sinning then the other but one was guilty of the greater Contempt Not because God had absolutely Decreed a greater Punishment to the one but because the one had means of sinning lesse then the other For our Saviour sayes expresly that if the mighty works which were done in Tyre and Sidon had been also done in Chorazin and Bethsaida they would have repented in Sackcloth and Ashes Which was as much as to tell them that it was not at all for want of means and mercy on Gods part but for want of will on theirs that they did not do what was commanded to be done And therefore our Saviour did upbraid them because they repented not Mat. 11. 20. which he could not have done had it been impossible for them to have repented Our blessed Saviour was too pitiful and of too sweet a disposition to jeeâ—… a poor Creature for being such as God made him or for being such as he could not but be whether by fatal or by natural infirmity We esteem it an ill nature to upbraid a stammerer for not speaking plain nor is any man reproached for being naturally but wilfully blinde nor for being born deaf but for being like the Adder that stoppeth her ears He that bindes my feet and then invites me to come to him intends me nothing for entertainment but a salted Sarcasme or bitter Iest for if he were serious he would set my feet at liberty that I might come in good earnest and not say to me as we say to a Childe that is fallen down Come hither to me and I will lift thee up And yet this Mr. Calvin is fain to say having been first of all ingaged in that opinion That so many nations of men together with their infants were involved without remedy in eternal punishment by the fall of Adam for no imaginable reason but that so it seemed good in the sight of God and being pincht with that Text Ezek. 18. 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die and not that he should return from his waies and live he is fain to say That God wils not the Death of a sinner so far forth as he wils his Repentance Which experience teacheth us he doth so will as not to touch his heart that he may repent Which is all one as to say He wils it so as to command it but he does not will it so as to leave it possible that is he wils it in shew but not in reality Nor do I know any way possible for Mr. Calvin to escape those ugly sequels but by saying that the sinner may repent by the strength and force of Nature without the touch of his heart by the grace of God which is to shelter himself under the Heresie of Pelagius Solomon gives us a more rationall accompt why Wisdome one day will laugh at mens calamities and mock when their fear cometh even because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord 27. My fifth Reason is taken from the nature of Death as that does signifie Privation and as Privation supposes a former Habit. A stone is said to be not alive because it suffers the Negation of life but a stone cannot properly be said to be dead because it doth not suffer the Privation of life So that when a man is said in Scripture to be spiritually dead in Trespasses and Sins he is imply'd by that expression to have been spiritually alive And no man is damn'd for the Negation but the Privation of Grace because the Negation of Grace would be Gods work whereas the Privation of it is his own It having formerly been shew'd That God doth not punish his own work in man but man is punisht for his own work not for Gods illiberality but for his own being a prodigal not because no Talent was given him but because he squander'd it away Sin is properly the Death of Grace Death is a privation a privation is of a habit So that every sinner had grace for this very Reason that he hath lost it he was alive for this very Reason that he is dead He came alive out of Gods hands but he fals desperately by his own A man may be dead born but he cannot possibly be dead begotten deprived of life he cannot be in the very Act of his conception A man can no more be created a sinner then he can be generated a dead man which infers the Condition of Gods Decree 28. My sixth Reason is taken from Christs having bought those very men 2 Pet. 2. 1. whose damnation did not slumber vers. 3. I have proved already Christ died for all that were dead in Adam from 2 Cor. 5. 14. and from several other Texts Which he could not be truly affirm'd to do if any one had been past by by an absolute Praeterition For that any man doth perish for whom Christ dyed is from his own sin and not from Adams if to free us from Adams it was that Christ died Which as it hath been already proved so it may be confirmed from other Scriptures as from 1 Joh. 2. 2. where he is called the propitiation not for our sins only but also for the sins of the whole world The Apostle foresees and confutes the Heresie of Christs dying only for the Elect with a not only but also He died for Infidels and impenitents as the whole stream of the Fathers conclude from those words Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died And shall thy weak brother perish for whom Christ died That this was the Judgement of the primitive Church I can prove by an Induction and though I now spare my Reader yet I shall trouble him hereafter if I am Challeng'd to it I shall at present refer him to the 31 Article of our Church of England The oblation of Christ once made is a perfect Redemption propitiation and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world as well Original as Actual I had almost forgot a special Testimony of S. Iohn who cals the Messias the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world So that if any man is in the Dark it is not for want of Light but because he will not see as S. Chrysostome infers which is the very interpretation that S. Iohn himself gives it chap. 3. vers. 9. This sayes he is the Condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darknesse rather then light because their Deeds were evil Sure that which is the Reason of their Condemnation was the Condition upon which they were determin'd to be damn'd then which I know not what can be said either more plainly or more convincingly of any subject whatsoever 29. My seventh Reason is taken from the conditional Decrees of temporal Death and other temporal punishments which are so evidently Conditional as I cannot beleeve any Creature will deny it For the Denuntiations of Destruction to Nineveh and
of certain death to Hezekiah do put this quite out of all scruple for the first was not destroyed and the second did not die at that determinate time when God had threatned they should Of which no reason can be given but that Gods Purposes and Decrees and Threats were conditional on supposition of their Impenitence he threatned to destroy and therefore on sight of their Repentance he promis'd to preserve And from hence it is natural to argue thus Is God so merciful to bodies and is he lesse merciful to souls Does he decree temporal Iudgements conditionally because he is pitiful and will he decree Eternal ones absolutely meerly because he will Is he so unwilling to inflict the first death and will he shew his power his absolute power in the second Did he spare the Ninevites in this life because they were penitents and will he damn them in the next because they were Heathens by his peremptory Decree Is he milde in small things and severe in the greatest Is there no other way to understand those Texts in the 9. to the Romans then by making those Texts which sound severely to clash against those that sound compassionately Is it not a more sober and a more reasonable Course to interpret hard and doubtful Texts by a far greater number more clear and easie then perversly to interpret a clear Text by a doubtful one or an easie text by one that 's difficult which is to shew the light by the darknesse Or if some Texts have two senses if some Texts are liable to many more must we needs take them in the worst and that in meer contradiction to the universal Church If I had no other Argument against an absolute Reprobation this one were sufficient to prevail with me That that Father of mercies and God of all consolation who spareth when we deserve punishment did not determine us to punishment without any respect to our indeservings He that had mercy upon wicked Ahab meerly because of his Attrition did not absolutely damn him before he had done either good or evill before the foundations of the world were laid He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. 3. 33. much lesse doth he damn them for his meer will and pleasure When God doth execute a temporal punishment upon such as already have deserv'd it he comes to it with reluctation {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and therefore cals it his * strange work a work he loves not to be acquainted with a work which he doth sometimes execute because he is Iust but still * unwillingly because he is compassionate And he therefore so expresses it as we are wont to do a thing we are not us'd to and know not how to set about How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel how shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim Mine heart is turn'd within me my Repentings are kindled together I will not execute the fiercenesse of mine anger for I am God and not man Now that God doth professe to afflict unwillingly and many times to repent him of the evil which he thought to do unto his people is a demonstrative argument of his Conditional decrees in things Temporal and by a greater force of Reason in things Eternal 30. My eighth Reason is taken from the little flock which belongs to God and the numerous herd which belongs to Belial Which would not have been if they had both been measur'd out by a most absolute Decree For when it pleas'd the Divine goodnesse to suffer death upon the Crosse for all the sins of the world the every drop of whose bloud had been sufficiently precious to have purchased the Redemption of ten thousand Adams and ten thousand worlds of his posterity he would not yeeld the major part unto his Rival Rebel the black prince of Darknesse reserving to himself the far lesser portion and all this irrespectively meerly because he would He would not absolutely determine such a general Harvest of Wheat and Tares as freely to yeeld the Devil the greater crop He would not suffer his Iustice so to triumph over his Mercy who loves that his Mercy should rejoyce against Iudgement It was not for want of a new Instance to shew his Power or his Iustice for they were both most eminent in the great Mysterie of Redemption Much greater Instances and Arguments then an Absolute Decree as I could evidently shew if I were but sure of my Readers patience My ninth Reason is taken from the Reprobation of Angels which was not irrespective but in regard to their Apostasie as is and must be confessed by all who place the object of Reprobation in massâ corruptâ For the overthrowing of which tenent in all the Sublapsarians Dr. Twisse himself does thus argue Si Deus non potuit Angelos reprobare nisi ut contumaces ergo nec homines nisi ut in contumaciâ perseverantes De Praedest Digres 4. 4. c. 2. 31. My tenth Reason is taken from the Absurdities which have and still must follow if Gods eternall decree of mans misery is not conditional but absolute And those absurdities are discernible by this following Dilemma Let Dives be suppos'd to be the man that is Damn'd It is either because he sins or meerly because God will have it so If for the first Reason because he sins then sin is the Cause of his Damnation and consequently before it From whence it followes that Dives is not Damn'd meerly because God will have it so but that God will have it so because he sins Which plainly shewes the Conditional Decree But if it be said that it is for the second Reason meerly because God will have it so then that absolute Decree to have it so doth either necessitate him to sin damnably or it does not First if it does then how can Dives be guilty of that thing of which Gods absolute Decree is the peremptory Cause Or how can that be guilt which is necessity Dives could as little have cherisht Lazarus as the Tower of Siloe could have spared the Galilaeans if his will had been no more free then that Tower had a will And secondly if it does not necessitate him to sin damnably then Dives who is Damn'd might possibly have not been damn'd From whence it follows That Dives is not Damn'd absolutely but in regard to his sins Which had they not been his choice they had not been his but his that did choose them And it is a Contradiction to say a man chooses any thing without a free will or by an absolute necessity which is whether he will or no Besides if God did absolutely decree the end which is Damnation and consequently the means which is final impenitence these Absurdities would follow First it would be a Reprobates duty to be damn'd And to endevour his salvation would be a sin Because 't were striving
God Almighty So far is God from prostituting his Blessing by such a controlling of the will and such an obâ—…ruding of the object as makes the object unavoidable that he doth not only offer and propose it to his peoples choice but desires them also to choose it I call heaven and earth to record this day against you saith God by Moses that I have set before you Life and Death blessing and cursing Therefore choose life that thou and thy seed may live But choose we cannot if God works in us irresistibly as I will farther prove by Reason * That is properly called irresistible which is of such an over-ruling and prevailing force that a man cannot withstand it although he would And thus Dr. Twisse hath well defin'd it Upon which it followes that to choose irresistibly is a contradiction in Adjecto For it is to will a thing whether one will or no He that saith God worketh in us to choose irresistibly doth say in effect He so worketh in us as that we cannot choose but choose Which is as much as to say not only that we do what we cannot do but that we therefore do it because we cannot do it He that cannot choose but choose doth choose because he cannot choose Which is as bad as to say that the thing is necessary because it is impossible To make this plain to my plainest Reader I will shew the legality of my deduction by these degrees First he that is wrought upon by God to believe obey or persevere irresistibly cannot possibly do otherwise then beleeve obey or persevere Secondly he that cannot possibly do otherwise then he doth cannot possibly choose but do what he doth Thirdly he that cannot choose but do what he doth doth clearly do it whether he will or no Fourthly he that doth beleeve obey or persevere whether he will or no doth do it by as evident undeniable Necessity as that by which a stone tends downward Which tendency of the stone though it is spontaneous yet is it not voluntary and as it is not by violence so it is not by choice neither Fifthly he that willeth to beleeve obey or persevere whether he will or no doth do it by a Necessity by which a stone tends upwards when it is thrown Which tendency of the stone is so far from voluntary that it is not spontaneous It is not only an irrational but an unnatural thing and besides implies a contradiction in a voluntary Agent which cannot take place in an involuntary stone For to say a man willeth to obey or beleeve whether he will or no is to say he willeth it either without his will or against his will or else not having a will at all Which is as bad as to say that he must needs will it because he cannot any way possible I know not any trick imaginable to escape the odium of these Absurdities unlesse by denying the definition of irresistible Which were not to escape but to commute absurdities And not only the authority of Dr. Twisse but the very force of the word would cry it down And so little is my deduction in a capacity to be blamed that Doctor Twisse saith expresly of irresistibility it hath no place in the act of willing And though he pleadeth for a Necessity which he will have to follow Gods operation upon the Soul yet he will have that Necessity to be no other then what may very well agree with the liberty of the will So that if that Doctor in that his skirmish with Arminius had not confounded a necessity with a certainty of event and used that word in stead of this his Antagonist and He in that particular must needs have wrangled into Friendship For Arminius denieth the irresistible working of Grace upon the Will and so doth Dr. Twisse Again Dr. Twisse affirmeth that the liberty of the will doth agree with the working of Grace upon the Will and so doth Arminius And therefore I hope for no hard usage from such as are haters of Arminius whilest I say the same things with them that hate him 47. Me thinks the principal Ground of my mistakes heretofore in this businesse if I may be allowed to passe a conjecture upon my self is the misapprehension of certain Texts the cause of whose misapprehension is the illogical confounding of two things which though they look like one another are yet exceedingly different E. G. from Ezek. 26. 27. Cant. 1. 14. 1 Ioh. 3. 9. I will cause you to walk in my Statutes c. Draw me we will run after thee Whosoever is born of God cannot sin because he is born of God and the like many conclude that Gods working upon the wils of his Elect is by such a physical immediate immutation of their wils as doth not only produce a certain but a necessary effect And being forgetful rather then ignorant to distinguish necessity from certainty of events they call that necessary which is but certain and infallible and so through hast or inadvertency they swallow down the Error of irresistible Grace using the word irresistible in stead of efficacious And this is a second inadvertency begotten of the first as commonly one error loves to draw on another Now because a fallacy undiscerned in the praemises cannot possibly be discover'd by gazing only on the Conclusion just as an error in the first Concoction is hardly mended in the second I must mark out the difference betwixt infallible and necessary before I can usefully distinguish betwixt effectual and irresistible 48. Infallible properly is that that cannot erre or be deceived That is properly Necessary which cannot but be The first relates to the perfection of the Knowledge of God but the second to the Almightinesse of his will The first is properly applyed unto the object of God's foresight and though 't is otherwise used yet 't is by such a Catechresis as I humbly conceive to be a stone of stumbling But the second more precisely unto the object of his Decree The first is consistent with those contingent events to which the second is Diametrically opposed E. G. That I am now writing is but contingent because I do it upon choice Yet Gods foreknowledge of this my writing from all Eternity did infer that this my writing would infallibly come to passe This event is contingent for I can choose but yet infallible for God cannot erre This contingent therefore doth infallibly come to passe not by way of a consequent but by way of consequence My writing being not the effect but the object only of God's Omniscience Which is in order before the Act. God foresees a contingent will contingently come to passe and therefore we infer it will infallibly come to passe because he foresees it who is infallible So that his praescience is a consequent of the thing 's coming to passe and its infallibility of coming to passe is inferr'd from his praescience only by way of