upon so plain a Revelation of Gods secret Will than take up Arms against the Queen depose her from her Throne expel her out of her native Kingdom and finally prosecute her to the very death The Ladder which Constantine the great commended to Assesius a Novatian Bishop for his safer climbing up to Heaven was never more made use of than by Knox and Calvin for mounting them to the sight of Gods secret Council which St. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things unspeakable such as are neither possible nor lawful for a man to utter But of all Knox's followers none followed so close upon his heels as Ro. Crowly a fugitive for Religion in Q. Maries days and the Author of a Book called a Confutation of 13 Articles Ibid. p. 18. c. In which he lays the sin of Adam and consequently all mens sins from that time to this upon the Absolute Decree of Predestination for seeing saith he that Adam was so perfect a Creature that there was in him no lust to sin and yet withal so weak of himself that he was not able to withstand the assault of the subtile Serpent no remedy the only cause of his fall must needs be the Predestination of God In other places of this book he makes it to be a common saying of the Free-will men as in contempt and scorn he calls them that Cain was not Predestinate to slay his Brother Ibid. p. 2. ◠which makes it plain that he was otherwise persuaded in his own opinion That the most wicked persons that have been whereof God appointed to be even as wicked as they were that if God do predestinate a man to do things rashly and without any deliberation he shall not deliberate at all but run headlong upon it Ibid. p. 2. 6. be it good or evil That we are compelled by Gods predestination to do those things for which we are damned Ibid. 2.7 Ibid. 46. And finally finding this Doctrine to be charged with making God more cruel and unmerciful than the greatest Tyrant and pressed therewith by some of the contrary persuasion he returns his answer in this wise If God saith he were an inferiour to any superiour power to the which he ought to render an account of his doing or if any of us were not his Creatures but of another Creation besides his workmanship then might we charge him with Tyranny because he condemneth us and appointed us to be punished for the things we do by compulsion through the necessity of his Predestination For a Catholicon or general Antidote to which dangerous Doctrines a new distinction was devised Ibid. p. 4. 47. by which in all abominations God was expresly said to be the Author of the fact or deed but not of the crime which subtilty appeareth amongst many others in a brief Treatise of Election and Reprobation published by one John Veron in the English tongue Ibid. p. 32. about the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth which subtilty Campneys not unfitly calls a marvellous sophistication a strange Paradox and a cautelous Riddle and he seems to have good reason for it For by this Doctrine as he noteth it must follow that God is the Author of the very fact and deed of Adultery Theft Murder c. but not the Author of the sin Sin having as they say no positive entity but being a meer nothing as it were and therefore not to be ascribed to Almighty God And thereup on he doth infer that when a Malefactor is hanged for any of the facts before said he is hanged for nothing because the fact or deed is ascribed to God and the sin only charged on him which sin being nothing in it self it must be nothing that the Malefactor is condemned or hanged for By all the Books it doth appear what method of Predestination these new Gospellers drive at how close they followed at the heels of their Master Calvin in case they did not go beyond him Certain it is that they all speak more plainly than their Master doth as to the making of God to be the Author of sin though none of them speak any thing else than what may Logically be inferred from his ground and principles And by this book it appeareth also now contrary these Doctrins are to the establish'd by the first Reformers in the Church of England how contrary the whole method of Predestination out of which they flow is to that delivered in the Articles the Homilies and the publick Liturgy and witnessed too by so many learned men and godly Martyrs Which manifest deviation from the rules of the Church as it gave just offence to all moderate and sober men so amongst others unto Campneys before remembred who could not but express his dislike thereof and for so doing was traduced for a Pelagian and a Papist or a Popish Pelagian For which being charged by way of Letter he was necessitated to return an Answer to it which he published in the second or third year of Queen Elizabeth In which Answer he not only clears himself from favouring the Pelagian Errours in the Doctrine of Freewill Justification by Works c. but solidly and learnedly refuteth the Opinions of certain English Writers and Preachers whom he accuseth for teaching of false and scandalous Doctrine under the name of Predestination Ibid. p. 10. Rom. 5. for his preparation whereunto he states the point of Universal Redemption by the death of Christ out of the parallel which St. Paul hath made between Christ and Adam that by the comparison of condemnation in Adam and redemption in Christ it might more plainly be perceived that Christ was not inferiour to Adam nor grace to sin And that as all the generation of man is condemned in Adam so is all the generation of man redeemed in Christ and as general a Saviour is Christ by Redemption as Adam is a condemner by transgression Which ground so laid he shews how inconsistent their Opinions are to the truth of Scripture who found the Doctrine of Election and Reprobation on Gods absolute pleasure by which infinitely the greatest part of all mankind is precedaniously excluded from having any part or interess in this Redemption reprobated to eternal death both in body and soul as the examples of his vengeance and consequently preordained unto sin as the means unto it that so his vengeance might appear with the face of Justice Which preordaining unto sin as it doth necessarily infer the laying of a necessity upon all mens actions whether good or bad according to that predeterminate Counsel and Will of God so these good men the Authors of the books before remembred do expresly grant it acknowledging that God doth not only move men to sin but compel them to it by the inevitable rules of Predestination But against this it is thus discoursed by the said Campneys that if Gods Predestination be the only cause of Adams fall and filthy sin Ibid. p. 51. And
in a time when he is not predestinated seeing he is always so and generally the divided sense hath no place where the accident is inseparable from the subject Therefore others thought to declare it better saying that God governeth and moveth every thing according to its proper nature which in contingent things is free and such as that the act may consist together with the power to the opposite so that with the act of predestination the power to reprobation and damnation doth stand But this was worse understood than the first The other Articles were consured with admirable concord Concerning the third and sixth they said it hath always been an opinion in the Church that many receive divine Grace and keep it for a time who afterwards do lose it and in time are damned Then was alledged the example of Saul Solomon and Judas one of the twelve a case more evident than all by these words of Christ to the Father I have kept in thy name all that thou hast given me of which not one hath perished but the son of Perdition To these they added Nicholas one of the seven Deacons and others first commended in the Scriptures and then blamed and for a conclusion of all the Fall of Luther Against the sixth they particularly considered that Vocation would become impious derision when those that are called and nothing is wanting on their side are not admitted that the Sacraments would not be effectual for them all which things are absurd But for censure first the Authority of the Prophet was brought directly contrary in terms where God saith That if the Just shall abandon justice and commit iniquity I will not remember his works The example of David was added who committed Murther and Adultery of Magdalen and S. Peter who denied Christ They derided the folly of the Zuinglians for saying the Just cannot fall from Grace and yet sinneth in every work The two last were uniformly condemned of temerity with exception of those unto whom God hath given a special Revelation as to Moses and the Disciples to whom it was revealed that they were written in the Book of Heaven Now because the Doctrine of Predestination doth naturally presuppose a Curse from which man was to be delivered Hist of the Council fol. 175. It will not be amiss to lay down the Judgment of that Council in the Article of Original sin which rendred man obnoxious to the dreadful curse together with the preparatory Debates amongst the School-men and Divines which were there Assembled touching the nature and transmitting of it from Adam unto his Posterity and from one man to another Concerning which it was declared by Catarinus That as God made a Covenant with Abraham and all his Posterity when he made him Father of the faithful So when he gave Original Righteousness to Adam and all man-kind he made him seal an Obligation in the name of all to keept it for himself and them observing the Commandment which because he transgressed he lost it as well for others as himself and incurred the punishment also for them the which as they are derived in every one and to him as the cause to others by vertue of the Covenant so that the actual sin of Adam is actual sin in him and imputed to others is Original for proof whereof he grounded himself upon this especially that a true and proper sin must needs be a voluntary act and nothing can be voluntary but that transgression of Adam imputed unto all And Paul saying that all have sinned in Adam it must b e understood that they have all committed the same sin with him he alledged for example that S. Paul to the Hebrews affirmeth that Levi paid Tyth to Melchisedeck when he paid in his great Grandfather Abraham by which reason it must be said that the Posterity violated the Commandments of God when Adam did it and that they were sinners in him as in him they received Righteousness Which Application as it was more intelligible to the Prelates Assembled together in the Council than any of the Crabbed Intricacies and perplexities of the rest of the School-men irreconcilable in a manner amongst themselves so did it quicken them to the dispatch of their Canons or Anathamatisms which they had the Notions in their heads against all such as had taught otherwise of Original sin Idem sol 181. than was allowed of and maintained in the Church of Rome but more particularly against him 1. That confesseth not that Adam by transgressing hath lost Sanctity and Justice incurred the wrath of God Death and Thraldom to the Devil and is infected in Soul and Body 2. Against him that averreth that Adam by sinning hath hurt himself only or hath derived into his Posterity the death only of the Body and not sin the death of the Soul 3. Against him that affirmeth the sin which is one in the beginning and proper to every one committed by Generation not imitation can be abolished by any other remedy than the death of Christ is applied as well to Children as to those of riper years by the Sacrament of Baptism ministred in the Form and Rite of the Church CHAP. III. The like Debates about Free-will with the Conclusions of the Council in the Five Controverted Points 1. The Articles against the Freedom of the Will extracted out of Luer's Writings 2. The exclamation of the Divines against Luer's Doctrine in the Point and the absurdities thereof 3. The several Judgments of Marinarus Catarinus and Andreas Vega. 4. The different Judgment of the Dominicans and Francisans whether it lay in mans power to believe or not to believe and whether the Freedom of the Will were lost in Adam 5. As also of the Point of the co-operation of mans Will with the Grace of God 6. The opinion of Fryer Catanca in the point of irresistibility 7. Faintly maintained by Soto a Dominican Fryer and more cordially approved by others but in time rejected 8. The great care taken by the Legates in having the Articles so framed as to please all parties 9. The Doctrine of the Council in the Five controverted Points 10. A Transition from the Council of Trent to the Protestant and Reformed Churches THese Differences and Debates concerning Predestination the possibility of falling away from the Faith of Christ and the nature of Original sin being thus passed over I shall look back on those Debates which were had amongst the Fathers and Divines in the Council of Trent about the nature of Free-will and the power thereof In order whereunto these Articles were collected out of the Writings of the Lutherans to be discussed and censured as they found cause for it Now the Articles were these that follow viz. 1. God is the total cause of our works good and evil and the Adultry of David the cruelty of Manlius and the Treason of Judas are the works of God as well as the Vocation of Saul 2. No man hath power to think well or
free him yet by his Doctrine of Predestination he hath laid such grounds as have involved his followers in the same guilt also For not content to travel a known and beaten way he must needs find out a way by himself which either the Dominicans nor any other of the followers of S. Augustine's rigors had found out before in making God to lay on Adam an unavoidable necessity of falling into sin and misery that so he might have opportunity to manifest his mercy in the electing of some few of his Posterity and his justice in the absolute rejecting of all the rest In which as he can find no Countenance from any of the Ancient Writers so he pretendeth not to any ground for it in the holy Scriptures For whereas some objected on Gods behalf De certis verbis non extare That the Decree of Adams Fall and consequently the involving of his whole Posterity in sin and misery had no foundation in the express words of Holy Writ Institut l. 3. c. 23. Sect. 7. he makes no other Answer to it than a quasi vero as if saith he God made and created man the most exact Piece of his Heavenly Workmanship without determining of his end And on this Point he was so resolutely bent that nothing but an absolute Decree for Adams Fall seconded by the like for the involving of all his Race in the same prediction would either serve his turn or preserve his Credit For whereas others had objected on Gods behalf that no such unavoidable necessity was laid upon man-kind by the will of God but rather that he was Created by God unto such a perishing estate because he foresaw to what his own perversness at the last would bring him He answereth that this Objection proves nothing at all or at least nothing to the purpose Calv. Institut lib. 3. cap. 23. sect 6. which said he tells us further out of Valla though otherwise not much versed as he there affirmeth in the holy Scriptures That this question seems to be superfluous because both Life and Death are rather the Acts of Gods Will than of his Prescience or fore-knowledge And then he adds as of his own that if God did but fore-see the successes of men and did not also dispose and order them by his Will then this Question should not without cause be moved Whether his fore-seeing any thing availed to the necessity of them â—aâ—m â—â— sect 7. But since saith he he doth no otherwise fore-see the things that shall come to pass than because he hath decreed that they should so come to pass it is in vain to move any Controversy about Gods fore-knowledge where it is certain that all things do happen rather by divine Ordinance and appointment Yet notwithstanding all these shifts he is forced to acknowledge the Decree of Adams Fall to be Horribile decretum a cruel and horrible Decree as indeed it is a cruel and horrible Decree to pre-ordain so many Millions to destruction and consequently unto sin that he might destroy them And then what can the wicked and impenitent do but ascribe all their sins to God by whose inevitable Will they are lost in Adam by whom they were particularly and personally necessitated to death and so by consequence to sin A Doctrine so injurious to God so destructive of Piety of such reproach amongst the Papists and so offensive to the Lutherans of what sort soever that they profess a greater readiness to fall back to Popery than to give way to this Predestinarian Pestilence by which name they call it to come in amongst them But howsoever having so great a Founder as Calvin was it came to be generally entertained in all the Churches of his Plat-form strongly opposed by Sebastian Castellino in Geneva it self but the poor man so despightfully handled both by him and Beza who followed him in all and went beyond him in some of his Devises that they never left pursuing him with complaints and clamours till they had first cast him out of the City and at the last brought him to his Grave The terrour of which example and the great name which Calvin had attained unto not only by his diligent Preaching but also by his laborious Writings in the eye of the World As it confirmed his power at home so did it make his Doctrines the more acceptable and esteemed abroad More generally diffused and more pertinaciously adhered unto in all those Churches which either had received the Genevian Discipline or whose Divines did most industriously labour to advance the same By means whereof it came to pass as one well observeth That of what account the Master of the Sentences was in the Church of Rome Hooker in eccle Pol. Pres p. 9. the same and more amongst the Preachers of the Reformed Churches Calvin had purchased so that they were deemed to be the most perfect Divines who were most skilful in his Writings His Books almost the very Canon by which both Doctrine and Discipline were to be judged The French Churches both under others abroad or at home in their own Country all cast according to the Mold which he had made The Church of Scotland in erecting the Fabrick of their own Reformation took the self same pattern Receive not long after in the Palatine Churches and in those of the Netherlands In all which as his Doctrine made way to bring in the Discipline so was it no hard matter for the Discipline to support the Doctrine and crush all those who durst oppose it Only it was permitted unto Beza and his Disciples to be somewhat wilder than the rest in placing the Decree of Predestination before the Fall which Calvin himself had more rightly placed in Massa corrupta in the corrupted Mass of Man-kind and the more moderate Calvinians as rightly presuppose for a matter necessary before there could be any place for the Election or Reprobation of particular persons But being they concurred with the rest as to the personal Election or Reprobation of particular persons the restraining of the Benefit of our Saviours sufferings to those few particulars whom only they had honoured with the glorious name of the Elect the working on them by the irresistible powers of Grace in the Act of Conversion and bringing them infallibly by the continual assistance of the said Grace unto life everlasting there was hardly any notice taken of thier Deviation they being scarce beheld in the condition of erring brethren though they differed from them in the main fountain which they built upon but passing under the name of Calvinists as they thus did And though such of the Divines of the Belgick Churches as were of the old Lutheran stock were better affected unto the Melancthonian Doctrine of Predestination than to that of Calvin yet knowing how pretious the name and memory of Calvin was held amongst them or being unwilling to fall foul upon one another they suffered his Opinions to prevail without opposition And so
it stood till the year 1592. when Mr. William Perkins an eminent Divine of Cambridge published his Book called the Armilla Aurea c. containing such a Doctrine of Predestination as Beza had before delivered but cast into a more distinct and methodical Form With him as being a Foreiner both by birth and dwelling a Supralapsarian in Opinion and one who had no personal Relations amongst themselves it was thought fittest to begin to confute Calvins Doctrines in the person of Perkins as many times a Lion is said to be corrected by the well Cudgelling of a Dog without fear of danger And against him it was his order in delivering the Decree of Pedestination that Arminius first took up the Bucklers in his Book intituled Examen Pradestinationis Perkinsoniae which gave the first occasion to those Controversies which afterwards involved the Sublapsarians also of which more hereafter In the mean time let us behold the Doctrine of the ' Supralapsarians first broacht by Calvin maintained by almost all his followers and at last polished and lickt over by the said Mr. Perkins as it was charged upon the Contra Remonstrants in the Conference at the Hague Anno 1610. in these following words viz. That God as some speak by an eternal and unchangeable Decree from amongst men Arcan Dog Aat Rom. p. 15. whom he considered as not created much less as faln ordained certain to eternal life certain to eternal death without any regard had to their righteousness or sin to their obedience or disobedience only because it was his pleasure or so it seemed good to him to the praise of his Justice and Mercy or as others like better to declare his saving Grace Wisdom and free Authority or Jurisdiction Many being also so ordained by his eternal and unchangeable decree fit for the execution of the same by the power or force whereof it is necessary that they be saved after a necessary and unavoidable manner who are ordained to Salvation so that 't is not possible that they should perish but they who are destined to destruction who are the far greater number must be damned necessarily and inevitably so that 't is not possible for them to be saved Which doctrine first makes God to be the Author of sin as both Piscator and Macarius and many other Supralapsarians as well as Perkins have positively and expresly affirmed him to be and then concludes him for a more unmerciful Tyrant than all that ever had been in the world were they joyned in one A more unmerciful Tyrant than the Roman Emperour who wished that all the people of Rome had but one Neck amongst them that he might cut it off at a blow he being such in voto only God alone in opere But this extremity being every day found the more indefensible by how much it had been more narrowly sifted and inquired into the more moderate and sobert sort of the Calvinians forsaking the Colours of their first Leaders betook themselves into the Camp of the rigid Lutherans and rather chose to joyn with the Dominican Fryers than to stand any longer to the dictates of their Master Calvin These passing by the name of Sublapsarians have given us such an order of Predestination as must and doth presuppose a fall and finds all man-kind generally in the Mass of Perdition The substance of whose doctrine both in this and the other Articles were thus drawn up by the Remonstrants in the Conference at the Hague before remembred 1. That God Almighty willing from eternity with himself to make a decree concerning the Election of some certain men but the rejection of others considered man-kind not only as created but also as faln and corrupted in Adam and Eve our first Parents and thereby deserving the Curse And that he decreed out of the fall and damnation to deliver and save some certain ones of his Grace to declare his Mercy But to leave others both young and old yea truly even certain Infants of men in Covenant and those INfants baptized and dying in their Infancy by his just Judgment in the Curse to declare his Justice and that without all consideration of Repentance and Faith in the former or of impenitence or unbelief in the latter For the execution of which decree God useth also such means whereby the Elect are necessarily and unavoidably saved but Reprobates necessarily and unavoidably perish 2. And therefore that Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World died not for all men but for those only who are elected either after the former or this latter manner he being the mean and ordained Mediator to save those only and not a man besides 3. Consequenty that the Spirit of God and of Christ doth work in those who are elected that way or this with such a force of Grace that they cannot resist it and so that it cannot be but that they must turn believe and thereupon necessarily be saved But that this irresistible grace and force belongs only to those so elected but not to Reprobates to whom not only the irresistible Grace is denied but also grace necessary and sufficient for Conversion for Faith and for Salvation is not afforded To which Conversion and Faith indeed they are called invited and freely sollicited outwardly by the revealed Will of God though notwithstanding the inward force necessary to Faith and Conversion is not bestowed on them according to the secret Will of God 4. But that so many as have once obtained a true and justifying Faith by such a kind of mesistible force can never totally nor finally lose it no not although they fall into the very most enormous sins but are so led and kept by the same irresistible force that 't is not possible for them or they cannot either totally or finally fall and perish And thus we have the doctrine of the Sublapsarian Calvinists as it stands gathered out of the Writings of particular men But because particular men may sometimes be mistaken in a publick doctrine and that the judgment of such men being collected by the hands of their Enemies may be unfaithfully related we will next look on the Conclusions of the Synod of Dort which is to be conceived to have delivered the Genuine sense of all the parties as being a Representative of all the Calvinian Churches of Europe except those of France some few Divines of England being added to them Of the calling and proceedings of this Synod we shall have occasion to speak further in the following Chapter A this time I shall only lay down the Results thereof in the five controverted Points as I find them abbreviated by Dan. Tilenus accordin gto the Heads before mentioned in summing up the doctrine of the Council of Trent Art 1. Of Divine Predestination That God by an absolute decree hath Elected to salvation a very small number of men without any regard to their Faith or obedience whatsoever Arcan Dogn Contr. Remon p. 23. and secluded from saving Grace all the
of Heavenly gifts he had no spot of uncleanness in him he was sound and perfect in all parts both outwardly and inwardly his reason was uncorrupt his understanding was pure and good his will was obedient and goldly he was made altogether like unto God in Righteousness in Holiness in Wisdom in Truth to be short in all kind of perfection After which having spoken of mans Temporal Felicities relating to the delicacies of the Garden of Eden and the Dominion which God gave him over all the Creatures the Homily doth thus proceed viz. But as the common nature of all men is in time of prosperity and wealth to forget not only themselves but also God even so did this first man Adam who having but one Commandment at Gods hand namely That he should not eat of the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil did notwithstanding most unmindfully or rather most wilfully break it Hom. of the Nativity p. 168. in forgetting the strait charge of his Maker and giving ear to the crafty suggestion of the evil Serpent the Devil whereby it came to pass that as before he was blessed so now he was accursed as before he was loved so now he was abhorred as before he was most beautiful and precious so now he was most vile and wretched in the sight of his Lord and Maker instead of the Image of God he was now become the Image of the Devil instead of a Citizen of Heaven he was now become the Bond-slave of Hell having in himself no one part of his former purity and cleanness but being altogether spotted and defiled insomuch that now he seemed to be nothing else but a lump of sin and therefore by the just judgment of God was condemned to everlasting death This being said touching the introduction of the body of Sin the Homily doth first proceed to the propagation and universal spreading of it and afterwards to the Restitution of lost man by faith in Christ This so great and miserable plague for so the Homily proceedeth if it had only rested in Adam who first offended it had been so much the easier and might the better have been born but it fell not only on him but also in his Posterity and Children for ever so that the whole brood of Adams flesh should sustain the self same fall and punishment which their forefather by his offence most justly had deserved S. Paul in the fifth to the Romans saith By the offence of only Adam the fault came upon all men to condemnation and by one mans disobedience many were made sinners By which words we are taught that as in Adam all men universally received the reward of sin that is to say became mortal and subject unto death having in themselves nothing but everlasting condemnation both of body and soul c. Had it been any marvel if man-kind had been utterly driven to desperation being thus fallen from life to death from salvation to destruction from Heaven to Hell But behold the great goodness and tender mercy of God in this behalf albeit mans wickedness and sinful behaviour was such that it deserved not in any part to be forgiven yet to the intent be might not be clean destitute of all hope and comfort in time to come he ordained a new Covenant and made a sure promise thereof namely that he would send a Mediater or Messias into the world which should make intercession and put himself as a stay between both parties to pacifie the wrath and indignation conceived against sin and to deliver man out of the miserable curse and cursed misery whereunto he was fallen head-long by disobeying the Will and Commandment of the only Lord and Maker Which ground thus laid we will proceed unto the Doctrine of Predestination according to the sense and meaning of the Church of England which teacheth us according to the general current of the ancient Authors before Augustins time that God from all Eternity intending to demonstrate his power and goodness designed the Creation of the World the making of man after his own Image and leaving him so made in a perfect liberty to do or not to do what he was commanded and that foreknowing from all Eternity the man abusing this liberty would plung himself and his posterity into a gulf of miseries he graciously resolved to provide them such a Saviour who should redeem them from their sins to elect all those to life eternal who laid hold upon him leaving the rest in the same state in which he found them for their incredulity And this I take to be the method of Election unto life Eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord according to the Doctrine of the Church of England For althought there be neither prius nor posterius in the will of God who sees all things at once together and willeth at the first sight without more delay yet to apply his acts unto our capacity as were the acts of God in their right production so were they primitively in his intention But Creation without peradventure did forego the fall and the disease or death which ensued upon it was of necessity to be before there could be a course taken to prescribe the cure and the prescribing of the cure must first be finished before it could be offered to particular persons Of which and of the whole doctrine of Predestination as before declared we cannot have an happier illustration than that of Agilmond and Lamistus in the Longobardian story of Paul the Deacon In which it is reported That Agilmond the second King of Lombardy riding by a Fish-pond saw seven your Children sprawling in it whom their unnatural Mothers as the Author thinketh had thrown into it not long before Amazed whereat he put his hunting spear amongst them and stirred them gently up and down which one of them laying hold on was drawn to land called Lamistus from the word Lama which is the Language of that People and signifies a Fish-pond Trained up in that Kings Court and finally made his Successor in the Kingdom Granting that Agilmond being forewarned in a Vision that he should find such Children sprawling for life in the midst of that pond might thereupon take a resolution within himself to put his hunting spear amongst them and the which of them soever should lay hold upon it should be gently drawn out of the water adopted for his Son and made Heir of his Kingdom No Humane story can afford us the like parallel case to Gods proceeding in the great work of Predestination to Eternal Life according to the Doctrine of the ancient Fathers and the Church of Rome as also of the Lutheran Churches and those of the Arminian party in the Belgick Provinces Now that this was the Doctrine also of the Church of England will easily appear upon a due search into the Monuments and Records thereof as they stand backed by those learned religious men who had a principal hand in carrying on the great work of the Reformation
Christ came to be a Lamb without spot who by the Sacrifice of himself once made should take away the sins of the world Than which there can be nothing more conducible to the point in hand And to this purpose also when Christ our Saviour was pleased to Authorize his Holy Apostles to preach the good Tidings of Salvations he gave them both a Command and a Commission To go unto all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature Mark 16.15 So that there was no part of the World nor any Creature in the same that is to say no rational Creature which seems to be excluded from a Possibility of obtaining Salvation by the Preaching of the Gospel to them if with a faith unfeigned they believe the same which the Church further teacheth us in this following Prayer appointed to be used in the Ordering of such as are called to the Office of the holy Priesthood viz. Almighty God and Heavenly Father which of thine Infinite Love and Goodness toward us hast given to us thy only and most Dear Beloved Son Jesus Christ to be our Redeemer and Author of Everlasting Life who after he had made perfect our Redemption by his Death and was ascended into Heaven sent forth abroad into the world his Apostles Prophets Evangelists Doctors and Pastors by whose labour and Ministry he gathered together a great Flock in all the parts of the World to set forth the Eternal Praise of his Holy Name For these so great Benefits of thy Eternal Goodness and for that thou hast vouchsafed to call thy Servant here present to the same Office and Ministry of Salvation of Mankind we render unto thee most hearty thanks and we worship and praise thee and we humbly beseech thee by the same thy Son to grant unto all which either here or elsewhere call upon thy Name that we may shew our selves thankful to thee for these and all other thy benefits and that we may daily increase and go forward in the knowledg and faith of thee and thy Son by the Holy Spirit So that as well by these thy Ministers as by them to whom they shall be appointed Ministers thy Holy Name may be always glorified and thy Blessed Kingdom enlarged through the same thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ who liveth and reigneth with thee in the Vnity of the same Holy Spirit world without end Amen Which Form in Ordering and Consecrating Bishops Priests and Deacons I note this only by the way being drawn up by those which had the making of the first Liturgy of King Edward the sixth and confirmed by Act of Parliament in the fifth and sixth of the said King was afterwards also ratified by Act of Parliament in the eighth year of Queen Elizabeth and ever since hath had its place amongst the publick Monuments and Records of the Church of England To these I shall only add one single testimony out of the Writings of each of the three godly Martyrs before remembred the point being so clearly stated by some of our Divines commonly called Calvinists though not by the Outlandish also that any longer insisting on it may be thought unnecessary First then Bishop Cranmer tells us in the Preface to his Book against Gardiner of Winchester aforementioned That our Saviour Christ according to the will of his Eternal Father when the time thereof was fully accomplished taking our Nature upon him came into this World from the high Throne of his Father to declare unto miserable Sinners the Goodness c. To shew that the time of Grace and Mercy was come to give light to them that were in darkness and in the shadow of death and to preach and give Pardon and full Remission of sin to all his Elected And to perform the same he made a Sacrifice and Oblation of his body upon the Cross which was a full Redemption Satisfaction and Propitiation for the sins of the whole World More briefly Bishop Latimer thus The Evangelist saith When Jesus was born c. Serm. 1. Sund. after Epiph. What is Jesus Jesus is an Hebrew word which signifieth in our English Tongue a Saviour and Redeemer of all Mankind born into the World This Title and Name To save appertaineth properly and principally unto him for he saved us else had we been lost for ever Bishop Hooper in more words to the same effect That as the sins of Adam Pref. to the ten Commandments without Priviledg or Exemption extended and appertained unto all and every of Adams Posterity so did this Promise of Grace generally appertain as well to every and singular of Adams Posterity as to Adam as it is more plainly expressed where God promiseth to bless in the seed of Abraham all the people of the World Next for the point of Vniversal Vocation and the extent of the Promises touching life Eternal besides what was observed before from the Publick Liturgy we find some Testimonies and Authorities also in the Book of Homilies In one whereof it is declared That God received the learned and unlearned and casteth away none Hom. of Holy Scrip. p. 5. but is indifferent unto all And in another place more largely that the imperfection or natural sickness taken in Adam excludeth not that person from the promise of God in Christ except we transgress the limits and bounds of this Original sin by our own folly and malice If we have Christ then have we with him Hom. against fear of death p. 62. and by him all good things whatsoever we can in our hearts wish or desire as Victory over death sin hell c. The truth hereof is more clearly evidenced in the Writings of the godly Martyrs so often mentioned as first of Bishop Latimer who discourseth thus We learn saith he by this sentence that multi sunt vocati that many are called c. that the preaching of the Gospel is universal that it appertaineth to all mankind Serm. Septure that it is written in omnem terram exivit sonus eorum through the whole world their sound is heard Now seeing that the Gospel is universal it appeareth that he would have all mankind be saved that the fault is not in him if they be damned for it is written thus Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri God would have all mankind saved his salvation is sufficient to save all mankind Thus also in another place That the promises of Christ our Saviour are general they appertain to all mankind He made a general Proclamation saying Qui credit in me 1 Serm Lincol habet vitam aeternam Whosoever believeth me hath eternal life And not long after in the same Sermon That we must consider wisely what he saith with his own mouth Venite and me omnes Hook pres to Commo c. Mark here he saith mark here he saith Come all ye wherefore should any body despair or shut out himself from the promises of Christ which be general and appertain to the whole
XVIII A Declaration of the Doctrine in the Points disputed under the new establishment made by Queen Elizabeth 1. the Doctrine of the second Book of Homilies concerning the wilful fall of Adam the miserable estate of man the restitution of lost man in Jesus Christ and the universal redemption of all man-kind by his death and passion 2. The doctrine of the said second Book concerning universal grace the possibility of a total and final falling and the co-operation of mans will with the grace of God 3. The judgment of Reverend Bishop Jewel touching the universal redemption of mankind by the death of Christ Predestination grounded upon faith in Christ and reached out unto all them that believe in him by Mr. Alexander Poynets 4. Dr. Harsnet in his Sermon at St. Pauls Cross Anno 1584. sheweth that the absolute decree of Reprobation turneth the truth of God into a lie and makes him to be the Author of sin 5. That it deprives man of the natural freedom of his will makes God himself to be double minded to have two contrary wills and to delight in mocking his poor Creature Man 6. And finally that it makes God more cruel and unmerciful than the greatest Tyrant contrary to the truth of Scripture and the constant Doctrine of the Fathers 7. The rest of the said Sermon reduced unto certain other heads directly contrary to the Calvinian Doctrines in the points disputed 8. Certain considerations on the Sermon aforesaid with reference to the subject of it as also to the time place and persons in and before which it was first preached An Answer to some Objections concerning a pretended Recantation falsly affirmed to have been made by the said Mr. Harsnet 10. That in the judgment of the Right Learned Dr. King after Bishop of London the alteration of Gods denounced judgments in some certain cases infers no alteration in his Counsels the difference between the changing of the will and to will a charge 11. That there is something in Gods decrees revealed to us and something concealed unto himself the difference between the inferiour and superiour causes and of the conditionalty of Gods threats and promises 12. The accommodating of the former part of this discourse to the case of the Ninevites 13. And not the case of the Ninevites to the case disputed THese Obstacles being thus removed I shall proceed unto a Declaration of the Churches Doctrine under this new establishment made by Queen Elizabeth And first all Arguments derived from the publick Liturgy and the first book of Homilies being still in force we will next see what is delivered in the Homilies of the second part establisht by a special Article and thereby made a part of the doctrine here by Law established And first as touching the doctrine of Predestination it is declared in the Homily of the Nativity That as in Adam all men universally sinned so in Adam all men received the reward of sin that is to say became mortal and subject unto death having in themselves nothing but everlasting condemnation both of body and soul that man being in this wretched case ti pleased God to make a new Covenant with him namely that he would send a Mediator or Messias into the world which should make intercession and put himself as a stay between both parties to pacifie wrath and indignation conceived against sin and to deliver man out of the miserable curse and cursed misery whereunto he was fallen headlong by disobeying the Will and Commandment of the only Lord and Maker Nor secondly was this deliverance and redemption partial intended only for a few but general and universal for all man-kind the said Homily telling us not long after that all this was done to the end the promise and covenant of God made unto Abraham and his Posterity Hom. p. 172. concerning the Redemption of the World might be credited and believed to deliver man-kind from the bitter curse of the Law and make perfect satisfaction by his death for the sins of all People For the accomplishment whereof It was expedient saith the Homily that our Mediator should be such an one as might take upon him the sins of Man-kind and sustain the due punishment thereof viz. Death to the intent he might more fully and perfectly make satisfaction for man-kind which is as plain as words can make it and yet not more plain than that which followeth in the Homily of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament Fol. 200. Nor doth the Homily speak less plainly in another place concerning Universal Grace than it doth speak to this in reference to Universal Redemption as appears evidently by the first part of the Sermon against the peril of Idolatry Hom. 1. part against the peril in which it is declared in the way of paraphrase on some passages in the 40. Chapter of the Prophet Isaiah That it had been preached to men from the beginning and how by the Creation of the World and the greatness of the work they might understand the Majesty of God the Creator and Maker of all things to be greater than it should be expressed in any image or bodily similitude And therefore by the light of the same instruction had they not shut their eyes against it they might have come unto a further knowledg of the Will of God and by degrees to the performance of all moral duties required of them before Christ coming in the flesh And in the third part of the same Sermon there are some passages which do as plainly speak of falling from God the final alienation of the Soul of a man once righteous from his love and favour Where it is said how much better in were that the Arts of Painting and we had never been found than one of them whose Souls are so precious in the sight of God should by occasion of Image or Picture perish and be lost And what can here be understood by the souls which are so precious in the sight of God but the souls of the Elect of justified and righteous persons the souls of wicked men being vile and odious in his sight hated by God as Esau was before all Eternity as the Calvinians do informs us And what else can we understand by being perished and lost but a total or final alienation of those precious souls Hom. of the Resurrection p. 139. from his grace and favour more plainly speaks the Homily of the Resurrection in which the Church represents unto us what shame it should be for us being thus clearly and freely washed from our sin to return to the filthiness thereof again What a folly it would be for us being thus endued with Righteousness to lose in again What a madness it would be to lose the inheritance we be now set in for the vile and transitory pleasure of sins And what an unkindness it would be where our Saviour Christ of his mercy is come unto us to dwell with us as our guest to drive him from
being thus discharged he shews in the next place Ibid. 48. that as God desireth not the death of man without relation to his sin so he desireth not the death of the sinful man or of the wicked sinful man but rather that they shoudl turn from their wickedness and live And he observes it is said unto the Goats in St. Matthews Gospel Ite malidicti in ignem paratum he doth not say Maledicti patris Go ye cursed of the Father as it is Benedicti patris when he speaks of the sheep God intituling himself to the blessing only and that the fire is prepared but for whom Non vobis sed Diabolo Angelis ejus not for you but for the Devil and his Angels So that God delighteth to prepare neither Death nor Hell for damned men The last branch of his Discourse he resolves into six consequences as links depending on his Chain 1. Gods absolute Will is not the cause of Reprobation but sin 2. No man is of an absolute necessity the child of Hell so as by Gods grace he may not avoid it 3. God simply willeth every living soul to be saved and to come to the Kingdom of Heaven 4. God sent his Son to save every soul and to bring it to the Kingdom of Heaven 5. God offereth Grace effectually to save every one and to direct him to the Kingdom of Heaven 6. The nelgect and contempt of this Grace is the cause why every one doth not come to Heaven and not any privative Decree Council and Determination of God The stating and canvasing of which points so plainly curtly to the Doctrines of che old Zuinglian Gospellers and the modern Calvinians as they take up the rest of the Sermon so to the Sermon I refer the Reader for his furtehr satisfaction in them I note this only in the close that there is none of the five Arminian Articles as they commonly call them which is not contained in terms express or may not easily be found by way of Deduction in one or more of the six consequences before recited Now in this Sermon there are sundry things to be considered as namely first That the Zuinglian or Calvinian Gospel in these points was grown so strong that the Preacher calls it their Goliah so huge and monstrous that many quaked and trembled at it but none that is to say but few or none vel duo vel nemo in the words of Persius durst take up Davids sling to throw it down Secondly That in canvasing the absolute Decree of Reprobation the Preacher spared none of those odious aggravations which have been charged upon the Doctrines of the modern Calvinists by the Remonstrants and their party in these latter times Thirdly That the Sermon was preached at St. Pauls Cross the greatest Auditory of the Kingdom consisting not only of the Lord Mayor the Aldermen and the rest of the chief men in the City but in those times of such Bishops and other learned men as lived occasionally in London and the City of Westminster as also of the Judges and most learned Lawyers some of the Lords of the Council being for the most part present also Fourthly That for all this we cannot find that any offence was taken at it or any Recantation enjoyned upon it either by the high Commission or Bishop of London or any other having Authority in the Church of England nor any complaint made of it to the Queen or the Council-Table as certainly there would have been if the matter of the Sermon had been contrary to the Rules of the Church and the appointments of the same And finally we may observe that though he was made Archbiship of York in the Reign of King Charles 1628. when the times are thought to have been inclinable to those of the Arminian Doctrines yet he was made Master of Pembrook Hill Bishop of Chichester and from thence translated unto Norwich in the time of King James And thereupon we may conclude that King James neither thought this Doctrine to be against the Articles of Religion here by Law established nor was so great an Enemy to them or the men that held them as some of our Calvinians have lately made him But against this it is objected by Mr. Prin in his book of Perpetuity c. printed at London in the year 1627. 1. That the said Mr. Harsnet was convented for this Sermon and forced to recant it as Heretical 2. That upon this Sermon Perpetulty c. 304. and the Controversies that arose upon it in Cambridg between Baroe and Whitacres not only the Articles of Lambeth were composed of which more hereafter but Mr. Wotton was appointed by the University to confute the same 3. That the siad Sermon was so far from being published or printed that it was injoyned by Authority to be recanted For Answer whereunto it would first be known where the said Sermon was recanted and by whose Authority Not in or by the University of Cambridg where Mr. Harsnet lived both then and a long time after for the Sermon was preached at St. Pauls Cross and so the University could take no cognisance of it nor proceed against him for the same And if the Recantation was madea t St. Pauls Cross where the supposed offence was given it would be known by whose Authority it was enjoyned Not by the Bishop of London in whose Diocess the Sermon was preached for his Authority did not reach so far as Cambridg whither the Preacher had retited after he had performed the service he was called unto and if it were injoyned by the High Commission and performed accordingly there is no question to be made but that we should have heard of in the Anti-Arminianism where there are no less than eight leaves spend in relating the story of a like Recantation pretended to be made by one Mr. Barret on the tenth of May 1595. and where it is affirmed that the said Mr. Harsnet held and maintained the same errors for which Barret was to make his Recantation But as it will be proved hereafter that no such Recantation wass made by Barret so we have reason to believe that no such Recantation was imposed on Harsnet Nor secondly can it be made good that the Controversies between Doctor Whitacres and Dr. Baroe were first occasioned by this Sermon or that Mr. Wotton was appointed by the University to confute the same For it appears by a Letter written from the heads of that University to their Chancellor the Lord Treasurer Burleigh dated March 18. 1595. that Baroe had maintained the same Doctrines and his Lectures and Determinations above 14 years before by their own account for which see Chap. 21. Numb 80. which must be three years at the least before the preaching of that Sermon by Mr. Harsnet And though it is probable enopugh that Mr. Wotton might give himself the trouble of confuting the Sermon yet it is more than probable that he was not required so to do by that
or exhorting but taking to themselves the liberty of their own expression for the phrase and stile according to the purpose and effect of the said Injunction And it is worth our noting too that presently upon the end of this exhortation or bidding of the Prayers used by Dr. Parker there followeth in the book these words Hic factae sunt tacitae preces By all which we may perceive most evidently that it was then the peoples practice and is now our duty immediately upon the bidding of the Prayers or on the Preachers moving of the people to joyn with them in Prayer as the Canon hath it to recollect the heads recommended to them and tacitly to represent them to the Lord in their devotions or otherwise to comprechend them in the Pater-noster with which the Preacher by the Canon is to close up all And now being come to the times of King Edward the sixth we will next look on Bishop Latimer the fourth of these five Prelates whom before I spake of who living in King Henry and King Edwards times and in their times using that Form of bidding Prayers which is prescribed both in the Canon and Injunctions shews plainly that the antient practice in this kind was every way conform to the present Canon and the old Injunctions And first to keep our selves to King Edwards Reign we have eight passages in his Sermons preached in that Kings time whereby we may perceive what the usage was six of them laid down in brief and two more at large the two last being as a comment on the former six of the six brief the first occurs in his 2d p. 33. Sermon before King Edward thus Hitherto goeth the Text That I may declare this the better to the edifying of your Souls and the glory of God I shall desire you to pray c. So in his third before the King p. 42. March the 22. Before I enter further into this matter I shall desire you to pray c. And in the fourth March 29. That I may have grace so to open the remnant of this Parable that it may be to the glory of God and edifying of your souls I shall desire you to pray in the which prayer c. And in the 5th Sermon before the King on the 6th of April p. 51. having entred on his matter he thus invites them to their Prayers And that I may have grace c. So in the sixth April the 13th This is the story and that I may declare this Text so as it may be to the honour of God and the edifying of your souls and mine both I shall desire you to help me with your prayers in the which c. The last is in a Sermon before that King p. 108. Preached at the Court in Westm An. 1550. where he doth it thus Here therefore I shall desire you to pray c. These instances compared with the other two make the matter plain whereof the first is in the seventh before King Edward April 19. 1549. Thus This day we have in memory Christs bitter passion and death the remedy of our Sin Therefore I intend to treat of a piece of the story of his passion I am not able to treat of all that I may do this the better and that it may be to the honour of God and the edification of your Souls and mine both I shall desire you to pray c. In this prayer I shall desire you to remember the Souls departed with laud and praise to Almighty God that he did vouchsafe to assist them at the hour of their death I shall desire you to pray c. And in the which c. What mean these caetera's That we shall see most manifestly in his Sermon Preached at Stamford p. 88. Octob. 9. 1550. which shews indeed most fully that the Form of bidding Prayers then used was every way conform to the Injunction of King Edward VI. and very near the same which was prescribed after by the Queens Injunction For having as before proposed his matter he thus bids the Prayers And that I may at this time so declare them as may be for Gods glory your edifying and my discharge I pray you to help me with your prayers in the which prayer c. For the Vniversal Church of Christ through the whole world c. for the preservation of our Sovereign Lord King Edward the Sixth sole Supreme Head under God and Christ of the Churches of England and Ireland c. Secondly for the Kings most honourable Council Thirdly I commend unto you the Souls departed this life in the Faith of Christ that ye remember to give laud praise and thanks to Almighty God for his great goodness and mercy shewed unto them in that great need and conflict against the Devil and Sin and that gave them in the hour of death faith in his Sons Death and Passion whereby they conquer and overcome and get the victory Give thanks I say for this adding prayers and supplications for your selves that it may please God to give you like faith and grace to trust only in the death of his dear Son as he gave unto them For as they be gone so must we and the Devil will be as ready to tempt us as he was them and our sins will light as heavy upon us as theirs did upon them and we were as weak and unable to resist as were they Pray therefore that we may have Grace to die in the same faith as they did and at the latter day to be raised with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and be partakers with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven for this and all other graces let us say the Lords prayer Now unto Bishop Latimer we will joyn another of the same time and as high a calling which is Dr. Gardiner Bishop of Winchester of whom whatever may be said in other respects in this it cannot be objected but that he followed the Form and Order then prescribed for in a Sermon Preached before King Edward VI. Anno 1550. being the Fourth of that Kings Reign before the naming of his Text for ought appears he thus bids the Prayer Most honourable Audience I purpose by the grace of God to declare some part of the Gospel that is accustomably used to be read in the Church at this day and that because without the special grace of God neither I can speak any thing to your edifying nor ye receive the same accordingly I shall desire you all that we may joyntly pray all together for the assistance of his grace In which prayer I commend to Almighty God your most excellent Majesty our Sovereign Lord King of England France and Ireland and of the Church of England and Ireland next and immediately under God here on earth Supream Head Q. Katharine Dowager my L. Maries grace and my L. Elizabeths grace your Majesties most dear Sisters my L. Protectors grace with all others of your most honourable
posset de illo statim vindicari by vigour of his Episcopal function and the Authority of his Chair he had power enough to be straightway avenged of him for the same Yet being the matter was referred unto him he declares his thoughts that if the Deacon whom he writ of would repent his folly and give some humble satisfaction to the offended Bishop he might not do amiss to remit the fault But if he did provoke him further by his perverse and petulant behaviour fungeris circa eum potestate honoris tui ut eum vel deponas vel abstineas he should exercise the authority of his place or honour and either degrade or excommunicate him as he saw occasion Here was no sending to the Clergy to have their advice no offering of the matter unto their better consideration but all referred unto the Bishop to do therein as unto him seemed best of his own authority So that both Cyprian and other Bishops both might and did and durst do many things without advising with the Clergy contrary to what some have told us And this they might do well enough without dread or fear Smectymn sect 9. p. 38. Ibid. that any of their Sentences might be made irrita or void by the fourth Council of Carthage which was not held until 130 years and upwards after Cyprian's death And for the interest of the People in these publick Censures I find them not at all considered but where the crime was hainous and the Church scandalized by the sins and lewdness of the party punished In which case there was such regard had of them that the Sentence was published in facie Ecclesiae in the full Congregation of Gods people And that as well that they might the more heartily detest such scandalous and sinful courses as that they might eschew his company and conversation as they would do the company of an Heathen or of a Publican Tunc se ab ejus conjunctione salubriter continet Aug. cont Ep. Parmen lib. 3. cap. 2. ut nec cibum quisquam cum eo sumat not one of them so much as eating with the man who is so accursed Which as they are St. Austins words so by the tenor of the place they seem to intimate St. Cyprians practice So that if Excommunications had not passed in former times Smectymn p. 40. without the knowledge and approbation of the body of the Church to which the delinquent did belong as some men suppose it was upon this reason only as themselves affirm because the people were to forbear Communion with such And being that in the Church of England the Excommunication of notorious sinners is publickly presented unto the knowledg of the People for that very reason because they should avoid the company of Excommunicated persons I see not any thing in this particular I mean as to the publication of the Sentence in which the Church of England differs from the Primitive and ancient practice And did our Bishops keep the power of Excommunicating to themselves alone and not devolve it upon others they did not any thing herein but what was practised by Saint Cyprian For Reconciling of the Penitent which naturally and of course is to come after Excommunication I find indeed that many times St. Cyprian took along with him the counsel and consent both of his Presbyters and People And certainly it stood with reason that it should so be that as the whole Church had been scandalized at the heinousness of the offence so the whole Church also should have satisfaction in the sincerity of the Repentance Many and several are the passages in this Fathers Writings which do clearly prove it none more exactly than that in his Epistle to Cornelius where wishing that he were in presence when perverse persons did return from their sins and follies Videres quis mihi labor sit persuadere patientiam fratribus nostris Cypr. Ep. 55. you would then see saith he what pains I take to persuade our brethren that suppressing their just grief of heart recipiendis malis curandisque consentiant they would consent to the receiving and the curing consequently of such evil members Yet did he not so tie himself to this observance but that sometimes according as he saw occasion unus atque alius obnitente plebe contradicente mea tamen facilitute suscepti sunt some though not many had been reconciled and reimbosomed with the Church not only without the Peoples knowledg but against their wills So that the interesse which the People had in these relaxations of Ecclesiastical Censures were not belonging to them as in point of right but only in the way of contentation The leading voice was always in the Bishop and so the negative voice was also when it came to that He was to give his fiat first before the Clergy had any thing to do therein St. Cyprian telling of himself Id. Ibid. quam prompta plena dilectione that he received such Penitents as came unto him with such affection and facility that by his over-much indulgence to them pene ipse delinque he was even culpable himself And if it were no otherwise in his time with the Church of Carthage in this case there it appears to be in the third Council there assembled the Bishop had not only the leading voice but the directing and disposing power Concil Car. III. cap. 32. a negative voice into the bargain For there it is ordained Vt Presbyter Episcopo inconsulto non reconciliet Poenitentem that the Presbyters were not to reconcile a Penitent unless it were in the Bishops absence or in a case of urgent and extream necessity as in point of death it being there declared withal that it belonged unto the Bishop Ibid. c. 31. poenitentiae tempora designare to appoint the time and the continuance of the Penance as he saw occasion And this to be the practice of S. Cyprians time is most clear and evident by the displeasure he conceived against some Presbyters who had admitted men which before were lapsed without leave from him to the blessed Sacrament Cypr. Ep. 10. A matter which he aggravates to the very height charging them that neither mindful of the Gospel nor their own place and station nor of the future day of Judgment nor of the authority of him their Bishop they had admitted such as fell in time of persecution to the Churches Sacraments not being by him authorized so to do And this he saith was sure an insolency quod nunquam omnino sub Antecessoribus factum which never had been done in any of his Predecessors times and being now done cum contumelia contemptu Praepositi was done in manifest contempt and reproach of their Bishop threatning withal that if they did persist in these wilful courses he would make use of that authority qua me uti Dominus jubet which God had given him for that purpose viz. suspend them from their Ministery and bring them
of Enos Seths son that he was born Anno two hundred thirty six And till that time there was no Sabbath But then as some conceive the Sabbath day began to be had in honour because it is set down in Scripture that then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord. That is as Torniellus descants upon the place then Gen. 4. Annal. Anno 236. n. 4. were spiritual Congregations instituted as we may probably conjecture certain set Forms of Prayers and Hymns devised to set forth Gods glory certain set times and places also set apart for those pious duties praecipue diebus Sabbati especially the Sabbath-days in which most likely they began to abstain from all servile works in honour of that God whom they well knew had rested on the seventh day from all his labours Sure Torniellus's mind was upon his Mattins when he made this Paraphrase He had not else gathered a Sabbath from this Text considering that not long before he had thus concluded That sanctifying of the Sabbath here on Earth was not in use until the Law was given by Moses But certainly this Text will bear no such matter were it considered as it ought The Chaldee Paraphrase thus reads it Tunc in diebus ejus inceperunt filii hominum ut non orarent in nomine Domini V. 3. of this Chapter which is quite contrary to the English Our Bibles of the last Translation in the margin thus then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord and generally the Jews as Saint Hierom tells us do thus gloss upon it Tunc primum in nomine Domini Qu. Hebraic in Gen. in similitudine ejus fabricata sunt idola that then began men to set up Idols both in the name and after the similitude of God Ainsworth in his Translation thus Then began men prophanely to call upon the Name of the Lord who tells us also in his Annotations on this Text out of Rabbi Maimony That in these days Idolatry took its first beginning and the people worshipped the stars and all the host of Heaven so generally that at the last there were few left which acknowledged God as Enoch Methuselah Noah Sem and Heber So that we see not any thing in this Text sufficient to produce a Sabbath But take it as the English reads it which is agreeable to the Greek and vulgar Latin and may well stand with the Original yet will the cause be little better For men might call upon Gods Name and have their publick meetings and set Forms of Prayer without relation to the seventh day more than any other As for this Enos Eusebius proposeth him unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Praeparat Evang. l. 7 ◠as the first man commended in the Scripture for his love to God that we by his example might learn to call upon Gods Name with assured hope But yet withal he tells us of him that he observed not any of those Ordinances which Moses taught unto the Jews whereof the Sabbath was the chief as formerly we observed in Adam And Epiphanius ranks him amongst those Fathers who lived according to the Rules of the Christian Church Therefore no Sabbath kept by Enos We will next look on Enoch who as the Text tells us walked with God and therefore doubt we not but he would carefully have kept the Sabbath had it been required But of him also the Fathers generally say the same as they did before of others For Justin Martyr not only makes him one of those which without Circumcision and the Sabbath had been approved of by the Lord but pleads the matter more exactly The substance of his plea is this that if the Sabbath or Circumcision were to be counted necessary to eternal life we must needs fall upon this absurd opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dial. cum Tryphone that the same God whom the Jews worshipped was not the God of Enoch and of other men about those times which neither had been Circumcised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor kept the Sabbath nor any other Ordinances of the Law of Moses So Irenaeus speaking before of Circumcision and the Sabbath placeth this Enoch among those Lib. 4. cap. 30. qui sine iis quae praedicta sunt justificationem adepti sunt which had been justified without any the Ordinances before remembred Tertullian more fully yet Enoch justissimum nec circumcisum Adv. Judaeos nec sabbatizantem de hoc mundo transtulit c. Enoch that righteous man being neither Circumcised nor a Sabbath-keeper was by the Lord translated and saw not death to be an Item or instruction unto us that we without the burden of the Law of Moses shall be found acceptable unto God He sets him also in his challenge as one whom never any of the Jews could prove Sabbati cultorem esse to have been a keeper of the Sabbath De Demonstr l. 4. c. 6. Eusebius too who makes the Sabbath one of Moses's institutions hath said of Enoch that he was neither circumcised nor medled with the Law of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. and that he lived more like a Christian than a Jew the same Eusebius in his seventh de praeparatione and Epiphanius in the place before remembred affirm the same of him as they do of Adam Abel Seth and Enos and what this Epiphanius saith of him Scal. de Emend Temp. l. 7. that he affirms also of his son Methusalem Therefore nor Enoch nor Methusalem ever kept the Sabbath It 's true the Aethiopians in their Kalendar have a certain period which they call Sabbatum Enoch Enoch's Sabbath But this consisteth of seven hundred years and hath that name either because Enoch was born in the seventh Century from the Creation viz. in the year six hundred twenty two or because he was the seventh from Adam It 's true that many of the Jews Beda in Ger. 4. and some Christians too have made this Enoch an Emblem of the heavenly and eternal Sabbath which shall never end because he was the seventh from Adam and did never taste of death as did the six that went before him But this is no Argument I trow that Enoch ever kept the Sabbath whiles he was alive Note that this Enoch was translated about the year nine hundred eighty seven and that Methusalem died but one year only before the Flood which was 1655. And so far we are safely come without any rub To come unto the Flood it self to Noah who both saw it and escaped it it is affirmed by some that he kept the Sabbath and that both in the Ark and when he was released out of it if not before Yea they have arguments also for the proof hereof but very weak ones such as they dare not trust themselves It is delivered in the eighth of the Book of Genesis that after the return of the Dove into the Ark Noah stayed yet other seven days before he sent
Galatine reports from their own Records that in their latter exposition on the Book of Numbers upon those words send men that they may search the land of Canaan Chap. 13.2 they thus resolve it Nuncio praecepti licitum est c. A Messenger that goes upon Command may travail any day at what time be will And why because he is a Messenger upon Command Nuncius autem praecepti excludit sabbatum The phrase is somwhat dark but the meaning plain that those which went upon that Errand did not keep the Sabbath Certain it also is that for all that time no nor for any part thereof the people did not keep the Sabbath compleatly as the Law appointed For where there were two things concurring to make up the Sabbath first rest from labour and secondly the sacrifices destinate unto the day however they might rest some Sabbaths from their daily labours yet sacrifices they had none until they came into the Land of Canaan Now that they rested sometimes on the Sabbath day and perhaps did so generally in those forty years is manifest by that great and memorable Business touching the man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath The case is briefly this the people being in the Wilderness Numb 15. Verse 32. ad 37. found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day and brought him presently unto Moses Moses consulted with the Lord and it was resolved that the offender should be stoned to death which was done accordingly The Law before had ordered it that he who so offended should be put to death but the particular manner of his death was not known till now The more remarkable is this case because it was the only time that we can hear of that execution had been done upon any one according as the Law enacted and thereupon the Fathers have took some pains to search into the reasons of so great severity De vit Mos l. 3. Philo accuseth him of a double crime in one whereof he was the principal and an Accessary only in the other For where it was before commanded that there should be no fire kindled on the Sabbath day this party did not only labour on the day of rest but also laboured in the gathering of such materials 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which might administer fuel to prohibited fire Saint Basil seems a little to bemoan the man De judicio Dei in that he smarted so for his first offence not having otherwise offended either God or Man and makes the motive of his death neither to consist in the multitude of his sins or the greatness of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only in his disobedience to the will of God But we must have a more particular motive yet than this And first Rupertus tells us per superbiam illud quod videbatur exiguum commisit In locum that he did sin presumptuously with an high hand against the Lord and therefore God decreed he should die the death God not regarding either what or how great it was sed qua mente fecerat but with what mind it was committed But this is more I think than Rupertus knew being no searcher of the heart Rather I shall subscribe herein unto Saint Chrysostom Who makes this Quaere first Hom. 39. in Matth. 12. seeing the Sabbath as Christ saith was made for man why was he put to death that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath And then returns this answer to his own demand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. because in case God had permitted that the Law should have been slighted in the first beginning none would have kept it for the future Theodoret to that purpose also ne autor fieret leges transgrediendi Qu. 31. in Num. lest other men encouraged by his example should have done the like the punishment of this one man striking a terrour unto all No question but it made the people far more observant of the Sabbath than they would have been who were at first but backwards in the keeping of it as is apparent by that passage in the sixteenth of Exod. v. 27. And therefore stood the more in need not only of a watch-word or Memento even in the very front of the Law it self but of some sharper course to stir up their memory Therefore this execution was the more requisite at this instant as well because the Jews by reason of their long abode in a place of continual servile toil could not be suddenly drawn unto contrary offices without some strong impression of terrour as also because nothing is more needful than with extremity to punish the first transgressours of those Laws that do require a more exact observation for the times to come What time this Tragedy was acted is not known for certain By Torniellus it is placed in the year 2548. of the Worlds Creation which was some four years after the Law was given More than this is not extant in the Scripture touching the keeping of the Sabbath all the life of Moses What was done after we shall see in the Land of Promise In the mean time It is most proper to this place to take a little notice of those several Duties wherein the sanctifying of the Sabbath did consist especially that we may know the better what we are to look for at the peoples hands when we bring them thither Two things the Lord commanded in his holy Scripture that concern the Sabbath the keeping holy of the same one in relation to the People the other in reference to the Priest In reference to the People he commanded only rest from labour that they should do no manner of work and that 's contained expresly in the Law it self In reference to the Priest he commanded sacrifice that on the Sabbath day over and above the daily sacrifice there should be offered to the Lord two Lambs of an year old without blemish one in the morning and the other in the evening Numb 28. as also to prepare first and then place the Shewbread being twelve loaves one for every Tribe continually before the Lord every Sabbath day These several references so divided the Priest might do his part without the People and contrary the People do their part without the Priest Of any Sabbath duties which were to be performed between them wherein the Priest and People were to join together the Scriptures are directly silent As for these several Duties that of the Priest the Shew-bread and the sacrifice was not in practice till they came to the Land of Canaan and then though the Priest offered for the People yet he did not with them So that for forty years together all the life of Moses the sanctifying of the Sabbath did consist only for ought we find in a Bodily rest a ceasing from the works of their weekly labours and afterwards in that and in the Sacrifices which the Priest made for them Which as they seem to be the greater of the two so
say it is moved by it self And he condemned yea mocked the Lutherans manner of speech that the Will followeth as a dead and unreasonable Creature for being reasonable by Nature moved by its own Cause which is God it is moved as reasonable and followeth a reasonable And likewise that God consenteth though men will not and spurn at him For it is a contradiction that the Effect should spurn against the Cause That it may happen that god may effectually convert one that before hath spurned before sufficient prevention but afterwards cannot because a gentleness in the Will moved must needs follow the Efficacy of the Divine Motion Soto said That every Divine Inspiration was only sufficient and that that whereunto Free-will hath assented obtaineth efficiency by that consent without which it is ineffectual not by the defect of it self but of the man The Opinion he defended very fearfully because it was opposed that the distinction of the Reprobate from the Elect would proceed from man contrary to the perpetual Catholick sense that the Vessels of Mercy are distinguished by Grace from the Vessels of Wrath. That Gods Election would be for Works foreseen and not for his good Pleasure That the Doctrine of the Fathers in the Affrican and French Councils against the Pelagians hath published that God maketh them to will which is to say that he maketh them consent therefore giving consent to us it ought to be attributed to the Divine Power or else he that is saved would be no more obliged to God than he that is damned if God should use them both alike But notwithstanding all these Reasons the contrary Opinion had the general applause though many confessed that the Reasons of Catanca were not resolved and were displeased that Soto did not speak freely but said that the Will consenteth in a certain manner so that it may in a certain manner resist as though there were a certain manner of mean between this Affirmation and Negation The free speech of Catanca and the other Dominicans did trouble them also who knew not how to distinguish the Opinion which attributeth Justification by consent from the Pelagian and therefore they counselled to take heed of leaping beyond the Mark by too great a desire to condemn Luther that Objection being esteemed above all that by this means the Divine Election or Predestination would be for Works foreseen which no Divine did admit The Ground thus laid we shall proceed unto a Declaration of the Judgment of the Church of Rome in the five Articles disputed afterwards with such heat betwixt the Remonstrants and the Contra Remonstrants in the Belgick Church so far forth as it may be gathered from the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent and such preparatory Discourses as smoothed the way to the Conclusions which were made therein In order whereunto it was advised by Marcus Viguerius Bishop of Sinigali to separate the Catholick Doctrine from the contrary and to make two Decrees in the one to make a continued Declaration and Confirmation of the Doctrine of the Churches Ibid. p. 215. and in the other to condemn and Anathematize the contrary But in the drawing up of the Decrees there appeared a greater difficulty than they were aware of in conquering whereof the Cardinal of Sancta Cruz one of the Presidents of the Council took incredible pains avoiding as much as was possible to insert any thing controverted amongst the School-men and so handling those that could not be omitted as that every one might be contented And to this end he observed in every Congregation what was disliked by any and took it away or corrected it as he was advised and he spake not only in the Congregations but with every one in particular was informed of all the doubts and required their Opinions He diversifyed the matter with divers Orders changed sometimes one part sometimes another until he had reduced them unto the Order in which they now are which generally pleased and was approved by all Nor did the Decrees thus drawn and setled give less content at Rome than they did at Trent for being transmitted to the Pope and by him committed to the Fryers and other learned men of the Court to be consulted of amongst them they found an universal approbation because every one might understand them in his own sense And being so approved of were sent back to Trent and there solemnly passed in a full Congregation on the thirteenth of January 1547. according to the account of the Church of Rome And yet it is to be observed that though the Decrees were so drawn up as to please all parties especially as to the giving of no distast to the Dominican Fryers and theis Adherents yet it is casie to be seen that they incline more favourably to the Franciscans whose cause the Jesuits have since wedded and speak more literally and Grammatically to the sence of that party than they to do the others which said I shall present the Doctrine of the Council of Trent as to these controverted Points in this Order following 1. Of Divine Predestination All Mankind having lost its primitive integrity by the sin of Adam they became thereby the Sons of wrath Concil Trid. Sess 6. c. 1. and so much captivated under the command of Satan that neither the Gentiles by the power of Nature nor the Jews by the Letter of the Law of Moses were able to free themselves from that grievous Servitude In which respect it pleased Almighty God the Father of all Mercies to promise first Ibid c. 2. and afterwards actually to send his only begotten Son Jesus Christ into the World not only to redeem the Jews who were under the Law but that the Gentiles also might embrace the righteousness which is by Faith and all together might receive the Adoption of Sons To which end he prepared sufficient assistance for all Hist of the Council f. 212. which every man having free will might receive or refuse as it pleased himself and foreseeing from before all Eternity who would receive his help and use it to God and on the other side who would refuse to make use thereof he predestinated and elected those of the first sort to Eternal Life and rejected the others 2. Of the Merit and Effect of the Death of Christ Him God proposed to be a propitiation for our sins by his Death and Passion and nor for our sins only Ses 6. c. 2 3. but for the sins of the whole World But so that though Christ died for all men yet all do not receive the benefit of his death and sufferings but only they to whom the merit of his Passion is communicated in their new birth or Regeneration by which the grace whereby they are justified or made just is conferred upon them 3. Of Mans Conversion unto God The Grace of God is not given no man by Jesus Christ to no other end session 6 can 2 3. but that thereby he might
rest of man-kind and appointed them by the same decree to eternal damnation without any regard to their Infidelity or Impenitency Art 2. Of the Merit and Effect of Christs Death That Jesus Christ hath not suffered death for any other but for those Elect only Ibid. p. 29. having neither had any intent nor commandment of his Father to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole World Art 3. Of Mans Will in the state of Nature That by Adam's Fall his Posterity lost their Free-will Ibid. p. 33. being put to an unavoidable necessity to do or not to do whatsoever they do or do not whether it be good or evil being thereunto Predestinated by the eternal and effectual secret decree of God Art 4. Of the manner of Conversion That God to save his Elect from the corrupt Mass Ibid. p. 41. doth beget faith in them by a power equal to that whereby he created the World and raised up the dead insomuch that such unto whom he gives that Grace cannot reject it and the rest being Reprobate cannot accept of it Art 5. Of the certainty of Perseverance That such as have once received that Grace by Faith can never fall from it finally Ibid. p. 47. or totally notwithtanding the most enormious sins they can commit This is the shortest and withal the most favourable Summary which I have hitherto met with of the conclusions of this Synod that which was drawn by the Remonstrants in their Antidotum being much more large and comprehending many things by way of Inference which are not positively expressed in the words thereof But against this though far more plausible than the rigorous way of the Supralapsarians Gods love to Mankind p. 45. it is objected by those of the contrary persuasion 1. That it is repugnant of plain Texts of Scripture as Ezek. 33.11 Rom. 11.2 John 3.16 2 tim 2.4 2 Pet. 3.9 Gen. 4.7 1 Chron. 28.9 2 Chron. 15.2 Secondly That it fighteth with Gods Holiness and makes him the cause of sin in the greatest number of men 1. In regard that only of his own will and pleasure he hath brought men into an estate in which the cannot avoid sin that is to say by imputing to them the transgression of their Father Adam Ibid. p. 53. And 2. In that he leaves them irrecoverably plunged and involved in it without affording them power or ability to rise again to newness of life In which case that of Tertullian seems to have been fitly alledged viz. In cujus manu est ne quid fiat Tertul. l. 2. contr Marcion c. 22. ei deputatur cum jam sit That is to say In whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done as a Pilot may be said to be the cause of the loss of that Ship when it is broken by a violent Tempest to the saving whereof he would not lend a helping hand when he might have done it They object thirdly That this doctrine is inconsistent with the mercy of God so highly signified in the Scriptures Gods love to Mankind p. 62. in making him to take such a small and speedy occasion to punish the greater part of men for ever and for one sin once committed to shut them up under an invincible necessity of sin and damnation For proof whereof they alledge this saying out of Prosper viz. Qui dicit quod non omnes homines velit Deus salvos fieri Ibid. p. 64. sed certum numerum praedestinatorum durius loquitur quam loquutum est de altitudine inscrutabilis gratiae Dei That is to say He which saith that God would not have all men to be saved but a certain set number of predestinate persons only he speaketh more harshly than he should of the light of Gods unsearchable Grace 4. It is affirmed to be incompatible with the Justice of God who is said in Scripture to be Righteous in all his ways according unto weight and measure Ibid. p. 65. p. 67. that the far greatest part of man-kind should be left remedilâ—sly in a state of damnation for the sin of their first Father only that under pain of damnation he should require faith in Christ of those to whom he hath precisely in his absolute purpose denied both a power to believe and a Christ to believe in or that he should punish men for the omission of an Act which is made impossible for them by his own decree by which he purposed that they should partake with Adam in his sin and be stript of all the supernatural power which they had in him before he fell And fifthly It is said to be destructive of Gods sincerity in calling them to repentance and to the knowledge of the faith in Jesus Christ Ibid. p. 58. that they may be saved to whom he doth not really intend the salvation offered whereby they are conceived to make God so to deal with men as if a Creditor should resolve upon no terms to forgive his Debtor the very least part of his debt Ibid. p. 76. and yet make him offers to remit the whole upon some conditions and bind the same with many solemn Oaths in a publick Auditory The like to be affirmed also in reference to Gods passionate wishes that those men might repent which repent not as also to those terrible threatnings which he thundreth against all those that convert not to him all which together with the whole course of the Ministry are by this doctrine made to be but so many acts of deep Hypocrisie in Almighty God though none of the maintainers of it have the ingenuity to contess the same but Piscator only in his Necesse est ut sanctam aliquam si mutationem statuamus in Deo which is plain and home And finally it is alledged that this doctrine of the Sublapsarians is contrary to the ends by God proposed in the Word and Sacraments to many of Gods excellent gifts to the Sons of men to all endeavours unto holiness and godly living which is said to be much hindered by it Ibid. p. 91. and tend to those grounds of comfort by which a Conscience in distress should be relieved And thereupon it is concluded that if it be a doctrine which discourageth Piety if it maketh Ministers by its natural importment to be negligent in their Preaching Praying and other Services which are ordained of God for the eternal good of their people if it maketh the people careless in hearing reading praying instructing their Families examining their Consciences fasting and mourning for their sins and all other godly exercises as they say it doth it cannot be a true and a wholsome doctrine as they say 't is not This they illustrate by a passage in Suetonius Sect. de vit Tyb c. 69. p. 180. relating to Tyberius Caesar of whom the Historian gives this note Cire à Deos Religiones negligentior erat quippe addictus
they were over-ruled by the Entreaties of some and the power of others A matter so unpleasing to the rigid Calvinians that they informed against him to the State for divers Heterodoxies which they had noted in his Writings But the business being heard at the Hague he was acquitted by his Judge dispatcht for Leyden and there confirmed in his place Toward which the Testimonial Letters sent from the Church of Amsterdam did not help a little In which he stands commended Ob vitae inculpatae sanae doctrinae morum summam integritatem That is to say for a man of an unblameable life sound Doctrine and fair behaviour as may be seen at large in the Oration which was made at his Funeral in the Divinity Schools of Leyden on the 22. day of October 1609. Thus died Arminius but the Cause did not so die with him For during the first time of his sitting in the Chair of Leyden he drew unto him a great part of the University who by the Piety oâ—he man his powerful Arguments his extream diligence in that place and the clear light of Reason which appeared in all his Discourses were so wedded unto his Opinions that no time nor trouble could drown them For Arminius dying in the year 1609 as before was said the heats betwixt the Scholars and those of the contrary persuasion were rather increased than abated the more increased for want of such a prudent Moderator as had before preserved the Churches from a publick Rupture The breach between them growing wider and wider each side thought fit to seek the Countenance of the State and they did accordingly for in the year 1610. the followers of Arminius address their Remonstrnace containing the Antiquity of their Doctrines and the substance of them to the States of Holland which was encountred presently by a Contra Remonstrance exhibited by those of Calvins Party from hence the names of Remonstrants and Contra Remonstrants so frequent in their Books and Writings each Party taking opportunity to disperse their Doctrines the Remonstrants gained exceedingly upon their Adversaries For the whole Controversie being reduced to these five Points Viz. The Method and Order of Predestination The Efficacy of Christs Death The Operations of Grace both before and after mans Conversion and perseverance in the same the Parties were admitted to a publick Conference at the Hague in the year 1611. in which the Remonstrants were conceived to have had much the better of the day Now for the five Articles above mentioned they were these that follow VIZ. I. De Electione ex fide praevisa DEus aeterno immutabili Decreto in Jesu Christo filio suo ante jactum mundum fundamentum statuit ex lapso peccatis obnoxio humano genere illos in Christo propter Christum per Christum servare qui spiritus sancti gratia in eundem filium ejus credunt in ea fide fideique obedientia per eandem gratiam usque ad finem perseverant II. De Redemptione Universali Proinde Deus Christus pro omnibus ac singulis mortuuus est atque id ita quidem ut omnibus per mortem crucis Reconciliationem Peccatorum Remissionem impetrarit Ea tamen conditione ut nemo illa peccatorum Remisione fruatur praeter hominem fidelem John 2.26 1 John 2.2 III. De causa fidei Homo fidem salutarem à seipso non habet nec vi liberi sui arbitrii quandoquidem in statu defectionis peccati nihil boni quod quidem vere est bonum quale est fides salutaris ex se potest cogitare velle aut facere sed necessarium est eum à Deo in Christo per spiritum ejus sanctum regigni renovari mente affctibus seu voluntate omnibus facultatibus ut aliquid boni posset intelligere cogitare velle perficere secundum illu JOhn 15.5 sine me potestis nihil IV. De Conversionis modo De gratia est initiumi progressus perfectio omnis boni atque adeo quidem ut ipse homo Kegenitus absque hac praecedanea seu Adventitia excitante consequente co-operante gratia neq boni quid cogitare velle aut facere potest neq etiam ulli male tentationi resistere adeo quidem ut omnia bona opera quae excogitare possumus Dei gratiae in Christo tribuenda sunt Quoad vero modum co-operationis illius gratiae illa non est irresistibilis de multis enim dicitur eos spiritui sancto refistisse Actotum 7. alibi multis locis V. De Perseverantia incerta Qui Jesu Christo per veram fidem sunt insiti ac proinde spiritus ejus vivificantis participes ii abunde habent facultatum quibus contra Satanam peccatum mundum propriam suam carnem pugnent victoriam obtineant verumtamen per gratiae spiritus sancti subsidium Jesus Christus quidem illis spiritu sus in omnibus tentatinnibus adest manum porrigit modo sint ad certamen prompti ejus Auxilium Petant neque officio suo desint eos confirmat adeo quidem ut nulla satanae fraude aut vi seduci vel e manibus Christi eripi possint secundum illud Johannis 10. Nemo illos è manu mea eripiet Sed an illi ipsi negligentia sua principium illud quo sustentantur in Christo deserere non possint praesentem mundum iterum amplecti à sancta doctrina ipsis semel tradita deficere conscientiae naufragium facere à gratia excidere penitus ex sacra scriptura esset expendendum antequam illud cum plena animi tranquillitate Plerephoria dicere possumus VIZ. I. Of Election on t of Faith foreseen ALmighty God by an Eternal and unchangeable Decree ordained in Jesus Christ his only Son before the foundations of the World were laid to save all those in Christ for Christ and through Christ who being faln and under the command of sin by the assistance of the Grace of the Holy Ghost do persevere in Faith and Obedience to the very end II. Of universal Redemption To this end Jesus Christ suffered Death for all men and in every man that by his death upon the Cross he might obtain for all mankind both the forgiveness of their sins and Reconciliation with the Lord their God with this Condition notwithstanding that none but true Believers should enjoy the benefit of the Reconciliation and forgiveness of sins John 2.16 1 John 2.2 III. Of the cause or means of attaining Faith Man hath not saving Faith in and of himself nor can it attain it by the power of his own Free-will in regard that living in an estate of sin and defection from God he is not able of himself to think well or do any thing which is really or truly good amongst which sort saving Faith is to be accounted And therefore it is necessary that by God in Christ and through the Workings of the Holy Ghost he be regenerated and renewed
which was built upon it first taking in my way some necessary preparations made unto it by H. 8. by whom it had been ordered in the year 1536. That the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments should be recited publickly by the Parish Priest in the English Tongue and all the Sundays and other Holidays throughout the year And that the people might the better understand the duties contained in them it pleased him to assemble his Bishops and Clergy in the year next following requiring them Vpon the diligent search and perusing of Holy Scripture to set forth a plain and sincere Doctrine concerning the whole sum of all those things which appertain unto the Profession of a Christian man Which work being finished with very great care and moderation they published by the name of an Institution of a Christian man containing the Exposition or Interpretation of the common Creed the seven Sacraments the Ten Commandments Epls Dedit the Lords Prayer c. and dedicated to the Kings Majesty Submitting to his most excellent Wisdom and exact Judgment to be by him recognized overseen and corrected if he found any word or sentence in it amiss to be qualified changed or further expounded in the plain setting forth of his most vertuous desire and purpose in that behalf A Dedication publickly subscribed in the name of the rest by all the Bishops then being eight Archdeacons and seventeen Doctors of chief note in their several faculties Amongst which I find seven by name who had a hand in drawing up the first Liturgy of King Edward VI. that is to say Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Goodrich Bishop of Ely Hebeach then Bishop of Rochester and of Lincoln afterwards Skip then Archdeacon of Dorset after Bishop of Hereford Roberson afterwards Dean of Durham as Mayo was afterwards of S. Pauls and Cox of Westminster And I find many others amongst them also who had a principal hand in making the first Book of Homilies and passing the Articles of Religion in the Convocation of the year 1552. and so it rested till the year 1643. when the King making use of the submission of the Book which was tendred to him corrected it in many places with his own hand as appeareth by the Book it self remaining in the famous Library of Sir Robert Cotton Which having done he sends it so corrected to Archbishop Cranmer who causing it to be reviewed by the Bishops and Clergy in Convocation drew up some Annotations on it And that he did for this intent as I find exprest in one of his Letters bearing date June 25. of this present year because the Book being to be set forth by his Graces censure and judgment he would have nothing therein that Momos himself could reprehend referring notwithstanding all his Annotations to his Majesties exacter judgment Nor staid it here but being committed by the King to both Houses of Parliament and by them very well approved of as appears by the Statutes of this year Cap. 1. concerning the advancing of true Religion and the abolition of the contrary it was published again by the Kings command under the title of Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian man And it was published with an Epistle of the Kings before it directed to all his faithful and loving Subjects wherein it is affirmed To be a true Declaration of the true knowledge of God and his Word with the principal Articles of Religion whereby men may uniformly be led and taught the true understanding of that which is necessary for every Christian man to know for the ordering of himself in this life agreeable unto the will and pleasure of Almighty God Now from these Books the Doctrine of Predestination may be gathered into these particulars which I desire the Reader to take notice of Institut of a Christian that he may judge the better of the Conformity which it hath with the established Doctrine of the Church of England 1. That man by his own nature was born in sin and in the indignation and displeasure of God and was the very child of Wrath condemned to everlasting death subject and thrall to the power of the Devil and sin having all the principal parts or portions of his soul as reason and understanding and free-will and all other powers of his soul and body not only so destituted and deprived of the gifts of God wherewith they were first endued but also so blinded corrupted and poysoned with errour ignorance and carnal concupiscence that neither his said powers could exercise the natural function and office for which they were ordained by God at the first Creation nor could he by them do any thing which might be acceptable to God 2. That Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God the Father was eternally preordained and appointed by the Decree of the Holy Trinity to be our Lord that is to say to be the only Redeemer and Saviour of Man-kind and to reduce and bring the same from under the Dominion of the Devil and sin unto his only Dominion Kingdom Lordship and Governance 3. That when the time was come in the which it was before ordained and appointed by the Decree of the Holy Trinity That Man-kind should be saved and redeemed Necessary prayer than the Son of God the second Person in the Trinity and very God descended from Heaven into the world to take upon him the very habit form and nature of man and in the same nature of suffer his glorious Passion for the Redemption and Salvation of all Man-kind 4. That by this Passion and Death of our Saviour Jesus Christ not only Corporal death is so destroyed that it shall never hurt us but rather that it is made wholesome and profitable unto us but also that all our sins and the sins also of all them that do believe in him and follow him be mortified and dead that is to say all the guilt and offence thereof as also the damnation and pains due for the same is clearly extincted abolished and washed away so that the same shall never afterwards be imputed and inflicted on us 5. That this Redemption and Justification of Man-kind could not have been wrought or brought to pass by any other means in the world but by the means of this Jesus Christ Gods only Son and that never man could yet nor never shall be able to come unto God the Father or to believe in him or to attain his favour by his own wit and reason or by his own science and learning or by any of his own works or by whatsoever may be named in Heaven or Earth but by faith in the Name and Power of Jesus Christ and by the gifts and graces of his Holy Spirit But to proceed the way to the ensuing Reformation being thus laid open The first great work which was accomplished in pursuance of it was the compiling of that famous Liturgy of the year 1549 commanded by King Edward VI. that is to
determinations in a National Church no more than is of making Laws to bind the Subjects in an unsetled Commonwealth with an intent to leave them in their former liberty either of keeping or not keeping them as themselves best pleased Which said we shall enquire into the meaning of the Articles as before laid down whether they speak in favour of the Melancthonian or Calvinian way so far forth as the meaning of them can be gathered from the publick Liturgy and book of Homilies or from the Writings of those men who either had a hand in the making of them or died in the Religion here by Law established CHAP. IX Of the Doctrine of Predestination delivered in the Articles the Homilies the publick Liturgies and the Writings of some of the Reformers 1. The Articles indifferently understood by the Calvinian party and the true English Protestants with the best way to find out the true sense thereof 2. The definition of Predestination and the most considerable points contained in it 3. The meaning of those words in the Definition viz. whom he hath chosen in Christ according to the Exposition of St. Ambrose St. Chrysostom St. Jerom as also of Archbishop Cranmer Bishop Latimer and the Book of Homilies 4. The Absolute Decree condemned by Bishop Latimer as a means to Licentiousness and carnal living 5. For which and making God to be the Author of sin condemned as much by Bishop Hooper 6. Our Election to be found in Christ not sought for in Gods secret Counsels according to 〈◊〉 judgment of Bishop Latimer 7. The way to find out our Election delivered by the same godly Bishop and by Bishop Hooper with somewhat to the same purpose also from the Book of Homilies 8. The Doctrine of Predestination delivered by the holy Martyr John Bradford with Fox his gloss upon the same to corrupt the sense 9. No countenance to be had for any absolute personal and irrespective Decree of Predestination in the publick Liturgy 10. An Answer to such passages out of the said Liturgy as seem to favour that Opinion as also touching the number of Gods Elect. THUS have we seen the Doctrine of the Church of England in the five controverted Points according as it is delivered in the Book of Articles but in what sense we ought to understand it hath been made a Question Some take the Articles in the Literal and Grammatical sense which is the fairest and most approved way of Interpretation according to the saying of an ancient Writer Declar. before the Art 1628. That if the Literal sense of holy Scripture will stand with the Analogy of Faith and Piety it is to be preferred before any other Others they are of which his late Majesty complained who draw the Articles aside and put their own sense or Comment to be the meaning of the Articles fashioning them to their own fancies as they please themselves Each of the parties in those curious points in which the present differences do most consist conceive the Articles of the Church to speak for them exclusive wholly of the other but with a notable difference in the Application The Calvinists Our Divines commonly called Calvinists Yates in Ap Caesar cap. 5. p. 38. by which name they love to be called endeavour to captivate the sense of the Article and bring it to the bent of their own understanding but the true English Protestants whom for distinction sake we may call Confessionists accommodate though they do not captivate their own sense to the sense of the Church according to the plain and full meaning of the Articles in the points disputed But because possibly both parties may not be agreed on a Rule or Medium by which the proper sense and meaning of the Articles may be best discovered it will not be amiss to follow the directions of the Civil Laws in cases of like doubtful nature which is briefly this viz. Si de interpretatione Legis quaeritur imprimis inspiciendum est quo jure Civitas retro in hujusmodi casibus usa fuit And this we shall the better do if we enquire into the Doctrine of those Learned Religious and Godly men who either had a principal hand in the Reformation or were most conversant with them and beloved of them in their several stations taking along with us the Authority of the Homilies and publick Liturgy to which all parties have subscribed In order whereunto it will first be necessary to lay down the definition of Predestination as before we had it in the Article to sum up the particular points and contents thereof to shew the sense of one phrase in it and then to travel more exactly in this Enquiry whether the method of Predestination illustrated by the story of Agilmond and Amistus Kings of Lombardy cap. 7. num 4. agree not more hamoniously with the true sense and meaning of the Church of England than any other whatsoever First then Predestination unto life is defined in the seventeenth Article to be the everlasting purpose of God whereby and before the foundations of the World were laid he hath constantly decreed by his Council secret unto us to deliver from damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation In which definition there are these things to be observed First That Predestination doth presuppose a curse or state of damnation in which all mankind was represented to the sight of God which plainly crosseth the Opinion of the Supra-Lapfarians the Supra-Creaturians or Credibilitarians as some call them now Secondly That it is an act of his from Everlasting because from Everlasting he foresaw into what misery wretched man would fall by the abuse of that liberty in which first he stood Thirdly That he founded it and resolved for it in the Man and Mediator Christ Jesus both for the purpose and performance which crosseth as directly with the Sublapsatians who place the absolute decree of Predestination to life and of Reprobation unto death both of body and soul before the decree or consideration of sending his only beloved Son Jesus Christ into the World to be the common Propitiation for the sins of men Fourthly That it was of some special ones alone Elect called forth and reserved in Christ and not generally extended unto all mankind a General Election as they say being no Election Fifthly That being thus elected in Christ they shall be brought by Christ but not without their own consent and cooperation to everlasting salvation And finally That this Council is secret unto us for though there be revealed to us some hopeful signs of our Election and Predestination unto life yet the certainty thereof is a secret hidden in God and in this life unknown to us For who hath known the mind of the Lord or hath been his Counsellour or of his Secret Council saith the great Apostle Such is the definition of Predestination and the substance of it in which there is
beginning of the World hath Predestinated in Christ unto Eternal life Thus do I wade in Predestination in such sort ' as God hath patesied and opened it Though to God it be the first yet to us it is the last opened and therefore I begin with Creation from whence I come to Redemption so to Justification so to Election On this sort I am sure that warily and wisely a man may walk it easily by the light of Gods Spirit in and by his Word seeing this faith is not to be given to all men 2 Thes 3. but to such as are born of God Predestinated before the World was made after the purpose and good will of God c. Which judgment of this holy man comes up so close to that of the former Martyrs and is so plainly cross to that of the Calvinistical party that Mr. Fox was fain to make some Scholia's on it to reconcile a gloss like that of Orleance which corrupts the Text and therefore to have no place here however it may be disposed of at another time But besides the Epistle above mentioned there is extant a Discourse of the said godly Martyr entituled The sum of the Doctrine of Predestination and Reprobation in which is affirmed That our own wilfulness sin and contemning of Christ are the cause of Reprobation as is confessed by the Author of the Anti-Arminianism p. 103. though afterwards he puts such a gloss upon it as he doth also on the like passages in Bishop Hooper as makes the sin of man to be the cause only of the execution and not of the decree of Reprobation But it is said That any one that reads the Common-Prayer-book with an unprejudiced mind Justifi Fatâ—â—s cannot chuse but observe divers passages that make for a Personal Eternal Election So it is said of late and till of late never so said by any that ever I heard of the whole frame and fabrick of the Publique Liturgy being directly opposite to this new conceit For in the general Confession we beseech the Lord to spare them that confess their faults and restore them that be penitent according to his promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord In the Te Deum it is said that Christ our Saviour having overcome the sharpness of death did open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers In the Prayer for the first day of Lent That God hateth nothing which he hath made but doth forgive the sins of all them that be penitent In the Prayer at the end of the Commination That God hath compassion of all men that he hateth nothing which he hath made that he would not the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from sin and repent In the Absolution before the Communion That God of his great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them which with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto him Can any one which comes with an unprejudiced mind to the Common-Prayer book observe any thing that favoureth of a Personal Election in all these passages or can he hope to find them in any other Look then upon the last Exhortation before the Communion in which we are required above all things To give most humble and hearty thanks to God the Father and the Holy Ghost for the Redemption of the World by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ both God and man who did humble himself even to the death upon the Cross for us miserable sinners which lay in darkness and the shadow of death More of which nature we shall find in the second Article Look on the Collect in the form of publique Baptism in which we pray That whosoever is here dedicated unto God by our Office and Ministry may also be endued with Heavenly vertues and everlastingly rewarded through Gods mercy O blessed Lord God c. And in the Rubrick before Confirmation where it is said expr sly That it is certain by Gods Word that Children being baptized have all things necessary to their salvation and be undoubtedly saved Look on these passages and the rest and tell me any one that can whether the publique Liturgy of the Church of England speak any thing in favour of such a Personal and Eternal Election that is to say such an absolute irrespective and irreversible Decree of Predestination and that of some few only unto life Eternal as is maintained and taught in the Schools of Calvin Some passages I grant there are which speak of Gods People and his chosen People and yet intend not any such Personal and Eternal Election as these men conceit unto themselves Of which sort these viz. To declare and pronounce to his People being penitent O Lord save thy People and bless thy Heritage that it would please thee to keep and bless all thy People and make thy chosen People joyful with many others intersâ—ers'd in several places But then I must affirm withal that those passages are no otherwise to be understood than of the whole bo y of the Church the Congregation of the faithful called to the publique participation of the Word and Sacraments Which appears plainly by the Prayer for the Church Militant here on earth where having called upon the Lord and said To all thy People give thy Heavenly grace we are taught presently to add especially to this Congregation here present that is to say the members of that particular Church which there pour forth their prayers for the Church in general More to their purpose is that passage in the Collect for the Feast of All-Saints where it is said That Almighty God hath knit together his Elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of his Son Jesus Christ though it doth signifie no more but that inseparable bond of Charity that Love and Unity that Holy Communion and Correspondency which is between the Saints in Glory in the Church Triumphant and those who are still exercised under the cares and miseries of this present life in the Church here Militant But it makes most unto their purpose if any thing could make unto their purpose in the Common-Prayer book that at the burial of the dead we are taught to pray That God would please of his gracious goodness shortly to accomplish the number of his elect and to hasten his Kingdom From whence as possibly some may raise this inference That by the Doctrine of the Church of England there is a predestinated and certain number of Elect which can neither be increased nor diminished according to the third of the nine Articles which were agreed upon at Lambeth So others may perhaps conclude That this number is made up out of such Elections such Personal and Eternal Elections as they have fancied to themselves But there is nothing in the Prayer which can be useful to the countenancing of any such fancy the number of the Elect and the certainty of that number being known only unto God in the way of his
lay it upon the Predestination of God and would excuse it by ignorance or say he cannot be good because he is otherwise destined which in the next words he calls A Stoical Opinion refuted by those words of Horace Nemo adeo ferus est c. But that which makes most against the absolute irrespective and irreversible Decree of Predestination whether it be life or death is the last clause of our second Article being the seventeenth of the Church as before laid down where it is said that we must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and that in all our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expresly declared to us in holy Scriptures And in the holy Scripture it is declared to us That God gave his Son for the World or for all mankind that Christ offered himself a Sacrifice for all the sins of the whole World that Christ redeemed all mankind that Christ commanded the Gospel to be preached to all that God wills and commands all men to hear Christ and to believe in him and in him to offer grace and salvation unto all men That this is the infallible truth in which there can be no falshood otherwise the Apostles and other Ministers of the Gospel preaching the same should be false witnesses of God and should make him a liar than which nothing can be more repugnant to the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination which restrains Predestination unto life in a few particulars without respect had to their faith in Christ or Christs sufferings and death for them which few particulars so predestinate to eternal life shall as they tell us by an irresistible Grace be brought to God and by the infallible conduct of the holy Spirit persevere from falling away from grace and favour Nothing more contrary to the like absolute decree of Reprobation by which the infinitely greatest part of all mankind is either doomed remedilesly to the torments of Hell when they were but in the state of Creability as the Supralapsarians have informed us and unavoidably necessitated unto sin that they might infallibly be damn'd or otherwise as miserably leaving them under such a condition according to the Doctrine of the Sablapsarians which renders them uncapable of avoiding the wrath to come and consequently subjected them to a damnation no less certain than if they were created to no other purpose which makes it seem the greater wonder that Dr. Vsher afterwards Lord Primate of Ireland in drawing up the Article of predestination for the Church of Ireland Anno 1615. should take in so much as he doth of the Lambeth Articles and yet subjoyn this very clause at the foot thereof Article of Ireland Numb 12.14 17. which can no more concorporate with it than any of the most heterogeneous metals can unite into one piece of refined Gold which clause as it remaineth in the Articles of the Church of England how well it was applyed by King James and others in the Conference at Hampton Court we shall see hereafter In the mean time we must behold another Argument which fights more strongly against the positive decree of Reprobation than any of the rest before that is to say the reconciliation of all men to Almighty God the universal redemption of mankind by the death of Christ expresly justified and maintained by the Church of England For though one in our late undertaking seem exceeding confident that the granting of universal redemption will draw no inconvenience with it as to the absoluteness of Gods decrees or to the insuperability of converting Grace Cap. 10. or to the certain infallible perseverance of Gods Elect aftec Conversion Yet I dare say he will not be so confident in affirming this That if Christ did so far die for all as to procure a salvation for all under the condition of faith and repentance as his own words are there can be any room for such an absolute decree of Reprobation Antecedaneous and precedent to the death of Christ as his great Masters in the School of Calvin have been pleased to teach him Now for the Doctrine of this Church in that particular it is exprest so clearly in the second Article of the five before laid down that nothing needs be added either in way of explication or of confirmation howsoever for avoiding of all doubt and hesitancy we will first add some farther testimonies touching the Doctrine of this Church in the point of universal Redemption And secondly touching the applying of so great a benefit by universal Vocation and finally we shall shew the causes why the benefit is not effectual unto all alike And first as for the Doctrine of Universal Redemption it may be further proved by those words in the publick Catechism where the Child is taught to say that he believeth in God the Son who redeemed with him all mankind in that clause of the publick Letany where God the Son is called the Redeemer of the World in the passages of the latter Exhortation before the Communion where it is said That the Oblation of Christ once offered was a full perfect and sufficient Sacrifice for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD in the proper Preface appointed for the Communion on Easter day in which he is said to be the very Paschal Lamb that was offered for us and taketh away the sins of the world repeated in the Gloria in excelsis to the same effect Hom. Salvation p. 13. And finally in the Prayer of Conservation viz. Almighty God our heavenly Father which of thy tender mercies didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our Redemption who made there by his own Oblation of himself once offered a firm and perfect and sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD To this purpose it is said in the book of Homilies That the World being wrapt up in sin by the breaking of Gods Law God sent his only Son our Saviour Christ into this world to fulfil the Law for us and by shedding of his most precious blood to make a Sacrifice and Satisfaction or as it may be called amends to his Father for our sins to asswage his wrath and indignation conceived against us for the same Out of which words it may be very well concluded That the World being wrapt up in sin the Recompence and Satisfaction which was made to God must be made to him for the sins of the World or else the plaister had not been commensurate to the sore nor so much to the magnifying of Gods wonderful mercies in the offered means of Reconcilement betwixt God and man the Homily must else fall short of that which is taught in the Articles In which besides what was before delivered from the second and 31. concerning the Redemption of the world by the death of Christ it is affirmed in the 15. as plain as may be That
Church teacheth men to pray to Almighty God not to take his holy Spirit from us And in another place that he suffer us not at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from him which certainly she had never done were it not possible for a man so far to grieve and vex the Holy Spirit of God and so far to despair of his gracious mercy as to occasion him at the last to deprive us both of the one and the other Next for the Homilies as they commend unto Gods People a probable and stedfast hope of their salvation in Christ Jesus so they allow no such infallibility of persisting in grace as to secure them from a total and final falling In reference to the first they tell us in the second part of the Sermon against the fear of death That none of those their causes of the fear of death that is to say the sorrow of repenting from our worldly pleasures the terrible apprehension of the pangs of death and the more terrible apprehension of the pains of Hell do make any trouble to good men Hom. p. 67. because they stay themselves by true faith perfect charity and sure hope of the endless joy and bliss everlasting All therefore have great cause to be full of joy that he joyned to Christ with true Faith stedfast hope and perfect charity and not to fear death nor everlasting damnation The like we find not long after where it speaks of those Who being truly penitent for their offences depart hence in perfect charity and in sure trust that God is merciful to them forgiving them their sins for the merits of Jesus Christ the only natural Son In the third part of which Sermon it is thus concluded He that conceiveth all these things and believeth them assuredly Ibid. p. 68. as they ought to be believed even from the bottom of his heart being established in God in his true faith having a quiet Conscience in Christ a firm hope and assured trust in Gods mercy through the merits of Jesus Christ to obtain this rest quietness and everlasting joy shall not only be without fear of godly death when it cometh but greatly desire in his heart as St. Paul did to be rid from all these occasions of evil and live ever to Gods pleasure in perfect obedience of his Will with Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour to whose gracious presence c By all which passages it is clear and evident that the Church teacheth us to entertain a probable and stedfast hope of our salvation in Christ Jesus but whether it teacheth also such an infallibility of persisting in grace such a certainty of perseverance as to exclude all possibility of a total or a sinal falling we are next to see And see it we may without the help of Spectacles or any of the Optical instruments if we go no farther than the title of two of those Homilies the first whereof is thus inscribed viz. A Sermon shewing how dangerous a thing it is to fall from God And it had been ridiculous if not somewhat worse to write a Sermon de non ente to terrifie the people with the danger of that misfortune which they were well enough assured they should never suffer Out of which Homilies the Appellant makes no use but of these words only Whereas God hath shewed unto all them that truly do believe his Gospel his face of mercy in Christ Jesus which doth so enlighten their hearts that they be transformed into his Image be made partakers of the Heavenly light and of his holy Spirit Hom. p. 54. be fashioned to him in all goodness requisite to the Child of God So if they do afterwards neglect the same if they be unthankful unto him if they order not their lives according unto his Doctrine and Example and to the setting forth of his glory he will take from them his holy Word his Kingdom whereby be should reign in them because they bring not forth fruit which he looked for besides which there are mony other passages to this effect where it is said that as by pride and sin we fall from God Ibid. p 50. so shall God and all goodness go from us that sometimes men go from God by lack of faith and mistrusting of God and somâ—tâ—â—te by neglecting his Commandments concerning their Neighbours And after some examples given in these several cases it followeth that by these examples of holy Scripture we may know that as we forsake God Id. p 54. so shall he forsake us And what a miserable estate doth consequently and necessarily follow thereupon a man may easily consider by the horrible threatnings of God c. And finally having not only laid before us the said horrible threatnings but the recital also of those gentle courses by which he doth endeavour to gain us to him it concludeth thus viz. that if these will not serve but still remain disobedient to his Word and Will not knowing him or loving him not fearing him nor putting our whole trust and confidence in him and on the other side to our Neighbours behaving our selves uncharitably by disdain envy malice or by committing murder robbery adultery gluttony deceit lying swearing or other like detestable works and ungodly behaviour then he threatneth us by terrible comminations swearing in great anger that whosoever doth these works shall never enter into his rest which is the Kingdom of Heaven CHAP. XIV The Plain Song of the second Homily touching the falling from God and the Descants made upon it 1. More from some other Homilies touching the possibility of falling from the grace received 2. The second Homily or Sermon touching falling from God laid down verbatim 3. The sorry shifts of Mr. Yates to elude the true meaning of the Homily plainly discovered and confuted 4. An Answer unto his Objection touching the passage cited from the former Homily in Mr. Mountagues Appeal 5. The Judgment of Mr. Ridley Archdeacon of Canterbury in the points of Election and Redemption 6. As also touching the Reasons why the Word was not preached unto the Gentiles till the coming of Christ the influences of of grace the co-workings of man and the possibility of falling from the truth of Christ NOR doth the Church declare this only in the former Homily where the poin is purposely maintained but in some others also obiter and upon the by whert it discourseth principally on some other subject Hom. of good works p. 32. for in the second part of the Sermon of good Works we shall find St. Chrysostom speaking thus viz. The Thief thawas hanged when Christ suffered did believe only and the most merciful God justified himt And because no man shall say again that he wanted time to do good works for else he could have done them truth it is and I will not contend herein but this I will surely affirm that faith only saved him If he had lived and not regarded Faith and
works of the spirit 2. More plainly doth he speak in the second place of Universal Redemption Id. in cap. 1 6. telling us that all men which either for their Original sin or for their Actual sin were out of Gods favour and had offended God should by Christ only be reconciled to Gods favour and have remission of their sins and be made partakers of everlasting life that Christs death was a full and sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole World Id Ibid. 〈◊〉 1. and for all them that shall be sanctified and saved that Christ by his death once for all Id. Ibid. 〈…〉 hath fully and perfectly satisfied for the sins of all men and finally that there re this is an undoubted truth ever to be believed of all Christians that Christ by his Passion and Death hath taken away all the sins of the World In the next place he puts the question with reference to the application of so great a benefit for what causes God would not have his Word preached unto the Gentiles till Christs time and makes this answer thereunto First That it is a point not to be too curiously searched or enquired after Secondly That it is enough for us to know that it was so ordered by Gods Will Id. Ibid. G. 2 3. But thirdly That it might yet be done either because by their sins they had deserved their blindness and damnation as indeed they had or that God saw their hard hearts or their stiff necks and that they would not have received it before Christs comings if the Gospel had been preached unto them or finally that God reserved that mystery unto the coming of our Saviour Christ that by him all goodness should be known to come to us Id. cap. 2. H. 7. c. As for the necessary influences of Gods Grace and mans co-working with the same he telleth us briefly That no man ought to ascribe the good works that he dâ—th â—s himself or to his own might and power but to God the Author of all goodness but then withal that it is not enough for men to have knowledge of Christ and his benefits but that they must encrease in the knowledge of God Idâ—â— cap. 4. which knowledge cometh by Gods Word And finally as to the point of falling away he gives us first the example of Demas who as long as all things were prosperous with S. Paul was a faithful Minister to him and a faithful Disciple of Christ but when he saw Paul cast into Prison he forsook Paul and his Doctrine and followed the World then he inferreth that many such there be in the World c. of whom speaketh Christ Matth. 13. Many for a time do believe but in time of tribulations they shrink away And finally he concludes with this advice That he that standeth should look that he did not fall and that he do no trust too much to his own might and power for if he did he should deceive himself and have a fall as Demas had And so much for the judgment and opinion of Master L. Ridley in the points disputed who being Arch-deacon of Canterbury as before was said may be presum'd to be one of those who concurred in Convocation to the making of the Articles of K. Edwards book 1552. to find the true and natural meaning of which Articles we have taken this pains CHAP. XV. Of the Author and Authority of King Edwards Catechism as also of the judgment of Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr in the Points disputed 1. The Catechism published by the Authority of King Edward VI. Ann. 1553. affirmed to have been writ by Bishop Poinet and countenanced by the rest of the Bishops and Clergy 2. Several passages collected out of that Catechism to prove that the Calvinian Doctrines were the true genuine and ancient Doctrines of the Church of England 3. With a discovery of the weakness and impertinency of the Allegation 4. What may most probably be conceived to have been the judgment of Bishop Pointer in most of the Controverted Points 5. An Answer to another Objection derived from Mr. Bucer and Peter Martyr and the influence which their Auditors and Disciples are supposed to have had in the Reformation 6. That Bucer was a man of moderate Counsels approving the first Liturgy of King Edward VI. assenting to the Papists at the Dyet of Ratisbone in the possibility of falling from grace and that probably Peter Martyr had not so far espoused the Calvinian quarrels when he lived in Oxon. as after his return to Zurick and Calvins Neighbourhood 7. The judgment of Erasmus according as it is delivered in his Paraphrases on the four Evangelists proposed first in the general view and after more particularly in every of the Points disputed SEcuri de salute de gloria certemus Having shewed the cause by so many pregnant Evidences derived from the Articles and Homilies Tacit in vita Agric. and backt by the consenting Testimonies of Learned men and godly Martyrs it would add something at the least in point of Reputation if not of glory also to gain Bishop Poinet to the side of whom as to his personal capacity we have spoken already and must now look back upon him in relation to a Catechism of his setting forth Printed by Wolfe in Latine and by Day in English Anno 1553. being the next year after the Articles were agreed upon in the Convocation a Catechism which comes commended to us with these advantages that it was put forth by the Authority of King Edward VI. to be taught by all School-masters in the Kingdom By another of the same persuasion Prin. Anti-Armin Pag. 44. that the King committed the perusal of it to certain Bishops and other Learned men whom he much esteemed by whom it was certified to be agreeable to the Scripture and Statutes of the Realm that thereupon he presixt his Epistle before it in which he commands and charges all School-masters whatsoever within his Dominions as they did reverence his Authority Anti-Armin Page 48. and as they would avoid his Royal displeasure to teach this Catechism diligently and carefully in all and every their Schools that so the youth of the Kingdom might be setled in the grounds of true Religion and furthered in Gods worship The Church Historian seems to give it some further countenance Ch Hist lib. 7. fol. 421. by making it of the same extraction with the book of Articles telling us that by the Bishops and Learned men before-mentioned we are to understand the Convocation and that it was not commanded by his Majesties Letters Patents to all School-masters only but by him commended to the rest of the Subjects which cost these several Authors have bestowed upon it out of an hope of gaining some greater matter by it towards the countenancing and advancing of the Calvinian Doctrine Predestination as the true genuine and ancient Doctrine of this Church certain I am that both Mr.
Prin and his Shadow so declare themselves Anti-Armin Pag. 48. the one affirming that all these passages are directly for them and punctually opposite to their Arminian Antagonists the other crying out with some admiration How do the Master and Scholar plainly declare themselves to bâ— no friends to the Tenents which the English Arminians how contend for but notwithstanding all this cry I fear we shall get but little wool when we come to consider of those passages in Poynets Catechism which are most relied on and which hâ—re follow as I find them in the Anti-arminianism without alteration of the words or syllables though with some alteration in the method of the Collection Now the passâ—ges collected out of Poynets Catechism are these that follow viz. The Image of God in man by original sin and evil custom was so obscured in the beginning and the natural judgment so corrupted Caâ—â—â—â— Pag. 7.8 12. Page 9. that man himself could not sufficiently understand the difference between good and bad between just and unjust c. As for the sacrificings cleansings washings and other Ceremonies of the Law they were Shadows Types Images and Figures of the true and eternal sacrifice that Jesus Christ made upon the Cross by whose benefit alone all the sins of all Believers from the beginning of the World are pardoned by the sole mercy of God Page 13. and not by any merit of their own As soon as ever Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit they both died that is that they were not only liable to the death of the body but likewise lost the lise of the soul which is righteousness and forthwith the Divine Image was obscured in them and those lineaments of Righteousness Holiness Truth and knowledge of God exceeding comely were disordered and almost obliterated the terrene Image only remained coupled with unrighteousness fraud carnal affections and great ignorance of Divine and Heavenly things from thence also proceeded the infirmity of our flesh from thence corruption and confusion of affections and desires hence that plague hence that seminary and nutriment of sin wherewith all man-kind is infected which is called Original sin Moreover nature is sodepraved and cast down that unless the goodness and mercy of Almighty God had helped us by the medicine of grace as in body we were thrust down into all the miseries of death so it was necessary that all men of all sorts should be cast into eternal torments and fire which cannot be quenched â—eâ— 18. Those things which are spiritual are not seen but by the eye of the spirit He therefore that will see the Divinity of Christ on Earth let him open the eyes not of the body but of the mind and of Faith and he shall see him present whom the eye doth not see he shall see him present in the midst of them Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in his Name he shall see him present with us to the end of the World What have I said he shall see Christ present yea he shall both see and feel him dwelling in himself no otherwise than his own soul for he doth dwell and reside in the soul and in the heart of him who doth place all his confidence in him Above all things this cannot be concealed that the benefits which are brought unto us by the Death 〈◊〉 23. the Resurrection and Ascention of Christ were so great and ample that no tongue either of men or Angels can express it c. From these and from other actions of Christ two benefits do accrew unto us One that whatsoever he did he did it all for our profitand commodity so that they are as much ours if we cleave fast to him with a firm and lively faith as if we our selves had done them He verily was nailed to the Cross and we are crucified with him and our sins are punished in him He died and was buried we likewise with our sins are dead and buried and that so as that all the memory of our sins is utterly abolished he rose again and we also are risen with him being made partakers of his resurrection and life that henceforth death might no more domineer in us for there is the same Spirit in us that raised Jesus from the dead Lastly as he ascended into Celestial glory so we are exalted together with him Fol. 30. The Holy Ghost is called holy not only for his own holiness but because the Elect of God Fol. 31. and the Members of Christ are made holy by him The Church is the company of them who are called to eternal life by the Holy Ghost by whom she is guided and governed which time she cannot be understood by the light of sense or nature is justly placed amongst the number of those things which are to be believed and is therefore called the Catholick that is the universal Assembly of the faithful Fâ—â— 44 45. because it is not tied to any certain placed God who rules and governs all things can do all things No man is of so great power that he can so much as withst and him but he gives whatsoever he shall decree according to his own pleasure and those things which are given to us by him he is able to take them away After the Lord God had made the Heavens and Earth he determined to have for himself a most beautiful Kingdom 〈◊〉 from Pag. 37. to 41. and holy Commmon-wealth The Apostles and Ancient Fathers that writ in Greek called it Ecclesia in English a Congregation or Assembly into the which he hath admitted an infinite number of men that should be subject to one King as their Soveraign and only Head him we call Christ which is as much as to say Anointed or to the furnishing of this Common-wealth belong all they as many as do truly fear honour and call upon God daily applying their minds to holy and godly living and all those that putting all their hope and trust in him do assuredly look for bliss of everlasting life But as many as are in this Faith stedfast were fore-chosen predestinate and appoined to everlasting life before the World was made witness whereof they have within their hearts the merit of Christ the Authour earnest and unfailable pledge of their Faith which Faith only is able to perceive the mysteries of God only brings peace unto the heart only taketh hold on the Righteousness which is in Christ Jesus Master Doth then the Spirit alone and Faith sleep we never so securely or stand we never so reckless or slothful work all things for us as without any help of our own to convey us to Heaven Scholar Just Master as you have taught me to make a difference between the Cause and the Effect The first principal and most proper cause of our Justification and Salvation is the goodness and love of God whereby he chose us for his before he made the World After that God
granteth us to be calledby preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when the Spirit of the Lord is poured upon us by whose guiding and governance we be led to settle our trust in God and hope for the performance of his promise With this choice is joyned as companion the mortifying of the Old man that is of our affections and lusts from the same Spirit also cometh our Sanctification the love of God and of our Neighbour justice and uprightness of life Finally to say all in sum whatever is in us or may be done of us honest pure true and good that altogether springeth out of this most pleasant Rock from this most plentiful Fountain the goodness love choice and unchangable purpose of God he is the cause the rest are the fruits and effects Yet are also the choice and Spirit of God and Christ himself causes conjoyned and coupled each with other which may be reckoned amongst the principal causes of salvation As oft therefore as we use to say that we are made righteous and saved by Faith only it is meant thereby that faith or rather trust alone doth lay hard upon understand and perceive our righteous making to be given us of God freely that is to say by no deserts of our own but by the free grace of the Almighty Father Moreover Faith doth ingender in us love of our Neighbour and such works as God is pleased withal for if it be a lively and true faith quickned by the Holy Ghost she is the mother of all good saying and doing By this short tale it is evident by what means we attain to be righteous For not by the worthiness of our deservings were we heretofore chosen or long ago saved but by the only mercy of God and pure grace of Christ our Lord whereby we were in him made to do those good works that God had appointed for us to walk in And although good works cannot deserve to make us righteous before God yet do they so cleave unto Faith that neither Faith can be found without them nor good works be any where found without Faith Fol. 68. immortality and blesse life God hath provided for his chosen before the foundations of the World were laid These are the passages which Mr. Prin hath gathered out of Poynets Catechism to prove that Calvinism is the true genuine and original Doctrine of the reformed Church of England in the Points disputed for my part I can see no possible inconvenience which can follow on it in yielding so far to his desires as to admit the passages before recited to be fully consonant to the true genuine sense and proper meaning of all but more especially of our 9 10 13 16 and 17. Articles then newly composed so that whatsoever is positively and clearly affirmed in this Catechism of any of the Points now controverted may be safely implied as the undoubted Doctrine of our Church and Articles For who can find if he looks upon them with a single and impartial eye that all or any of the passages before treated can be made use of for the countenancing of such a personal and eternal election without relation unto sin as is supposed by the Supralapsarians or without reference to Christs death and sufferings as is defended by the Sublapsarians in the Schools of Calvin What ground can a man find here for the Horribile Decretum that cruel and most unmerciful decree of pre-ordaining the far greatest part of all man-kind to everlasting damnation and consequently unto sin that they might be damned What passage find we in all these either in opposition to the Doctrine of Vniversal Redemption though that be afore said to be here condemned or in maintenance of the irresistible working of the grace of God as takes away all freedom and co-operation from the will of man and renders him as unable to his own conversion as to the work of his own being begotten to the life of nature or to the raising of his dead body to life of glory And finally what assurance is here that the man once justified shall not fall into deadly sin or not continue in the same multiplying one sin upon another till he hath made up the measure of his iniquities and yet all this while remain in the favour of God and be as sure and certain of his own salvation by the like unresistible working of the holy Spirit as if he had never wandred from the ways of Righteousness He must see further into a Mill-stone than all men living who can conclude from all or any of those passages that the Zuinglian and Calvinian Doctrines the Anti Arminian Doctrines Antiaâ—m as that Author calls them are manifestly approved and undeniably confirmed by them as the only ancient established and professed Doctrines of our Church and Articles or that can honestly affirm as his eccho doth that both the Master and the Scholar declare themselves plainly in that Catechism to be no friends to any of the Tenents which those of the opposite side contend for Which said 〈◊〉 Faith 〈◊〉 -arm p. 102. we will endeavour to find out Bishop Poynets judgment in the points disputed or so many of them at the least as are touched upon as well from such fragments as are offered to us in the Anti-Arminianism as from such passages as have been cunningly slipt over of purpose to subduct them from the eye of the Reader And first the Author lets us know that God created man after his own Image that is to say in ea absolutissima Justitia perfectissima sanctimonia c. in such a high degree of righteousness and perfect holiness as came most near unto the nature of God himself that this Divine image was so defaced by the sin of our first Parents Adam and Eve that those lineaments of righteousness holiness truth and knowledge of God were disordered and almost obliterated that man being in this wretched case it pleased God to raise him to a new hope of Restitution in the seed of the Woman that is to say in Jesus Christ his only Son conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the pure and most immaculate Virgin Mary the actions of whose life do so much redound to our benefit and commodity that if we cleave fast unto them with a true and lively faith they shall be as much ours as his and finally that as many as are in this faith stedfast were fore-chosen predestinate and appointed to everlasting life before the world was made 2. In the next place he lets us know which the Author hath amongst his fragments that the sacrificings cleansings washings and other Ceremonies of the Law were Shadows Types Images and Figures of the true and eternal Sacrifice of Jesus Christ made upon the Cross by whose benefit alone all the sins of all Believers from the beginning of the World are pardoned by the sore mercy of God and not by any deserts of their own But then he lets us
Justif of the Fath. pref maintaineth in his Catechism a Doctrine contrary to that which the Arminians as some call them do now contend for and that it is not to be thought that he and others engaged with them in the same convocation were either so ignorant as not to understand what they put into the Articles or so infatuated by God to put in things quite contrary to their own judgments which being supposed or took for granted we are directed to his Catechism written in the English tongue and dedicated from the two Archbishops from which the Objector hath abstracted these two passages following viz. To the Church do all they properly belong as many as do truly fear honour and call upon God altogether applying their minds to live holily and godly and with putting all their trust in God do most assuredly look for the blessedness of eternal life They that be stedfast stable and constant in this faith where chosen and appointed and as we term it predestinate to this so great felicity p. 44. The Church is the body of the Christian Common-wealth i. e. the universal number and fellowship of the faithful whom God through Christ hath before all beginning of time appointed to everlasting life Such are the passages in this Catechism from which the Objector hath concluded that Mr. Nowel had no communion with Arminians as some please to call them And to say truth he could have no communion with the Arminians as some please to call them though he had desired it Arminius being not born or but newly born when Mr. Nowel wrote that Catechism and Mr. Nowel had been dead some years before the name of an Arminian had been heard in England But unto this it hath been answered that looking upon Mr. Nowel in his publick capacity as he was Prolocutor to that Convocation it cannot be denied but that he was as like to undersTand the conduct of all affairs therein as any other whatsoever And yet it cannot rationally be inferred from thence that therefore nothing was concluded in that Convocation which might be contrary to his own judgment for a private person admitting that he was inclined to Calvin in the points disputed as he was not neither For had he been of his opinion the spirit of that Sect is such as could not be restrained from shewing it self dogmatical and in terms express and not occasionally only and on the by as in the Catechism now before us and that too in full general terms that no particular conclusion can be gathered from them Justif of the Fath. pref It hath been answered again thus that the Articles in the five points being the same with those in King Edwards book and so confessed by the Objector and no new sense being put upon them by the last establishment they must be understood no otherwise than according to the judgment of those learned men and godly Maryrs before remembred who had before concurred unto the making of them from which if Mr. Nowels sense should differ in the least degree it is to be lookt upon as his own not the sense of the Church And thirdly it hath been observed that the Catechism to which we are referred for the former passages is not the same with that which is authorized to be taught in the Grammar Schools in Greek and Latine nor the same which was published with the consent of the Author in the English tongue Ann. 1572. but a Catechism of a larger size yet of less authority out of which the other was extracted such points as were superfluous and not well expressed not being reduced into the same And somewhat certainly there was in it which rendred it uncapable of any further editions and not thought fit to be translated into Latine though such a translation of it was propounded to the Archbishops Bishops in the Epistle Dedicatory to the shorter English And though to let us know what Catechism it is he means he seems to distinguish it from the other it being dedicated to the two Archbishops Yet that doth rather betray the Objectors ignorance than advance his cause the Authors own Latine Edition and the English of it beign dedicated to the two Archbishops as well as that But since he hath appealed to the larger Catechism to the larger Catechism let him go in which he cannot so much as find one single question touching the Doctrine of Predestination or the points depending thereupon and therefore is necessitated to have recourse unto the Articles of the Catholick Church the members and ingredients of it from whence he doth extract the two former passages And then again we are to note that the first of the two passages not being to be found in the Latine Edition nor the English translation of the same is taken almost word for word out of Nowels Catechism therefore to be understood in no other sense than before it was when it was perused and approved by the Bishops and other Learned men of King Edwards time And thirdly there is nothing in all that passage which justifieth the absolute and irrespective decree of the Predestinarians or the restraining of hte benefit of our Saviours sufferings to a few particulars nothing of Gods invincible working on the hearts of his chosen ones or the impossibility of mans co-operating any further in his resurrection from the death of sin to the life or righteousness than in that of his body from the grave to the life of glory nothing that teacheth any such certainly or infallibly of persevering in the faith and favour of God as all the sins of the world are not able to deprive them of it but that they shall must necessarily be brought again into the place and station from which they had fallen And as for the last of the said two passages being the very same with that in the Authors Latine and the English translation of the same there is nothing in it which either a true English Protestant or a Belgick Remonstrant may not easily grant and yet preserve himself from falling into Calvinism in any of the points disputed For granting that the Church is the universal number and fellowship of all the faithful whom God through Christ hath before all beginning of time appointed to everlasting life Yet must it so be understood that either they were appointed to eternal life upon the supposition of their faith and repentance which may extend to the including of all those who are called to the external participation of the Word and Sacraments or else that it is meant especially of such as are appointed from all eternity to life everlasting without excluding any from the Dignity of being members of the Church who have received the outward call and openly joyn with them in all publick duties and thereby pass in common estimate amongst the faithful Believers And then this definition will afford no comfort to our modern Calvinists or create any inconvenience unto those whom they call Arminians CHAP.
fry in Hell and that he made them for no other purpose than to be the children of death and hell and that for no other cause but his meer pleasure sake and so say that God doth not only say but will swear to a lye For the Oath should have run thus As I live saith the Lord I do delight in the death of man Secondly it doth not by consequence but directly make God the Author of sin For if God without eye to sin did design men to hell then did he say and set down that he should sin for without sin he cannot come to hell And indeed doth not this Opinion say that the Almighty God in the eye of his Counsel did not only see but say that Adam should fall and so order and decree and set down his fall that it was no more possible for him not to fall than it was possible for him not to eat And of that when God doth order set down and decree I trust he is the Author unless they will say that when the Right honourable Lord Keeper doth say in open Court We order he means not to be the Author of that his Order Which said he tells us Thirdly Ibid. p. 135. that it takes away from Adam in his state of innocency all freedom of will and Liberty not to sin For had he had freedom to have altered Gods designment Adams liberty had been above the designment of God And here I remember a little witty solution is made that is if we respect Adams Will he had power to sin but if Gods Decrees he could not sin This is a filly solution And indeed it is as much as if you should take a sound strong man that hath power to walk and to lie still and bind him hand and foot as they do in Bedlam and lay him down and then bid him rise up and walk or else you will stir him up with a whip and he tell you that there be chains upon him so that he is not able to stir and you tell him again that that is no excuse for if he look upon his health his strength his legs he hath power to walk or to stand still but if upon his Chains indeed in that respect he is not able to walk I trust he that should whip that man for not walking were well worthy to be whipt himself Fourthly As God do abhor a heart and a heart and his soul detesteth also a double minded man so himself cannot have a mind and a mind a face like Janus to look two ways Yet this Opinion maketh in God two Wills the one flat opposite to the other An Hidden Will by which he appointed and willed that Adam should sin and an open Will by which he forbad him to sin His open Will said to Adam in Paradise Adam thou shalt not eat of the Tree of good and evil His Hidden Will said Thou shalt eat nay now I my self cannot keep thee from eating for my Decree from Eternity is passed Thou shalt eat that thou may drown all thy posterity into sin and that I may drench them as I have designed in the bottomless pit of Hell Fifthly Amongst all the Abominations of Queen Jezabel that was the greatest 1 Kings 21. when as hunting after the life of innocent Naboth she set him up amongst the Princes of the Land that so he might have the greater fall God planted man in Paradise as in a pleasant Vineyard and mounted him to the World as on a stage and honoured him with all the Soveraignty over all the Creatures he put all things in subjection under his feet so that he could not pass a decree from all Eternity against him to throw him down head-long into Hell for God is not a Jezabel Tollere in altum to lift up a man ut lapsu graviore ruat that he may make the greater noise with his fall But he goes on and having illustrated this cruel Mockery by some further instances he telleth us Ibid. p. 140. that the Poet had a device of their old Saturn that he eat up his Children assoon as they were born for fear least some of them should dispossess him of Heaven Pharaoh King of Egypt had almost the same plea for he made away all the young Hebrew Males lest they should multiply too fast Herod for fear our Saviour Christ should supplant him in his Kingdom caused all the young Children to be slain those had all some colour for their barbarous cruelty But if any of those had made a Law designing young Children to torments before they had been born and for no other cause and purpose but his own absolute will the Heavens in course would have called for revenge It is the Law of Nations that no man innocent shall be condemned of Reason not to hate where we are not hurt of Nature to like and love her own brood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the holy Ghost we are Gods Kindred he cannot hate us when we are innocent when we are nothing when we are not Now touching Gods Glory which is to us all as dear as our life this Opinion hath told us a very inglorious and shameful Tale for it saith the Almighty God would have many souls go to Hell and that they may come thither they must sin that so he may have just cause to condemn them Who doth not smile at the Grecians Conceit that gave their God a glorious title for killing of flies Gods Glory in punishing ariseth from his Justice in revenging of sin and for that it tells us as I said a very sad and unpleasant Tale for who could digest it to hear a Prince say after this manner I will beget met a Son that I may kill him that I may so get me a name I will beget him without both his feet and when he is grown up having no feet I will command him to walk upon pain of death and when he breaketh my Commandment I will put him to death O beloved these glorious fancies imaginations and shews are far from the nature of our gracious merciful and glorious God who hath proclaimed himself in his Titles Royal Jehovah the Lord the Lord strong and mighty and terrible slow to anger and of great goodness And therefore let this conceit be far from Jacob and let it not come near the Tents of Joseph How much holier and heavenlier conceit had the holy Fathers of the Justice of God Non est ante punitor Deus quam peccator homo God put not on the person of a Revenger before man put on the person of an Offender saith St. Ambrose Neminem coronat antequam vincit neminem punit antequam peccat he crowns none before he overcomes and he punisheth no man before his offence Et qui facit miseros ut miseratur crudelem habet miserecordiam he that puts man into miseries that he may pity him hath no kind but a cruel pity The absolute decree of Reprobation
Faith as it cometh not by mans will as the Papists falsly pretend but only by the Election and free gift of God so it is only the immediate cause whereto the promise of our salvation is annexed according as we read And therefore of faith is the inheritance given as after grace that the promise might stand sure to every side Rom. 4. and in the same Chapter Faith believing in him that justifieth the wicked is imputed to righteousness And this concerning the causes of our salvation you see how Faith in Christ immediately and without condition doth justifie us being solicited with Gods mercy and Election that wheresoever Election goeth before Faith in Christ must needs follow after And again whosoever believeth in Christ Jesus through the vocation of God he must needs be partaker of Gods election whereupon resulteth the third note or consideration which is to consider whether a man in this life may be certain of his election To answer to which question this first is to be understood that although our election and vocation simply indeed be known to God only in himself a priore yet notwithstanding it may be known to every particular faithful man a posteriore that is by means which means is Faith in Christ Jesus crucified For as much as by Faith in Christ a man is justified and thereby made the child of salvation reason must needs lead the same to be then the child of election chosen of God to everlasting life For how can a man be saved but by consequence it followeth that he must also be elected And therefore of election it is truly said de electione judicandum est à posteriore that is to say we must judge of election by that which cometh after that is by our faith and belief in Christ which faith although in time it followeth after election yet this the proper immediate cause assigned by the Scripture which not only justifieth us but also certifieth us of this election of God whereunto likewise well agreeth this present Letter of Mr. Bradford wherein he saith Election albeit in God it be the first yet to us it is the last opened And therefore beginning first saith he with Creation I come from thence to Redemption and Justification by faith so to election not that faith is the cause efficient of election being rather the effect thereof but is to us the cause certificatory or the cause of our certification whereby we are brought to the feeling and knowledge of our election in Christ For albeit the election first be certain in the knowledge of God yet in our knowledge Faith only that we have in Christ is the thing that giveth to us our certificate and comfort of this election Wherefore whosoever desireth to be assured that he is one of the Elect number of God let him not climb up to Heaven to know but let him descend into himself and there search his faith in Christ the Son of God which if he find in him not feigned by the working of Gods Spirit accordingly thereupon let him stay and so wrap himself wholly both body and soul under Gods general promise and cumber his head with no further speculations knowing this that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish Joh. 3. shall not be confounded Rom. 9. shall not see death Joh. 8. shall not enter into judgment Joh. 5. shall have everlasting life Joh. 3.7 shall be saved Matth. 28. Act. 16. shall have remission of all his sins Act. 10. shall be justified Rom. 3. Gal. 2. shall have floods flowing out of him of the water of life Joh. 7. shall never die Joh. 11. shall be raised at the lest day Joh. 6. shall find rest in his soul and be refreshed Matth. 11. c. Such is the judgment and opinion of our Martyrologist in the great point of Predestination unto life the residue thereof touching justification being here purposely cut off with an c. as nothing pertinent to the business which we have in hand But between the Comment and the Text there is a great deal of difference the Comment laying the foundation of Election on the Will of God according to the Zuinglian or Calvinian way but the Text laying it wholly upon faith in Christ whom God the Father hath Predestinate in Christ unto eternal life according to the doctrine of the Church of England The Text first presupposeth an estate of sin and misery into which man was fallen a ransom paid by Christ for man and his whole Posterity a freedom left in man thus ransomed either to take or finally to refuse the benefit of so great mercy and then fixing or appropriating the benefit of so great a mercy as Christ and all his merits do amount to upon such only as believe But the Comment takes no notice of the fall of man grounding both Reprobation and Election on Gods absolute pleasure without relation to mans sin or our Saviours sufferings or any acceptation or refusal of his mercies in them As great a difference there is between the Author of the Comment and Bishop Hooper as between the Comment and the Text Bishop Hooper telleth us cap. 10. num 2. that Saul was no more excluded from the promise of Christ than David Esau than Jacob Judas than Peter c. if they had not excluded themselves quite contrary to that of our present Author who having asked the question why Jacob was chosen and not Esau why David accepted and Saul refused c. makes answer that it cannot otherwise be answered than that so was the good will of God And this being said I would fain know upon what authority the Author hath placed Nachor amongst the Reprobates in the same rank with Esan Pharaoh and Saul all which he hath marked out to reprobation the Scripture laying no such censure on Nachor or his Posterity as the Author doth Or else the Author must know more of the estate of Nachor than Abraham his Brother did who certainly would never have chosen a Wife for his Son Isaac out of Nachors line if he had looked upon them as reprobated and accursed of God I observe secondly that plainly God is made an accepter of persons by the Authors doctrine For first he telleth us that the elder Son had a better will to tarry by his Father and so did indeed but the fatted Calf was given to the younger Son that ran away and thereupon he doth infer that the matter goeth not by the will of man but by the will of God as it pleaseth him to accept I observe thirdly that Vocation in the Authors judgment standeth upon Gods Election as the work thereof whereas Vocation is more general and is extended unto those also whom they call the Reprobate and therefore standeth not on Election as the Author hath it For many are called though out of those many which are called but a few are chosen Fourthly I observe that notwithstanding the Author builds the doctrine of Election on Gods
long professed and received doctrine but continue to use all good means and seek at your Lordships hands some effectual Remedy hereof lest by petmitting passage to these Errors the whole body of Popery should by little and little break in upon us to the overthrow of our Religion and consequently the withdrawing of many here and elsewhere from true obedience to her Majesty May it therefore please your Lordship to have an honourable consideration of the premises and for the better maintaining of peace and the truth of Religion so long received in this University and Church to vouchsafe your Lordships good aid and advice both to the comfort of us wholly consenting and agreeing in judgment and all others of the University truly affected and to the suppression in time not only of these errors but even of gross Popery like by such means in time easily to creep in amongst us as we find by late experience it hath dangerously begun Thus craving pardon for troubling your Lordship and commending the same in praise to Almighty God we humbly take our leave From Cambridge March 8th 1595. Your Lordships humble and bounden to be commanded Roger Goad Procan R. Some Tho. Leg John Jegon Thomas Nevil Thomas Preston Hump. Tyndal James Mountague Edmond Barwel Laurence Cutterton Such was the condition of Affairs at Cambridge at the expiring of the year 1595. the genuine Doctrine of the Church beginning then to break through the clouds of Calvinism wherewith it was before obscured and to shine forth again in its former lustre To the advancement of which work as the long continuance of Baroe in the University for the space of 20 years and upwards the discreet activity of Dr. Harsnet Fellow and Master of Pembrook Colledge for the term of 40 yeaas and more gave a good encouragement so the invincible constancy of Mr. Barret and the slender opposition made by Overald contributed to the confirmation and encrease thereof For scarce had Overald warmed his Chair when he found himself under a necessity of encountring some of the remainder of Baroes Adversaries though he followed not the blow so far as Baroe did for some there were of the old Predestination Leven who publickly had taught as he related it in the conference at Hampton Court all such persons as were once truly justified though after they fell into never so grievous sins yet remained still just or in the state of Justification before they actually repented of those sins yea though they never repented of them through forgetfulness or sudden death yet they should be justified and saved without Repentance Against which Overald maintained that whosoever although before justified did commit any grievous sin as Adultery Murder Treason or the like did become ipso facto Conf. at Ham. C. p. 42. subject to Gods wrath and guilty of damnation or were in the state of damnation quoad presentem statum until they repented And so far he had followed Baroe but he went no further holding as he continued his own story that such persons as were called and justified according to the purpose of Gods Election did neither fall totally from all the graces of God though how a justified man may bring himself into a present state of Wrath and Damnation without a total falling from all the graces of God is beyond my reason and that they were in time renewed by the Spirit of God unto a lively faith and repentance and thereby justified from those sins with the guilt and wrath annexed unto them into which they had fallen nor can it be denied but that some other Learned men of those times were of the same opinion also Amongst which I find Dr. John Bridges Dean of Sarum Anti-Armini pag. 202. and afterwards Lord Bishop of Oxon to be reckoned for one and Mr. Richard Hooker of whom more anon to be accounted for another But being but the compositions of private men they are not to be heard against the express words of the two Homilies touching falling from God in case the point had not been positively determined in the sixteenth Article But so it hapned notwithstanding that Overald not concurring with the Calvinists concerning the estate of such justified persons as afterwards fell into grievous sins there grew some diffidences and distrust between them which afterwards widned themselves into greater differences Insomuch that diffenting from them also touching the absolute decree of Reprobation and the restraining of the benefit of Christs death and Gods grace unto a few particulars and that too in Gods primitive purpose and intent concerning the salvation and damnation of man-kind those of the Anti-Calvinian party went on securely with little or no opposition and less disturbance At Oxford all things in the mean time were calm and quiet no publick opposition shewing it self in the Schools or Pulpits The reasons of that which might be first that the Students of that University did more incline unto the canvasing of such points as were in difference betwixt us and the Church of Rome than unto those which were disputed against the Calvinists in these points of Doctrine for witness whereof we may call in the works of Sanders Stapleton Allyns Parsons Campian and many others of that sid as those of Bishop Jewel Bishop Bilson Dr. Humphreys Mr. Nowel Dr. Sparks 〈◊〉 Hist l. 9. Dr. Reynolds and many others which stood firm to the Church of England And secondly though Dr. Humphreys the Queens Professor for Divinity was not without cause reckoned for a Non conformist yet had he the reputation of a moderate man a moderate Non-conformist as my Author calls him and therefore might permit that liberty of opinion unto other men which was indulged unto himself neither did Dr. Holland who succeeded him give any such countenance to the propagating of Calvins doctrines as to make them the subject of his Lectures and Disputations Insomuch that Mr. Prin with all his diligence can find but seven men who publickly maintained any point of Calvianism in the Schools of Oxon from the year 1596. to the year 1616. and yet to make that number also he is fain to take in Dr. George Abbot and Dr. Benfield on no other account but for maintaining Deum non esse authorem peccati that God is not the Author of sin which any Papist Lutheran or Arminian might have maintained as well as they And yet it cannot be denied but that by errour of these times the reputation which Calvin had attained to in both Universities and the extream diligence of his followers for the better carrying on of their own designs there was a general tendency unto his opinions in the present controversies so that it is no marvel if many men of good affection to that Church in government and forms of worship might unawares be seasoned with his Principles in point of Doctrine Instit fathers in the Pref. his book of Institutes being for the most part the foundation on which the young Divines of
Realm and in respect thereof of the House of Commons in Parliament Next to the Parliament the most renowned Judicatory of this Land is the Great Council of the Peers called by the King on sudden and emergent occasions which cannot safely stay the leisure of a Parliament for the prescribing of such remedies as the case requires and called so for no other reason but that it is a general meeting of the Bishops and Temporal Lords under the common name of Peers to give the King such Counsel and advice in his greatest difficulties as the exigencies of affairs shall suggest unto them which proves the Bishops to be Peers as well as any of the Temporal Lords Nor could it properly be called the Great Council of Peers if any but the Peers be invited to it The last example of which Council was that held at York about the latter end of September Anno 1640. upon the breaking in of the Scottish Rebels And the like Argument may be drawn from that Appellation which commonly is given to that place or Room wherein the Lords Spiritual and Temporal do consult together in the times of Parliament best known unto us by the name of the House of Peers and known unto us by that name for no other Reason but because it is appropriated to the use of the Peers that is to say the Nobles Spiritual and Temporal or the Bishops and the Temporal Lords for their Consultations And as they have the name of Peers and the Rights of Peerage so is there none of all the Antient Rights of Peerage which belong not to them as fully and as amply as to any of the Temporal Lords that is to say a necessary place and Vote in Parliament and a particular Writ of Summons to invite them to it the freedom of their persons from Arrests at the suit of a Subject not to be troubled with Essoynes or supplicavits in the Courts of Justice a power to qualifie their Chaplains to hold several Benefices not to have any Action against them tried except one Knight at the least be returned of the Pannel the Liberty of killing one or more of the Kings Deer in any of his Parks or Chases both in their going to the Parliament and returning home of which take this in General from our Learned Antiquary Cambden Brit. fol. 123. Inde Ecclesiastici illi omnibus quibus caeteri Regni Barones gavisi sunt immunitatibus nisi quod à Paribus non judicentur that is to say that they enjoy all priviledges and Immunities as the Lay Lords do but that they are not to be Judged by their Peers But first he is not certain that this exception their not being to be Judged by their Peers will hold good in Law and therefore leaves the resolution of that point to our Learned Lawyers sed an hoc sit Juris explorati dixerint ipsi Juris periti as his own words are And secondly the reason which he gives is no more than this that since by reason of the Canons they could not be Judges or Assessors in causa sanguinis they therefore were referred to a Common Jury of twelve Men in all publick Trials but by this reason they must either have no Trial at all or may as well be tried by their Peers as a Common Jury because they are disabled by those Canons from sitting in Judgment on the life of a Common Juror as well as of a Lord or Peer which I marvail Cambden did not see But weaker is the Reason which is given by Stamford in his Pleas of the Crown that is to say that Bishops are not to be tried by their Peers because they do not hold their place in Parliament Ratione Nobilitatis sed ratione officii and yet not only in regard of their Office eien en respect de lour possessions l'antient Baronyes annexes a lour dignitye but in regard of their possessions and those ancient Baronies which are annexed to their Sees which reason in my Judgment hath no reason at all for then the old Barons which were called to Parliament in regard of their Tenure as they were all until the time of King Richard the 2d could have no Trial by their Peers because they had no place in Parliament but in respect of their possessions or temporal Baronies and secondly the Bishops as before was proved are accounted Nobles and thereupon may challenge their place in Parliament not only ratione officii as anciently before the times of William the Conqueror but also ratione Nobilitatis since they were ranked amongst the Barons in regard of their Tenure Others perhaps may give this reason that Bishops in the former times were debarred from Marriage and that now holding their Estates and Honours only for term of life they are not capable of transmitting either unto their posterity which possibly may make the Laws less tender of them than they might be otherwise but then what shall we say of the Wives and Widows of the Temporal Lords who being either barren or past hope of Children shall notwithstanding be tried by their Peers according to the Statute of Henry the sixth Or put the case that any man should be created Earl or Baron for the time of his life or with a limitation to the Heirs of his body and either live unmarried or continue childless must he be therefore made incapable of a Trial by the Peers of the Realm because his Honours and his Life do expire together I think no reasonable man can say it and I hope none will It cannot be denied but that some Bishops have been tried by Common Juries that is to say Adam de Orlton Bishop of Hereford Thomas Lyld Bishop of Ely Thomas Merkes Bishop of Carslile John Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury but then it is to be observed that none but Fisher suffered death on that account whether by reason of some illegality in their proceedings or in reference to their High and holy Callings it is hard to say And secondly we may observe that though in some confusions and disorder of times such Presidents may be produced as in matter of Fact yet the Case is not altogether so clear in point of Law as not to leave the matter doubtful as we heard before and that it was conceived by some Learned men of that profession that if those Bishops had desired to be tryed by their Peers it could not have been denied them in a course of Justice And therefore thirdly we observe that the Bishops of Hereford and Ely did trust so much to their dependance on the Pope and their exemption from the power of all secular Judges that they refused absolutely to be tryed by any but the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Popes Legate in this Kingdom which possibly might put their Enemies upon a course of enquiring into their offences by a Common Jury the parties being wilfully absent and not submitting to a Trial in due course of Law
Doctrine in the Points disputed under the new establishment made by Queen Elizabeth 1. The Doctrine of the second Book of Homilies concerning the wilful fall of Adam the miserable estate of man the restitution of lost man in Jesus Christ and the universal redemption of all mankind by his death and passion Page 601 2. The doctrine of the said second Book concerning universal grace the possibility of a total and final falling and the co-operation of mans will with the grace of God Page 602 3. The judgment of Reverend Bishop Jewel touching the universal redemption of man-kind by the death of Christ Predestination grounded upon faith in Christ and reached out unto all them that believe in him by Mr. Alexander Nowel ibid. 4. Dr. Harsnet in his Sermon at St. Pauls Cross Anno 1584. sheweth that the absolute decree of Reprobation turneth the truth of God into a lie and makes him to the Author of sin Page 603 5. That it deprives man of the natural freedom of his will makes God himself to be double-minded to have two contrary wills and to delight in mocking his poor Creature Man ibid. 6. And finally that it makes God more cruel and unmerciful than the greatest Tyrant contrary to the truth of Scripture and the constant Doctrine of the Fathers Page 604 7. The rest of the said Sermon reduced unto certain other heads directly contrary to the Calvinian Doctrine in the points disputed ibid. 8. Certain considerations on the Sermon aforesaid with reference to the subject of it as also to the time place and persons in and before which it was first preached Page 605 9. An Answer to some Objections concerning a pretended Recantation falsly affirmed to have been made by the said Mr. Harsnet ibid. 10. That in the judgment of the Right Learned Dr. King after Bishop of London the alteration of Gods denounced judgments in some certain cases infers no alteration in his Councils the difference between the changing of the will and to will a change Page 606 11. That there is something in Gods decrees revealed to us and something concealed unto himself the difference between the inferiour and superiour causes and of the conditionality of Gods threats and promises ibid. 12. The accomodating of the former part of this discourse to the case of the Ninevites Page 607 13. And not the case of the Ninevites to the case disputed ibid. CHAP. XIX Of the first great breach which was made in the Doctrine of the Church by whom it was made and what was done towards the making of it up 1. Great alterations made in the face of the Church from the return of such Divines as had withdrawn themselves beyond Sea in the time of Queen Mary with the necessity of imploying them in the publick service if otherwise of known zeal against the Papists Page 609 2. Several examples of that kind in the places of greatest power and trust in the Church of England particularly of Mr. Fox the Martyrologist and the occasion which he took of publishing his opinion in the point of Predestination ibid. 3. His Notes on one of the Letters of John Bradford Martyr touching the matter of Election therein contained ibid. 4. The difference between the Comment and the Text and between the Author of the Comment and Bishop Hooper Page 612 5. Exceptions against some passages and observations upon others in the said Notes of Mr. Fox ibid. 6. The great breach made hereby in the Churches Doctrine made greater by the countenance which was given to the Book of Acts and Monuments by the Convocation Anno 1571. Page 613 7. No argument to be drawn from hence touching the approbation of his doctrine by that Convocation no more than for the Approbation of his Marginal Notes and some particular passages in it disgraceful to the Rites of the Church attire of the Bishops ibid. 8. A counterballance made in the Convocation against Fox his Doctrine and all other Novelisms of that kind Page 614 CHAP. XX. Of the great Invocation made by Perkins in the publick Doctrine the stirs arising thence in Cambridge and Mr. Barrets carriage in them 1. Of Mr. Perkins and his Doctrine of Predestination with his recital of the four opinions which were then maintained about the fame Page 614 2. The sum and substance of his Doctrine according to the Supralapsarian or Supra-creatarian way Page 615 3. The several censures past upon it both by Papists and Protestants by none more sharply than by Dr. Rob. Abbots after Bishop of Sarum Page 616 4. Of Dr. Baroe the Lady Margarets Professor in the Vniversity and his Doctrine touching the divine Decrees upon occasion of Gods denounced Judgment against the Ninivites ibid. 5. His constant opposition to the Predestinarians and the great increase of his Adherents Page 617 6. The Articles collected out of Barrets Sermon derogatory to the Doctrine and persons of the chief Calvinians ibid. 7. Barret convented for the same and the proceedings had against him at his first conventing Page 618 8. A Form of Recantation delivered to him but not the same which doth occur in the Anti-Arminianism to be found in the Records of the Vniversity ibid. 9. Several Arguments to prove that Barret never published the Recantation imposed upon him Page 619 10. The rest of Barrets story related in his own Letter to Dr. Goad being then Vice-Chancellor ibid. 11. The sentencing of Barret to a Recantation no argument that his Doctrine was repugnant to the Church of England and that the body of the same Vniversity differed from the heads in that particular Page 620 CHAP. XXI Of the proceedings against Baroe the Articles of Lambeth and the general calm which was in Oxon touching these Disputes 1. The differences between Baroe and Dr. Whitacres the address of Whitacres and others to Arch-bishop Whitgift which drew on the Articles of Lambeth Page 621 2. The Articles agreed on at Lambeth presented both in English and Latine Page 622 3. The Articles of no authority in themselves Archbishop Whitgift questioned for them together with the Queens command to have them utterly supprest ibid. 4. That Baroe neither was deprived of his Professorship nor compelled to leave it the Anti-Calvinian party being strong enough to have kept him in if he had desired it Page 623 5. A Copy of the Letter from the Heads in Cambridge to the Lord Treasurer Burleigh occasioned as they said by Barret and Baroe Page 624 6. Dr. Overalds encounters with the Calvinists in the point of falling from the grace received his own private judgment in the point neither for total nor for final and the concurrence of some other Learned men in the same opinion Page 625 7. The general calm which was at Oxon at that time touching these disputes and the Reasons of it ibid. 8. An Answer to that Objection out of the writings of judicious Hooker of the total and final falling Page 626 9. The disaffections of Dr. Bukeridge and Dr. Houson to Calvins