some good measure and is forthwith not meerly passive Or must we hold that he only proposes to the depraved Will of Man the choice of Life or Death and leaves him room to Sacrifice to his own Net in Case he miscarry not in the Election Is 't not safe to hold that in the Commission of Sin Man's will acts of it self as never since the Fall of Adam in a posture to do otherwise But in the performance of Good God acts by it effectually restoring its lost faculty Or shall we take out of the Crown of the Almighty's Prerogative so fair a Flower as that of Election by saying He offereth the means of Salvation alike to all both in their sufficiency and efficacy UUe all know that Man is not drawn up to Heaven as the bulk of a Tree from the place where it grew with a Team and strength of Oxen by the Cords of an absolute Violence We think not that God so compels him to come in as he has through the whole neither Sense nor Motion or acts not in the Duty But we say with Saint Augustine To will God works without us but when we do will and so will that we Act God co-works with us UUe say not that any is made a Believer without Free-will yet are we made Believers only by his Grace that freed the Will We do not absolutely deny the freeness of the Will but we deny that the Will is free of it self For whether out of a true Judgement it move one way or out of a false another yet in both it moves naturally in a manner sutable to its own Condition either as depraved in it self or freed by God's effectual Operation Those very things which he himself works in the Soul he produceth in it by such Allurements and Threats Expostulations and Adhortations as are sutable unto and fit to move a rational Creature and make the Will follow without Constraint For that power of God which subjects a man to Christ comes not by moral Perswasion only nor yet by violent Impulses but is sweetly tempered to the disposition of the Will it self which is so drawn with these Cords as that it cannot resist because it cannot but yield None of those Scriptures usually brought in opposition are such Conditions whose Effects stand determinable by Man himself but they are such Motives as God makes instrumental to accomplish his own purposes and manuduct us to our Duties This obviates all contrary reasonings drawn from some passages in holy Writ clearly reconciles those with other parts of the same undoubted Verity unpossible to be done by any other Doctrine and ascribes most Glory to God bottoming all our Rejoycing only in him wherein there is no danger Mr. Gery a late Writer explicates this in a fivefold Order First saith he though we have no power now to turn since we are fallen in our first Parent yet he and we in his loins might have stood And therefore it 's no Severity in God to require that at our hands which he once gave us both a Command and power to do 2. God's Commands as since that directed to us do not alway import what we can do but what we should they do not argue ever our ability but our duty 3. God requires it though we cannot perform it of our selves to put us in mind of craving his Aide 4. God's end in this proceeding is to excite us to joyn in with such Means as are by his appointment conducible and available thereunto Fifthly and lastly such Commands aim not only at our first Conversion but at our secondary and subsequent returns to God upon our prevarications from him and after the first Infusion of his Grace when we grant the Will hath some power and ability to co-operate but not at all before They who would introduce that Free-Will which will not down with us besides many other pernitious Consequences put upon themselves a necessity of holding That sufficient Means is afforded to all whereby they may come to Salvation if they list than which what can be uttered more alien to Truth For how great a part of the World do we know not to have any Means at all not any either Notional as to the Adult or Foederal Interest as to Infants amongst them If you admit of Original Sin either in the Guilt or Contagion it brings upon Mankind we have there a sufficient ground for God's Election of some and Dereliction of others since the whole Lump being equally subject to Wrath it 's Mercy and mere Grace that saves any If you deny it why are Children who have not yet sinned according to the Similitude of Adam's transgression subject to Death which had never invaded the world but for sin I use St. Paul's way of arguing in a Case much like this Rom. 5. 13 14. where he proves the Obligatory power of the Law to antecede the promulgation of it by Moses from this very ground Or how would such children be under a necessity of Regeneration as all are declared to be John 3. 5 6. But if it be true as needs it must even by this last proof That we have a delinquencie and vitiousness of Nature too about us even from and in the Womb How can the Will be free to any thing but evil till it be healed rectified and made-a-new by God There is no hope that a sinner of himself no nor by any arguments and as I conceive the Papists with the Arminians allow to the Grace of Vocation no more but a Moral Swasion or probable inclination of the Will which they say the outward preaching of the words may effect should be won over to like the Motion that Christ makes so long as the ground of the dislike remains in Man's earthly sensual and devilish Nature James 3. 15. First therefore God by his Spirit makes approach to the Understanding and on it puts forth an Act of Illumination he beats out a Window in the Soul and lets in light from Heaven renewing the spirit of the mind in knowledge Ephes. 4. 23. with Coloss. 3. 10. Secondly an Act of Conviction which is a reflection of that light formerly wrought in the Understanding upon the Conscience by it we feel the weight and force of those Truths we know Thirdly an Act of Renovation whereby he doth both powerfully and sweetly incline the Will to accept of Christ and to make a free deliberate choice of him without any compulsion other than such as wherewith the Soul cannot chuse but most willingly go along And certainly they stand upon very hard terms with God Almighty who are loth to ascribe to him as much as this comes to in a work which is not brought to pass without his exceeding great and mighty Power Ephes. 1. 18 19. And take the sum of all that I desire should be lookt at as my belief in reference to those points here touched from no less Orthodox a Pen than St. Augustins Many hear
look upon Christ our Mediatour who is the End or chief aim of the Law Rom. 10. 4. for it was given with a Design to drive us to him Gal. 3. 24. and is a Yoak which we nor our Fathers were able to bear Acts 15. 10. and in Contemplation of that Righteousness he performed in our Nature for us by vertue of the Covenant of Grace deal with us and our Works so as the Imperfections which we acknowledge and bewail in them shall never come in sight Well-fare those men if they can for the Condignity of their Services It is enough for us under the sense of the Skars and Blemishes in our too often lame Obedience to look up to the Hills from whence cometh our Help and to shelter our selves under his Feathers who hath Healing in his Wings We will now hear what the old Fathers of the New I mean the Primitive Church will say to this business But let us take along with us the Advice of Vincentius Lirinensis who highly commends this way of confuting Errors yet with this Caveat Neither all ways nor all kinds are to be impugned after this manner but such only as are new and lately sprung whilst by the straitness of time they be hindred from falsifying the Rules of the ancient Faith and before their poyson spreading farther they attempt to corrupt the Writings of the Elders c. Which I mention not because I am diffident of their Testimony but to give you an hint that the Policy of Rome has been notorious in Curtaling Expunging Depraving the Fathers yea and foysting in new Matter to many of their Works Note again in what sence the word Merit often indeed occurring in their Writings before ever that Acception the Jesuits now have it in was dream'd of was used by them It Ordinarily imports no more when they say Merita than if they had said Opera and to merit no more than simply to attain unto or procure without any Relation at all to the Dignity either of the Person or the Work Thus St. Augustin saith Paul for his Persecutions and Blasphemies Merited to be made a vessel of Election and Cyprian Misericordiam merui I obtained Mercy So Gregory Paul when he went about to extinguish the name of our Redeemer upon Earth Merited to hear his Words from Heaven and lest you have a Conceit that he means of Paul's Works fore-seen See the same manner of Rhetorick concerning Adam's Sin O happy Sin that Merited to have such and so great a Redeemer meaning that gave the occasion of his Coming And now I am to acquaint you with a Secret has been hid from your Eyes by the Cunningness of those you build your Belief upon St. Chrysostome Cyprian Augustin and the rest will I think in my Conscience prove as arrant Hereticks as we For the first peremptorily affirms against Vasquez That no man can shew such a Conversation of life as may be worthy of the Kingdom but this Kingdom is wholly the Gift of God and in another place Although we did die a Thousand Deaths and perform all Vertuous Actions yet we should come far short of rendring any thing worthy of those honours which are conferr'd on us by God Take one more of his That one destitute of Works should be justified by Faith might perhaps seem well to be but that one adorned with Vertues and good Works should yet not be Justified by them but only by Faith is admirable Who would have thought good old Chrysostom had so much dissented from the reverend Society at Rhemes who teach us another Lesson That good Works are Meritorious and the very cause of Salvation so far as God should be unjust if he rendred not Heaven for them Take the next Testimony out of Gregory in the Original because there 's one word whose just force and Emphasis as it stands here our English can I think but hardly reach Justus noster Advocatus nos defendet in Judicio quia nosmetipsos cognoscimus accusamus Injustos Non ergo in fletibus non in actionibus nostris sed in Advocati nostri Allegatione confidamus When the day of Judgment or our Death shall come saith Hierom all hands shall fail because no work shall be found worthy of the Justice of God That is a known place of Augustin He viz. Christ is Sin as we are Justice not our own but God's not in our selves but in him as he is Sin not in himself but in us And remarkable that of Athanasius Impossibile est puritatem innocentiam in humana Natura exhiberi nisi Deus credatur in Carne fuisse qui Justitiam omni ex parte liberam in mundum introduxit Cujus quia participes sumus vivemus salvabimur Illud enim Non est justus in terra c. in Commune ad omnes pertinet Unde ex Coelo descendit qui immaculatam Justitiam ex se daturus erat No less this of Gregory Nyssenus in his Oration upon Beati qui esuriunt Justitiam It seems to me saith that Father That our Lord by mentioning Justice doth propose to the appetite of his hearers his own self who is made unto us Wisdom from God Justice Sanctification c. That Proverb Bernardus non videt omnia may perhaps be true yet in this Omne tulit punctum he has hit the right Nail on the Head and rivetted it in so strongly as not even the Teeth of Time shall be able to pull it out We find in him these words fit to be writ in Letters of Gold I will make mention of thy Righteousness only for even that is mine too to wit thou art made unto me Justice I need not fear but it will serve us both It is not a short Cloak that will not cover two c. We will here take lieve of these Stars of the first Magnitude and come to those of later Note in the Church's Constellation that lived after the light of this Doctrine had been clouded and set themselves to enquire how it came so and to deliver their opinions more distinctly and apposite to the present Question than the ancient Doctors could do who had finished their Course before the Corruption was discoverable or the Controversie started But take in as we pass another Instance or two out of the last named Doctor It 's necessary first of all to Believe That we cannot have remission of sins but by the Mercy or Condonation of God 2. Then That we cannot at all have any whit of good works unless he give it Lastly That by no good works we can merit Life Eternal Nisi gratis deâ—ur illa In another place thuâ— If we must speak properly of that which we call Merits they are certain Seminaries of Hope Incitements of Love Signs of secret Predestination the way to the Kingdom not the Cause of Reigning Dangerous is the way and dwelling of those that trust in
Law and Prophets 14. Augustine again in his 200. Epist. The Law says Thou shalt not covet and it says so not for that here we are absolutely able to perform that Command but to shew towards what our Endeavours are to bend themselves 15. Theophylact on Gal. 3. No man can do what is prescribed in the Law and by its Sentence he that does it not is accurst So it comes to be the Office of Faith to give the Blessing 16. To all such as esteem the Law so easie or possible to be fulfilled let me recommend Bishop Davenant's Treatise de Justitia Habituali Actuali and particularly the 49th Cap. 17. Hierom on 2 Cor. 5. 21. Christ being offered for our Sins received the name of Sin that we might be made the Justice of God in him not our own nor in our selves 18. Origen on Rom. 6. 23. Well does the Apostle here continue the Metaphor he had before taken up that he might affirm Death the due pay of such as fight under the Standard of the King of Sin to be their Wages But it would have been as much unfit to say God gives Stipends to his Souldiers but a free Gift and Grace 19. Theodoret in Sophoniam cap. 3. The salvation of men dependeth upon God's mercy alone for we do not attain unto it as Wages And on this very place viz. Rom. 6. 23. his words are Hic non dicit Mercedem sed Gratiam 20. Lastly our venerable Country-man Bede on Psal. 23. And thus that the godly man shall be well rewarded non ex meritis sed ex sola gratia Anselm once our Archbishop has left behind him this great Truth inconsistent sure with those Rhemish Annotations I formerly touched or the bold dictates of Vasquez That if a man should serve God and that most fervently a thousand years he should not condignly merit to be half a day in the Kingdom of Heaven And more fully to our purpose in his Book de modo visitandi infirmos If Satan say thou hast deserved damnation answer thou I set Christ's death betwixt me and my evil merits and I offer his merits for that merit which I should have had but do want now Lest we should apprehend as the confident and diligent Factors for the Roman Cause could be content to have us that their Opinion in this Point had been derived to them through the long Current of 1600 years let us ponder the words of Thomas Waldensis who lived a man of great learning even when the thickness of this darkness began to overspread the face of the earth Tom. 3. de Sacram. He professeth his utter dislike of that saying A man may by merits be worthy of Heaven of this Grace or that Glory However says he lo here their rise certain Schoolmen have invented the Terms of Congruity and Condignity I do repute him adds he again the more faithful Catholick more sound Christian and more consonant to holy Scripture who does simply deny such merit And confesseth That no man merits Heaven but by the Grace of God or will of the Giver as all the former Saints and whole Church have written The same may be collected from Erasmus who may certainly pass for a sufficient witness in Matter of fact Epist. ad Stephanum Rhodricum From these premises we I hope may with safety and confidence after it is past for Law upon the venerable Bench of Primitive Antiquity and veritas truth is non quod antiquum not what had got a prevalence in our Grandfathers or Great-grand-fathers days but quod antiquissimum what from the beginning was so affirm That even now under the Gospel Justification cannot be absolved towards a Sinner but in the contemplation of Christ's Righteousness whereby he and none but he fully answered all the demands of the Law Nor is it any prejudice to our Cause at all that in the writings of the Latin Fathers the Terms Merita mereri and Justificationes do frequently occur since their importance with them for the most part is singly works not the desert of working but particular Acts of Justice and mereri to attain unto or procure as the way whereby not the cause wherefore the Reward of Heaven which is largely as well as clearly manifested by our Bishops Usher Davenant and Downham their true sence and meaning being not contrary but subordinate to our Doctrine We shall not fear therefore to say with St. Paul compare Rom. 4. 3. Ja. 2. 21. That the best man living must expect Blessedness without Works by Faith alone and yet that Faith must not nor indeed can be alone in any good man For it is as infallibly true which St. James tells us cap. 2. That Works do in the sight of men and to our own Consciences justifie us supposed or mistaken Faith alone being dead and ineffectual can do nothing at all thereto How this goodly Building of condign merit or Justification by the desert of inherent Righteousness hath a very congruous foundation on the doctrine of Free-Will Alphonsus à Castro gives us to understand Lib. 7. de haeres when he says For this even because we consent to God's Monition when we might have dissented Wages are ow'n to us and from thence is our merit If by this Monition they intend but a bare ineffectual swasion and then leave Nature to determine in that work which is not brought to pass but by the mighty power of God Eph. 1. 19. the difference betwixt them and the Pelagians of old is sure but very minute and scarce perceptible The one though they would not hear of the energy of Grace yet acknowledge that Nature which they so much exalted was the gift and work of God The other though they seem to assign a kind of Grace to the Conversion of a sinner coarct its operation under such Terms as render the whole business in a manner the Fruit of a man 's own acquisition Three Questions there are very pertinent to this 〈◊〉 which being resolved are so determinative of the Point as leaves the Judgement no more room further to hesitate 1. What state the Father of the Faithful was in whenas St. Paul Rom. 4. assures us he was Justified without Works The Romanists allege that this is to be understood of Natural Works done before or without Faith Well but Abrahani was called of God and answered his call had received and imbraced the Promise Gen. 12. built an Altar and twice thereat invoked the Name of the Lord Gen. 13. had solemnly been blessed by Melchizedek Gen. 14. had a Testimony given by God that he was his particular care Gen. 15. had performed several Acts of Righteousness in Faith as is apparent from Heb. 11. 8 9. and was now about an hundred years old Rom. 4. 19. yet after all this of him it is spoken and by St. Paul drawn to general application That by Faith without Works this is without any consideration had on God's part to their merit he was Justified
Oratio ad M. V. Mariam pro Cordis Puritate Per sanctam Virginitatem immaculatam Conceptionem tuam Purissima Virgo Emunda Cor Carnem nostram In nomine Patris ✚ Filii ✚ Spiritus sancti ✚ Amen Juxta Exemplar Romae incisum This is subscribed to a Cut black and white which serves for a Chimney Piece at a Gentleman's house I know very well Touching it I cannot but make two Observations 1. That it is not true what some Papists when they would insinuate to such as they endeavour to make Proselytes that their Doctrine concerning Prayer to Saints is an innocent safe thing do affirm viz. That they never pray to them for spiritual Grace immediately 2. That it is a strange thing they should publickly authorize in a prayer such a Clause as is very stiffly denied by one half I believe of their Church viz. That the blessed Virgin was not born with Original sin or That her own Conception was immaculate Such a Reverence towards the Saints departed as exerts it self in thanks to God for them and excites in us a desire to follow their good examples all Christians doubtless are bound to retain But with such Sacrifices as the voluntary and culpable humility of Multitudes have it seems obtruded on them 't is as certain they themselves are far from being well or at all pleased If the present Romanists will owne practices like these above their next Task is to defend them If they disclaim them they must disprove the relations In both Cases we are not without something more to say Of Prayer for the Dead THere is no Controversie wherein I found it more difficult to give my thoughts a settlement than this It was strongly the dictate of my Nature not to omit any Office which might possibly avail a dear departed friend It was hugely my inclination to subject my Judgment to the Dictates of Antiquity And indeed the Writings of some justly to be reputed Fathers old enough are not without Expressions such as taken in gross and at first view may seem to lean towards the practice of the Romish Church But upon the most sollicitous scrutinies I have been able to make little is the Conformity betwixt its Doctrine and the Notions of those Venerable Persons Bellarmine in his second Book and 18th Chapter of Purgatory will have it to be most certain that Prayers bring no advantage either to the blessed or damned only then to such as he places in Purgatory But a man with half an eye may discover That those laudatory Nominations those gratulatory Commemorations those benevolent Options which here and there occurr in the Antient Doctors with reference to the deceased had no design to kindle that imaginary Fire which hath since been made so terribly to Flame in the faces of departing Souls unless by a liberal Donation they would make the Pot to boil lustily in the Pope's Kitchin St. Augustine seems lib. 9. cap. 13. of his Confessions rather to indulge himself newly got from under some extraordinary transports upon the death of his Mother than to give determinate Laws for a necessary rite For having signified his full belief that the thing he prayed for was done already He intreats Almighty God not without something of hesitancy to approve Voluntaria cordis sui words too feeble to sustain half the superstructures that Rome would rear thereupon In another place he solemnly professeth That having wearied themselves to find out what manner of sins those could be which should impede our Admission into Heaven and yet receive pardon by the Intercessions of our friends remaining on this Earth he was not able to attain the knowledge thereof and gives us lieve elsewhere to dissent from him where there is not evident Scripture to resolve our Faith into of which sort their own Bredenbachius doth acknowledge the Oblations and Sacrifices for the dead to be Vide Morton's Appeal lib. 2. cap. 8. Since Nazianzen praying for Caesarias since Ambrose praying for Theodosius do at the same time profess a confidence that the Persons did possess Christi requiem Nay since we read of certain Liturgies wherein not only Supplications for Patriarchs Prophets Apostles but even for the blessed Mother of our Lord were inserted yea and termed Sacrifices too what can we judge but that those addresses were either merely gratulatory or proceded more from the Zeal they had of expressing their Affections to those parties than from any settled opinion of their necessity The truth is a Phancie had then got some footing which will not now generally pass for Orthodox either with them or us viz. That Souls of best Saints departed were reserved in an outward Court of Heaven not in the Verge of Hell nor under Satan's Jurisdiction let this be noted by the way before they were admitted to the full fruition of God nay even till the Resurrection of the Body This might occasion some modes of Prayer which yet do not at all justifie that sort of Orasons Oblations Sacrifices Indulgences which we condemn in the present Romanists To conclude Though we should suffer it to pass among the Credibilia That some access of Felicity might accrew to a dead Relation though I need not disclaim that Opinion which tells me a better Resurrection may be procured for him by the multiplied prayers on his behalf made against that time when his Body now in the dust or dust it self shall be reunited to the Soul Yet can I not think well of that Doctrine whereby so dark a Cloud is drawn betwixt the Eye of my Faith and him in whose blood I must be cleansed from all Sin or whereby I may be seduced by a deceivable hope of succour from other hands after death to venture upon the pleasures of Sin for a season under that most deluding expectation of having my Lamp lighted with the Oyl of such Devotions as are not at all mine own Of Purgatory BEcause we find not in sacred Writ a Fire penal after this Life but what is kindled with Brimstone for evermore Therefore we exhort all men to beware they entertain not a vain hope of escaping everlasting Burnings by dwelling in an imaginary Flame for a time Of Penance WHether it be a Sacrament or no is not here the Question The Learned on our side have drawn many Arguments both from its Constitution and Institution which sufficiently evince that it cannot properly be so esteemed nor come within either the nature or number of Sacraments Amongst the Genuine Concomitants of Repentance St. Paul enumerates with godly sorrow indignation fear also Revenge And in some other places and cases we understand Restitution Reparation Satisfaction to take place but in reference to all these there may be a dead flie to make them justly stink in the nostrils of God yea there may be and 't is to be feared the thing falls out too often Death in the Pot. Where the conscience is guilty of and the Church scandaliz'd by enormous crimes