being committed even to final Impenitence should become that Requisite to the production of punishment which being suppos'd must needs be followed with its effect man is the sole efficient Cause of his eternal punishment that is to say he is the Cause of his being punished of deriving upon himselfe a right to punishment not of the Torments of Hell in themselves which others suffer as well as he and which would have been Torments to others though he had not felt them but of his suffering the Torments of Hell or of the appertaining of those Torments to himselfe or of committing those sins of which those Torments are unavoidable effects Thus though God is the Maker and so the Father of mankind yet he having ordained not to make every man as he did Adam out of the Earth nor every woman as he did Eve out of the man's left side but that by the union of man and woman both men and women should be produced we truly say that the Parents are the efficient Causes of their Sons and Daughters It is not as Mr. B. doth inconsiderately suppose either the Law-giver or the Law by whom and which a Felon is ordained to be hanged It is not the Plaintiff the witness the Counsellor or the Judge the Iury the Goaler the Sheriff or the Gibbet it is not the Carpenter who made the Gibbet on which the Felon is to be hanged nor the Hangman by whom nor the Halter with which it is not any nor all of these to which the Death of the Felon or Malefactor can be so imputable as to himself He is therefore the most considerable efficient who by the Malefaction of his Fellonie did call Death to him and pulled destruction upon himselfe with the worke of his hands as the Book of Wisdom speaks of the greatest punishment of all his o conceiving of his sin o brought forth his punishment All the Catalogue of Requisites to the condition of his punishment did no more then give a due connexion of the Cause to its effect His maâ—efaction was the Root from which his punishment did grow and so his sufferings are but the fruit of his guilty doings He sought out death in the error of his life and is but filled with his Devices He hath rewarded evil unto himselfe 4. One sin sometimes becomes the Punishment of another and the greater of the less In which case say I the former sin is the Cause and efficient Cause of the later Which if Mr. B. shall deny he must according to his reasonings against my second Chapter affirme God the efficient of the greater sin and man only the efficient or rather the Deficient of the lesser because the greater sin which follows is the punishment of the lesser which goes before and he denieth that man is the efficient Cause of his punishment But if he shall not deny it he grants the whole Cause against which he hath taken such exceeding great pains Unless he can give a solid reason why a Man who by Sin is the Cause of one punishment may not also by more sin become the Cause of another From whence it follows 5. That the Scripture speaks very truly and properly when it connecteth punishment with six by a conjunction Causal Such as For. And wherefore and therefore and because Nor was it nonsense or a lye which was said by Solomon that the wicked shall eat of the fruit of their own way and the turning away of the simple shall slay them Prov. 1. 31 32. And therefore 6 It was judiciously spoken of Mr. Hooker who hardly knew to speak otherwise our selves we condemn as the only Causes of our own miscry Let the Reader compare Mr. Hooker's saying and mine and judge which is liable to most exception He saith the Causes of Misery but I of Punishment He saith the only Causes I the only efficient And where Mr. B. doth pretend to wrest the suffrage of so great an Author out of my hand in his p. 86 he spoyles his very pretensions in these few words which confirme the saying of Mr. Hooker and much more mine All that he saith hath been most readily consented unto by men less liked by you After this he adds something in pretence of exposition to Hookers words so perfectly impertinent either to Hookers meaning or his own purpose as sheweth his necessity exceeding great He will only say something that his Reader may not see he hath nothing to say Mr. B. there saith p. 86. that even those very things of which Gods absolute Will is the Cause yet as they stand in relation to each other they have many other causes and lawes besides Gods absolute will And this he saith that Mr. Hooker doth say in effect But first it is as contrary to that saying of Hooker which I produced as any thing can be spoken Secondly I aske are those words true of Sin it selfe in Mr. B. his account and are they less true of punishment 7. The repeated saying of Melancthon in that part of his works in which he used his greatest Care and writ with greatest consideration as appears by his Epistle to our King Henry the eighth will put this matter without all doubt And so much the rather because Mr. B. commendeth him p. 129. for Depth of learning Calmeness Prudence and Moderation yea and as none of my party yet saith he it is certain that the sin of men and their will is the Cause of their Reprobation and to assure us of his meaning he saith a little after The Cause of Rejection and Reprobation Which though the same in effect with the words of my Thesis in my Second Chapter yet are the words of Melancthon much more liable to exception if any such as Mr. B. would quarrell with him and since Mr. B. doth charge me as an Arminian with falsehood and impudence as often as I make Melancthon on my party I will say a few things to shew how little of Truth or of Modesty there is in that expression First in general it is known by all that are tolerably knowing in such things as these that as Melancthon grew older and so more learned and wiser too he grew an enemy to those opinions which he had formerly been of and which Mr. B. doth now assert Next it appears in particular to any man that shall read his common places de Causâ peccati de Praedestinatione wherein he took as great care to speak the Truth with moderation as he ever did in any worke if not much greater that he speaks as precisely against the Doctrines of Mr. Calvin as I have done in my Notes Nor is it likely that he could be a Calvinist who is so much in the favour of learned Grotius and Erasmus But he that was once against Publick Schools might also once have entertained other Errors and yet afterwards retract as well the one
Agamemnon have set their witts against Ajax for having cruelly insulted over a couple of dead Sows was it not punishment enough that he lost the Armour of Achilles and after ran out of his witts mistook a Herd for an Army and a Sow for an Enemy Nay when he came out of his Reverie and found the grossenesse of his mistake his vexation and his shame made him Impatient of his Life For having drawn his Sword at his Fancy he put it up into his Bowels To apply this story were long and needless and I must now take care that my Gate be not bigg enough for my City to run out at Lest Mr. Barlee tell me once more who yet had surely less reason then any man living that I am terrible long ere I can get into my Trappings or Geers I have perhaps already worne out your patience and presum'd too much upon your leisure The usual freedom which you allow me must be attended with respect as well as kindeness for although you are not either a Lord or a Lady as the shrewd Hariolator doth seem to think yet you are certainly a Person as well of Honour as of Integrity And since I have been so observant of all your strict precepts That I should never reveal your Name I may say without danger of interessing your modesty how much soever to the displeasure of our Correptory Corrector that I honour your vertues and Erudition more then your Fortune and your Blood And that I am equally obliged to speak my selfe Sir Your very Affectionate and Humble Servant T. Pierce An Advertisement to the READER WHen I found a Volume of about thirty sheets addressing it selfe in particular to Mr. T. P. in the very expresse Forme of a Declamatory Epistle and almost totally composed of the most bitter railings or the most groundlesse inventions that in all my life I ever heard of interlarded with but a few and those few very unskilful and unscholarlike Reasonings against the subject of my Notes concerning God's Decrees I awhile debated within my selfe which would be the most prudent and Christian course Whether to suffer in deep silence under his personal abuses and imputations or to discover to the World what an Incomparable Adversary I have to deale with If I should venture on a discovery I thought I might give some distast to the lesse considering sort of Readers by my bare discovering of his commissions as well as He by committing such hainous things And yet if I should not discover them the severall men of his Combination might make advantage of my silence and urge it as an Argument of my Consent I stood ballancing for a time somewhat like Buridan's Asse knowing not which of the two I should prefer To shew him a very grosse Christian and a very Thinn Scholar were to reflect upon the Credit of those aged Praefacers who have publikely commended his undertaking and yet to indulge him an escape were to suffer the common people to stumble and fall down into some foule Errors of Judgement first and then of practice by the reverence which they beare to the Learned Author of the first Epistle whom as I seriously respect for his Gravity Learning and comparative Moderation so I design to make it appear by conferring with him in a peculiar season For His Name and Mr. Barlees bound up together are like the Couples of Mezentius whose Cruelty it was to yoke the living with the dead nor will I be so severe or disobliging unto him as I find in this matter he hath been unto himself But I had not yet determin'd what course to take with Mr. Barlee For to denudate his misdemeanours might seem severity to a Neighbour and yet not to do it would be a cruelty to my selfe Once I thought that Mr. B. had very sufficiently bewrayed himselfe and that the first of his Patrons could not preserve him from Contempt much lesse the Second much lesse the Third But yet it came into my minde that it is as true now as it was at the time when Saint Hierome wrote it that There is not any Writer so very unworthy to be READ who doth not meeet with some Readers just like himself One while I considered the noble meeknesse of a Saviour who endured even with silence such contradiction of Sinners against himself But again I lai'd in the other Scale of the Ballance his great Severity and Sharpnesse at other times I remembred that Charity endureth all things and is not easily provoked But yet I could not be forgetfull that it is also allow'd to begin at home and that my knee is nearer to me then my shin I look't with one eye upon the happinesse and bliss of being reviled and persecuted and having all manner of evill falsely spoken against me for his Names sake for whom I pleaded But I looked also with the other eye upon the very great Misery of suffering Truth to fall in the midst of the Streets without so much as indeavouring to hold her up I gave an eare to that of Solomon strive not with an angry man And thought the very repetition of his Reproaches might be look'd upon by the unwary as a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I would not be deafe to that saying of the Apostle that he who converteth a Sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes Whilst I was standing thus in Bivio suspended by an indifference which way I went I was determin'd to this course which I have now waded through by the distinction which I made betwixt a Greater and Lesser evill I thought it dangerous to speak but more dangerous to be silent and though of two Morall Evils I may not choose either yet of two evils not Moral I may and ought to choose the least As rather to suffer some Envy by making this vindication Then the sadder events of making none It hath been matter of trouble to me that being tyed up to such subjects as my Correptory Corrector hath laid before me I have been under a necessity of spending whole Sections upon things extrinsecall to God's Decrees And therefore I have attempted to requite my Reader and my self by making a Table of those things which are most material and pertinent to the severall Questions in Debate betwixt my innocent Notes and my angry Neighbours that if any man shall desire without the expense of much time to examine how matters do stand betwixt us as to any particular under debate he may be able to find it out with very great ease and expedition and so be freed from the danger of losing his paines and his Leisure upon that which he thinks doth least concern him Concerning the Praefacers or Encomiasts who have bewrayed their Affections if not their Judgments by way of prolusion to Mr. Barlee and his incomparable attempts and so
have been taught rather to hate Arminius then understand him may very usefully be told some few things of him First he was plainly a Presbyterian and so is Mr. Barlee so am not I. Next he taught and beleeved that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth justifie so I suppose doth Mr. Barlee so do not I. Thirdly Arminius was for free will and so is Mr. B. as well as I. So as he confesseth are all his Party who are ready to take up that with Austin that the will is alwayes free but not alwayes good yet in a fit of forgetfulness p. 219. he saith that Austin and Melancthon scarce durst to name the free will of man since Adams Fall Not knowing perhaps or perhaps concealing that Arminius was a Follower and Admirer of Melancthon 4. Arminius was of opinion that the considerations of sub and supra in stating the object of Gods decree were but ingenti figmenta meer tricks and devices in the Anti-Arminians And Mr. B. confesseâ—h the very same in his p. 114. where though he saith that they are honest ingenious devices yet Dr. Twisse calls the former by very foule names as inferring God saith he to be the Author of sin the very thing they would avoid in the supralapsarian way 5. Arminius disputeth against Gods Absolute Power or Will as it is separate from his Justice and Mr. B. confesseth that Calvin himselfe doth do the same yea that he bitterly declaim's against it 6. Though Mr. Barlee most times affirme's God to decree and praedetermin that sin shall be done as I shall largely shew anon yet forgetfull of himself in his p. 138. He saith that God's decree is only permissive and governing of every sinful thing in which he jumps with Arminius extreamly well 7. Mr. B. confesseth that he and his party do in part admit of some Arminian Principles p. 106. and yet he makes a cleere distinction betwixt me and the Arminians p. 66. But 8. Arminius denyed the working of Grace irresistibly and Mr. B. professeth that the terms resistible and irresistble were never willingly owned by him and his party I am sure they use extreamly often the word irresistibiliter if not willingly it seems they do it unwillingly and why then do they do it if they are asham'd of it they should not be asham'd to mend 9. Arminius hold's that God never intended to punish any one with temporal and then lesse with eternal death but for sin And Mr. B. professeth to hold the same even in those very words What God decreed he intended and vice versâ and so Mr. B. is an Arminian perhaps before he is aware or understand's not the things whereof he speaketh 10. Mr. B. is a Calvinist and saith that Calvin and Melanchthon did but seemingly not really differ Yet Arminius was so much a follower of Melanchthon that we may call him a Melanchthenian Sure Mr. B. will agree as soon with Pelagius as with himself 11. To conclude where Arminius is in an Error Mr. B. is sure to erre with him but hates Arminius where he is Orthodox although he is constrain'd to speak like him there too when the necessity of his affaire's doth drive him to it or when he is forgetfull of the part which he is acting 12. For my self I do declare that I was then in the opinions I now am in when I had not read one page of Arminius his works nor do I agree with him any farther then he agree's with Scripture Antiquity the Church of England and Melanchthon after the time of his conversion from the Errors of Luther and Mr. Calvin this Melanchthon at first had been as it were the Scholar of Lu her and drew from him his first Errors But being apious learned and unpassionate man pursuing Truth not Faction he saw his Error and forsook it embracing those opinions concerning the liberty of the will the cause of sinne the universality of Grace and the respectivenesse of God's Decrees which I asserted in those Notes which Mr. B. now declaims against This Melanchthon was and is still the Darling more then any one man of the Reformed part of the Christian world so much the rather because besides his vast learning unbyass't judgement and transcendent piety he was almost proverbial for moderation For this was he chosen to write the Augustan Confession for this he was much considered by them that composed our Book of Articles and our other book of Homilies which shew's us what is the Doctrine of the true Church of England For this he was imitated and admired by the glorious Martyrs of our Religion in the dayes of Q. Mary for this he was esteemed farre above Mr. Calvin by Jacobus Arminius the famous professor of Divinity in the Vniversity of Leyden who however a Presbyterian as to matter of Discipline did yet so very far excell the other Divines of that sect in exactnesse of learning as well as life that we may say he became Melanchthon's Convert If Mr. B. would needs call me by any new Name it should have been a Melanchthonian not a Pelagian or an Arminian much lesse a Satanical and diabolical Blasphemer and Atheist an a what-not But neither am I a Melanchthonian in any other respect then as I apprehend Melanchthon to be a true and an Orthodox and a peaceable-minded Christian I leave it to M. B. to give up his Faith to Mr. Calvin and to follow him at aventure through thick and thin but neither Melanchthon nor Mr. Calvin did dye for me no was I baptized in the name of either It is my sole desire and ambition to be a follower of Christ and one of Christs school to imitate the example and adorne the Doctrine not of Calvin or of Arminius but of Jesus Christ Let Mr. B. be a Calvinist an Aeâ—ian or what he will I have vow'd for my part not to be any thing but a Christian And if that is good logick to say that I am an Arminian because in some things I do not differ from Arminius then Mr. B. by the same Logick is not only an Arminian where I am none but he is also a Papist because he is at agreement with the Jansenians and the Dominicans and in many respects with the Jesuites too Yet 13. I was in my childhood of those Opinions which Mr. B. doth now contend for So was Melanchthon himself as well as I but through the infinite mercy and Grace of God I have obtained conversion as well as Melanthon and being converted from the practice as well as from the opinion which I was of I will to my poore utmost at least endeavour to confirm or convert my brethren 14. The chief head of Arminianism as Mr. B. will call it do what I can is Vniversal Grace and Redemption with which the other opinions in debate must stand or fall as I conceive a point so cleer both from Scripture Reason and
for Heterodox at least if not for Hereticall with Mr. Barlee Such places of Scripture as are plaine and easie as plain and as easie as the wit of man can imagine Mr. Barlee will needs interpret in some figurative sense that so he may drag them to vote on his side But such other places of Scripture as are obscure or doubtful or notoriously known to be spoken by an Hebraisme he will needs understand in a literal sense and all in homage to his Caprices concerning God's Agency and efficaciousnesse in sin It may be of good use to the unlearned sort of Readers to give them an example in either case When God sweareth he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked nor is willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and will have all men to be saved and tasted death for every man and is the propitiation not for our sins only but also for the sins of the whole world and commandeth all men every where to repent I say that these words ought to be simply understood after their native signification without any mental Reservations or other tricks whatsoever So as my sense is plainly this That God sincerely doth desire the health and welfare of all mankind I mean their Obedience Repentance Renovation of life perseverance in well doing in this present world and Glorification in the world to come that he hateth nothing which he hath made nothing but sin which he hath not made that when he command's he is sincerely willing to be obeyed and therefore giveth a passive power to receive his grace and by that an active power to performe such obedience as he will mercifully accept But he forceth no man compelleth no man necessitateth no man by Grace irresistible to be eternally happy do what he can to the contrary any more then he forceth or necessitateth any man by any irrespective unconditional Decree to be eternally miserable do what he can to be otherwise So that such as are not saved cannot say they are not saved for want of means and possibility for want of a Ransom or a Saviour or for want of God's willingnesse that they should be saved but for want of their willingnesse to do their duties the conditions of the Covenant upon the performance or non-performance of which Salvation either may or may not be had But Mr. B. on the contrary derides my simplicity in the literal acception of such plain Texts He hath either a Synecdoche for the word All to make it signifie no more then some and those not the greater but by very much the lesser part of mankind Or else he hath a distinction of sufficienter non intentionalâ—ter Christ saith he was sufficient to have been a ransom for all the world but 't was a thing he never meant or intended Or else he hath the common abuse of voluntas signi Beneplaciti that is the revealed will of God which they say is not properly his will but only a token what ought to be aone and the secret will of God which they will have to be properly his will as that by which he decreeth a thing shall actually be done In so much that although he professeth in his word He is not willing that any should perish but very willing that all should come to repentance yet he is secretly willing that the far greater part of men should perish and secretly unwilling that all should come to to repentance He having absolutely decreed say they to leave the major part of man kind without the very possibility of Repentance or Salvation and determin'd their Reprobation without respect unto their sins So when he is said to command all men every where to repent it is not meant say they as if he intended they should repent indeed for he had absolutely decreed the Impossibility of their Repentance as say the men of Mr. Barlee's temper but only to shew what ought to be done if the doing of it were possible So again when God revealeth his great unwillingness that men should sin they say it is but a signe that men ought not to sin whereas his secret will is which alone is properly his will saith Dr. Twisse that men shall sin of necessity do what they can to the contrary Which is as much as to say that voluntas signi is but signum voluntatis non voluntas ex parte rei nay worse That voluntas signi is but the will of not willing what he willeth and of willing what he willeth not with his secret will Or which by way of refuge they are fain to say that what we call the will of God revealed to us in his word we do but call so It being not properly his will or the revelation of his will but many times contrary to his secret or real will and so rather the concealing then the revealing of his will or only a making shew as if he were willing when his secret will proves that he is very far from it And this may suffice for the first example of the first case wherein I am for a literal and Mr. B. only for a figurative Interpretation of Scripture But 2. there is a time too when I am for a figurative and he is only for a literal sense E. G. When God is said in Scripture to command Shimei to curse David to prophane his Sanctuary to give the wives of David unto Absolon to pollute men in their own guifts and the like I say that such words must be expounded by an Hebraisme whereby many verbs which are active in sound are only permissive in signification And herein I agree as well with Melancthon as with Grotius and all other the most learned Interpreters of Scripture and with the judgment of common sense So as my apprehension of such Texts is plainly this That God did permit or that he did patiently suffer or that he did not hinder those wicked acts viz. the cursing of David the profanation of his temple the pollution of his people and Absalons violation of his Fathers wives Nor do I say that thus it may be but thus it must For nothing can actively pollute but what is unclean in it selfe as nothing properly can moisten but what is wet Now God we know is the spirit of holiness and purity who hateth sin with a real not with a counterfeit hatred as Melancthon speaks And cannot decree what he hateth because he cannot be willing of that of which he is unwilling It would imply a contradiction and therefore the Seigneur du Plessis however of Calvins judgment in other points had more Grace and more Wit then not to acknowledge the necessity of the Rule above-mentioned in the exposition of such Texts as do seem to some men to imply the Divine will to be efficacious of sin But Mr. B.
sentence is an argument that our Correptory Corrector either doth not understand the sentence it selfe or that he wholy mistakes my Book For the sentence is directed by its Author against the Massilians who allowing the spirit necessary to all after-graces and performances did yet deny it to be so to Faith But I have alwayes said and beleeved that Faith as well as other Graces is the free gift of God which is more then Austin himself did alwayes beleeve and therefore that saying of that Father doth less make against me then against himselfe Such a woful Antagonist is Mr. B. even in his very glorious triumphant Title-page which according to their Custome who are wont to set the fairest foot foremost and the most creditable dish at the upper end of the Table the best wine first and then that which is worse John 2. 10. is the strength and substance of all his Book § 6. And whereas there is added the mention of two Epistles subscribed with the Names of two Antient Ministers in this County and why the third was left out it is not hard to conjecture either that the Book might sell the better or be preserved from contempt at least with some of his own party I shall say at present no more then this First that where the Vintner knows his Wine is good he needs not hang out an Ivie-Bush to tole in Customers to his Debauches Secondly that if ten thousand times ten thousand such men as they should subscribe to this Doctrine That two and two doe make seven and that it is but afurlong from Northampton to London or which is yet more impossible That God could decree without omniscience or be omniscient without a prescience of all events or have a prescience without a consideration or predetermin and compel and necessitate a man to commit that sin which he hateth and forbiddeth and therefore forbiddeth because he hateth or that He died only for fome few men who tasted death for every man or that He is only the propitiation for the lesser part of the world who is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world or that he who giveth his commands to all is secretly unwilling to be obeyed by all when he openly profeseth that he is willing it ought to seem no more True by being Preached or Penned by men of Note then it can be by being printed by W. H. for George Sawbridge at the signe of the Bible on Ludgate-Hill § 7. After the lamentable successes of Mr. Barlee's Triumphant Title-page it were very great Pity to pursue him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 throughout his Dedicatory Epistles Where there is hardly any period but what I finde liable to some severe Animadversion And since he doth publickly acknowledge in the first of those Epistles that he is Rusticus Corydon and a poor Sympresbyter and again a mere Pigmee I will not contradict him in every one of his Assertions by observing more of his Epistles then a poor Sympresbyter may well deserve It was not possible for me to have fastened upon him any one of those Names but since he hath freely impos'd them upon himself I shall not complain that he hath done himselfe wrong For who but a very poor Sympresbyter would think it a Pleasantness or a Playfulness in confuting the Arguments of a Book to tell his Antagonist that he is damn'd that he playes the Lucian and Carpocratian against Heaven that he is a Satanical Blasphemer and exceeds the Devil himselfe in Blasphemy yet after a world of such logick cloathed over with such language He is afraid of being judged too soft and Playful as if his Presbyterian Drolerie were not sufficiently picquant because it seems not to him so very rudely Abusive as he would have it But to come from the fashion of his wit to that of his reason and discourse He very valiantly takes it as an unquestionable thing that His is the Cause of Grace and Truth But hath no more of Truth in it then that h Zachaeus was a Pigmee or that he got upon h shoulders or that Tart and Pleasant are all one to any Tast but Mr. Barlee's Which were it not admirably debauched he would not gratifie its longings by persevering in a sin which he fears every body will blame and even his very Sympresbyters as well as others And which shews how this sin hath got the Dominion over his Soule he will rather come to an open penance with a peccavi fateor then lose the pleasure and sensuality of being scurrilous This is an Essay of that Practice which is consequent to his Doctrine Veniam peto si unquam posthac he asks a pardon upon condition that hereafter he will not wallow in such mire and yet in his Dedicatory Postscript he wilfully suffers a Relaps If the equal Reader will but compare the ninth page of his Epistles with the fifteenth and sixteenth he will finde a rare Instance of that temporary Repentance which S. Peter hath expressed by two Returns to wit of a Dogg to his Vomit and of a sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire Or if from the last line of the eighth page and the beginning of the ninth his Reader will heedfully attend him to what immediately follows page 10. he will finde him in a breath asking forgiveness for his Commissions and promising to doe so no more untill the next time A man that should swear never to swear and without provocation confirme his Promise with some great oath would make a competent mirroir for Mr. B. to see himself in Whilst he confesseth that he hath sinned and yet is obstinately bent to sin the very same sin which he confesseth he seems to be of this opinion That such a naked Confession as peccavi fateor is a sufficient expiation for all sins past and an Antidote sufficient for all his wilful Transgressions from that time forward Such is the horrible effect of his beleeving irrespective and unconditionate Decrees § 8. In his second Dedicatory Epistle which he calls his Postscript he begins with a specimen of his Calumniating Veine and holds it on in such sort as if he were willing to teach his Reader by that one Trial or Endeavour what an able man he is in his way My Sinner Impleadâ—d which was sincerely by me intended to avert my Reader from Sin which is the way to Reprobation our new fashion'd Aâ—tificer doth call the Reprobaâ—es Pleâ— for â—…ning And by that one sentence so perfectly opposite to the Truâ—h it will be obvious to conjecture of all the rest Had he repented in good earnest when he cried Peccavi p 9. he would not now as he professeth think it very allowâ—ble to â—all in his Apologie that is to repent of his Repentance And therefore very unfitly did he liken himself to Zacheus who did so repent as
the Saviour of all men 1 Tim. 4. 10. 2. By a Vniversall Distributive He tasted death for every man Heb. 2. 9. 3. By a Universall indefinite He is the Saviour of the world Joh. 4. 42. 4. By an Universall expresse He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world an universall Subject Syncatagorematicall 1 Joh. 2. 2. 5. By Vniversals affirmative as in those now mentioned and many more 6. By Vniversals Negative He was not willing that any should perish 2 Pet. 3. 9. 7. By an Vniversall command to use the meanes of Salvation and that Universall as well to places as to persons Not to all men in some places nor to some men in all places but he commandeth all men every where to repent Act. 17. 30. 8. By a particular in the Negative and an universall in the affirmative in opposition to one another and joyned together by a Discretive not for our sins only but also for the sinnes of the whole world 1 Joh. 2. 2. From hence let us make these Observations 1. That an universall Creation is not asserted to us in Scripture by so great a variety of plaine expressions as an universal redemption is found to be 2. That they who teach that Christ intended to be the Saviour of a few only 2 only of the Elect 3 only of the lesser part of the world 4 only of them who are not of the world and 5 not of all men 6 not of every man 7 not of the world 8 not of the whole world do speak as much in contradiction to the word of God as the affirmation and negation of the very same Term wherein the Essence of contradiction is defined to consist 3. That to extricate themselves from the inevitable odium of such a Fact they fly for refuge to equall mischief's as the Emperour in Zosimus is reported to seek for cure from one wickednesse to another interpreting affirmatives by Negatives and Negatives by Affirmatives And then 4. The very plainest Texts of Scripture are made by them to be the hardest For such Texts sure must needs be haâ—dest whose sense is made to be contrary to the signification of the words whose proper end it should be not to conceale but expresse the meaning of the Speaker Now when God saith expressely as if he would make it impossible for any mortall to misconceive him that Christ is the Saviour the Propitiation the taster of Death not only for all men but for every man not only for the world but for the whole world and to prove he speaks of an * intention to save them all without exception if by the wickedness of their wills they do not frustrate his * Intenâ—ion as the greater part of men do by not accepting his offer and not performing the conditions on which his offer is made he professeth he is not willing that any should perish but on the contrary that all should come to repentance 2 Pet. 3. 9. what other man then Mr. B. could imagin the meaning of it to be that he is verily and indeed the Propitiatiâ—n and Saviour and taster of Death for a very small number for here and there one perhaps not the twentieth or fourtieth or hundredth part of the world and that he was very willing so as to Decree it from all Eâ—ernity and that by an absolute and necessitating Decree that almost all the world should perish and perfectly unwilling that the far greater part of mankind should come to Repentance so as to leave them in the state of a most desperate impossiiblity which cannot but be followed with unavoidable impenitence thus they châ—â—ge God Almighty with mental Reservations and tell the people he doth not speak as he means but that his meaning is contrary to what he speaks that when he saith he is willing that all should come to repentance it is no more then his revealed will or volunt as signi which is not properly call'd a will for it only signifieth what men ought to do by right whereas his secret will is â—roperly call'd a will and with that he decreed that very few should come to repentance And though Mr. B. is faine to say for want of better excuses that Dr. Twisse doth speak of those different wills as belonging to different Objects in his p. 67. yet I shall prove when I come thither that he could not but speak against his knowledge if he consulted the place as I have done a second time and if he did not his case is every whit as bad in that he spake as if he knew what he knew he did not know 5. If the Holy Ghost shall be affirmed not to intend what he speaketh in those plainest places of Scripture where he saith all men and every man the world and the whole world not only but also not willing that any but willing that all c. How are men taught to disbelieve him in all his other affirmations where his expressions are not so plaine how will they preach any man into any one duty or dehort him from any sin when they have once shew'd the way by certain tricks and distinctions to elude such Texts as are the plainest and do yet explaine each other the most that can be imagin'd how will they be able out of Scripture to prove their right to Tithes or to the Ministery the Sunday Sabbath Infant Baptism or indeed the Trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead for all or any of which they cannot bring either so many or so direct or so univocall or so easy affirmations of Scripture as I or any man will urge for Universal Redemption 6. If any man will pretend to hold by Scripture that Christ died only for the Elect for which there is not a word in all the Scripture with how much a greater force of Reason will the Arian hold his heresie having the plain letter of the Text my Father is greater then I or the Romanist his Transubstantiation upon his better pretensions from This is my Body 7. When Christ is said to be the Saviour of the world and more emphatically the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world it must be meant of the whole or of a part only If Mr. B. will say of the whole he grants the all that I desire If he saith a part only 1. He flatly contradicts the very words of the same Apostle 1 Joh. 2. 2. where to the world he addeth whole 2. He must grant it to signifie a major part both according to the maxime which is in every man's Logick and because it is ever so us'd in Scripture And then 3. he must confesse that the Reprobateâ— make up the major part and by consequence that Christ is the Saviour only of the Reprobates which abominable Absurdity he cannot possibly escape but by a full confession of Vniversall Râ—lemption 8. But he will possibly
plain words or a fallacy which is worse For it makes not only an affirmation of two contrary things He is the propitiation for our sins only intentionaliter and also for the sins of the whole world sufficienter but an affirmation and negation of the very same thing He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world sufficienter and he is not the propitiation for the sins of the whole world intentionaliter And now 5. That what I have said may be useful to such very plain Readers who alone may be in danger of being debauched by Mr. B. I will denudate that distinction by a familiar Illustration Suppose the King of Spain hath a thousand Christian subjects taken captive by the Turks He gives as much for the Ransom of 2 or 3 hundred as would have been required for all the whole Thousand But he will giue the whole sum because he will and because he will too he will have released not all the Thousand but only two or three hundred intending all the rest shall be Captives still And this he will doe to shew his power over the greater number and his partiality towards the lesser Can that King say with Truth or Modesty that he is the Redeemer of all those Captives because he paid a sum of mony which had been sufficient to redeem them all but did not intend that they should be taken into the Bargain No. It only proves that he is not their Redeemer but might have been if he had pleas'd And that the Turk was lese merciless then He who would have given all back if the King of Spain would have had him I intend nothing in this similitude but to illustrate the vanity of that Distinction He is the Saviour even of Reprobates sufficiently but not intentionally That the lowest capacity may not faile to comprehend how vast a difference there is betwixt the being sufficient to doe a Thing and the doing of a thing sufficiently Which are fallaciously confounded the later used for the former by the necessitous Inventors of that Distinction And if in the last place I shall observe that Pelagius himselfe by denying Original sin denied universal Redemption too and that no Antient did it so much as He I suppose Mr. B. will be more Pelagian then I am or confess in time that I have made it appear a Pernicious Heresie And I have for so doing a very excellent Precedent in the second or third year of Q. Elizabeth who flourished in the time of King Edward the sixt and Q. Elizabeth and in the time of Q. Mary for his conscience sake indured voluntary exile His words are these ☞ But this appeareth to be one of Pelagius his damnable Errors that Christ was not a generall Saviour if Christ offer'd not up the Sacrifice of Redemption for all the whole world Contrary to the manifest Scripture Which saith he it is that obtained grace for our sinnes and not for our sins only but also for the sins of the whole world 1 Joh. 2. the same also is manifestly declared in these Scriptures following and many other 1 Joh. 1. a. b. f. and 12. g. Rom. 5. d. 1 Cor. 8. d. 2 Cor. 5. c. Heb. 2. c. and 2 Pet. 2. a. This Heresie of Pelagius as well as of Mr. B. so directly contrary to the Scripture he flatly call's damnable which is more then I have ever done and Pelagius himself was so asham'd of it that he was faine to make a Recantation in the Councel of Palestine as S. Austin himself declareth Epist 106. Tom. 2. I wish Mr. B. may do no worse Farther yet That most learned Divine and holy Confessor doth make an excellent Observation from St. Austins Recital of the fourth Error of Pelagius the worthier of all men to be observed who shall peruse what I am writing because the Book I suppose is not commonly to be had And further saith he there is to be noted that the first part of the fourth Error is manifestly the very same which is the second and third Error before rehearsed and by the same Scriptures plainly condemned But to make the latter part of this Error more plaine it was necessary and thought good of St. Augustine to rehearse the first again That by the comparison of condemnation in Adam and Redemption in Christ it might the more plainly be perceived that Christ was not inferiour to Adam nor grace inferiour 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 generall a Saviour is Christ by Redemption as Adam is a condemner by Transgression Which comparison is taken out of St. Paul his Epistle to the Romans where he saith likewise then as by the sin of one Condemnation came upon all men even so by the justifying of one cometh the Righteousnesse which bringeth life upon all men Yet shall not all men be condemned by Adam eternally for there is ordained of God again a way to life which way is Christ Neither shall all be eternally saved by Christ For there is of God DECLARED a way again unto death which way is sin and the wilfull contempt of God's mercy in Christ. I have insisted the longer upon this Point because if this one Error be once disclaimed by the Adversary all the rest will tumble of their own accord § 24. His 24. That I neither do nor can maintain no speciall Grace as by which any special habits of Grace viz. of Conversion Regeneration Sanctification c. are infused into my soul as any abiding seed of grace or life of God For in both my Papers I am highly silent as to these matters though ad phaler and â—m populum p. 56. I make some slight mention of grace infused by God c. p. 41. Yet 1. he confesseth that in my p. 56. I do maintain what he saith I cannot 2. So far are those mentions from being slight that I could not have spoken more distinctly if it had been for a wager as any man will say who reads that page 3. I there affirm most expresly not only preventing and subsequent assisting Grace but the perfecting grace of Perseverance And yet is he so strange a speaker as to say that I neither do nor can maintain any abiding seed of Grace c. and this he calls light Coruscations only as if any grace could go farther then the grace of Perseverance unto the end 4. If I had not mention'd what I did he had sadly argued from a Negative For many things might be in my opinion which were not set down in those few Papers By such Logick he may conclude as some have done against others that I am a Socinian because in my Book I do not treat of the Trinity 5. Being forced to confesse that I did that which in the same period he said I did not he is faine to say I
est pars And then have inquired after the species by these Dichotomies Causa alia per se agit alia per Accidens Causa efficiens per se est vel totalis vel partialis Causa Totalis vel sufficiens vel adaequata Causae partiales quae sociae dicuntur sunt vel ejusdem vel diversi ordinis And again these latter must be considered secundum latitudinem vel secundum vim agendi Quoad Latitudinem alia est universalis alia particularis Secundùm vim agendi alia est Principalis alia instrumentalis Again the Causa principalis as 't is considered in 4. manners so is either magis or minus principalis And the later is motiva primae And this being of two sorts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin will be found to be exactly the later of these two For the will of man in strict speaking is the immediate efficient cause of his sin that is to say of determining it self to this or that thing which is forbidden by God Almighty and is so the immediate efficient of that which is the motive to or meritorious efficient Cause of punishment that is the efficient of the efficient But for fear Mr. B. should not be able to understand what is Metaphysicall and I may very well feare it whilst I finde him so unintelligent in these affaires as to say that a Cause is not efficient because it is meritorious which is as if he should have said it is not efficient because it is efficient I will open my selfe to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the grossest and most familiar and plainest manner that he can wish And I will doe it so much the rather because he complains in several places of his book that he hath plumbâ—ous Cerebrosities to use his own Bumbast to be indoctrinated He knowes the Parent is the efficient Cause of the Childe And he knowes the relation betwixt the sinner and the sin the sin and the punishment is expressed in Scripture by that of a Father to a Childe Joh. 8. 4. the Divel is a liar and the Father of it And by that of a Mother to a Childe Jam. 1. 15. lust conceaving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bringeth forth sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sin being finished bringeth forth Death From such Texts as those O Israel thou hast destroyed thy selfe Hos 13. 6. And they shall bring upon themselves swift destruction 2 Pet. 2. 1. Man is concluded suppliciorum suorum Faber He is the parent of his sin his sin of his punishment which is not the less its ofspring because it is its wages too Rom. 6. 23. on the contrary the sinner is therefore the efficient because the meritorions Cause for he could not make to himselfe a punishment unlesse by sin he did deserve it By one man saith the Apostle Sin entered into the World and Death by Sin Romans 5. 12. Now the Cause of the Cause is the Cause of the effect The Father of the Father is we know the Grandfather but the sinner we finde is more in relation to his punishment not only its immediate but only Parent For sin being an accident cannot exist without the subject of its Inherence It s very being is in concreto It is impossible to fancy or imagine sin without the connotation of some kinde of sinner Sin in the abstract cannot be much less be active without the sinner nor by consequence effective of any thing whatsoever And although we speake catachrestically true when we say that sin is the Cause of Punishment yet our speaking is more exact when instead of sin we say the sinner Wilfull man effects his â—…n and so is causa efficiens and being by sin become a sinner effects his punishment because his sin and so is causa efficiens still Which Mr. B. and his Masters not considering or not conceiving have ruin'd themselves with the distinction of sins not having an efficient but only a deficient Cause which will inferr it not an efficient but only a deficient cause of punishment since it cannot have more of Entity then the cause of its production But the pitifulness of that distinction will soon appear For 1. If man is the cause of sin and not efficient he must then be either the material or Formal or Final Cause for if the deficient Cause be none of these 't is not a cause Nor will any man pretend that it is either of those three And if it is not a Cause then hath sin no real being because no Cause And so it cannot be in any sense the Cause of punishment and so God will be jnferred to punish men without Cause 2. Malum non habere Causam efficientem when said by any in the Metaphysicks is the same thing as to say malum est non ens For as that must be something which is caused by something so out of no-cause we know that no-effect can be produced Efficient and effect are reciprocally converted both in the affirmative and in the negative So that where there is no-efficient there is no-effect that is to say there is nothing But Mr. B. saith expresly that sin hath no-efficient as in other places so in his p. 79 and his reason is because it wholy consists in a deficiency and by consequence is nothing and so according to him men are punished eternally for just nothing in the world 3. If wicked man is no more then the deficient cause of sin he is not so much the cause of it as God himself in their account who say he absolutely wills that sin shall fall out p. 78. and that he doth determine it shall be done p. 79. that he did voluntarily decree it should fall out p. 73. that his permissive will of sin is efficacious p. 196. p. 54. that he* creates and* commands it and by no less then an* impulse excites men to it That Gods will is as a efficacious in relation to sin as in the production of good and so efficacious as to be a irresistible and by consequence to necessitate sin So that their distinctions of a permissive and effective will or of efficient and efficacious cannot stand them in any stead and are made appear to be but figleaves to cover the nakedness and the shame of those frightful expressions as Mr. B. himself calls them by a periphrasis p. 56. For Dr. Twisse saith plainly That the Divine will is no less efficacious to the doing of that which is sin permittendo then to the doing of that which is good efficienâ— do To what purpose doth he distinguish those two members of his period by permittendo efficiendo whilst he ascribeth as great an efficacy to the will of God in the production of sin as in the production of virtue for the word praestandum is used in both and so is the word efficax And a non minus in the one implyes a non
tenebrarum A man is often the efficent cause of his own blindnesse sicknesse Death it self which yet are privations of three contrary habits But 8. A thing may be privative in one respect and yet positive in an another As we find by experience in our sicknesses and sins The stone and the Srangury the Feaver and the Pestilence are not only privative of health and pleasure but they are constitutive of sicknesse and torment and destruction it self So adultery and murder and blasphemy and Witchcraft are not only the absences or meere privations of Grace and vertue but they do ponere multifariam constitute both the species and degrees of vice Murder hath some thing of positive in it by which it differs in kind from all other sins and in degree from other murders The disorder of Nature the confusion of faculties the resistance made against Grace the defacing of God's Image the grieving his Spirit the dihonouring his Name the like are such attendances of sin as do inforce it to be more then meerely privative If Davids sin of not protecting the life of Vriah and the chastity of his wife had had no more then a privative entity yet his murder of the first and his pollution of the Second could have no lesse then a positive entity If the sin of not admonishing or reproving the guilty were meerely privative yet the sin of seducing and perverting the innocent would have something in it to make it positive If the sin of not obeying the commandements of God did wholly consist in a deficiency yet would it have something of addition to rebell with violence against them We know by experience that there are some of whom we commonly say they are not good and rather not very vitious then very vertuous Whereas others are not only positively but superlatively evil So that according to M. B. one sin would be a privative o◠a negative privative and another Sinne would be a Positive Privative But 9. It cannot so much as be pretended that every sin is only privative For every privation praesupposeth a Habit. Which every sin cannot do Because a man may be covetous or cruel who never was liberall or compassionate Which rather implie's a Negation then a privation of those vertues which he hath not lost but never had So that if those vices have nothing in them of positive but do wholly consist in a Deficiency they will not be privative but negative of Entity that is to say they will be nothing 10. To conclude If there is any Truth in that Proposition That there is a deficient cause of sin it is in a morall signification quod qui peccat deficit à regulâ rectae rationis c. that the sinner is wanting or defective in the performance of his duty But then that will not be sufficient to verifie the other part of Mr. B. his assertion That sin hath no efficient cause Because that Agent that is morally deficient and in that circumstance faileth and transgresseth the Law doth yet effect or prodvce the action which is so deficient and so irregular For 1. the Adulterer is without question the efficient cause of his filthy act 2. The Divell is called by our Saviour the Father of lies and sure a Father is an efficient 3. A man by Gods grace is the efficient of a good action and as such rewardable And I hope Mr. B. will not say what is much worse then Pelagian that man is more the efficient of a good action then of an evill one For which he is punishable with much more justice then rewardable for the other To conclude Mr. B. himself is of opinion in his p. 111. where he thinks it for his turn that there may be something positive in a privation and that in death there is so so far forth as under the notion of punishment and so is from God the Author of it Let him now but remember First that sin is sometimes under the notion of a punishment next that death is a privation as much as any sin can be and more then some sins can possibly be Thirdly that he alleageth it as the reason in his p. 55. why they do not say that God is the Author of sin even because that sin hath no efficient cause And then he is forced to conclude in one of these sad inferences 1. Either that God is not the Author of Death consisting in a deficiency as well as sin at least Or 2. that he is the author of sin which hath something in it of positive as well as death at least Or 3. That he is the Author of both as farr as both have any thing of positive in them Or 4. That he is the Author of neither as being not efficient of what consisteth wholly in deficiency So miserably intangled is this man in his own unwary unskilfull sayings But I have not shew'd him his whole unhappinesse For whilst he argues their deniall of Gods being the Author of sin from sins not having any efficient cause p. 55. he perceives not that that Reason is as apt to evince that the sinner himself is not the Author of sin neither man nor Divell And then according to Mr. B. either sin hath no author at all as consisting wholly in a deficiency p. 55. or God is the Author of it as having something in it of positive p. 111. or that God its first Author as having decreed it from eternity saith Mr. B. p. 73. and man only the second as fulfilling in time what was decreed from Eternity p. 79. 135. From all which Absurdities which do naturally grow from his Principles and distinctions we must conclude by way of Refuge that it is not for a Small-thing a meere defect or privation much lesse for No-thing of which there is not a cause efficient that God doth punish wicked men in a bottomelesse lake of fire and Brimstone where the Recompence or Revenge is not only not finite but of eternall duration too 3. And now M. B. I hope hath learn't how by sin's having an efficient cause the Sinner becomes the cause Efficient of his eternall punishment Not of Hell the place of his punishment nor of the Divels or the Fire which are the Instruments of his punishment for they are substances of God's Creating and in genere substantiarum are very good And this was but the grosnesse of Mr. B. his mistake to deny that the Sinner is the Cause of his Damnation because he did not make Hell which is the place of Damnation So he askes if the Judges doe let the Malefactors be the efficients of their Gibbets Racks Rodds c. Forgetting that the Carpenter is the efficient of such as these which are the Instruments wherewith to punish not punishment it selfe Now that which I said was plainly this That God having ordained that such Causes as Sin should be productive of such effects as punishment and that Sin
them from doing what he sees they will doe if they be not restrained is said very properly to punish sins with sins yet the former words are so blasphemous as not to be capable of any tolerable excuse That God made men such as that they might be able to sin yea he made them to this end or purpose that they really might sin That God by a secret force as by a hidden Rope doth drag wicked men to attain those ends which they think not of To which they are directed without their least purpose or indeavour just as arrows are shot out of a Bow without being sensible whither they are going which though true in one sense is blasphemous in another That God chose some and reprobated the rest for this reason only that he might manifest the Glory of his power in handling those that were equal unequally That the subduction of Grace and of its means even Excecation and Induration and Perseverance in â—ins are the fruits of God Rejection or the things which follow from or out of his rejection That it is incomprehensible yet beleeved by us how it is just to damn such as doe not deserve it That it is not agreeable or fitting to ascribe the preparation to destruction to any other then the hidden counsel of God That Reprobates are compelled with a Necessity of sinning and so of perishing by this Ordination of God and so compelled that they cannot chuse but sin and perish This is usher'd in with a Damus we grant That all who are predestin'd to the End are predestin'd to the means without which they cannot attain unto the end The common means are three The Creation and Fall and Propagation of man That God made men to diverse ends and some to the end that they might suffer eternal Torments He appointed also or ordained that those men being intire should fall from their Integrity And that for this reason that whom he had created for Destruction he might reprobate to this end that he might punish them out of Justice That the Denial of Grace and Sins are the consequents of Reprobation Sins are the Punishments of Sins to all which God preordained Reprobates from all Eternity That God's first constitution was that some should be destin'd to eternal Ruin And to this end their Sins were ordained and desertion and denial of Grace in order to their sins That the first man as he was made upright in body and in soule by the divine Providence so by the Counsel of the same God he contrâ—cted that stain which by no humane meanes can be blotted out his Innocence being lost by his Disobedience he contracted that stain is the same as to say he committed that sin That all things Which shall be shall be by the inevitable Counsels and Decrees of God without any distinction betwixt good and evil That Satan is judged to be the Author of evil whether of sin or of punishment one way and God another way aliter Satan malorum quà m Deus sive de malo quod in culpâ sive de eo quod in poenâ cernitur loquamur Author judicatur esse So Zuinglius speaks of Adultery and Murder as the * worke of God the * Author of it That God doth stirr up the Divell to lye And is in some manner the Cause of sin And thrusteth on the wills of the wicked to grievous sins That God doth will and necessitate sin that men do ill to distinguish betwixt Gods Will and Permission that no man can be free from necessitation that all men who doe any thing for love or Revenge or Lust though free from Compulsion yet their Actions may be as necessary as those that are done by Compulsion whether this is not the upshot of Mr. Hobs his Doctrine in those pages which for brevities sake I have thus expressed in this Epitome of his sense I leave it to be judged by such as have leisure to consult him That God is the Author not of those Actions alone in and with which sin is but of the very pravity Ataxy Anomie Irregularity and sinfulness it self which is in them Yea that God hath more hand in mens sinfulness then they themselves That Reprobates are therefore not converted because God will not have them to be converted Yea That God calls men to Christ but will not have them come for it pleaseth him not to draw them which is absolutely necessary to their coming And seeing they were dead in sins and obnoxious to damnation before that Christ is preached to them it must necessarily follow that Christ is preached to them to aggravate their Damnation That God predestin'd whom he pleased not only to Damnation but the Causes also of Damnation of this Beza saith agnosâ—imus esse verum we acknowledge it too true That both the Reprobates and the Elect were preordained to sin as sin In as much as the goodness and Glory of God was to be declared by it That as God did so deprive Reprobates of his Grace as that they cannot sin so he also ordained or destin'd them to this condition that they cannot but of their own Nature commit variety of sins That a Necessity of sinning and of sinning unto Death without Repentance doth lye upon Reprobates from Gods immutable Reprobation This is with a non dubitamus conâ—iteri That if God wrought or acted the wicked man to punishment it follows that he acted him or wrought him to sin also because unless sin preceded he could not justly punish him That God made men with this intent or to this purpose that they might really fall Because he could not attain his principal ends any otherwise then by this course That the word of God doth dictate that God doth predestine men to their very sins and that by an absolute Decree note that this is by way of Answer to Vorstius his Question That men were constituted and ordained to disobedience by Gods decree That he ordained Reprobates to their very Incredulity That he took care to have his Temple prophaned That he commanded by the secret Impulse of some evil spirit and moved the will of Shimei to curse David That men were predestinated precisely to both evils Both that they may eternally be punished and that they may Necessarily sin Yea that they may therefore sin that they may be justly punished That the Rebellion of the Reprobates doth depend upon the Antecedent will of God That God doth necessitate man to sin to the end that he may punish him for sin That though Reprobates are Predestin'd to damnation and to the Causes of Damnation and created to that end that they may live wickedly and be vessels full of the dregs of sins yet it follows not that God's absolute Decree of Reprobation is the Cause of all the villanies and lewdnesses in the world because
for this would prove God to be the Author of sin as much as any thing else either is or can be And if it hath any force in it it will prove that the Devil is not the Father of lies nor Cain the Author of that Murder for which he is deservedly and justly damned 7. Why may not that which is punishable with Death eternal be something and that which is something be effected and that which is effected have an efficient but Mr. B. hath confessed that sin is something when he made it the object of Gods decree of Gods will of Gods eternal Determination and it cannot be nothing which God hath absolutely willed to fall out and voluntarily decreed and determined to be done Not onely Charity but good Nature forbids the farther prosecution of so unfortunate a writer whose great store of unskilfulnesse may help excuse him For no unskillulnesse is so bad as to be knowingly erroneous without Amendment § 22. His Cylindrical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or turn-pin Indifferency p. 33. he doth as little understand as he doth his Euphâ—es of the pia mater of my Braines p. 19. or his plumbeous cerebrosities of the Church indoctrinated p. 70. For what is non-sense is unintelligible it signifies nothing besides the depth of the speaker and his very small Acquaintance with Greek or Latin But that may otherwise be discerned by comparing the Errors of his Book with those in his Catalogue of Errata which to prosecute at large would make a very long Chapter and stir up more laughter then would be perhaps for the Readers ease It is pity that some men should rather use a â—ew Bumbast and rumbling words at a venture then stay so long as to enquire after their proper signification The passage which he quoteth p. 64. was fetcht from Iesus the son of Sirach whom perhaps he beleeves to have been one of the prophane spawn of the Arminians many hundred of yeers before Arminius himself was born And Walaeus his Argument in the Margin p. 33 that if the first man were placed in aequilibrio to good and evil he would not onely have been Gods but Satans Image is so incomparably shallow that none but a Correptorie Corrector could have thought it worth citing For the image of Satan consisteth in the pressing motion to evil and not in an Indifferency to good or evil If Mr. B thinks otherwise he hath a better opinion of the Divel then he seems to have of Adam in his state of Innocence § 23. He confesseth that their Doctrine would sinck men into the gulfe of Despair if they did teach that though men did knock never so hard heaven Gates should never be opened unto them p. 34. yet it is part of theïr Doctrine that that no man can possibly commit lesse sin then he committeth or do more good then he doth because God hath precisely decreed from eternity that both be done as they are done And that it is fatally constituted both when and how and how much every one of us ought to be pious or not to be pious It is another part of their Doctrine that all the care and diligence which men can use towards the attainment of Salvation is vain and frustrate and rather hurtful then helpful to them that are without faith And Mr. Calvin referreth the irremediable misery of the sons of Adam ad solum Arbitrium divinae voluntatis to the solâ— or onely or meer will of God as if he were afraid that a maâ—s own will should be any cause of that corruption which is alleaged to be the cause of Damnation For such is the Question to to which he there answers and makes a Grant Qâ— Were not men predestined by the ordination of God to that * corruption which is alleaged as the cause of Damnation when therfore they perish in their corruption they onely suffer the punishment of that Calamity into which Adam fell and into which he drew headlong his Posterity with himself by Gods Predestination Truly saith Calvin I doe confesse that all the sons of Adam did fall into the misery of this condition in which they are bound and fettered by the will of God And this is that which I said at the beginning that we must alwayes have recourse to the sole Decree of Gods will the cause of which lies hidden within himself I will here observe but two things 1. That the Question was not made of any other corruption then that of sin viz. the cause of Damnation 2. That such as are absolutely reprobated or passed by in Adams loynes and had not Christ as a Ransom intended for them cannot enter heaven Gates though they should knock never so hard that is upon supposition that they should knock which whether they can or cannot they cannot enter if they are absolutely excluded by unconditional Reprobation Which being the Doctrine of Mr. B. and of his Teachers he hath confessed it to be bloody as leading men into the Gulf of Despair § 24. He hath a strangely weak and false assertion of A. Rivet in the Margin of his 38. page which he saith will prove most unavoidably true viz. that they who affirme an inclination to sin before the fall do lay all the fault of the sin upon God the Author of nature since such an inclination cannot but be vitious which yet must needs have been from God if it were before the fall p. 38. But here I demand Had not Eve an inclination to the forbidden fruit before she eat it was it not fair to look on and did not this incline her eye was it not tempting to the Tast and did not that incline her palate had she not a body of flesh and blood inclinable to its proper material objects as well as a soul or spirit inclined to obedience if before she sinned she was not inclinable to sin how then did she sin was it without or against her inclination if her sin was voluntary and not committed of necessity or whether she would or no she had an inclination to which she yielded and thereby sinned And which if she had resisted shee had not falâ—e but been victorious 2. Her meere inclination to sin was not her sin for if it were she sinned before she sinned And if her inclination to her first sin were it self a sin there would be something primo prius before the first and the first would be second which would imply a contradiction There would also be an inclination to that inclination as there must needs be to every voluntary and wilfull sin which would infer the absurdity of progressus in infinitum if inclinatio ad peccandum were ipsum peccatum nor would there be any distance betwixt the way and the journeys end 3. It is not a sin to be hungry for so was Christ nor to be tempted for so was Christ too But t is a sin to do what
a Noon-day Devil was I think no part no not so much as of humane wisdom But 2. If a great deal of Rhetorick were a fault either as being Rhetorick or as being a great deal Mr. B. might accuse the Epistles of S. Paul and Psalms of David And if the fault lyes in the humanity of the Rhetorick as that is opposed to divine Mr. B. is more guilty then any Man I ever read He is as rhetorical as he is able as appears by the pleasure he takes in clinches Such as Notes of no good Note Courted at Court 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Face Fulgent and Fulgentius Prefaces faces and outfaces Classes and clashing Tropicks and Tropical Polite and Politick Stick and stickle Prosperous and prosper With other such elegancies rhetâ—rications which some little children of six yeers old have not been able to endure But 3. It is worthier a Readers patience to consider the crackt Syllogisme of four Termes which he saith I pin on the Apostle in my 19 Page How far from truth and ingenuity or but tolerable skil in the Art of Reasoning how much to the injuring of S. Paul and to the pitiful betraying of his own Cause will be as worthy our observation as any one misdemeanour in all his Book The whole case lyes thus I did in the 19 Page of my Notes prove the universality of Christs death from those words of the Apostle If one died for all then were all dead 2 Cor. 5. 14. Where That all were dead is the thing to be proved and that one died for all is the Argument or Medium whereby to prove it And that this later being the Antecedent as that former the sequel of the major proposition of a Hypothetical Syllogisme the former could not but make the minor and the later the conclusion and both of necessity without my help as every child must needs know who hath but dipt into any Logical System And if Mr. B. will but try to make such a Syllogisme he shall finde by experience that let him do what he can to the contrary the Antecedent of the major will make the minor and the sequel of the major will become the conclusion Therefore said I very truly what Mr. B. doth not gainsay with any the least pretense of reason that the Apostle in that Text doth argue thus If one dyed for all then were all dead But one dyed for all that must be the Assumption Therefore all were dead So that had there been the Fallacy of four Termes in that crack't syllogisme as Mr. B. hath been unskilful enough to call it it must have been objected against S. Paul whose way of arguing that was and not against me who was but his Eâ—hâ— Which because Mr. B. may be unwilling to understand it may perhaps be worth while 4. To make him understand it against his will For although it doth lie in any mans power to dissemble and to persist in a denial of what he inwardly doth acknowledge yet there are very many cases wherein he cannot be ignorant although he would E. G. Mr. B. cannot be ignorant what is commonly meant by If and Then when in the same proposition the first is conditional and the second illative Next he cannot be ignorant that they are both used as such in our Apostles proposition If one dyed for all then were all dead Again he cannot be ignorant that in case it were false that one died for all it might also be false that all were dead Because the later is inferred by our Apostle upon the strength and presupposal of the former And so unlesse Mr. B. will turn Pelagian and deny that all were dead without the exception of any one he must confesse that all were died for in the same notion of the word all or if to escape Pelagianisme he shall seek to creep out at another Crevice by saying that all in the sequel is more universal then in the Antecedent he will accuse St. Paul of deceipt or ignorance of a grosse equivocation or a want of skill to speak good sense which no Pelagian was ever so wicked as to attempt For the evidencing of which to such as are of his size let us 5. Behold St. Pauls words as they make an Enthymeme which is as sound a form of Argumentation as any disputant can use One died for all Therefore all were dead If the word all in this Enthymeme is not univocal as Mr. B. saith it is not the Apostles meaning must needs be one of these two One died for some onely therefore some onely were dead or one died for some onely therefore all were dead without exception If Mr. B. will have the former he makes St. Paul a Pelagian before that Heresy had a Being And if the latter he makes that mighty spiritual Logician as he hath called him p. 43. to infer an universal from a particular Which how illogical it is I need not say But 6. Mr. B. hath one shift more in his p. 106. whereby he hopes to evade or evacuat the conquering force of that Text. The poor sum of it is this that when the Apostle saith all were dead he means not dead in trespasses and sins but on the contrary dead unto sin But this is to flownder and not escape such an endeavour of evasion as doth but intangle him so much the more For 1. It shews him against his will a notable Friend to the Pelagians whil'st he labours to rob me of the force of that Text which as I understand it is most expressly against them Next it shews him to be careless what becomes of the Context if that Text by any means may be but wrested to his uses For the obligation lying upon us from the constraining love of Christ which the Apostle there speaks of is seen in this more especially that Christ died for us even then when we were all dead in trespasses and sins when we stood in perfect need of his vivification 3. I ask him how Christs Death can presuppose or conclude our being dead to sin when it is said in the same place to be in order to that end that we should not henceforth live unto our selves that is to say that we should die unto sin 4. If Christ died for them onely who are dead to sin then the object of Gods decree and so of Gods giving Christ is not man as man nor lapsed man as lapsed but the mortified Regenerate man in as much as he is regenerate which is directly against the Doctrine of Mr. Barlees own Masters the Sublapsarians 5. If the word all in this place then were all dead doth onely signifie a few for the Elect are very few in respect of the Reprobates what place of Scripture can Mr. B. alleage affirming all to be dead in Adam which may not thus be avoided and for how much a lesser reason then this indeed for no reason at all hath the stupendous
Grotius been called Socinian much more might be said to shew the absurdity of Mr. B's Answer and the force of the Argument from that Text which is yet found to be capable of no other Answer 7. I will now return to his former shift of saying that all doth onely signifie many when Christ is said to die for all The absurdity of which as I have shewed many wayes so may it be shewed many more As 1. From other places of Scripture where the Death of Christ is so universally expressed as to exclude the least exception He died for all that is for the world for the whole world for every man for them that are capable of perishing for them that deny him and are damned Texts so very much prevailing with Junius and Tilenus as to make them acknowledge the Antient Fathers ' distinction which Mr. B. derides so often of Gods Antecedent or conditionate will 1. That no man should perish 2. That all should come to repentance Which doth infer sufficient Grace to every man in the world as Prosper a hundred times confesseth and of â—are even Junius as well as he 2. From the nature of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro For which needs must note either the end or the effect In respect of this later he died effectually for noâ—…â—ut â—ut the elect because they onely do beleeve and obey and syncerely repent and persevere unto the end which are the Conditions of the Covenant betwixt us and Christ and the respective Qualifications in the prescience of which we were Elected But in respect of the former He died intentionally for all and every one even for them that forsake him whom he never forsaketh untill he is forsaken by them As Prosper spake in his answer to one of Vincentius his Objections who yet of all mankinde is the least suspected to be Pelagian by our Correptorie Corrector and all of his way The goodnesse of God would have continued even on them if they had continued in his goodness as St. Paul expresseth the condition upon which the prâ—mises of God are made The Lord is with us whil'st we are with him If we seek him he will be found of us But if we forsake him he will forsake us as Azariah spake by the spirit of God In the former notion of the word for as it noteth the effect of our Saviours death he is said to lay down his life for the sheep and to have given himself for his Church But in the later notion of the word for as it noteth the end and by consequence the intention of our Saviours Death he is said to be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world and to have tasted Death for every man Thus the double notion of the particle for shews us an easie reconcilement of several Texts which may outwardly seem to disagree And if our Correptorie Corrector can neither prove another use of the particle pro for nor evade those absurdities which have risen from his Doctrine and wayes of proof I do conceive he is obliged to make a publick Recantation § 27. He saith Fulgentius makes it his businesse to confute my Second Chapter where he largely proves that though God do not predestinate men to sin yet he doth to their punishment for sin p. 43. Yet this is pleading for my second Chapter and not against it For sure supplicium punishment supposeth sin and so Gods Predestination of sinful men to punishment must needs be made in intuition of sin which to prove is the businesse of my second and third Chapters but Mr. B. takes his usual liberty of calling things as he pleaseth A respective Decree must be no Decree aâ—… when he has need to begg the Question He will not allow me to say in my second Chapter that the sin which God willeth not is the Cause of the punishment which God willeth onely for sin not for it self And yet he cites a * saying from Dr. Twisse That sin is acknowledged to be the cause of the will of God in reprobation quoad res volitas in respect of the punishment willed thereby If I had said that sin had been the cause of Gods will in any respect whatsoever as D. Twisse hath done Mr. B. would probably have called it blasphemy because Gods will is himself and the cause is ever before the effect but nothing is before the will of God and therefore nothing can be the cause of it But if the meaning of that Doctor was onely this that sin was that thing in respect of which or for whose sake the punishment of the sinner was will'd by God in his eternall Decree of Reprobation there is sense and Truth in what he spake And so he grants the whole Thesis against which he disputeth viz. That Gods Decree of reprobation is respective and conditional So our Correptorie Corrector is â—ain to do when he allows the distinction of Gods Antecedent and consequent will with this proviso that it be quoad res volitas and what Remonstrant did ever think otherwise for they that say that Gods decree of Reprobation is respective must understand something in the object in respect of which it is respective And what can that be but Sin which every punishment doth presuppose so that if Mr. B. or Dr. Twisse himself would not gainsay sometimes out of distaste and Animosity what they sometimes say when driven to it by necessity and pressing urgency of discourse a great part of our difference would be at an end and Mr. B. hence-forward would write no more Volumes against himself § 28. He saith they deny God to be the Author of sin whilst they repeat it at every turn that sin hath no efficient cause p. 55. How many very grosse absurdities do arise from this poor Salvo I have shew'd before and must not here make repetitions I shall only adde That Mr. B. and Dr. Twisse do ascribe to God Almighty an efficacious permission of sin and when they say he willeth and decreeth sin they say that will is efficacious We know that permission although active in sound is passive in signification For to permit is to suffer or not to hinder So that when they say an efficacious permission they say in effect an active passive a positive negative a forcible not-hindering and why should non sense be spoken and studied or the known sense of words be purposely abused and perverted if men were not conscious to themselves of some fowl Doctrine which must thus be cover'd and disguized but the disguise is so grosse that it stands in need of a disguise For Dr. Twisse affirmeth that his efficacious permissive will doth act as irresistibly as when it is effective which I have also shewed before and how are they thank-worthy who deny that blasphemy in one mode of speaking but assert it in another efficacious and efficient
whatsoever in it self is just for God to command he can justly limit and incline mans will to execute and such is the punishment of his people by what rod he thinks fit Whether by Egypt or Assyria the Philistims or Arabians those Rods of his Anger and staffs of his indignation as the Prophet phraseth it God did not onely incline but he commanded Abraham to kill his son and he commanded as well as inclined his people Israel to deprive the Egyptians of their goods for he might justly dispose of Isaacs life and of Egypts treasure and take both from both by whatsoever instrument it was his pleasure to imploy And therefore Abrahams intention and preparation to kill his son was so far from his guilt that it was an argument of his Faith and impartial obedience to Gods command But there are things of an other nature which are not just for God Almighty to do or command and therefore he cannot command or do them because he cannot do unjustly or command injustice to be done For example it is injust and so impossible for God to abjure or blaspheme or dishonour himself and by consequence unjust and so impossible that God should command or impel or stir up wicked men to the abjuring or blaspheming or dishonouring of himself All sorts of sin are a dishonouring of God and a rebellion against his sacred majesty which he doth suffer and permit and limit and circumscribe as he doth the wilde Ocean and draws good out of evil but cannot decree or command it compel or provoke or stir up men to it because he cannot be so weak that is so contrary to himself as to be principal or Accessary in the dishonouring of himself Yet this is the Doctrine of Mr. B. and of his great Masters as I have plentifully shewed in diverse Paragraphs 4. But it is no wonder that he seeks to draw Austin into a share of that odium under which his own Doctrine will ever lie sâ—â—ce the Scripture it self cannot escape him p. 61. For he saith that Calvin doth irrefragably prove by variety of Scripture and Scripture Cases what I cited from him viz. that men do sin by Gods impulse and farther gibes me for saying that such Scriptures are by Calvintoo literally expounded therein confessing it to be his opinion and belief that such Texts of Scripture ought to be literally expounded Which is as black an Accusation as he could have framed against himself worse then which was never spoken by any Gnostick of old or by any Ranter of later times One of his Instances may serve for all viz. 2 Sam. 16. 10 11. Which if literally expounded must needs be an argument of one of these two things Either that Shimei did not sin in cursing David who was Gods Anointed but rather discharged his duty in doing just as God had bid him or else that he sinned by Gods expresse precept and command If Mr. B. shall assert the former he will incur two mischiefs First by contradicting those Texts of Scripture wherein the cursing of Shimei is affirmed to be a sin confessed by himself and punished by Solomon with Death it self next by opening a Door to the secure commission of such a damning sin as cursing is and even the treasonable cursing of Gods Anointed whil'st he shall teach his people that 't is no sin but rather the yeelding an obedience to the will of God And if to slip out of these mischiefs which follow upon the former assertion he shall presume to assert the later he will translate the wickednesse from Shimei to the Precept of God by which he did it in his literal interpreting of the words of those Texts and so incur the most impious absurdities that can be thought on First by contradicting those clearest passages of Scripture which say that God hath no pleasure in wickednesse that he is of purere eyes then to behold evil and cannot look on Iniquity that he hateth all abomination and hath not caused any man to erre That he hath commanded no man to do wickedly neither hath given any man licence to sin Next by inferring that a man may sin by doing that which God will have him and hath said to him that he shall do and by consequence may do his duty by disobeying Gods precepts and by consequence that God hath a twofold precept directly contrary the one to the other whereof the one is of things which ought to be done but cannot possibly because it is decreed they shall not the other of things which ought not to be done yet must be done of necessity because it is decreed they shall Whereas if Davids words concerning God 's biding Shimei be understood to be spoken by the common Hebraisme by which such verbs as are active in sound are only permissive in signification all those horrible absurdities wil be avoided or if the Hebrew particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render because were rendered if as sometimes it signifies it will then be no more then a meer conjecture arising from Davids guilty conscience As if he should have said thus if the Lord hath said as for ought I know he hath and I am sure he justly may Curse David who shall then say wherefore hast thou done so for God might justly curse David in revenge of his sins by whatsoever messenger he pleased to send as well by Shimei as by Samuel who if God had said to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 curse David had but discharged his message as Samuel himself had done before him and not committed a sin in doing what God distinetly bid him How much better were it to think that David erred in his conjecture as easily he might who found it no hard thing to commit Adultery and murder then to speak irreverently or indecently of God Almighty it was an argument of Davids modesty and of the severe reflection which he made upon his sins to look upon it as a wise and righteous Act of Gods Oeconomie that God should thus punish him for his sins by permitting Shimei to reproach him openly or that by restraining the wickednesse of Shimei's heart from all other acts at this time he should limit him to this when perhaps of it self it was indifferent thus to punish Davids sins But in this and the like cases God forbid we should say with Mr Calvin and Mr Barlee that the sin is done by Gods impulse or by Gods stirring up to unjust acts as acts although in sundry respects the effect doth seem to be ascribed unto God after the Hebrew custom of speech and the Phrases exciting or bidding c. are used figuratively or tropically of God himself when yet he is so far from exciting or commanding that he doth the contrary to them both 5. As for Mr. B's similitude spoken of before by which he resembles Gods stirring up to unjust acts to a Mans setting of
it to be so when I 〈…〉 find a convenient season or when any man shall require 〈…〉 of me 4. When Mr. B. doth distinguish betwixt a Negative and positive Reprobation he is a pure Sublapsarian with Mr. Calvin and yet to excuse Mr. Calvin in his p. 117 he is as pure a Supralapsarian as any in the Church of Rome and as every one must be who makes the fall of the Angels to be a meere effect of God's rejection But he is any thing to serve his turne and professeth to be a friend to both in his p. 113. although Dr. Twisse is a bitter enemy to the Sublâ—…saria Doctrines and by consequence to Calvin's and Mr. Barlees too calling them Monsters of Opinions and such as inevitably inferr God to be the Author of sin and worthier of the Arminian and Jesuit schools then of their own Nor is he a friend to the other supralapsarians and therefore utterly out with Mr. B. who yet will have him to be his and his Fathers friend in several places of his Correptory Correction who doth by consequence call him Atheist p. 118. lin 1. but I have dwelt too long upon his sixth Invention and the many absurdities which follow it I will endeavour to requite my Reader for this length by using brevity in those that come after § 9. His ninth that in my p. 56. I do not so much as seem to deny that when two men are equally called whereof the one converts himself the other miscarrieth it is not God but man that puts the difference p. 15. When yet he knows 1. In that page my words are these If I am beâ—ter then any man it is God that makes me differ And in my p. 70. I said it is God that makes the difference as well as God that chooseth 2. When I said any man I must needs have comprehended not only any that hath equal Grace but any that hath lesse 3. I also said in that page we owe it wholy to God not only that hâ—…es us his Grace but that he gives us the Grace to desire his Grace as well as to use it to the advancement of his glory c. Whosoever will read over my 56. page will finde it so contrary to Mr. B's Invention that he will hardly ever trust him in any one citation before he tries him 4. St. Austin never spake more unlike a Pelagian against Pelagius then I have there done Nay he speaks more towards the way of Pelagius in lib. de spiritu literâ ad Marcell c. 33. quoted in my Notes p. 28. Yea 5ly Mr. B. himself confesseth in his p. 113. that objective considerations are the causes of Gods temporal transient acts and of the execution of his Decrees which is more Pelagian then I durst speak for the saints glorification is one execution of Gods Decree and is it not Pelagianisme in Mr. B. to inâ—err that any thing in the Creature can be the Cause of that I had said not the Cause but a Necessary condition But Mr. B. saith the Cause and the proper Cause Ibid. So inventive is he in reporting my words and so unwary or unskilful in the management of his own § 10. His tenth That I mention slightingly in my p. 4. those Remonstrants that have deserved so well of me p. 19. Yet 1. I there mention the Remonstrants as the Anti-Remonstrants in a most equal manner 2. There is not the least slighting of any Author in that page 3. I there speak slightingly of my selfe and respectfully of others 4. How could he say two such contrary things in the same page as that the Remonstrants had deserved well of me and yet that I had never vouchsafed to look into any Remonstrant Author ibid. he hath sure the worst luck of any man that ever medled with Pen and Paper § 11. His 11th That contrary to my promise as some say I vented my goodly Argument in my p. 72. about the universality of Christs Death p. 20. 1. Breach of promise is dishonesty Which because he cannot evince in me he sayes some say 2. I doe affirme to all the world that I never made any such promise 3. On the contrary I told that person who was imployed to overcome my unwillingness to preach in that place that my unwillingness was grounded upon my knowledge that I should certainly displease a factious part of the Congregation as I had formerly done if I appear'd to be otherwise then they would have me And that as long as I lived I would be single and unmixt that it was a wickedness below me to dissemble my principles and to Preach in a Disguise That if my Livelihood or my Life should depend upon it I would not seek to please men in things of that nature wherein if I should I could not be the servant of Christ 4. Several persons of the Presbytery can bear me witness that I have avowed an abhorrence to the doing or saying of any one thing which might betray me into the danger of being thought a Presbyterian however dangerous it might be in a carnal sense to be thought otherwise by some of that perswasion as our Corrector would make it appear by his Presbyterian Rodds if I were not exempted from the †smart of their †Discipline by some * Erastian Polititians as he calls all them that are Antipresbyterians § 12. His 12th That in my Sermon at Daintry and in my p. 26. I affirmed God to have prepared the Torments of Hell for the Divel and his Angels but not for any wicked men p. 20. It falls out very well that what I Preached at Daintry is since in publick and was published by me so much â—he rather because it was abused by Mr. B. with the name of Pelagian But with what Degree of Charity or shew of Reason I appeal to all honest and ingenuous Readers My words were these that those dark Territories in their primary designe and Institution were prepared not for men but for the Divel and his Angels as Origen Chrysostom Euthymius and Theophylact expound those words of our Blessed Saviour 1. Mr. B. leaves out those words in their primary Designe 2. He adds wicked and any to men which alters the Case the most that may be For God did not prepare Hell for men as men no nor for Angels as Angels but for wicked Angels and wicked men in as much as they were wicked and so had prepared themselves for Hell in order of nature before that God prepared Hell for them For in order of nature sin is first and punishment second Sin inferrs Punishment as that which is naturally to follow but punishment presupposeth the commission of sin as that which of necessity must go before The wages of Sin is Death and Hell But sure the paying of the wages implyes the doing of the work 3. Melancthon saith that a
mans sin is the cause of his Reprobation And Mr. B. will have Melancthon to be one of his party p. 129. yea in effect he saith the same p. 113. where he quotes Austin against himself and Rivet nothing to his purpose Now I hope the Cause is before the effect and therefore sin before punishment Though Mr. B. elsewhere p. 115. affirms God to have decreed punishment first and that men should sin afterwards His word is permission of sin But he means an efficacious permission as hath been shewed by which God determines that sin shall be done p. 79. of which hereafter 4. I produced the Authority of no less then foure Fathers which Mr. B. wittily conceals 5. I spake more warily then Origen did by adding those words in their primary designe c. which either Mr. B. did know or he did not If he did why did he not honestly alleage my own words if he did not why would he accuse me without a knowledg that I was guilty what Texts of Scripture might not Helvidius have accused either of Non-sense Blasphemy or Falsehood if he would have added or altered or have taken away from Gods words as the Declamator hath done to mine And 6. Let it be considered that when our Saviours words were directed to men and to men accursed on the left hand he did not say prepared for you but prepared for the Divel and his Angels Our blessed Saviour had reason for what he spake and I can give many Reasons if this were a place convenient for it 7. There is another deceipt very signal in my Declamators ordering of this matter For he knew very well and doth confess in his p. 133. that in the twenty ninth page of my Notes he should have said the 31. I do use the word especially thus Everlasting fire was prepared especially not for men but for the Divel and his Angels Nor for them by a peremptory irrespective Decree but in praescience and respect of their pride and Apostacy And he putting his trust in the idle credulity of his Reader makes bold to add that by my eagerness to defend Origen I leave some kinde of suspicion behinde me as if in process of time I would goe on with him to maintain Redemption from Hell it selfe yea salvation of Divels p. 133. Here he proves what before he professed that he is a very jealous man For 1. in all my Notes I doe not plead for Origen at all much less with eagerness Though Bishop Hall commended Origen for a good Interpreter As Mr. B. confesseth in his p. 123. 2. All the Auditors of my Parish and some of his are my witnesses that I have made it my solemn business to confute that Error to which he would have me be thought inclinable 3. I sufficiently shew my aversion to that Error in the 143 page of my late Printed Book which the Reader will now think that some enemies as well as friends did perswade me to publish and so the Declamator is every whit as unhappy in his Dexterities as he is able to make himself much more unhappy then I can wish him For if he were lesse liable I might be able to dispatch him with greater brevity § 13. His 13th That he doth by one half with those few under him take more paines then I do with my more numerous Flock p. 21 22. though this is no more pertinent to the Decrees of God Almighty then other parcels of his volumes yet because he doth indeavour to depredicate his diligence by preaching down mine in hope that some will look upon me as one of the lazie Hierarchick non-residentiall non-preaching Lubbers whom he so railes at p. 20. I will discover how unlucky he is in this too For first it is not a very commendable thing that he is faine to commend himself Nor will his Reader think it any excellent sign that he is fain himself to commend his own Preaching For so he liberally does p. 22. And withall crave's leave to magnifie himself and his Sermons without boasting p. 21 22. Nor can I guesse at the reason why he takes an occasion to tell the world that he hath very few Hearers of all his good Preaching as if it were a fine thing to be insufferable in a Pulpit and to Preach men out of their patience But if he is in good earnest so much more painful and more wholesome in his Preaching then I am why do the chiefest and most intelligent of his Parishioners take the pains to go from him no lesse then two miles as well in the winter as in the Summer but that he said was my insolency against his Ministry and Flock If he is not already I do wish with all my heart he were as much beyond me in every thing that is good as he can imagin or desire upon condition I might not be worse then I am I would be glad if every Creature might be abundantly better And it had been for my ease if others had thought as well of Mr. B. as he doth of himself For then I had not been call'd by ill Names nor been put to this drudgery of cleansing my self from his aspersions 2. Though a Pastors pains should not be measur'd by his Preaching there being many other duties incumbent on him yet he knows I am a weekly Preacher And if he is more I cannot think the better of him or that he takes the more but perhaps the lesse paines For many have found it by experience excepting the labour of lipps and lungs a much easier thing to preach twice every week in one manner then once a fortnight in an other 3. Must all those Glories and Ornaments those venerable supports of our English Church the very latchets of whose shooes we weekly Preachers are hardly worthy to untie be either hinted or held forth to be lazie Lubbers because their lips do not labour twice a week in a Pulpit let those Learned Industrious and righteous men not to be nam'd or thought on without a preface of highest Reverence and Honour be once restored to those places from which they were thrown by none other then Presbyterians and they will preach more in one day then any Correptory Corrector can do in twenty years And whil'st they are not preaching they are doing things of greater moment § 14. His 14. That I did not dare to mention the confession of faith Catechismes c. of the late Westmonasteriall Assembly p. 24. Here the Correptory Corrector gives us a Specimen of his Logick Because I did not name his Authors he inferrs I did not dare to mame them By his own way of reasoning how many thousand Books are there which he did not dare to name 2. How should it lie in my way to name Confessions of Faith or Catechismes which I never saw and seldome heard of I suppose the Assembly had more wit then to think they could make a better Creed then