwithstanding his hearty desire and prayer unto God for Israel waâ— that they might be saved And albeit God should save all and every one that live in some one time or age yet were this â—o prejudice to the doctrine of election For the number of Gods chosen for all this might be but few in comparison to the reprobate And therefore we see no cause why you should upbraid your opposites as if they thought this practice of the ancient and moderne Church had need of reformation As for the restraint of the universall all men in the place of Timothy by S. Austin unto genera singulorum it is according to the usuall Scripture phrase For Matth. 3. 5. it is said that There went out unto John the Baptist Jerusalem and all Iudea and all the region round about Jordan what sober Divine doth extend the signification hereof any father then to give to understand that some from all parts of Iudea and of the region round about Iordan had resort unto him Matth. 4. 23. it is likewise said that Iesus went about all Galile teaching in their Synagogues and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdome and healing every sicknesse and every disease among the people and that his fame spred throughout all Syria and they brought unto him all sicke people Doe you thinke there was not one sicke person left in all Galile and Syria that was not brought unto him Act. 10. it is said that while Peter was in a trance he saw in a vision a vessell let downe from heaven wherein was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every foure-footed beast who doubts but that the meaning hereof is no more then this that of all sorts some or rather of most sorts some 1 Cor. 15. 22. it is said that in Christ all shall be made alive is this true thinke you of all and every one All flesh shall see the salvation of God what sober man will apply this to all and every man Rom. 5. 18. As by the offence of one man the fault came upon all unto condemnation so by the obedience of one righteousnesse came upon all men to the justification of life will you hereupon extend the benefit of Christs death to the justification of all men unto everlasting life like as all and every one are fallen into condemnation by the sinne of Adam Rom. 7. 8. the Apostle professeth that sinne wrought in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can this possibly bee applyed to every particular concupiscence But by the way what doe you meane to apply S. Austins restraint to this universall in this place whereas Austin applyeth it onely to this universall in the place following where it is said that God will have all to be saved And if no other place did afford us any such restraint of course yet wee must 〈◊〉 driven so to interpret it in this place lest otherwise we be cast upon denying the first Article of our Creed For seeing all are not saved and the cause thereof is not because God will not save them it necessarily followeth that the cause thereof must be because God cannot save them And it would have becommed you well to have answered this argument and not presumed to cary your Reader to the embracing of your construction hand over head in spight of so manifest a reason to the contrary Now if you had but accommodated your selfe to make answer hereunto I doubt not but wee should have had good matter to worke upon which I speake upon experience of another discourse of yours that passeth by tradition but you were loth to intersert it there and made choice rather to pitch upon the universall in the former place that so you might be out of danger of that gun-shot that must needs have rung a peale in your eares from this place Yet in this place alone S. Austine interprets the universall according to the restraint mentioned and not in the former And
onely voluntate signi that he doth not will it is voluntate beneplaciti and this will which is called the will of good pleasure is onely the will of God in proper speech and that S. Paul speakes of when he saith Who hath resisted his will the other to wit voluntas signi is improperly though usually called the will of God It being indeed nothing else but Gods commandement in which sense he willed Abraham to sacrifice his sonne yet who doubts but that it was Gods will in proper speech that Isaak should not be sacrificed And because you perceived how easily the shew of contradiction might be washed off if it were proposed in this manner therfore you made bold upon dame Logicke and without her leave and in despight of her faine a contradiction under another forme by way of consequence which indeed proves most inconsequent Thirdly you speake in a strange language when you say that the affirmation and negation of salvation falling upon the personall being of men containes contradiction implying that it might fall otherwise then upon the personall being of men and in that case it would not prove contradictious both which are not onely untrue but absurd also For the affirmation of the salvation of man cannot fall otherwise then upon the person of man and consequently upon the personall being of man whatsoever be the cause of it which cause you most preposterously conceive to give unto man a being different from his personall being whereupon and not upon his personall being his salvation should fall Againe no distinction of personall being and other being will serve your turne to save the affirmation and negation of salvation of one and the same man from contradiction I say of one and the same man which is of principall consideration in the course of contradiction and yet wholly permitted by you in this proposition though therein you talke of the strictest point of contradiction Straine your invention while you will you shall never be able to free these propositions from contradiction Peter shall be saved Peter shall not be saved But to change the nature of these propositions and of absolute to make them conditionall thus Peter shall be saved if he beleeve and repent Peter shall not be saved if he beleeve and repent not is neither to affirme nor deny the salvation of Peter For to affirme or deny the salvation of Peter is categoricall not hypotheticall What you want of force of argument you supply with devotion as if you came to enchant your reader and not to informe him as when you say Farre be it from us to thinke that God should sweare to this universall negative I will not the death of him that dieth and yet beleeve withall that he wils the death of some men that die as they are men or as they are the sonnes of Adam This is proposed by way of an holy and confident asseveration but consider how sottish it is and most averse from sobriety For first what if God had not sworne it but onely said it had there been the lesse truth in it for this Is not Gods word sure enough without an oath yet before wee heard that in things determined by divine oath the distinction of voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti could have no place Secondly where were your logicall wits when you said this was an universall negative I will not the death of a sinner I pray examine your rules well and see whether it bee not a singular will you measure the quantity of a proportion by the predicate and not rather by the subject Yet if you should doe so it would not serve your turne For both Aristotle of old hath taught us that it is absurd to put an universall signe to the predicate and here is no universality added either to the whole predicate which is Nolens mortem peccatoris nor to any part of it which you seeme to confound For he that dyeth is a terme indefinite Neither is it in a necessary matter For the most holy Angell God could turne into nothing if it pleased him And in the 18. chapter of Ezekiel it is apparant that this is restrained to him that repenteth without any mentall reservation but by plaine evidence of the Text it selfe Thirdly you harpe upon a false string and an erroneous translation as it were in spight of the most authorized translation of our owne Church and follow the vulgar Latine herein And withall in opposition to manifest reason to the contrary for seeing God doth inflict death and damnation upon every one that dyeth and is damned and he doth all things according to the counsell of his owne will Eph. 1. 11. it is impossible he should doe any thing and not will it that he should inflict death on him that dieth and not will it Fourthly be it as you will have it that God doth not will the death of him that dieth will you herehence inferre that God willeth not the death of him that dyeth as man or as the son of Adam implying that notwithstanding hee may will the death of him that dieth in some other respect without any prejudice to his oath what a senselesse collection and interpretation is this You may as well say God willeth the life of him that liveth ergo farre be it from us to say that hee willeth not the life of him that liveth as he is a man or as he is the son of Adam implying that for all this God may be said not to will the life of him that liveth in some other respect But I say that if God willeth not the death of any man that dieth as you will have it and to be confirmed also with the Lords oath then in no respect can it be said that hee willeth the death of any man that dieth For it is both ad idem death is the same in both and it is secundum idem for we speak of the same man in both and it is eodem modo for we speake of the will of God in the same sense in both and it is at the same time and must be for Gods will is everlasting and therefore willing whatsoever he doth everlastingly he cannot bee said at any time not to will it As for the cause of death and damnation willed by God we maintaine that God willeth not the death of any man or the condemnation of any man but for sinne But I pray what thinke you of infants perishing in originall sin If Goth doth not will their death as the sonnes of Adam how doth he will it Or had you rather shake hands with Arminius in this also and professe that no man is damned for originall sinne onely but that all the children of Turkes and Sarazens and Iewes and Caniballs that die in their infancie are saved and enjoy the joyes of heaven as well as the children of the faithfull You proceede in your devout asseveration and will have it to bee farre from us to thinke
that God should by his secret or reserved will recall any part of his will declared by oath We are so farre from thinking that God recalls any part of his will declared by oath that wee doe not believe that hee doth or can recall any patt of his will that hee hath declared by his bare word And wee thinke it equally impossible for God to lye and to perjure himselfe for he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither when hee kept Abraham from sacrificing his sonne Isaac doe wee say that he recalled any part of his will which he had formerly declared by his word although he commanded Abraham to sacrifice his sonne for Gods will of commandement signifieth onely what God will have to be our duety to doe not what hee hath determined to be done though you confound these usually and that as wilfully and unlearnedly as Arminius himselfe because it serves your turne and advantageth your cause to confound them But looke you to it how you free your selfe from maintaining that God doth recall something which hee hath properly willed and determined to be done For that God willeth the death of no man that dieth you make to bee the word of God confirmed by oath and you understand it of Gods will properly so called and yet you maintaine that God willeth the death of him that dieth though not as man and as the sonne of Adam yet in some other manner which either is flat contradiction or else God doth recall and change his will The last part of your devout asseveration is Farre be it from us to thinke that God should proclaime an universall pardon to all the sonnes of Adam under the seale of his oath and yet exempt many from all possibilitie of receiving any benefit by it Here you seeme to shew your teeth but I had rather understand your meaning for to proclaime pardon to all is ambiguous for it may bee done absolutely as kings on earth grant pardons and usually our kings grant pardons at the end and conclusion of parliaments I doe not thinke this is your meaning for then all should be pardoned for to proclaime pardon is to signifie his Majesties pleasure that hee doth pardon them But if conditionally it is true God proclaimes that whosoever believeth shall be saved this is a knowne truth no man takes exception against it And how doe we exempt any from all possibility of receiving it You will say that this we doe in exempting many from all possibility of performing the condition to wit of believing I answer that your owne opinion is to be charged with this ours is not for you maintain that Pharaoh after the seventh wonder was exempt from all possibility of repentance and the like you avouch of all reprobates and such as have filled up the measure of their sinne which according to your opinion may be many yeares before their death and in the seventh Section following you expresse it thus Having their soules betrothed unto wickednesse such undoubtedly was Ahab that sold himselfe to worke wickednesse and many such like And in this case you professe in your owne phrase that the doore of repentance is shut upon them But wee like not this opinion of yours wee know no measure of sinne nor continuance of sinne that doth prescribe unto the grace of God and forbids the banes of matrimony betwixt him and his Church but that in a due time the power of Gods grace shall breake through all obstacles even through the furious idolatry of Manasses in giving his children unto Devills and that sealed with bloud wherewith hee filled Ierusalem from corner to corner yea and through his sorcery and witchcraft also and through the rage of Saul persecuting Gods saints and making havocke of the Church of God And for as much as wee maintaine it to be possible for every one to believe and repent through Gods grace it is manifest that we exempt no man from all possibility of believing and repenting to wit in consideration of the power of God But in consideration of the power of man wee exempt not many onely but all and every one from possibility of beleeving and repenting by power of nature And dare you avouch the contrary It is apparant that whatsoever you thinke you dare not openly professe thus much And therefore are content to hide your head and lurke under generalities So that the case is cleare that you doe us wrong in saying wee exempt many from all possibility of repenting I say it is a notorious slander for we exempt men from possibility of repenting onely by power of nature and so we exempt not onely many but all and every one from possibility of repenting But perhaps you may say that withall wee maintaine that God doth not purpose to give the grace of faith and repentance unto all but to deny it unto many yea unto most and upon this supposition we exempt them from all possibility of repenting But I pray consider to exempt some from possibility of repenting upon supposition is this to exempt from all possibility without supposition For you have delivered this without all supposition And then the issue is to enquire whether God hath decreed to give the grace of faith and repentance unto all or rather to deny it to many yea to most And dare you affirme that God hath decreed to give the grace of faith and repentance unto all It is apparant you dare not openly professe this and therefore carie your selfe in the clouds without any cleare and distinct proposing of your meaning In S. Pauls daies there was a remnant amongst Israel which are called Gods election Rom. 11. and these had obtained this grace of faith and repentance as there the Apostle signifieth but the rost were hardned And if God hath purposed to give grace unto all you may as well say God hath elected all But the Holy Ghost witnesseth that many are called and but few are chosen Many I say are called not all neither nor the most part as all experience and the histories of the world doe manifest and therefore though God proclaimes in his word pardon of sinne to all that beleeve yet he doth not proclaimethis unto all By the way I observe that whereas you say that God doth proclaime an universall pardon to all the sonnes of Adam under the seale of his oath this of Gods oath which you adde doth draw us to conceive that the meaning of those words As I live I will not the death of him that dies containes this sense in your construction that God will pardon the sinnes of all and since these words as you understand them doe not runne conditionally but absolutely herehence it followeth that according to your opinion God hath sworne absolutely to pardon the sinnes of all men the absurdity whereof I leave to everie mans sober consideration 7. Hitherto you have told us in what matters the distinction of voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti cannot
Iohn and Christ damneth the contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent Those the Scripture excludeth from the generall promise of grace It may seeme that The contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent in master Hoopers phrase are the same in your judgement with those whom you account to have filled up the measure of iniquity But what ground have you for that Master Hooper saith not that all such whom he accounts contemners of God and such as willingly continue and sinne and will not repent have hereupon filled up the measure of their iniquitie or that hereupon all possibility of amendment is taken from them these are your assertions they are not master Hoopers Again all contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent master Hooper saith the Scripture excludes from the generall promise of grace and this he utters without any distinction as well he may to wit for the present and so long as they continue in this their contempt and hardnesse of hart For as much as the promise of grace both for the pardon of sinne and salvation of our soules belongs to none but such as breake off their sinfull courses by faith and repentance But you distinguish betweene such contemners of God and presumptuous sinners and tell us that some of them have arived to the full measure of their iniquity and that there is no possibility of their amendment such as Pharaoh was after the seventh plague others though contemners of God c. yet in this their course of contempt have not filled up the measure of their iniquity such as Pharaoh was before the seventh plague who undoubtedly was a contemner of God before that time and one that willingly continued in sinne and would not repent and of all such you professe that God doth unfainedly love them Now there are no tracks or footsteps of such strange assertions as either of these to be found in Bishop Hooper Of all contemners of God he professeth according unto Scripture that they are excluded from all promise of grace to wit for the present he doth not say God unfainedly loves any of them but as for the time to come he doth not affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from them Had hee thought so then he should acknowledge them to bee in a desperate condition But hee is so farre from this that hee accounts Desperation to bee a principall let and impediment unto godlinesse chap. 18. fol. 90. The first let saith hee or impediment is desperation when as men thinke they cannot be saved but are excluded from all mercy and a little after Of the contrary nature to presumption is desperation it taketh from God his mercy For when they offend and continue in sinne they thinke there is no mercy left for them and that as in the next sentence he sheweth specially because of custome and long continuance in sinne Then he proceeds saying This discourse and progresse in that knowledge of sinne beareth him in hand that it is impossible to returne unto God This is as much as in your phrase to affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from him But doth Mr. Hooper justifie this Nothing lesse for this is a maine let or impediment to repentance which he desires to remove out of the way of sinners and to that hee proceeds in this manner Moses saith he like a good Physitian teacheth a remedie against this dangerous disease and sheweth the way unto God declareth that God is full of mercy and ready to forgive and beginneth his oration in this manner unto such as bee afflicted and oppressed with sinne When there commeth upon thee all those things when God hath afflicted thee for thy sinnes and thou returnest unto him with all thy heart he shall deliver thee from captivity and receive thee to his mercy againe Of the which text learne this doctrine that God will alwaies forgive how many and how horrible soever the sinnes bee and learne to feare presumption and to beware of desperation So that hoe acknowledgeth no just cause of desperation no not in respect of custome and long continuance in sinne The next sentence in Mr. Hooper transcribed by you in this eighth Section of yours conteines no more then that which wee all acknowledge Thou seest saith he by the places before rehearsed that though wee cannot believe in God as undoubtedly as is required by reason of this our naturall sicknesse and disease yet for Christ sake in the judgement of God wee are accounted as faithfull believers for whose sake this naturall disease and sicknesse is pardoned by what name soever Saint Paul calleth the naturall infirmity and originall sinne in man This is something concerning the nature of originall sinne in the opinion of Mr. Hooper nothing at all touching a certaine state of sinne wherein all possibility of amendment is taken from a man to which purpose Mr. Hooper is alledged by you in this place Yet because I doe not know what reaches you have in this also I answer that Mr. Hooper speakes of originall sinne as it is found in the regenerate and as it is in them hee calls it onely A naturall sicknesse and disease And indeed when wee are once regenerate wee are no longer dead in sinne no longer estranged from the life of God But herehence it followeth not that Mr. Hooper was of opinion that originall sinne was even in the unregenerate to bee accounted onely A naturall sicknesse and disease and not rather a death in sinne especially considering that the holy Apostle acknowledgeth A law in his members rebelling against the law of his minde and leading him captive to the law of sinne and calleth it A body of death crying out against it and saying Who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7. 1. The last clause as I take it makes more for your present purpose as when hee saith And this imperfection and naturall sicknesse taken of Adam excludeth not the person from the promise of God in Christ except wee transgresse the limits and bounds of originall sinne by our owne folly and malice and either of a contempt or hate of Gods word wee fall into sinne and transforme ourselves into the image of the devill Then wee exclude by this meanes ourselves from the promises and merits of Christ who onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his law This passage I confesse is somewhat strange and of my knowledge hath troubled some concâ—iving it as an assertion of yours and not so much as dreaming that it was delivered by Mr. Hooper I answer therefore First of all that this serves not your turne for the present that in two respects First you distinguish the contempt of Godsword and of his law according to different degrees eithersuch as was in Pharaoh before the seventh plague or such as was in
as by those Christians that doe believe it And as for the making of the world it is in holy Scripture the language of God attributed to the word of God to the breath of God to the wisedome of God to the power of God to the counsell of God but never that I know ascribed to the goodnesse of God And it had need of explication to shew how Gods goodnesse is communicated unto all much more how it is communicated unto a stone yet the earth is filled with his goodnesse in as much as God provides for every thing that which is good for it so that whatsoever we partake of for our comfort wee call it Gods goodnesse for as much as things which are good to us are derived to us from God and therein we have a taste of his goodnesse towards us in that he doth good unto us Your last position I have heretofore spoken of and shewed the incongruity of it That which is good and that whereunto it is good must be different but the entitie of any thing is not different from it selfe and therefore it cannot be good unto it selfe as you affirme 8. God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serus irarum slow to wrath even against sinners that dishonour him to his face But to say hee is never swayed to sudden revenge is a more bold assertion then sound Did not Zimri and Cosbi perish in their incestuous act and give up both lust and ghost together without leisure to enjoy their sinne much lesse respite for repentance Perhaps you will say their persons were formerly forborne notwithstanding former sinnes though the vengeance of God cannot be denied to be most sudden So perished Herod in his pride and Balthasar in his revellings and the Israelites in the wildernesse while the meat was in their mouthes and the delicate flesh of Quailes lay betweene their teeth the heavy wrath of God came upon them and before they could swallow their sweet morsels sent them to the graves of lust to bee swallowed by them Againe Sodome and Gomorrah were consumed with fire from heaven were not some children in their mothers wombs some hanging at their mothers breasts some newly come to the use of reason all consumed to ashes and made an example of Gods wrath and suffered the vengeance of eternall fire as Inde speaketh Here is no forbearance of divers particular persons so it was in the daies of Noah so shall it bee at the comming of the Sonne of man for while they shall say peace and safetie sudden destruction shall come upon them as sorrow upon a woman in travaile and they shall not escape The difference you make betweene man and God I like well man by forbearance may bereave himselfe of power to execute vengeance God cannot and this is a good reason of his forbearance towards the verie reprobates but towards his elect a power exercised in another kind yet a power too namely to sanctifie the consideration of his forbearance to bring them unto repentance as also a power to provide for satisfaction to be made for their sinnes by the blood of his Sonne A sentence related out of the booke of Wisedome ch 12. 15 16 you say is canonicall although the Author bee not a distinction that I never read nor heard of before And if the truth of a sentence be sufficient to make it canonical the canonicall Scriptures shal be multiplied unreasonably not out of the book of Wisdome only but out of the rest of the works of Philo the Iew and Iosephus too yea and out of Senecaes workes and Plutarchs morals not to speake of Plato and Aristotle or your Plotinus But let us consider this canonicall sentence you speake of and weigh the truth of it in the ballance of the Sanctuarie I pray wherein had our Saviour Christ and the Sonne of God deserved to be punished And did not God thinke you thinke it agreeable to his power to condemne him notwithstanding his innocencie and his fervent prayers to be delivered from that cup but with submission to the will of his Father I pray consider the martyrdome of Gods Saints were their punishmēts according to their deserts Nay what thinke you is it not agreeable to Gods power to annihilate the holiest man that ever was yet wee doe not say that God condemnes any man that hath not deserved to be punished the Sonne of God and our Saviour onely excepted But the desert of eternall death is not onely in sinne actuall but in sinne originall also which Pelagius did not say Arminius doth not whether you doe or no I know not the latter clause which is this Because thou art the Prince of all it maketh thee to be gracious to all makes a shew to plead for universall grace I cannot tell whether you licke your lips at this yet the author of the booke could not be ignorant what a difference as touching the participation of his grace God had put betweene the Iewes and the Gentiles for He had shewed his word unto Iacob his statutes and ordinances unto Israel But hee had not dealt so with every nation neither had the Heathen knowledge of his lawes And the Apostle who undoubtedly was canonicall to speake in your owne phrase hath plainly professed that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardeneth And as for the reason here used drawne from this that he is Lord of all the Apostle himselfe taketh notice of it but in a different manner Rom. 10. 12. There is no difference between the Jew and the Grecian for he that is Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him and who are they that call upon him but they that beleeve in him for it followeth How can they call upon him in whom they have not beleeved Yet like as it is the part of parents not onely to bring children forth but after to provide for their bringing up so God doth not onely make things but also preserveth them and for their preservation causeth the Sunne to shine and his raine to fall as well on the wicked as on the just alwaies provided that even this providence of God is to be dispensed of no other right but meerly according to the good pleasure of his owne will For what grace was shewed to infants either unborne or hanging at their mothers breasts which perished in the flood and in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven and therefore though there were sixscore thousand persons in Ninivie that could not discerne betweene the right hand and the left and also much cattell yet God was not bound to spare them And can you doubt but as many as these if not in Sodome and Gomorra yet at least or rather many more perished in Noahs flood Yet by the way this sparing of the Ninivites was but as touching salvation temporall not spirituall You have but trifled a long time now you beginne to bee serious yet in little or no
but yee shall cry for sorrow of heart and house for vexation of spirit Yea and in making one piece rained upon sometimes and not another yet I nothing doubt but you will acknowledge God to bee as holy in these waies as in any other yea in causing two Beares to come out of the wood upon Elisha his cursing in the name of the Lord and teare fourty two children Yea in revenging Achans sacriledge not onely with his owne death but with his childrens also and in destroying suckling children and children in the wombe both in the generall deluge and in the conflagration of Sodome and when for the sinne of Saul hee caused seven of his sonnes to bee delivered into the hands of the Gibeonites to bee put to death for God is righteous in all his waies and holy in all his workes And the equity of Gods courses though sometimès discernable by man as in the case you put out of Ezechiel 18. 25. yet not alwaies so but that wee are driven sometimes to cry out with the Apostles Oh the depth of the riches of the wisedome and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out 5 I confesse that if to dictate like a positive Theologue be to instruct us you have thus farre instructed us That those paternes of holinesse or perfection which we are bound to imitate in him are not to be taken from his bare commandement or revelation of his will but from the objects of his will revealed or from the eternall practises which he hath exhibited as so many expresse and manifest proofes that his will is alwayes holy and just The paterns of holinesse which wee are bound to imitate are not to be taken you say from Gods bare commandement I finde what you say but I had rather finde what you prove When our Saviour exhorteth us to be holy as God is holy and perfect as God is perfect he speaketh it with a particular reference to a particular course in Gods providence taking thereby not an obligation to imitate him but onely an inducement to bee so much the more forward in doing that which God commands us in loving our enemies And unlesse wee have a commandement from God for the rule of our obedience it is nothing safe to imitate God For what shall Magistrates spare malefactors because God spareth them a long time Or because God causeth the children to be put to death sometime for the sinne of the father shall we do so too Or because God makes his sunne to shine as well upon one as upon another shall we therefore put no difference betweene such as are of the houshold of faith and others Wee may not imitate Elisha in cursing little children that mocked him nor the zeale of Phinees in killing Zimri and Cosbi in their lust much lesse must wee alwaies imitate God who hath greater power over mens lives then Elisha or Phinees had Yet why you should call the workes of God in the course of his providence eternall practises I know no reason or coulour of reason It may be that in stead of eternall it should be externall practises God no doubt is holy in all his waies and workes but herehence it followeth not that wee must imitate him in all his courses but rather wee must have an eye to his commandements And what I pray are those perfections whereof our generall duties are the imperfect representations Our generall duties are such as these We must not deale unjustly with any we must deale justly with all or wee must be holy Holinesse becomes thine house for ever and in the Priests forehead was wont to bee written Holinesse unto the Lord. Now are these the perfections wherein God as you say is holy and just Then t is as if you should say God is eminently and apparantly holy in the perfection which is called his holinesse God is eminently and apparantly just in that perfection which is called his justice Of all his morall commandements not one there is you say whose sincere practise doth not in part make us truely like him and we are bound to be conformable to his will revealed that we may bee conformable to his nature without conformity whereunto wee cannot participate of his happinesse for happinesse is the immediate consequent of his nature You proceede to cut out work for your Readers as many as are willing to Try the spirits and not hand over head to receive all for gold that glisters That the practise of Gods commandements maketh us like him is a plausible speech And it is true in the generall for as God is wise and holy so our obedience to his commandements is that which mades us wise and holy And as God doth nothing but that which very well becomes him so in obeying the will of God wee shall doe nothing but that which very well becomes us But as for particular duties there is little or no correspondency betweene the carriage of superiours and inferiours Wee have a God to worship by reverence and feare and by praying unto him these are moralities no way incident unto God Wee have parents both naturall and spirituall and masters and magistrates whom we must honour God hath none such to honour Wee by our authoritie may not take away the life of any be he never so great an offendor God may take away the life of any bee hee never so innocent without any blemish to his holines Matrimoniall chastitie is a vertue commendable in a Christian but this vertue is of so base a condition that the divine nature is not capable of it as who hath no lusts at all to order like as on the contrary the very Devills themselves being Spirits are no way obnoxious to unchristitie The like may bee said of temperance and intemperancie in the use or abuse of Gods creatures through gluttony and drunkennes T is theft for us to take any mans goods from him against his will it is not so with God who can send any man as naked out of the world as hee brought him into the world without any prejudice to the repuration of his justice And seeing he is not capable of any manner of concupiscence either of the eye or of the flesh for hee is a Spirit and not a body or flesh nor in the way of pride of life the contrary conditions cannot be in the way of any commendable vertues attributed unto God In a word all the goodnesse that is in God is essentiall unto him our goodnesse whatsoever we be is but accidentall unto us and therefore when we are exhorted to be holy as he is holy and perfect as God is perfect it tends onely to this even to set before us certaine actions of God as patternes and precedents to imitate him therein and that onely so far forth as they are suitable and congruous inducements to the performing of Gods commandements not to affect any conformity
ambagibus si in coelo in terra sicut veritas dicit qucunque voluit fecit profecto facere noluit quaecunque non fecit Let it saith hee be understood after what other manner soever it may be construed so that wee be not constrained to maintaine that the Almighty God would have something come to passe which notwithstanding comes not to passe For without fetching any further compasse if he hath done whatsoever hee will both in heaven and in earth as the truth witnesseth certainly hee would not doe whatsoever he hath not done 2 But you proceed to shew that both this duty of ours to pray for all sorts and for every man of what sort soever and also that Gods will is that all without exception should come unto the trueth and be saved are expresly included in the praiers appointed by the Church of England And the Collects whence you gather this are in number three they are I take it all appointed for Good Friday In the first wee pray that God would graciously behold this his family for â—he which our Lord Iesus Christ was contented to be betraied Now this family being the present congregation wherein the prayer is made it is very strange that hereby should be signified all sorts of men and every man of what sort soever throughout the world And what expresse signification doe wee finde here that Gods will is that all without exception should come unto the trueth and be saved To helpe your argument drawn herehence as if you should reason thus Wee must pray for this family therefore wee must pray for every one throughout the world You tell us that The tenour of this petition if wee respect onely the forme is indefinite not universall but being in a necessary matter it is equivalent to an universall as every logician knowes To which I answer first that the tenour of the petition is not indefinite but definite to follow you in your owne language for therein wee pray definitely for that family which is before us Now that family is a particular family and never any Logician was so simple as to thinke it law full to inferre an universall out of a particular Againe here is no necessary matter in it For to use such a forme of prayer is meerly the arbitrary constitution of our Church Suppose God had bid us to pray in this forme to wit for this family present yet this makes not the matter necessary absolutely but meerely upon supposition of the will of God and yet in this particular onely As for example Our Saviour prayed for them that his father gave him and for all those that should afterward believe through their word will you inferre herehence that therefore he was to pray for the world also Againe God hath expresly bidden us to pray for them that sinne unto death and therefore unlesse I may be assured that there is none in the world that sinneth a sinne unto death I have no reason to pray for all and every one though I were bound to doe so it would nothing pleasure and advantage you Hitherto I have followed you in your owne most unlogicall discourse the absurdity whereof every simple Logician may easily discover Where have you beene taught that petitions indefinite in a necessary matter are universall we were taught indeed that propositions indefinite in a necessary matter are as good as universall but for petitions indefinite to be counted universall in a matter necessary is one of the absurdest notions that ever I heard to proceede from the mouth of a Logician You proceede to prove that the forme of the petition is in the intention of the Church of England to be extended to all and every one of the congregation present But erst you told us the matter indeed was universall but not the forme which you acknowledged to be indefinite Now the very forme you say is to be universally extended this is not to extend but to destroy But this that you labour for in so uncouth a manner I never doubted of namely that by this family is understood all and every one of the Congregation there present onely I deny that herehence it followeth that our Church bindes us to pray for all and every one throughout the world and if it doth wee must comprehend even those that sinne sinnes unto death amongst the rest unlesse wee believe that there are no such sinners in the world and hee had need bee of a strong faith and have some extraordinary revelation that believeth that So that your second place tending to no other end but to prove that which wee never doubted to be comprehended in the first wee need not trouble our selves about any answer thereunto save onely this though we are bound to pray not onely for the congregation present but for the whole Church and every member of it yet there is a great gulfe of separation betweene the Citie of God and the citie of the Devill which makes me remember what Abraham answered Dives and therefore wee can no way approve this consequence We are bound to pray for all Christians therefore we are bound to pray for all Atheists and heathens Wee are bound to pray for Christs members therefore wee are bound to pray for Antichrist and his members Therefore you tell us the third and last prayer will cleerly quit this exception and free both the foremr petitions from these and the like restrictions But in this last clause you overlash miserably I see no reason but I may as well say that the restrictions in the former prayer will quit this latter prayer for its extension Certainly two of the three prayers you proposed to evince your Tenent are nothing to the purpose Herein indeed we pray unto God to have mercy upon all Jewes Turkes and Heriticks which in effect is no more then to pray that the fulnesse of the Gentiles may come in and thereupon the calling of the Iewes And whereas you desire to inferre herehence that it is Gods will that all these should come to his truth and knowledge and be saved As the consequence you shall never bee able to make good so the consequent is directly contrary to the word of God for it is not nor ever was it the will of God that all this should be done together but one after another namely that the fulnesse of the Gentiles shall come in first and after that the calling of the Iewes Rom. 11. Luc. 21. 24. Hence you conclude That if God will not the death of any Turke Jew or Infidell because of nothing he made them men wee may safely conclude that he willeth not the death of any but the life of all whom of men or infidels he hath made Christians In reading your antecedent I wondred at your boldnesse in supposing that which you are never able to gaine by force of argument but when I view your consequence I wonder what giddinesse possessed you to take so wilde a course in
not made Christians so as to cease any longer to be men Yet you couple them together under one yoke though very unequall heyfers you should have said rather of meere men we are made Christians All that are redeemed are unfainedly loved but if all mankinde signifie no more then all men and all men no more then all sorts of men what are you the nearer to that you reach after And you know I suppose that this was Austins interpretation of that universality and hee gives reasons for it though you magisterially will have your owne way in spite of the pie without answering his reasons Againe consider whether to pay a price which is sufficient for the redemption of all and every one be not in a faire sense to redeem all every one And what one of our Church will maintaine that any one obtaines actuall redemption by Christ without faith especially considering that redemption by the bloud of Christ and forgivenesse of sins are all one I would you would speake plainely and tell us what is meant by redemption which you say every one hath in Christ denying that every one hath sanctification So that whereas the Apostle joynes these two together where hee saith Christ is of God made unto us wisedome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption you divide them telling us that Christ is made redemption to all and every one but not sanctification And truely I had thought that Christ had deserved the one as well as the other for all those for whom he died And it is very strange that God should be said to love them whom he never meanes to sanctifie But I pray answer me Doth he unfainedly love the Devils I thinke you will say he doth not what reason have you then to say that hee loveth all men though you will easily perswade your selfe that the most part of them are reprobates and whom hee never will bring unto wholesome and spirituall repentance whereby a man is reconciled unto God in Christ as Austine writes lib. 5. cont Iulian Pelag. cap 4. and whether you meane to contradict Austine in this also I know not as yet yet one word more with you before wee part How long doth God continue to love them till the measure of their sinne is at full t is your owne oracle in the former Section And then belike hee beginnes and continues to hate them But I pray consider how can this change this alteration stand with the nature of God that his love his will to save them should bee changed into hatred into a purpose to damme them considering that Gods will is his essence And the Lord professeth of himselfe saying I the Lord am not changed and yee sonnes of Iacob are not consumed Mal. 3. 6. All that are baptized in your opinion are not sanctified yet some others much agreeing with you in other opinions maintaine that all that are baptized are regenerate and they alledge a better testimony out of the book of Common prayer then any you have brought to serve your turne namely the profession that is made by the Minister thus Now this childe is regenerate and grafted into the body of Christs congregation Yet that hath beene answered by a Bishop of our Church and that out of the doctrine of Austine Yet I grant baptisme is the seale of redemption and of forgivenesse of sinnes also but to whom to none but such as believe for God hath not ordained that the benefit of Christs bloud shall redound to the redemption and forgivenesse of the sinnes of any man unlesse hee believeth For God hath set him forth to be a propitiation for our sinnes through faith in his bloud But your inferences you conceive to bee as cleere as christall so that the consideration of them makes you doubt whether such amongst us as teach the contrary to these have at any time subscribed to the booke of Common prayer And no question is to be made of your subscription which deny all them to bee sanctified that are baptized though in plaine termes the booke of Common prayer professeth of every baptized childe that hee is regenerate And now you have plaide your part so well in working our authorized devotions as you call them and Catechisme to serve your turn you promise to performe as much touching the book of Homilies but wee must expect your performance therein untill you come to the article concerning Christ in the meane time you will give us space to breathe and take notice of your concludent proofe as you call it thus God wills the salvation of all that are saved and all that are not saved therefore hee wills the salvation of all and every one Now the second part of the Antecedent which alone is called in question is proved out of that of Ezech As I live I will not the death of him that dieth I had thought you had done with this but if it bee your course to tautologize in repeating former arguments I may take liberty to repeat without tautologie my former answer First therefore I say the words as they lye in proper speech are contradictions to your tenent in two respects First because in another discourse of yours you maintaine that hee whose death God wills not is the penitent but here you professe that God willeth not the death of them that are not saved when they die which as as much as to say that God willeth not the death of impenitent sinners Secondly there is a time you confesse in the former Section when God hates sinners to wit when the measure of their sinne is full and if then he hates them he may then as well be said to will their death and damnation as he was said to will their salvation while he loved them In the second place the words as they lye in proper speech are contradictions to manifest reason for seeing God is he that inflicts death and damnation upon them hee must needes will their death and damnation because whatsoever God doth hee doth it according to the counsell of his owne will Eph. 1. 11. Secondly if God doth not will the death which he inflicts then neither doth he will the punishment that he inflicteth nor the chastisement that he inflicteth and so indeed it is said Lam. 3. That he doth not punish willingly nor afflict the children of men which cannot bee understood in proper speech for then it would follow that God doth afflict and chastise the children of men against his will Therefore I say this must be understood by a figure of speech to wit by a metaphor and God said not to will or this or that which hee doth because in the doing of it hee is similis nolenti as first when hee doth it not according to the Latine phrase animi causa for his pleasures sake but being provoked and yet not hastily neither though provoked but after long forbearance and giving time of repentance upon the despising of this goodnesse of God as
Ezek. 14. 23. They shall comfort you when you see their way and their enterprises and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it saith the Lord God Secondly when God doth chastise not as parents for their owne pleasures but with an eye to the good of those whom hee chastiseth Rom. 12. 10. According thereto is that of Augustine Qui trucidat non considerat quemadmodum laniet sed qui curat considerat quemadmodum seret This is my answer following the course of your owne reading of the place whereas Piscator blames the vulgar translation in this place which you follow for saith hee in the Hebrew it is not I will not the death of a sinner but this I am not delighted in the death of a sinner But saith he A man may will that wherein he takes no delight as a ficke man may will to drinke a bitter potion wherein he takes no delight For he may will to take it not for it selfe but for something else to wit to recover his health And so God willeth the eternall death of reprobates for his owne glory to wit for the manifestation of his just wrath in punishing of their sinnes And Iunius reades it and translates it in like manner and with these accordeth our last English translation As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his way and live Ezek. 33. 11. And the 18. of Ezekiel doth cleare the meaning of the Holy Ghost where the same phrase is used and in the same manner translated by our worthiest Divines and followed in our last translation vers 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that hee should returne from his waies and live and verse 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turne your selves and live ye Now in this chapter the Lord justifieth himselfe against an imputation of harsh if not unjust dealing as if hee punished the children for the sinnes of their fathers which in a proverbiall manner was delivered thus The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge which might occasion a desperate disposition in them and provoke them to cast off all care of amending their waies and turning to God by repentance because all was one whether they repented or repented not because the sowre grapes which their fathers had eaten were enough to set all their teeth on edge Against this the Lord made a solemne protestation that all soules were his even the soules of the children as well as the soules of the fathers and that the soule that sinned that should dye and hereupon expostulates with them thus Have I any pleasure in the death of a sinner to wit so as to bring death upon him notwithstanding his repentance because forsooth his father had eaten sowre grapes No no the Lord hath no delight in their death but if they returne and live hee delights in that and therefore concludes with exhorting them to returne unto the Lord that they may live Now when you forsake the translation of our Church and slicke unto the Vulgar corrupt translation to hold up your odde conceits doth it become you to make question whether they that oppose you in your extravagant tenents and proofes have subscribed to the booke of Common Prayer Piscator proceedeth further and saith that the meaning is not simply that God delights not in the death of the wicked but in case he ceaseth not from his iniquity as appeares saith he by comparing of it with that which goeth before and with that which commeth after for otherwise God takes delight in all his workes like as Lyra upon Ezech. 18. Punitio improbitatis bene est à Deo volita quia justa In Proverbs 1. 26. thus we reade I will laugh at your destruction and mocke when your feare commeth How are these places to bee reconciled Piscator answereth God is not delighted in the death of man as it is the destruction of the creature but is delighted therein as it is the just punishment of the creature which is as much as to say he delights in the execution of his owne Iustice like as wee reade Ier. 9. 24. Let him that glorieth glorie in this that he understandeth and knoweth me For I am the Lord which shew mercy and judgement and righteousnesse in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. 4. Now as if you had made all sure on your side partly out of our authorized devotions wherein you make choice of three prayers whereof two are nothing to the purpose and the third at your uttermost straining of it doth but encourage you to conclude finally that God wils not the death but the life rather of them that of Infidels are made Christians and partly out of the Catechisme where you finde that Christ hath redeemed all mankinde which hath no coloutable extent further then all men and without manifest opposition to Austin you finde this phrase will not serve your turne whom yet you oppose so as without answering any one of his arguments one whereof was drawne from analogie of Scripture phrase another from manifest reason professing therewithall that your construction of this place contradicts the prime Article of the Creed And last of all driving the naile of your discourse home with a concludent proofe depending upon a translation of the text quite different from the most authentique translation of our Church which yet must be without prejudice to your conformity having a sound heart of your owne and therefore some peccadilies may bee well borne withall and you take liberty to question others your opposites whether they have subscribed or no to the booke of Common Prayer such is the height of your imperious cariage bearing downe all before you Now you come to enquire By what will God doth will they should be saved that are not saved and you demand whether God doth will their salvation by his revealed and not by his secret will As if this were our opinion whereas neither Calvin embraceth it nor Beza nor Piscator but all concurre upon that interpretation which Austin gave many hundred yeares agoe and which you impugne and how judiciously we have already considered Peter Martyr proposeth it amongst divers others but embraceth it not neither doe I know any Divine of ours that embraceth it Cajetan indeed embraceth it and Cornelius de Lapide and Aquinas amongst other interpretations As you doubt whether your opposites have subscribed to the booke of Common prayer so if you take a liberty to put upon us the opinions and accommodations of distinctions used by Papists you may in the next place make doubt whether wee have not subscribed to the Councell of Trent We plainly deny that God doth will the salvation of any but of his elect For to
of his sinnes by your opinion Pharaoh had beene saved though he neither had faith nor repentance For till their soules be betroathed unto wickednesse God doth not hate them this is your dialect whence it followeth that either all infants of Turkes and Saracens dying in their infancy are saved or else all men as soone as they are borne are betrothed unto wickednesse and consequently all reprobates from their birth unto their death continue the same objects of Gods decree without alteration And then againe I pray consider if God hates them not and wils not their damnation untill by filling up the measure of their sinne they are betroathed unto wickednesse as you speake then surely hee did not hate them nor will the condemnation of them in their infancy much lesse did hee will it before they were borne much lesse did hee will it before the world was made yet you have already plainly professed that God willed the death of Pharaoh from all eternity and if from all eternity then sure he willed it before the world was made much more before Pharaoh was borne much more before Pharaoh had filled up the measure of his iniquity Yet I confesse that though God from all eternity willed the death of Pharaoh and consequently before Pharaoh was borne and much more before he had filled up the measure of his iniquity Yet God did not will that Pharaoh should be damned before he had filled up the measure of his iniquitie much lesse that he should be damned in his infancie much lesse before he was borne much lesse before the world was So that these two propositions may well stand together without contradiction God from all eternity willed that Pharaoh should be damned but God did not will that Pharaoh should bee damned from all eternity or before hee was borne or in his infancy or before he had filled up the measure of his sinnes But the propositions which you take upon you to free from contradiction are of a farre different nature and indeed directly contradictious God did from all eternity will the death of Pharaoh God did not from all eternity will the death but rather willed the life of Pharaoh And for clearing it you onely tell us that Pharaoh was not the same object of Gods decree though he continued the same man A proposition both very obscure in it selfe and void of all efficacie to free your selfe from contradiction neither doe you take any paines to accommodate it but leaving that as a blanke for your propitious reader to fill up after his owne judgement or affection rather And the issue of all is to professe that God did indeede from all etetnity will the life of Pharaoh and so continued to will it untill such time as hee had filled up the measure of his sinne and that from thenceforth hee hated him as he doth all reprobates having once betrothed themselves unto wickednesse which assertion manifestly betraying your opinion as touching the making of Gods will mutable your desire to satisfie your reader with calling Gods will immutable and saying that the object of Gods decree is not still the same Sed quid ego verb a audiam facta cum vidiam You manifestly maintaine that Gods love and will to save doth cease upon the filling up the measure of sinne and betrothing a mans selfe to wickedness and thereupon and from thenceforth hee hates them and wills their death and damnation whereas till that time he willed their life and salvation These propositions God loves all men God doth not love all men I say are contradictories All rules of contradiction justifie these to be contradictions And your selfe confesse as much in effect when going about to cleare them from contradiction you quite alter the forme of them by shaping them thus in effect God loves all men till they have filled up the measure of their sinnes but when once they have filled up the measure of their sinnes he loves them not Now these propositions are quite different from the former neither doe we charge these with contradiction as wee charged the former But that wherewith wee charge these is this they make the will of God mutable contrary to the expresse testimonie of the holy Ghost saying I the Lord am not changed Mal. 3. 6. And Saint Iames professeth that with the Lord there is no variableness nor shadow of change which you perceiving are loath to speake your minde plainly but to avoide so grose an untruth had rather cast your selfe upon a manifest contradiction in saying God loves all men and God loves not all men and to free your selfe from contradiction betray your corrupt opinion another way in making Gods love to change into hatred after a certaine time to wit after the measure of sinne is filled up and the onely shift you have to charme it is to confound the difference of time which alone avoides the contradiction and expressing it thus God loves all men as men or as men which have not made up the full measure of iniquity but having made up that or having their soules betrothed to wickednesse hee hates them But this will not serve your turne for seeing this contradiction of making up the full measure of sinne did not belong unto man from the beginning but onely after a certaine space of time the difference specified must necessarily resolve it selfe into a meere difference of time thus God did love them till they had made up the full measure of sinne but after that he hated them And this is further proved For if the difference onely consisted in respect of different considerations at the same time then the distinction should have place as well after this full measure of sinne is made up as before And so Pharaoh after the filling up of the full measure of sinne might bee said to be loved of God as a man and hated as having filled up the measure of sinne but no where doâ— you make use of any such distinction Nay much more should it have use in this case and indeed onely in this case for untill a man hath filled up the measure of his sinne this distinct consideration hath no place for a body may bee considered as Ens or Naturale or as Quantum because hee is both Ens and Naturale and Quantum But a man connot be considered at any time as having filled up the measure of his sinne but onely after that time comes hee may bee so considered for to consider him to bee that which hee is not is not to consider him what hee is but to faine him to be what he is not Againe when you say God loves all men as men What is the meaning of this What doâ— you denote by this love of God For wee commonly say love is not in God Quoad affectum but Quoad effectum at least Quoad affectum it is nothing at all different from Gods will Now I desire to know what that thing is which God wills to man as a
not all possibilitie of amendment being taken from him My opinion to the contrary is that no man hath filled up the full measure of his iniquity till death As touching the possibility of amendment I acknowledge none in man without the regenerating grace of God whereby he gives man repentance Neither do I know any time in the course of mans life wherin any man is excluded from possibility of repentance by the grace of God We know God gave the thiefe repentance upon the crosse Our Saviour gives us to understand that God calleth some at the very last houre of the day Paul admonisheth Timothy to carrie himselfe gently towards them that are without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if so be God at any time may give them repentance that they may come to amendment out of the snare of the devill by whom they are led captive to doe his will Of old it was wont to be said Inter pontem fontem and the like is usuall amongst us Betweene the stirrop and the ground Mercy I askt mercy I found All this which followeth and which you have transcribed out of Bishop Hooper I finde nothing that contradicteth any of these assertions of mine or that justifieth any of your opposite assertions not in this which immediately followeth thus Every man is in Scripture called wicked and the enemy of God for the privation and lacke of faith and love that hee oweth to God Et impij vocantur qui non omnino sunt pij that is They are called wicked that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his commandements as they should doe which we cannot doe by reason of this naturall infirmity or hatred of the flesh as Paul calleth it against God In this sense taketh Paul the word wicked So must we interpret S. Paul and take his words or else no man should be damned In all this I finde nothing to that purpose whereto you alledge it Yet by the way I am not of Master Hoopers opinion in saying that They were called wicked meaning in holy Scripture that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his commandements as they should which wee cannot doe by reason of this naturall infirmity c. For all this is verified of the very Saints and children of God here on earth and I doe not finde that the Saints of God in holy Scripture by reason of their infirmities not honouring God not beleeving in God not observing his commandements in such measure as they should as God knowes and our consciences well know that in many things we offend all are therefore called wicked Especially considering that the Greeke word which Master Hooper aimes at and which hee renders by the word wicked in English is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as appeares by his reference to Rom. 5. 8. In this sense saith Bishop Hooper taketh Paul this word wicked when he saith that Christ died for the wicked Now this state noted by S. Paul in these words is not the state of grace but the state of sinne precedent to justification and the state of enmity against God as appeares by the two next verses Much more being justified by his bloud we shall be saved by his life 10. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne c. Whereby it is manifest that the state of sinne in which we were when wee were reconciled to God by Christs death was the state of enmity against God And indeed otherwise there were no place for reconcilement which consists in making them friends which before were enemies Neither doe I know any Divine of master Hoopers opinion in construing S. Paul in this manner as if these sinners 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he cals wicked for whom Christ died were onely such as doe not honour God beleeve in God and observe his commandements as they should which wee know is incident to the very children of God and to the most righteous Saints that are on the earth who yet are never accounted in holy Scripture for ought I know the enemies of God Yet such are they termed for whom Christ died and who S. Paul saith are reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne I willingly grant that Christ died to procure the salvation of none but such as sooner or later should become the Saints of God to honour him beleeve in him and observe his commandements though not in such measure as they should by reason of the flesh which they carie about them still lusting against the spirit and this seemes by this place undoubtedly to be the opinion of Bishop Hooper though he erreth in the interpretation of S. Paul who in this place considereth not what shall be their condition sooner or later for whom Christ died but only sheweth what was their condition when Christ died for them thereby the more to commend the love of God towards us who sent his Sonne to die for us when wee were sinners and reconciled us to himselfe by the death of his Son what time we were his enemies And I am perswaded your selfe are of the same opinion with me in this though I will not say that the evidence of S. Pauls text seemed so plaine unto you this very way I have interpreted it that therefore you concealed S. Pauls passage mentioned by master Hooper thus When he saith that Christ died for the wicked and in the margent referres us to Rom. 5. 8. all which you have handsomly left out to what end I know not But hereby it comes to passe that the reader may be to seeke of that passage of S. Paul in case he have no other meanes to judge thereof then your transcribing it As for the reason of Bishop Hooper to justifie this interpretation of S. Pauls text it is nothing consequent as when he saith So we must interpret Saint Pauls words or else no man should be damned If S. Paul had said Christ died for all the wicked or for all sinners then indeed we should be driven to seeke out some such interpretation of the word wicked or sinners or else none should bee damned But S. Paul doth not say Christ died for all that are wicked or for all sinners but for us sinners his words are these God commendeth his love to us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Now he writes unto Christians and for such onely hee died though they were not Christians when Christ died for them but rather in the state of enmity against God And thus to appropriate Christs dying for mankinde doth manifestly appeare to bee master Hoopers meaning as before I shewed albeit he deviates from the right interpretation of S. Pauls Text in the place mentioned by him That which followeth doth in my judgement carie a greater shew of justifying your former assertions and yet but a shew neither as when he saith Now we know that Paul himselfe S.
Pharaoh after the seventh plague And notwithstanding the former contempt of Gods word and his law you professe that God unfainedly loves all such in whom such a contempt is found because for sooth as yet they have not filled up the full measure of their contempt And as for such in whom is found a farther degree of contempt then this all possibility of amendment is taken from them Now Mr. Hooper doth not make any such distinction much lesse doth hee cast himselfe upon any such uncoth assertions as you deliver hereupon as before I have shewed Secondly your doctrine of filling up the measure of iniquity proceeds of men in state of nature but Mr. Hooper delivers that before rehearsed of men in the state of grace And in my judgement his meaning is no more then this that imperfections of faith and holinesse may and doe still consist with the â—ate of grace in this life but contempt or hate of Gods word and transformation of our selves into the image of the Devill cannot stand with the state of grace not denying but that all contempt and hatred of Gods word and the fruits of the image of the Devill in us in case they are broken off and an end is set unto them by repentance are borne by Christ upon the Crosse and satisfaction made for them by the death of Christ as well as for originall sinne nor affirming that any man once brought unto the state of grace doth at any time breake forth so farre as to contemne or hate Gods word or to transforme himselfe into the image of the Devill But his meaning in my judgement is onely this that Christ hath made satisfaction for the imperfections of our faith and holinesse although wee continue therein untill death but hee hath not made satisfaction for the contempt and hatred of his word and for our transformation of our selves into the image of the Divell as hâ— calleth it in case men doe continue therein unto death Imperfections may and shall continue and still bee pardoned but contempt must not This hath seemed to others as well as to my selfe an harsh sentence and I have taken some paines to cleare it but how little it serves your turne to that purpose whereto you alledge it is easily discovered SECT III. That Gods will and pleasure is never frustrated albeit his unspeakable love take no effect in many to whom it is unfainedly tendered CHAP. XVI In what sense God may be said to have done all that he could for his vineyard and for such as perish I Have now waded thorow fifteene Chapters of these your Contemplations and should by this in reason be pretie well acquainted with the manner of your discourse But I finde my selfe as much pusâ—ed in searching after the coherence of the parts of the first Section here as hitherto I have beene in any part of the Treatise But it may be I doe but labour to gather that which you never strewed and then no marvell if I labour in vaine As in other parts so in this it may be your purpose was to write Quodlibets well such as they are I purpose to consider them as I finde them To summe up the particulars in the first place you discover unto us the causes of conceiving difficulties and of ignorance in assoiling them and that is because we extend this Maxime Both parts of contradictories cannot bee true not so farre as we should and the reason thereof is you say because we extend our power to the utmost yea farther then justice or goodnesse can accompany it To this you adde 〈◊〉 our nature is humourous and inconstant and therefore nothing can imply any constant contradiction to our nature and that looke what is constant and still the same that will at one time or other contradict our humour And humours you say enraged with contradiction arme power against whatsoever contradicts them By the way you tell us that the use of power in creatures sensitive is to satiate their appetite of sense in man to accomplish his will and desire of good And that being corrupt his power becomes an under-commander unto his unruly appetites as in voluptuous men and that in men esteemed good motions of equity are so weake that men yeeld their consents to such proposals as were they firme they would offensively contradict them And the reason why they yeeld is lest upstart appetites which custome countenanceth should bee enlarged by reluctance But love you say is not alike set on divers objects but divides itselfe unequally when it comes to opposition betweene sense reason our selves and friends or common equity And the inconveniences whereto the world and flesh exposeth us are reducible to two heads the blinding of the judgement and consequently the abusing of power and authority Then againe you returne to our unconstant humour and upon the backe of that tell us that though none doth good yet we may doe lesse evill then others And lastly that they who love equity are hardly drawn to dispense with injustice and at last having sate long you hatch an excellent Maxime that where judgement is infallible and love to justice invincible there â—s not possible to transgresse in judgement All which when I compare together and with your theame proposed How God may be said to have done all that he could for his vineyard it cals to my remembrance a certaine mad fellowes discourse when I was a Scholler at Winchester that would talke of master Killigree and Abbey lands fat venison and such like uncoherences a long time together But let us examine them apart Both parts of contradiction cannot be true and it is as true that both parts of contradiction cannot be false But whereto this tends and how pertinent to your purpose in this place I cannot devise Onely you tell us that the not extending of this Maxime so farre as we should is the cause why wee conceive difficulties in your wilde discourse premised as also of our ignorance in assoiling them A strange conceit and whereof I see no colour of reason neither do you take any paines to explicate it by accommodation or instance but let flie at randome as if you would imploy your readers in seeking after sense and reason where there is none to be found And if this were true your selfe should have assoiled the difficulties conceived in the points proposed by extending this Maxime to the utmost to serve your turne and shewed how by not extending it so farre as is meet difficulties are conceived and no meanes found to assoile them but your selfe have taken no such course And who was ever knowne not to extend this Maxime to the uttermost where can you finde any limitation or confining of it what doe you meane to abuse your readers patience with such incredible fictions Againe herehence it followeth that whosoever doe extend this maxime so farre as naturally it would reach they shall not be apt to conceive difficulties in the points proposed nor be
still I perceive your meaning reacheth further then you dare as yet to professe for your meaning is to prove that All that heare the Gospell and doe not believe it seeing they shall bee guilty of greater sinne and incurre greater condemnation at the day of judgement therefore they could believe it if they would This is the point that sticks in your teeth and which you dare not openly and plainely professe as indeed it is manifest Pelagianisme and which the Arminians dare not at this day openly avouch but rather professe that no man can believe or repent without grace Whereas yet like as your selfe maintaine that no man in state of nature can doe otherwise of himselfe then sinne yet is he justly condemned for sinning none compelling him in like sort no man of himselfe can believe the Gospell yet hee may be as justly condemned for not believing For as for that naturall impotency unto that which is good which is in all derived unto us from our father Adam that is of it selfe sufficient to condemne us and therefore most unsufficient to excuse us And that impotencie being in all alike the condemnation therefore shall be unto all alike but the increase of it by actuall transgressions which are freely committed is not in all alike for neither doth inclination naturall or tentations spirituall or occasions temporall hinder a mans libertie in doing or refusing to doe any act so likewise neither can it hinder the aggravation of his sinne But neither can this naturall impotency bee cured in any part but by the grace of God habituall neither any good act according to this grace habituall he performed without another grace both prevenient and subsequent actuall If your minde serves you to deale plainly in opposing ought of this you shall not want them that will bee ready to enter with you into the lists and scholastically to encounter you Yet I confesse the providence of God especially in ordering and governing the wills of men is a misterious thing and the operation and cooperation of his will with the operation and cooperation of the will of man But I am a long time inured unto this and now I feare no bugbeares least of all from your selfe with whom I have beene of old acquainted in our private and familiar discourse on these and such like arguments and to tell you plainely my opinion I doubt you have written so much that you have had time to read but litle And truly as for my selfe as I have written little so also I have not read much But in these points I have spent not a little time in searching after truth and examining arguments As for the place of the Apostle Act. 17. 30. it seemes your meaning is it pleads for universall grace now after Christs death yet your selfe immediately before profested that onely they that heare it and doe not believe are guilty of greater sinnes implying manifestly that since Christs death all doe not heare it Yet if you have any other meaning and will deale roundly in propounding it I will be ready to consider this or any other place that you shall bee able to produce to what purpose soever if orthodox in my judgement to subscribe unto it if otherwise to doe my best to confute it 3 In the next place you are so farre from maintaining universall grace that you undertake to give causes why all men in the world have not heard of this love of God in Christ. But these causes to be assigned by you are put off till hereafter and that not of certainty neither you onely say They may bee assigned T is your usuall course to feed your Readers with expectation as it were with empty spoones If you doe not gull them in putting them off to expectation t is somewhat the better The reason you give why many might have heard of Christ which yet have not heard of him and might have beene partakers of his death I thinke you meane of the benefit of his death which yet have not beene partakers of it is starke naught For that evill courses of men cannot hinder them from the participation of Christs death appeareth by the calling of the Gentiles and casting off of the Iewes For were the deeds of Babylon thinke you better then they of Sion Wee Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles saith the Apostle Gal. 2. 15. The Apostle in divers places puts no difference betweene them that are called and them that are not as touching their manners before grace 1 Cor. 6. 11. Eph. 2. 23. Tit. 3. 23. God sindes us weltring in our bloud when he saith unto us Live Ezech. 16. and Saul was taken off from his bloudy courses to be made a member of Christ. And your doctrine to the contrary tends shamefully to the obscuring and disparaging of Gods grace and to the advancing of the power of nature and liberty of will the trick of the Pelagians of old of whom Austine professed thus Inimici gratiae Dei latent in commendatione naturae The enemies of Gods grace welter themselves under the commendation of nature And Austine professeth it to be impiety and madnesse to deny that God can convert any mans will when hee will and where hee will And you blush not to professe in another discourse of yours that humility is the disposition which prepares us for grace I doubt you will finde little comfort in such humility and that at the day of judgement such humility will be found abominable pride What you meane by pledges I know not you love to walk in cloudes and in the darke if you mean the fruits of Gods temporall blessings how will you prove that these were evidences of that love which God man fested in the death of his Sonne And if it were so then this evidence should be manifested to all of ripe yeares for all are partakers of Gods temporall providence even they that have filled up the measure of their iniquity Yet then you usually professe God withdrawes his love from them but how can that bee if hee afford them the unquestionable earnests thereof as before you called these pledges whereas in the close you say that many are not acquainted with this manifestation of Gods love and that out of meere mercy it may well passe for one of your paradoxes I never doubted but that it was a mercy to know Christ and the love of God to the world in him but that it was a mercy to want Christ I never read nor heard till now Neither is it necessary that men though reprobates should be enraged to evill by the Gospell for God can make even reprobates to profit by it ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quà mitius puniantur To the outward emendation of their lives to the end their punishment may be the milder And we finde by experience that all were not enraged against it CHAP. XVIII Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfained love to such as perish a
this Such an hight of sinne implyeth a contradiction to infinite justice to vouchsafe them any favour Now of this proposition of yours I see no reason Nay I seeme to observe manifest reason to the contrary For justice consists in giving to every one his owne Now seeing the wages of any sinne is death even everlasting death Not to condemne him that hath deserved to be condemned seemes as contradictory to justice as not to condemne him that is come to an hight of impiety And which is more many thousand infants perish in Originall sinne and yet we beleive that Manasses who unto Originall sinne added many abominable sinnes was notwithstanding all this saved and will you say there was any contradiction unto Gods justice in all this And I wonder you so much beate upon the contradiction unto Gods justice and take no notice of Gods mercy whereas we doe not consider the pardoning of sinnes as an act of Gods justice but rather as an act of his mercy and without quest on it is not contradiction to Gods mercy to pardon any sinne And God is mercyfull as well as just and it is very absurd in my judgment to say that God in performing an act of mercy contradicts his justice as well as to say that in performing an act of justice he contradicts his mercy And the reason is because it is indifferent to God to exercise eyther his mercy in commiserating whome he will or his justice in hardening whome he will And therefore when the Apostle proposeth such an objection against his former doctrine of election reprobation as this What shall we say then is there any injustice with God He answereth it by this that God is free and hath a lawfull power to exercise mercy and compassion on whome he will God forbid sayth he we should thinke so For he sayth to Moses I will have mercy on him to whome I will shewe mercy and will have compassion on him on whome I will have compassion And yet I pray consider what colour of contradiction to Gods justice in pardoning the sinnes of them be they never so many never so fowle for whome the sonne of God as you say hath suffered the sorrowes of death and therby made full satisfaction for all theire sinnes unlesse you will say that Christ dyed to make satisfaction for originall sinne only and not for sinnes actuall or for some of theire actuall sinnes and not for all to which strange and uncouth opinion You seeme to incline in the end of your 15. Chapter where you say that Christ only receaved our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his law I have cause to suspect that you concurre with Arminians in maintayning that all Infants the very children of Pagans Turkes and Saracens that perish in theire infancy are saved For how can it be conceaved that any improvement of evill inclinations is made in them unto such an hight as that it should imply contradiction to Gods justice to shew them any favour And where such an hight of impiety is not you professe they cannot be excluded from all fruits of his love Yet I confesse theire soules have a being and that eternall and if this be a fruit of Gods love then though the hight of impiety be never so greate yet is no man or devill excluded from this fruite of Gods love For they shall continue for ever and that to theire everlasting wo. As touching your manner of expressing your meaning this increase of sinne you call the sinister use of contingency that God hath bestowed upon them your meaning must be the sinister use of the liberty of theire wills which in your phrase is the sinister use of contingency wherof I am perswaded you can give no example And by the way I observe you suppose in every naturall man a power to use the liberty of his will eyther will or ill I had thought and doe still thinke there is no power in carnall man to use theire naturall liberty well but only to use it either in this or that subject but so as still the use of it shall be evill For the affection of the flesh is not subject to the law of God nor can be sayth the Apostle and every man is dead in sinne till God quickneth him Ephesi 2. 2. And a dead man can performe no action of life naturall if dead naturally no action of life spirituall if dead spiritually But whether naturall inclinations unto evill may be thus farre improved in the children by theire Forefathers on no you say is disputable but in another place that is it is a disputable question whether children may not by the sinnes of theire Father be so farre corrupt that it implyeth contradiction to Gods justice to shew them any favour You might as well say it is a disputable question whether there be any God or no For that there should be a God and yet not able to cure the naturall corruption wherein any man is borne is contradiction And if he were then sure he were able to shew them no small favour And as for contradictions to Gods justice there is so litle colour herof in the saving of Infants that on the contrary there is nothing the condemnation of the Sonne of God alone excepted wherin the justice of God is more obscure then in the condemnation of Infants I thinke you have litle minde to come to an accoumpt how you doe accommodate this your doctrine unto Infants yet you must be called hereunto whether you will or no unlesse you clippe the wings of your generall propositions as when you say None can be excluded from the fruits of Gods love untill the improvement of inclinations naturally bent to evill come to that hight of impiety as to imply a contradiction for infinite justice or equity to vouchsafe them any favour Yet by the way you put in an exception concerning Infants and that is in case there be a neglect of duties to be performed to them by theire Elders why doe you not speake plainly and say saving in case they are not baptized And what thinke you in this case Are they damned I cannot beleive you thinke so yet the face of your discourse lookes this way I say I cannot beleive it and that for two reasons The one is because the tenour of your tenet caryeth you rather to maintayne with the Arminians that all children dying in theire Infancy though they dye without the Church are saved My second reason is because herein you should directly contradict the discourse Kinge Iames had with certaine Divines a litle before his death and his apparent profession to the contrary not as his private opinion but as the opinion generally of our Divines whome he had learned in his younger dayes to have censured Austine for his opinion to the contrary as one that was Durus Pater Infantum Now I am so well perswaded of you that I thinke you would not
neyther incident to the divine nature nor to any other imaginable I would we were worthy to know 3. things First who they are whom you oppose in this Secondly what those 3. so grosse transformations are which you speake of out of Austine Thirdly to what end tends all this on which you spend so many words But to take it as we find it No Christian I think ever doubted but that all sinne is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transgression of Gods law accordingly contrary to the commaundment of God which is usually called the will of God But that any sinne should be committed contrary to the will of God as it is taken for the decree and determination of God I had thought no sober man would have affirmed Austine I am sure plainly professeth that Non aliquid sit nisi omnipotens feri velit vel sinendo ut fiat vel ipse faciendo And albeit Aquinas seemes concealedly to oppose Austine in this in q. 9. 19. art 9. Yet notwithstanding concludeth thus Deus igitur neque vult mala fieri neque vult mala non fieri sed vult permittere mala fieri Ibid. ad tertium Yet I willingly graunt that every sinne is against Gods will and pleasure as it signifieth his pleasure what shall be our dutie to doe which is nothing els but his commaundment And it is as true that herein are no degrees every sinne is equally against the commaundments of God And the will and pleasure of God whereby he will have this or that to be our duty to doe or leave undone hath no degrees For Gods simplicity freeth him as well from composition of degrees as from any other composition But yet some transgressions are greater then others in as much as God may be more or lesse wronged by us or our selves or our brethren It is neyther incident to the divine nature nor to the humane to punish any more then it is ones will and pleasure to punish But to a man it is incidēt to punish for those crimes wherein themselves take delight For a man may be condemned and punished for adultery by them who are adulterers themselves as appeares in those that brought unto our Saviour a Woman taken in adultery For when our Saviour sayd Let him that is amoungst you without sinne cast the first stone at her the text sayth herupon being accused by theire owne conscience they went out one by one beginning at the eldest even to the last Iohn 8. 7. Wherfore you doe overlash in not contenting your selfe to affirme this of the divine nature but extending it to every nature imaginable Agayne what meane you to call that a way wardnesse of men whereof you professe the humane nature is uncapable as namely to be offended at that which doth not offend them What is a wilde manner of discourse if this be not Nothing inferiour in absurdity is that which followeth as when you say that To punish any which doe not contradict theire wills is an injustice scarce incident to the inhabitans of Hell If the Divills punish any as you say they doe doe they punish them for sins committed in contradiction to theire wills And how many Magistrates doe punish even such sinnes wherof themselves are guilty They are bound by law to punish profane swearers to punish drunckerds is it necessary that every such Magistrat should be free from such sinnes themselves But the Divills themselves you say doe not vexe the wicked but the Godly this being a most absurde conceyte at first sight you have taken a course to charme the absurdity of it by adding concerning the wicked Till Gods justice overtake them might you not as well adde concerning the Godly Till Gods will and pleasure is and so farre as his pleasure is the Divill shall vexe them as appeares in the example of Iob But ordinarily in the course of Gods providence who are more vexed by the Divill the godly or the wicked rather Now because it it apparent that in your opinion the Divill torments infernally the damned and hath no power over the Saints of God though they are more prone to vexe the godly then the wicked as you thinke therefore you put your selfe to devise a reason why the Divills torment the damned wheras the sinnes of the damned men were committed only in following the will of the Divill too much But the reason you give is of the wildest and most contradictious nature that ever any I thinke was heard of For the reason you give is this Therfore the Divills cease not to torment them because they can find no ease in tormenting them Whereas if they could finde any case in tormenting them then you say they would be lesse displeased with them and consequently torment them lesse which if it were true the Divills should be as arrant fooles as ever lived as namely in ceasing to doe that by the doing whereof they should finde ease by this supposition of yours And in the meane time you represent unto as a proper modell of Gods providence while you conceave the tormenting of the damned to be put over by God to the will of the Divill as if the dispensation of the degrees of punishment therby to justifie Gods proceeding were remitted to the discretion and equity of those Angells of darkenesse And who I pray shall be the dispenser of that punishment that in justice belongs to the Divills themselves Yet as if you had performed some greate exployte against some body you demaunde bravely Whether they did not rather dreame then thinke of God that some times write as if it were not as much against Gods will to have men dye as it is against mans will to suffer death In writing this you thinke they did rather dreame then thinke on God in writing of the former sure I am you did if not dreame yet thinke of the Divill But which writing yours or theirs be like unto a sicke mans dreame let not the indifferent only but the unindifferent also judge For you show as litle sobriety in the impugning of these in theire writing concerning the will of God then in inventing your former fancies concerning the Divill Is it not by the will of God appoynted that all must dye And is it probable then it should be against Gods will that any should dye O but you speake belike of the second death I answere Is it not as well appoynted by the will of God that all that dye the first death in sinne shall dye the second death of everlasting sorrow as it is appoynted by the will of God that all shall dye the first death And will it not by the same reason follow that looke in what sense it is impossible that any should dye the first death against the will of God in the same sence it is impossible that any should dye the second death against the will of God and if they suffered death as you say to this end that Gods will may be