Ezek. 14. 23. They shall comfort you when you see their way and their enterprises and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it saith the Lord God Secondly when God doth chastise not as parents for their owne pleasures but with an eye to the good of those whom hee chastiseth Rom. 12. 10. According thereto is that of Augustine Qui trucidat non considerat quemadmodum laniet sed qui curat considerat quemadmodum seret This is my answer following the course of your owne reading of the place whereas Piscator blames the vulgar translation in this place which you follow for saith hee in the Hebrew it is not I will not the death of a sinner but this I am not delighted in the death of a sinner But saith he A man may will that wherein he takes no delight as a ficke man may will to drinke a bitter potion wherein he takes no delight For he may will to take it not for it selfe but for something else to wit to recover his health And so God willeth the eternall death of reprobates for his owne glory to wit for the manifestation of his just wrath in punishing of their sinnes And Iunius reades it and translates it in like manner and with these accordeth our last English translation As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his way and live Ezek. 33. 11. And the 18. of Ezekiel doth cleare the meaning of the Holy Ghost where the same phrase is used and in the same manner translated by our worthiest Divines and followed in our last translation vers 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that hee should returne from his waies and live and verse 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth saith the Lord God wherefore turne your selves and live ye Now in this chapter the Lord justifieth himselfe against an imputation of harsh if not unjust dealing as if hee punished the children for the sinnes of their fathers which in a proverbiall manner was delivered thus The fathers have eaten sowre grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge which might occasion a desperate disposition in them and provoke them to cast off all care of amending their waies and turning to God by repentance because all was one whether they repented or repented not because the sowre grapes which their fathers had eaten were enough to set all their teeth on edge Against this the Lord made a solemne protestation that all soules were his even the soules of the children as well as the soules of the fathers and that the soule that sinned that should dye and hereupon expostulates with them thus Have I any pleasure in the death of a sinner to wit so as to bring death upon him notwithstanding his repentance because forsooth his father had eaten sowre grapes No no the Lord hath no delight in their death but if they returne and live hee delights in that and therefore concludes with exhorting them to returne unto the Lord that they may live Now when you forsake the translation of our Church and slicke unto the Vulgar corrupt translation to hold up your odde conceits doth it become you to make question whether they that oppose you in your extravagant tenents and proofes have subscribed to the booke of Common Prayer Piscator proceedeth further and saith that the meaning is not simply that God delights not in the death of the wicked but in case he ceaseth not from his iniquity as appeares saith he by comparing of it with that which goeth before and with that which commeth after for otherwise God takes delight in all his workes like as Lyra upon Ezech. 18. Punitio improbitatis bene est à Deo volita quia justa In Proverbs 1. 26. thus we reade I will laugh at your destruction and mocke when your feare commeth How are these places to bee reconciled Piscator answereth God is not delighted in the death of man as it is the destruction of the creature but is delighted therein as it is the just punishment of the creature which is as much as to say he delights in the execution of his owne Iustice like as wee reade Ier. 9. 24. Let him that glorieth glorie in this that he understandeth and knoweth me For I am the Lord which shew mercy and judgement and righteousnesse in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. 4. Now as if you had made all sure on your side partly out of our authorized devotions wherein you make choice of three prayers whereof two are nothing to the purpose and the third at your uttermost straining of it doth but encourage you to conclude finally that God wils not the death but the life rather of them that of Infidels are made Christians and partly out of the Catechisme where you finde that Christ hath redeemed all mankinde which hath no coloutable extent further then all men and without manifest opposition to Austin you finde this phrase will not serve your turne whom yet you oppose so as without answering any one of his arguments one whereof was drawne from analogie of Scripture phrase another from manifest reason professing therewithall that your construction of this place contradicts the prime Article of the Creed And last of all driving the naile of your discourse home with a concludent proofe depending upon a translation of the text quite different from the most authentique translation of our Church which yet must be without prejudice to your conformity having a sound heart of your owne and therefore some peccadilies may bee well borne withall and you take liberty to question others your opposites whether they have subscribed or no to the booke of Common Prayer such is the height of your imperious cariage bearing downe all before you Now you come to enquire By what will God doth will they should be saved that are not saved and you demand whether God doth will their salvation by his revealed and not by his secret will As if this were our opinion whereas neither Calvin embraceth it nor Beza nor Piscator but all concurre upon that interpretation which Austin gave many hundred yeares agoe and which you impugne and how judiciously we have already considered Peter Martyr proposeth it amongst divers others but embraceth it not neither doe I know any Divine of ours that embraceth it Cajetan indeed embraceth it and Cornelius de Lapide and Aquinas amongst other interpretations As you doubt whether your opposites have subscribed to the booke of Common prayer so if you take a liberty to put upon us the opinions and accommodations of distinctions used by Papists you may in the next place make doubt whether wee have not subscribed to the Councell of Trent We plainly deny that God doth will the salvation of any but of his elect For to
Heathen who doe not so much as know God nor ever were acquainted with his word and Gospell CHAP. XIIII Of Gods infinite love to mankinde YOur theame runnes in an indefinite current as touching the object of Gods love but it appeares by your discourse ensuing that you have a farther reach and doe extend this love of God towards all and every one For by the last clause of the first section it appeares that you conceive the notion of love infinite to bespeake as much namely that therefore it must extend to all and every one And this reason of yours is soone dispatched in lesse then two lines all the rest of your first section is wide enough from the marke you shoot at and yet unsound enough in many particulars First you maintaine that blessing and cursing both cannot proceed out of the mouth of God Secondly that God is the author of being to all and therefore loves all Thirdly that in as much as he gives being to all he loves all For he hateth nothing that hee hath made All these I will examine in their order Touching the first you beginne with the authority of St. Iames Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing my brethren these things ought not so to be And he doth illustrate it with similitudes drawne from naturall things as from a fountaine that sends not forth at the same place sweet water and bitter and from trees which bring forth proper fruit onely according to their kinde Can the figtree beare Olive berries or the Vine figs And you seeme to conceive that these reasons of the Apostle as you call them which indeed are but illustrations have more force to prevaile then the Apostles authority for thus you write If the Apostles authority could not perswade us to beleeve his reasons would inforce us to grant that the issues of blessing and cursing from one and tho same mouth are contrary to the course of nature and argue the nature of man to bee much out of tune Herein I am not of your minde I am rather of Abrahams minde If they will not beleeve Moses and the Prophets neither will they beleeve though a man rise from the dead And yet a man rising from the dead were as fit to make faith of the state of the dead in my judgement as these illustrations secluding S. Iames his authority are of force to prove that it becomes not a man out of the same mouth to send forth blessing and cursing For fountaines send forth water and trees bring forth fruit by necessity of nature But man speakes by freedome of will and as a man may be induced to curse so in case he curseth and be challenged for it by a brother hee may answer as David did unto his brethren And what have I now done is there not a cause For if all curses were causelesse Solomon would never have told us that The curse which is causlesse shall not come I never yet read of any that censured Elisha for cursing the children that mocked him saying Come up thou bald head come up thou bald head and indeed it is said He cursed them in the name of the Lord. And yet this curse of his had a very bloody issue two Beares comming out of the wood and tearing forty two of them And in the booke of Iudges the Angell of the Lord bids the people curse Meroz Curse ye Meroz saith the Angell of the Lord curse ye bitterly the inhabitants of Meroz because they came not to helpe the Lord to helpe the Lord against the mighty And as curses may have their due course so blessings may bee causelesse For as for him that blesseth himselfe in his heart when hee heareth the word of Gods curse saying I shall have peace though I walke after the stubbornnesse of my heart herein he doth but adde drunkennesse unto thirst and the Lord will not bee mercifull to that man And if some doe sinne in blessing themselves how much more doe others sinne in blessing idols Wee well know that out of our Saviours mouth came forth cursings sometimes as well as blessings at other times For he cursed the figtree and anone it withered And therefore it were fit to distinguish betweene cursings and cursings yea and betweene blessings and blessings lest otherwise we confound truth and errour good and evill And to this purpose I thinke fit to distinguish betweene cursing as it signifies onely the pronouncing of a curse and cursing as it signifieth cursed speaking And S. Iames as I take it speakes of cursing as it signifies cursed speaking and not as it signifies the bare pronunciation of a curse which may bee done without cursed speaking and in an holy manner as when our Saviour cursed the figtree and Elisha the children that mocked him moved undoubtedly thereunto extraordinarily by the Spirit of God Like as when prophane persons blesse themselves and superstitious persons blesse their idolls their actions are unholy enough and doe bring the curse of God upon their persons For they shall multiply sorrow upon their heads that runne after other gods Now S. Iames useth fit similitudes to illustrate this duty of blessed speaking and to move them to refraine from cursed speaking considering that Gods Spirit is as a fountaine of holy life in their hearts and therefore they should send forth nothing but sweet water not indifferently either sweet water onely or bitter water onely but sweet water and that onely And seeing they are trees of righteousnesse of the Lords planting that hee may be glorified therefore to bring forth nothing but good fruit but that of divers kindes like unto that tree of life that bare twelve manner of fruits and gave fruit every moneth And yet if sometimes they breake forth into cursed speaking it is the lesse strong considering they are in part carnall and but in part spirituall and therefore in part out of tune though nothing like so much as they were in state of nature when they sent forth nothing but bitter water neither blessing their brethren nor God no nor themselves neither Not one of these instances say you but holds as truely in God as in man He being the tree of life cannot bring forth death To cause the vine to bring forth figges were not so hard a point of husbandry as to derive cursednesse or misery from the fountaine of blisse For a spring to send forth water sweet and bitter fresh and salt is more competible then for hatefull and harmefull intentions to have any issue from pure love But God is love yea love is his essence as Creator Why doe you not speake plainely and tell us that out of Gods mouth cannot proceed blessing and cursing Yet the Lord protesteth to Abraham saying Blessed shall hee be that blesseth thee and cursed shall he be that curseth thee And tells the Iewes to their face that he would curse their blessings Yea
owne image this is no more true of man then of Angels even of the very Angels of darknesse And men also are borne the children of darknesse and so continue untill the time that God calleth them and enlightneth them Or will you say that in speciall sort he is the father of man by way of redemption yet I finde hitherto in your discourse no intimation of this fatherhood But will you say that all and every one have redemption in Christ through his bloud you may as well say that all and every one have the remission of their sinnes in Christ thorough his bloud For this is it which in Scripture phrase is meant by redemption Arminius who maintaines that Christ dyed for all and every one professeth plainly that the immediate effect of Christs passion is but this that God now may his Iustice nothing hindring him give pardon of sinnes and salvation upon what condition he will Which upon the matter is all one as if he should say that seeing faith and repentance are the conditions whereupon God gives forgivenesse of sinnes none but such as beleeve and repent doe obtaine the forgivenesse of sinnes that is doe obtaine redemption in Christ through his bloud Now consider are not faith and repentance the gifts of God It cannot be denied but they are the Scriptures evidently give testimony hereunto namely that faith is the gift of God that repentance is the gift of God And doth God give faith and repentance unto all All experience of the world doth manifest that he doth not no nor so much as the outward meanes unto all whereby faith and repentance are wrought I wonder you blush not in setting downe such incongruities as first in saying that God as he is willing to be called the father of the sonnes of men so he is ready to doe the kinde office of a father unto them and for proofe hereof alledge that of the Psalmist As a father pitieth his owne children so the Lord pitieth them that feare him In which passage the fatherly love of God is not extended unto all but restrained to those that feare him And yet I pray consider what father would torment his children with everlasting fire though never so unnaturall towards him or would not keepe him from it if it lay in his power without sinning against God Yet God torments even those whom you call his children justly for their sinnes in the torments of hell fire that never shall have end We willingly grant the love of God the Father and the love of God the Sonne is such a love as passeth knowledge but it is enlarged onely towards those that are his children by faith in Christ Iesus This is the filiation alone which the Apostle takes notice of you take no notice of this at all And againe Because ye are sonnes God hath sent the Spirit of his Sonne into your hearts crying Abba Father Now is this common unto all as you make Gods fatherhood common unto all So saith the Apostle in another place As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sonnes of God Here is a description of that sonneship we have in respect of our heavenly Father And againe The Spirit of God witnesseth with our spirits that we are the sonnes of God Of these passages I sinde no accompt made throughout this whole discourse of yours And towards these sonnes of God wee shall willingly give you leave to extend and intend the love of God as much as you thinke fit But you still continue to extend the fatherhood of God unto all as it were in despight of all these passages formerly alledged Where doe you finde throughout the Scriptures that the title of the sonnes of God is attributed to the uncircumcised or to the Heathen To the contrarie we reade both before the flood that The sonnes of God saw the daughters of men that they were faire where we have a manifest distinction opposite to your confusion And after for this is the message which God sent unto Pharaoh Israel is my sonne even my first borne and if thou refuse to let him goe I will slay thy sonne even thy first borne How much more under the Law Is Ephraim my deare sonne or pleasant childe yet since I spake unto him I still remembred him therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have compassion on him saith the Lord. Most of all under the Gospell Behold what love the Fathe hath shewed us that wee should bee called the sonnes of God What have you here said of Gods love to man that may not as well be said of his love to the very Angels of darknesse For is it not true in respect of them as well as in respect of us that having given them being he doth much more love them after they are enstamped with his image For he sowes not wheat to reape tares nor did he give life to Angels that he might bring forth death God gave both man and Angels life for the manifestation of his owne glory and for the manifestation of his owne glory doth he punish transgressors amongst men and Angels with everlasting death 3. You would willingly draw Heathens to the acknowledgement of this fatherhood in God towards all though thinking it too narrow to comprehend all references of loving kindnesses betweene him and demy gods which demy gods you take to be men I thinke rather they were conceived to be inferiour spirits like as Aristotle makes all inferiour intelligences to depend upon the first mover And what reference of loving kindnesse is comprehended in this that Iupiter is said to be both male and female you may at leisure dilate of when you please Gods affection to his children exceeds the affection of any mother towards the fruit of her wombe For God was content to purchase his Church with his owne blood Your next sentence containes meere non sense I rectifie it thus And as if his love could not be sufficiently expressed by these dearest references amongst men c. hee hath chosen the most affectionate female c. Thus I make sense of it but the poorest sense that ever was vented in so grave a matter of discourse As if the greatnesse of place or curiosity of education did make mothers so little compassionate towards their children that God is faine to seeke out for more proper resemblances Thus you fetch about for matter as Balaam did for divinations as if there were no women in the world but delicate Ladies or such nice curious dames whose nicenesse hath made them so unnaturall that our Saviour was driven to compare his tender affection unto the affectionof a hen towards her chicken which creature is magnified by you to hold up the jest for the most affectionate female amongst reasonlesse creatures implying that reasonable creatures may in tendernesse of affection right well exceed the henne and so you quite marre your owne
will yee die yee house of Israel And the whole proceedeth by way of answer to their murmuring against the providence of God in saying The fathers have eaten sower grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge and hereupon God proceedeth to justifie the course of his providence unto their face Now when God doth not take men upon the hippe as soone as they have sinned against him but spares them and not onely gives them space of repentance but useth meanes to bring them unto repentance by sending Prophets unto them to admonish them to admonish them of their sinnes and to denounce the judgements of God against them is not this a manifest evidence that God is not delighted in their death but rather in their repentance although he still reserves libertie to himselfe to bestow the gift of repentance on whom he will And therefore all this is only in respect of his church not in respect of those who are strangers from the common wealth of Israel and aliens from the covenants of promise then concerning those within the church All are not Israel that are of Israel Rom. 9. And though the meanes of grace have their course withall yet God intends to make them effectuall onely with his elect according to that As many as were ordeined to eternall life believed and whom he hath predestinated them hath he called and justified and glorified For as Austine saith Quantamlibet praebuerit patientiam nisi Deus dederit quis aget poenitentiam And speaking of the Non pradestinatis Istorum neminem saith hee adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritatemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorem patientiam sive non imparem praebeat Therefore we say that as concerning the elect though they sinne yet God willeth not their death but willeth their repentance and their salvation But as touching others who are mixt amongst them as tares amongst the wheat and are partakers of the same meanes of grace and invitations unto repentance in as much as he spares them and giveth them not onely time to repent but admonisheth them of their sinnes and affords them the outward meanes of repentance it is sufficient to justifie that God doth not willingly bring judgement upon them neither for their sinnes because hee comes not hastily thereunto but upon wilfull despising of the means of grace used to reclaime them like as before I shewed in what sense God is said not to afflict the sonnes of men willingly And as for this present place your selfe elsewhere hath interpreted it thus I will not the death of an impenitent sinner but that God wills undoubtedly the death of an impenitent sinner To quash this construction in this place you say this oath of God proceeds as concerning those who all their life long have hated him Here I am perswaded wee shall finde no little inconsideratenesse To hate God all a mans life time what is it but to hate him from the first hower of comming to the use of reason unto the last even unto the moment of death now I pray consider Will not God the death of such a one as dieth in impenitencie The text I confesse runnes thus I will not the death of him that dieth But doe you thinke indeed the meaning is that as for such a man as now dieth and hath lived all his life time in the hatred of God God will not the death of such a one Like enough you are content your Reader should entertaine such a conceite But I cannot bee perswaded you take this to be the meaning The text is manifestly against it for it followeth But rather that he returne and live so that it is spoken of a man living and such as is capable of repentance And wee know the whole Chapter is to justifie Gods providence in afflicting men with his judgements so that to die in this place is to be under the afflicting hand of God and so in the way to death and to destruction Our living is reputed a continuall dying for as much as nature consumeth and wasteth as the Poet wittily expresseth it Childehood ends in youth And youth in old age dies I thought I lived in truth But now I die I die I see Each age of death is one degree Whereupon he concludes his resolution to correct his former phrase of speech saying Farewell the doating score Of worlds Arithmaticke Life I le trust thee no more But henceforth for thy sake I le go by deaths new Almanaeke For while I sing A thousand men lie sick a thousand bells doring And would you know what is the difference between me and them They are but dead and I dying So that I guesse your meaning according to the articles of your owne creed is but this That Gods love is such to them that all their life past not simply all their life but all their life past have hated him that He will not their death but rather that they returne and live And I grant that this is true of many in most proper speech namely of all the elect of God though it bee long ere God calleth and converteth some of them Of others also that live in the Church I have shewed how it may have course in the same sense that God is said not so much willingly to afflict them for their sinnes as for refusing to repent and turne unto God after they have sinned When you tell us of infinite places more of sacred texts and those most perspicuous in themselves and also that The whole ancient Church with some small exception which yet may bee counterpoised is ready to give joynt verdict for you it savoureth hotly of Smithfield eloquence Pessima quò vendas opus est mangone perito Qui Smithfieldensi polleat eloquio Yet it was an old observation Multa fidem promissa levant cum plenius aequo Laudat venales qui vult extrudere merces If you had some about you to justfie you in cleanly manner by some prety qualification it had beene absolute As the Gentleman who professed that he had certaine ponds wherein Carpes were taken as big as that Somer-pole which hee then rode by and withall askt his man that rode with him whether it were not so Sir quoth his man though they were so big yet I am sure they were nothing like so long and indeed the dimension of length is more suitable to the proportion of an Eele then of a Carpe As Cicero answered him that told a strange tale concerning the length of certaine Eeles which he had seene for Tully handsomely to convince him of his vanity made shew of going beyond him in his owne element of tossing and forthwith replied saying That is nothing strange for I know a place where Eeles are taken of such a length that they use to make their Angling-rods of them And this assertion of yours may come as heere to the trueth as an Eele is to an Angling rod. CHAP. XV.
proving that which no Christian will deny For your conclusion is that God willeth not the death of any but the life of all whom of men or infidels he hath made Christians Did ever any Christian deny this Is this it you are to prove that God wils the salvation of all Christians Have you not rather undertaken to prove that God willeth not the salvation of all sorts of men onely which was Austins glosse and which you set up here as a mark to shoot at thinking by the power of your discourse to beare downe the authority and learned discourse of that worthy Father hereupon but that he willeth the salvation of every man of every sort throughout the world And this you would prove out of the doctrine established in the Church of England that is out of their Liturgie and three prayers therein you insist upon whereas the two first are apparantly nothing for the purpose whereof your selfe seeme to bee sensible enough and therefore the third place Triary like was to doe the feat and to cleare all and the conclusion herehence definit in piscem being no more but this that God willeth the salvation of all men whom he hath vouchsafed to make Christians which no man denies or cals into question May I not justly aske and that with admiration Quid dignum tanto tulit hic promissor hiatu Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus But what should move you to carie your selfe so preposterously and to balke or blast rather so faire a consequence and so beneficiall unto your cause as your antecedent doth bespeake For if your antecedent be true namely that God willeth not the death of any Turke Iew or Infidell will it not manifestly follow that God willeth not the death of any Turke or Iew or Infidell To my thinking it should follow as manifestly as to say that if the Sunne shineth it shineth though in my poore judgement this is identity rather then consequence or concomitance I say I wonder what moved you to blast this consequence with such a dash of your pen in the very face of it and the addition of such a proviso as this whom of men or infidels he hath made Christians First especially considering that no such qualification is in the antecedent and it is most unreasonable that any qualification should be foisted into a conclusion that hath no ground in the premisses especially it being such a qualification as utterly marres your market and that at the end of the day and you have a long time waited for a good penyworth and now your selfe are the man that cuts your owne throat Did the conscience of so foule a conclusion as was towards make you blush to put it in writing that cannot be for you have it full and whole in the antecedent though straining to proceed most indecently it fares with you as it doth with the horse in the Poet Peccat ad extremum ridendus ilia ducit Or by the way did your consequence suggest unto you that the argument drawne from this prayer proves no more but this that God will save every Iew Turke and Infidell in case he be first made a Christian If so then the supposed consequence in your antecedent was made against your conscience and therefore by the consequence herehence made you desired to strangle it that so the birth of it might bee abortive Yet because you carie some shew of argumentation in the antecedent I will not trust to the corruptnesse of your consequent deduced therhence but I will take the pains to strangle it my selfe since the presse hath brought it to light your antecedent is this If God therefore will not the death of any Jewe Turke or Infidel because of nothing he made them men Now this includes such an Enthymeme Of all Turkes Iewes and Infidels it is true that God of nothing hath made them men therefore he will not the death of any Iew Turke or Infidel Now I say this consequence is notoriously false and in stead of your proving it in any manner I disprove it in this manner Of all Devils it is as true that God of nothing made them angels shall I herehence inferre therefore he will not the death of any devill So likewise of all cats and dogs horses and hogs it is as true that God of nothing made them such as they are will it therefore follow that God willeth not the death of any of them But perhaps some may say that the Collect implyeth some such argument for it runneth thus Mercifull God who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made have mercy upon all Jewes I answer first here is no such argument implyed as to inferre that God will not the death of any Iewe Turke or Infidell but onely it implieth a reason why we pray God to have mercy upon all Iewes Turkes and Infidels But albeit we doe thus pray for all yet it followeth not that God will save every Iew Turke and Infidell that liveth as before I have shewed For who doubts but the childe is bound to pray for the recovery of his fathers health being cast downe upon the bed of sicknesse at what time it may bee it is Gods will that his father shall not recover but dye the death Secondly the complete reason why we pray for all signified in this praier is not this because God hath made all men and hateth nothing that he hath made for by the same reason we might be urged to pray for devils as well as for men This is onely a part of the reason not the whole reason The whole reason is this Who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live And we finde by manifest experience that most wicked men are converted and God hath revealed unto us that the fulnesse of the Gentiles shall come in Rom. 11. and that then shall be the calling of the Iewes therefore wee pray for the fulnesse of the one and of the other but with submission unto the will of God as touching the time of this and the manner how Thirdly and lastly like as it followeth not that because we must pray for all men therefore wee must pray for every man throughout the world in like sort it followeth not that because our Church prescribes us to pray for all Iewes Turks and Infidels therefore it prescribes us to pray for every Iew Turke and Infidel throughout the world and looke what restraint may be laid upon all men the very same restraint of interpretation may be laid upon all Jewes all Turkes and all Insidels Yet you keep your course and tel us that as God made all things without invitation a prettie phrase for them that affect eloquence beyond intelligence out of meere love made nothing hatefull Apply this I pray to devils and see whether we have not as good a ground to pray for them
reprobate untill hee hath made up the full measure of his iniquity and that this measure being full God ceasing to love him God is changed for Gods love is an act in God and is made to cease after a certaine time by your doctrine and be turned into hatred More probable it is to say that God hates all men seeing they are borne and bred in sinne untill they are regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ. Yet this is untrue For Gods love is an everlasting love as without end so without beginning If you had distinguished of love as Aquinas doth 1. q. 23. art 4. and said that God may be said to love all things that he hath made in as much as he wisheth some good unto them but for as much as he wisheth not unto them a certaine good to wit eternall life therfore he is said not to love but to hate some your discourse had beene more specious Touching a necessity laid upon them by Gods decree to fill up the measure of sinne Arminius acknowledgeth Deum voluisse Achabam mensuram scelerum suorum implere God would that Ahab should make up the full measure of his iniquity which is as much as to say that God decreed it and the Scripture professeth that both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered together to doe what Gods hand and his will had determined before to be done so then in betraying condemning and crucyfying of Christ they did but that which God determined should come to passe And upon supposition that God will expose any man unto temptation and leave him therein destitute of his grace all which it is but to harden him wee say it is necessary that men shall goe on in sinne without repentance as your selfe acknowledge was verified of Pharaoh after the seventh plague onely wee say this is necessity onely secandum quid and not simpliciter and hinders not our liberty for it is necessary that such a thing should come to passe but not necessarily but contingently and freely like as upon supposition of Gods decree to make the world it is necessary that God should make it but how not necessarily like a naturall agent but freely like a voluntary agent Yet once again to take a view of your uncouth tenents obscurely delivered whē you say Pharaoh did not continue one the same object of Gods decree It is a very strange speech for was not the man Pharaoh the object of Gods decree If he was so continued the same man doth it not follow that he continued the same object of Gods decree notwithstanding his person altered much in the space of his life You may as well say of one of Gods elect as of David and Paul that neither of them continued the same object of Gods decree if the alteration of their natures made them become different objects of Gods decree Nay much more may you say so because farre greater alterations are found in the elect of God then in the reprobate for in the elect there is found an alteration from the state of nature to the state of grace no such alteration is found in the reprobate the reprobate onely growes from bad to worse the elect have growne so too before their calling but by their effectuall calling they are changed and of the children of this world they are made the children of God And after their calling though after the committing of one sinne they fall into another as doe the reprobate yet withall againe they returne unto God by repentance no such alteration is found in the reprobates but still prosiciunt in pejus they grow worse and worse Againe if because the person of a man altereth therefore the object of Gods decree altereth seeing that a mans person altereth not only in the course of manners but in the course of nature from childehood to youth from youth to middle age from middle age to old age as also from health to sicknesse from sicknesse to health therefore the object of Gods decree in this respect altereth also If you say the case is not alike I say you might then have prevented this objection by plaine dealing and told us not onely in what case but why in the case you meane the object of Gods decree altereth whereas wee are now driven to fish it out as well as wee can and bring your opinion to light and set it forth in the proper and distinct lineaments thereof Now the reason of the difference I conceive to be this to wit because God doth not will the death of a man according to his naturalls but according to his moralls and considered in his moralls As if you should say God did not will the death of Pharaoh but of wicked Pharaoh But say I Pharaoh did alwaies continue wicked Pharaoh from his birth to his death never altering from wickednesse to goodnesse and therefore even in this respect he still continued the same object of Gods decree to damne him Perhaps you will further say that Pharaoh as wicked was not the object of Gods decree of condemnation but as having filled up the measure of his iniquity But I say againe from the first time that he thus became the object of Gods decree of condemnation hee still continued the same for your selfe confesse after once they have filled up a certaine measure of iniquity all possibility of repentance is taken from them The last refuge for you is to say that this speech of yours in denying Pharaoh to continue the same object of Gods decree is to be understood not in respect of one and the same decree but in respect of different decrees thus Though Pharaoh were wicked all his life yet he was not all along the object of Gods decree of condemnation but untill he had filled the measure of his iniquity he was the object of Gods decree to save him For in the consequence you acknowledge that God doth unfainedly love all men untill such time as they have filled up the measure of their sinne And accordingly in another Treatise of yours you acknowledge that men may change from the state of the elect to the state of reprobates And immediately before you professe that God from all eternity did not will the death but rather the life of Pharaoh This you might have expressed in plaine termes without faultering but you were loath as it seemes to alienate mens mindes with so foule a Tenent touching the change not of the object of Gods will and decree onely but of Gods verie will and decree also which manifestly appeares by this opening your Tenent though in termes you professe Gods will is immutable and would have your reader conceive that all the alteration is in the object of Gods will and decree not in the will and decree of God himselfe And over and above herehence it followeth that if Pharaoh had died before the seventh wonder for till then he had not filled up the measure
still I perceive your meaning reacheth further then you dare as yet to professe for your meaning is to prove that All that heare the Gospell and doe not believe it seeing they shall bee guilty of greater sinne and incurre greater condemnation at the day of judgement therefore they could believe it if they would This is the point that sticks in your teeth and which you dare not openly and plainely professe as indeed it is manifest Pelagianisme and which the Arminians dare not at this day openly avouch but rather professe that no man can believe or repent without grace Whereas yet like as your selfe maintaine that no man in state of nature can doe otherwise of himselfe then sinne yet is he justly condemned for sinning none compelling him in like sort no man of himselfe can believe the Gospell yet hee may be as justly condemned for not believing For as for that naturall impotency unto that which is good which is in all derived unto us from our father Adam that is of it selfe sufficient to condemne us and therefore most unsufficient to excuse us And that impotencie being in all alike the condemnation therefore shall be unto all alike but the increase of it by actuall transgressions which are freely committed is not in all alike for neither doth inclination naturall or tentations spirituall or occasions temporall hinder a mans libertie in doing or refusing to doe any act so likewise neither can it hinder the aggravation of his sinne But neither can this naturall impotency bee cured in any part but by the grace of God habituall neither any good act according to this grace habituall he performed without another grace both prevenient and subsequent actuall If your minde serves you to deale plainly in opposing ought of this you shall not want them that will bee ready to enter with you into the lists and scholastically to encounter you Yet I confesse the providence of God especially in ordering and governing the wills of men is a misterious thing and the operation and cooperation of his will with the operation and cooperation of the will of man But I am a long time inured unto this and now I feare no bugbeares least of all from your selfe with whom I have beene of old acquainted in our private and familiar discourse on these and such like arguments and to tell you plainely my opinion I doubt you have written so much that you have had time to read but litle And truly as for my selfe as I have written little so also I have not read much But in these points I have spent not a little time in searching after truth and examining arguments As for the place of the Apostle Act. 17. 30. it seemes your meaning is it pleads for universall grace now after Christs death yet your selfe immediately before profested that onely they that heare it and doe not believe are guilty of greater sinnes implying manifestly that since Christs death all doe not heare it Yet if you have any other meaning and will deale roundly in propounding it I will be ready to consider this or any other place that you shall bee able to produce to what purpose soever if orthodox in my judgement to subscribe unto it if otherwise to doe my best to confute it 3 In the next place you are so farre from maintaining universall grace that you undertake to give causes why all men in the world have not heard of this love of God in Christ. But these causes to be assigned by you are put off till hereafter and that not of certainty neither you onely say They may bee assigned T is your usuall course to feed your Readers with expectation as it were with empty spoones If you doe not gull them in putting them off to expectation t is somewhat the better The reason you give why many might have heard of Christ which yet have not heard of him and might have beene partakers of his death I thinke you meane of the benefit of his death which yet have not beene partakers of it is starke naught For that evill courses of men cannot hinder them from the participation of Christs death appeareth by the calling of the Gentiles and casting off of the Iewes For were the deeds of Babylon thinke you better then they of Sion Wee Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles saith the Apostle Gal. 2. 15. The Apostle in divers places puts no difference betweene them that are called and them that are not as touching their manners before grace 1 Cor. 6. 11. Eph. 2. 23. Tit. 3. 23. God sindes us weltring in our bloud when he saith unto us Live Ezech. 16. and Saul was taken off from his bloudy courses to be made a member of Christ. And your doctrine to the contrary tends shamefully to the obscuring and disparaging of Gods grace and to the advancing of the power of nature and liberty of will the trick of the Pelagians of old of whom Austine professed thus Inimici gratiae Dei latent in commendatione naturae The enemies of Gods grace welter themselves under the commendation of nature And Austine professeth it to be impiety and madnesse to deny that God can convert any mans will when hee will and where hee will And you blush not to professe in another discourse of yours that humility is the disposition which prepares us for grace I doubt you will finde little comfort in such humility and that at the day of judgement such humility will be found abominable pride What you meane by pledges I know not you love to walk in cloudes and in the darke if you mean the fruits of Gods temporall blessings how will you prove that these were evidences of that love which God man fested in the death of his Sonne And if it were so then this evidence should be manifested to all of ripe yeares for all are partakers of Gods temporall providence even they that have filled up the measure of their iniquity Yet then you usually professe God withdrawes his love from them but how can that bee if hee afford them the unquestionable earnests thereof as before you called these pledges whereas in the close you say that many are not acquainted with this manifestation of Gods love and that out of meere mercy it may well passe for one of your paradoxes I never doubted but that it was a mercy to know Christ and the love of God to the world in him but that it was a mercy to want Christ I never read nor heard till now Neither is it necessary that men though reprobates should be enraged to evill by the Gospell for God can make even reprobates to profit by it ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quà mitius puniantur To the outward emendation of their lives to the end their punishment may be the milder And we finde by experience that all were not enraged against it CHAP. XVIII Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfained love to such as perish a