End then the Ambitious or aspiring mind The Port which this Bravado is bound for at His first setting forth is Superiority Rule or Dominion over others perhaps his Equals by Birth and for good qualities his far Betters But ere he can attain to this Heaven of Happiness as he esteems it He must ‖ See Horace 6 Epist lib. 1. Si Fortunatum c. couch down like Issachar between two burdens take Chams Curse upon him for his Viaticum or Loading in his way or journey He must be a Servant to Greatness though in despight of Goodnesse a Vassal to the dispensers of that Honour which he seeks though these be Vassals to Basenesse or other bad Qualities a Slave unto the Corruption of Time and in a preposterous imitation of our Apostle he must become all things to all men and even enforce himself against the bent of proud affections to fawn upon such as can feed him with hopes of Honour to lenifie the rotten sores of their Vlcerous consciences with a smooth flattering tongue If he be a Clergy-man or Messenger of Christ that ☜ is tainted with this Humour he must become more then a Balaam to every Balak such a One as Balaam would have been if the Angel had not withstood him He must set himself to blesse where God hath cursed and to curse where God hath blessed There is no part of this Servitude of Sin or Satan so irkesome as this to an Ingenuous spirit or to a mind fraught with any internal worth but especially with the knowledge of Christ and Him Crucified No Slavery of the Soul so odious to God none that includes greater Enmity or Antipathy to the Wisdom and Son of God none that includes greater affinity with Satan This unquenchable desire of Honour falsly so called as some Philosophers from due examination have determined the question commands all other Affections whatsoever even Love it self whether towards Parents towards Wife or Children Kindred or Country And by this Affection of Ambitious Pride Satan hath often commanded the Greatest Commanders in more vile and detestable Services then he can impose upon the most vile and most abject Creatures living Unto this Idoll or to so small a piece of it as may be inshrined in some One great Mans Brest whole Lâ—gions whole Armies of men for whom Christ shed his Dearest Bloud have often been Sacrificed For whose Burnt-offering Goodly Towns and Cities have been set on fire What absolute command Satan gets over mens Souls in which Ambitious desires come to their full height and growth may easily be calculated from those detestable Services into which Satan by so little a sprig of this Forbidden Tree as many Christians would not suspect to bear any forbidden fruit did impell Pontius Pilate This Man thought in his Conscience that our Saviour was Innocent that he was more then a man and was exceedingly willing to have saved him from death And yet Satan works him not to do as Pilate himself would but as Satan would have him to do Pilate saith the Evangelist sought to release him but the Jews cryed out saying If thou lettest this man go thou art not Caesars friend For whosoever maketh himself a King speaketh against Caesar And when Pilate heard that saying he proceeds to sentence And when the Chief Priests further prosecuted their wonted Form We have no King but Caesar He delivered Jesus unto them to be crucified John 19. vers 12 15 16. To have corrupted this man by Bribes or Gifts to have given wrong sentence against our Saviour had been impossible for these Jews Satan himself had not command or interest in his Service by this Title The only possession or interest he had in him to this purpose was not so much desire of new or greater Honour then he had as Fear of disgrace or disrespect with Caesar if when the Mutinous Jews protested They had no King but Caesar he should suffer a man to live that was accused and in some sort convicted to have suffered himself to have been Entitled King of the Jews Though his Ambition was not great yet it exposed him to desperate base and detestable Servitude or bondage It is not half so base or servile to be an Hang-man or other more contemptible Minister or Executioner of publick Justice as it is to be the Instruments or Ministers of Greatest Caesars in condemning the Innocent or sentencing such to death as have no wayes deserved it If Pilate had taken Courage to protect this Just and Holy One against the malicious calumnies of the Jews Gods providence no doubt had protected and shielded Pilates breast from the violence of Pilates own right hand Whereas he after having lost Caesars Favour which he sought by these unjust means to retain did out of the apprehension of his discontent or disgrace make away himself as the Ecclesiastical * Eusebius English Book 2. ch 7. History tels us Such are the best rewards that Satan bestows upon his Servants though miserable and shameful death be rather the earnest and pledges only of the wages which he never fully payes to his Servants till after death when he hath got their Souls into his Custody 8. If the desire of any Honour if the Fear of any Disgrace or disrespect with men were in themselves or of their own kind Absolutely Good or were any Honours to be desired For Themselves or such that their Excesse could not draw us into Satans Servitude or bondage then certainly desire of being members of Gods Visible Church The dangerous Slavery into which the Romish Church hath brought her self or fear of being cast out of it as Hereticks were of all Secondary Means or desires the most safe But through desire of yielding Absolute Obedience to Gods Visible Church and through immoderate Fear of being by the Church disgraced or Excommunicated Satan hath twice drawn a great part of Gods people Such I mean as professe the knowledge of God and of his anointed Christ into a Slavery or bondage more detestable and greater by a Three-fold Measure then any Slavery or bondage into which he was able to draw the most wicked and most Idolatrous Heathen since the first Revolution of time affording him opportunity of Temptation The First notorious or famous Conquest that Satan got over the visible Church was in the dayes of our Saviours pilgrimage here on Earth The Second over the visible Romish Church within these later years wherein they have resumed the Title or Prerogative which the Jewish Church did stifly challenge but with lamentable successe for some years after the first and second Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem The Title which that Church did challenge but with greater moderation then the present Romish Church doth was the Absolute Infallibility of the Church representative that is of the chief Priests and Elders Yet this Absolute Infallibility the Jewish Snagogue did never confine unto the bosome of the High Priest either sitting in Moses
Chair or when He entred into the Sanctum Sanctorum but to the Sanedrim or Common Council of the Priests and Elders whereof the high Priest was a more Principal then Necessary Member 9. The improvement of this Jewish Heresie and Slavery to Satan throughout the Patriarchate of Rome had its Original from an Ambitious Error in that Church through succession of times not very Ancient by laying challenges to all Gods promises made to his Vniversal or Catholick Church as to her own Peculiar Prerogative And as if this had not been enough the successors of these desperate Challengers have contracted the Catholick Church which in their Language is all one with the Church of Rome unto the Pope and his Cardinals or as they term it the Sacred Consistory Some later Canonists and Parasites to the Pope Jesuites especially have laboured to drive the Vniversal Church like a Camel through a needles eye into the Popes Breast alone whensoever he shall deliver his Sentence ex Cathedra as if as well all Gods Promises as Blessings promised to his Catholick Church were The One to be disposed of The Other to be dispensed by him as by Christs sole Vicar General or Vice-Roy here on Earth But these Positions some Interimists or Labourers for Reconciliation betwixt the Church of Rome of England wil hapily reply are but the Opinions of private men not maintained or taught by the Catholick Church Yet none of them whether Cardinals Jesuites or Casuists whether Priests or Laicks of inferiour ranke will or dare deny that the Infallible Guidance of the Holy Ghost for Leading Christs Church into the truth is immediately annexed to the Roman Church Representative that is to all such Councils or Assemblies of Christian men as are called by the Pope as Christs Vice-Roy and approved of by him and his Assistants The Necessary Consequence of this Position is That No one Council which hath been called by the Pope and approved by him did ever heretofore Erre or can Erre hereafter 10. The former mis-interpretation of Gods Promises made unto the Vniversal Church He meanes W. Laud The R R. Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury his Book that is as Romanists say unto the Church of Rome is excellently refuted by the Author of that Matchless Piece heretofore annexed to Doctor Whites Learned Answer to the Jesuite Fisher since Published by The Author of it in his own Name with many Learned and Pious additions Of all which I have no more for the present to say then this Respondent Vltima primis Both the First and Second Edition are worthy their Author And this is more then I know otherwise how to expresse The first Edition I had the happinesse to peruse when I had finished this Treatise of Servitude to sin for my private use and for the benefit of such as were committed to my Pastoral Charge and had entered upon another Treatise Concerning Christian Obedience for preventing the spreading infection of a Pestilent Book dispersed through the Northern parts of this Kingdom set forth by a Jesuite under this Sawcy Title The Prelate and the Prince And for preparing the Antidote I found good Directions and Ingredients from the forementioned Author 11. But suppose the rest of the Church be disposed to Believe this Doctrine of the Popes Infallibility Wherein doth the matchless Slavery of the Romish Church unto Satan in respect of Jews or Heathens punctually consist In This especially That if any Council Wherein the Bishop of Rome or Patriarch of the West as his Stile sometimes was had any principal Interest or Prerogative either in calling or confirming it have Erred the present Pope and his Adherents whether Priests or Laicks are Bound by solemn Oath and under a dreadful Curse to make up the Measure of their Fore-Fathers Errors Negligences Ignorances or other enormous sins and iniquities whether committed against the Rule of Faith or against the Law of God For all which they are also Bound by their own Doctrine and Liturgie to beg Pardon as well for their Fore-Fathers Transgressions as for their own in respect of what is past and to pray for the prevention of the like in times to come Now this is the Greatest Yoke of Slavery that Satan durst or could attempt to Lay upon the neck of Christs Church Militant here on Earth albeit he could by subtilty prevail to place his Primogenitus that is such an Antichrist as many in the Romish Church conjecture shall hereafter come that is a Man begotten by the Devil of a Woman or Daughter of the Tribe of Dan as Christs Vicar-General in S. Peters Chair If any such Antichrist shall hereafter arise the Measure of Personal Iniquity may be greater then any Popes or the Papacy hitherto hath been but the Kind must be the same A worse or more desperate kind of iniquity or Antichristianism then this late mentioned cannot be imagined The End of Chap. 21. IT was the Authors Fashion mostly to preach upon such Texts as might ground the matter that he intended after to Treat upon in his writings and so to weave his Sermons into the Body of his Discourses or Tracts as occasion required The Studious Reader knowing This and observing 1. A passage at the Beginning of the Second Section page 3018. the seventh Chapter of This Book which promises To annex to these Discussions A Sermon About That Sort of Jews which made that Sawcy Reply to Christ verse 33. John 8. whether they were Such as verse 30. were said to Believe on Him or No. And then 2. Taking notice of the Title of the 14. Chapter it begins the third Section page 3039. which is That even those Jews which did in part Believe in Christ were true Servants unto Sin He will see the Reasons that procured the Insert on of these two Sermons or Tracts ensuing here at This Place As being conceived most neerly allied to the matter preceding and more accomodate to the Readers Use who as is probably presumed if He had but only been reminded of This in the Margin before he had proceeded to read the fourth Section would first have sought out and read these two Discourses in Case they had been deferred and placed in the Rear of this Book CHAP. XXII A Postil or short Discourse upon our Saviours words JOHN 8. 36. If the Son therefore shall make you Free ye shall be Free Indeed The Connexion of This verse with The precedent 1. THis verse is inferred by way of Conclusion from the verse Precedent The Servant abideth not in the house for ever But the Son abideth for ever The Difficulties emergent be Two The Former Concerning the true Sense and meaning or at least the Limitation of the Antecedent to wit The Servant abideth not in the house for ever c. The Other Concerns the Inference or Connexion betwixt This Antecedent and the Conclusion If the Son therefore c. Some of best note amongst the Ancient or middle rank of Interpreters The Opinion of
Truth it self Love it self Mercy it self Goodness it self The Branches of the Doctrine concerning Absolute Reprobation which bear this Fruit are to omit others for the present specially these Two The First That the manifestation of Gods punitive Justice was a part of the Object of Gods Primary Will and an exercise of his Will as directly as immediatly and as irresistibly intended by him in the Creation as the manifestation of his Goodnesse Bounty or reservation of his mercy to such as shall be saved was The Second That God from Eternity did as truly hate all those who perish without respect or reference to their works or qualifications as he did love those who shall be saved Now if the number of such as perish be much greater then the number of such as shall be saved and if the same God did from eternitie as truly hate the greater sort of men as he did love the lesse without all respect or reference to their works or qualifications if he did out of his eternal hatred as peremptorily decree the endless torments of the One as he did the everlasting happiness of the Other These Conclusions of the Lutherans avouched by them in some Catechismes which I have seen before the name of Arminius was heard of in these Parts will necessarily follow viz. That such as maintain this rigid doctrine of Absolute Reprobation do not believe in or acknowledge the same God which the Lutherans with all antiquitie acknowledge for they acknowledge their God to be Truth Mercy Love and Goodnesse whereas the stiffe maintainers of Absolute Reprobation confesse their God to be hatred and Crueltie it self Now to acknowledge one and the same God to be Truth Love Mercy and Goodnesse itself in respect of some and in respect of others to be falshood hatred crueltie it self is a grossser Heresie or Transformation of the Deity then was the Heresie of the Manichees which acknowledge Two Gods or independent Originals of all things the One as Fountain of all Goodness the Other the Authour of all Evill For avoyding these and the like Conclusions no evasion or observation hath been or can be pretended by such as make the Entity or Individual Natures of man the Formal Objects of Reprobation besides this One viz. That Gods Will is so the Rule of Goodness that if he will the death of all that dye without respect unto their works or Qualifications this must be Good If he be pleased to hate the greater Part of mankind without all reference to their Qualifications the hatred of them must be as good as his Love of those few which shall be saved And the Apostle did advise them to rest upon this answer when he saith O man who art thou that disputest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus hath not the Potter power over the clay c. But whether this Use of our Apostles Doctrine in that place be according to his meaning or whether any Conclusion can be drawn from that Chapter which may make for absolute Election or Reprobation is elsewhere examined By that which hath been said See Chapt. 42. Numb 9. 10. it may appear that such in this Land as stifly hold the Tenet of absolute Reprobation which the Christian world besides hath for the most part forsaken have some reason though no just cause to question the truth delivered by me in what sense Gods Will is said to be the Rule of Goodness For unlesse they can disprove my Tenet which God be praised hath stronger Supporters then my weaknesse can afford they must either revoke their errour or admit God to be more then the Author of sin as truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as properly sin it self as Being it self or life it self And yet if they could perswade the ignorant that Gods Will is the Rule of Goodness in such a sense as they would make it the Inconveniences which the Lutherans object would be rather for a while removed then cleerely avoided They might be prest upon them again with greater force and advantage with this addition that they maintain the Turkish Opinion concerning Fate and Providence And upon this Ground only as I conceive do the the Lutherans instile the Calvinists Limbs of Gog or of the Eastern Antichrist But the best is that of such who at this day do not disclaim the name of Calvinists the most and best learned dislike the opinion of Absolute Reprobation and so I hope in good time will every faithfull Pastor in the Church of England and every Loyal Elder in this our Israel For admit we could make full proofe unto the Congregations committed to our Charge that Papistry is as some have enstiled it the Ocean of Heresies that the Absolute Infallibility of the Pope or Consistory exceeds the mixture or combination of all other particular Heresies which have been that the Idolatry which the Roman Catholicks from the belief of the Pope or Churches absolute Infallibilitie are inforced to commit and practise doth equalize the Idolatry of those heathens which solemnly worshipt the Divel yet all this being proved by us and firmly believed by our flocks would be of small force or sway to retain understanding men in their Allegiance to their Soveraign Lord or in obedience to the Lawes Ecclesiastick or Civil of this Kingdom if once the Doctrine of Absolute Reprobation might be fastened upon the Church of England or be embraced by her Learned Pastors or Governours For so they might as concludently prove us to be as grosse Hereticks as we say they are and evince our Churches doctrine to be as Blasphemous as theirs is Idolatrous To have this Rigid Doctrine generally embraced or acknowledged by us or at least to have the World believe that it were generally acknowledged by us is the very Thing and the main business which the Factors for the Romish Church for these many years have earnestly sollicited This is the very net wherein Sathan hopes to catch this Island he hath set the Jesuites to spread and hold it and when opportunity serves to draw it And the Jesuites as they have long used our Pulpits and Print-houses so they attempt to use some in our Parliaments as their Podders to drive us into it Their prey they know must needs be great if they can bring us into these straights or put a necessity of this hard choice upon us Whether were better to live in obedience to a Church which adores wicked and naughty men Divels incarnate for such some of their Popes have been as Gods on Earth or to hold communion with that Church or societie of men which makes the God of heaven the Almighty Creatour of all things Visible and invisible much worse then an Incarnate Divel yea then any wicked Spirit or then the Divel himself can without slander be conceived to be Isaiah 58. 4. Behold ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the Fist of wickedness ye shall
any point of Catholick Faith or Orthodoxal Doctrine CHAP. XXV Of the divers Acceptions or Significations of Freedom or Freenesse And of the several sorts or Degrees of Freedom in Creatures inanimate Vegetable Sensitive and Rational 1. FReedom or Freeness in our English tongue sometimes imports no more then spontaneum doth in Latin Of Freedom in creatures inanimate as it is opposed to Inforcement And according to this Sense or signification every thing is said to be done Sponte or Freely or Freely to come to pass which is done or comes to passe by the proper or Natural Inclination of any bodily Substance Whether it be endowed with life or sense or with motion only Thus we say the Water hath a Free-Course or runneth Freely when it runs that way which Nature inclines it without any Let or Hinderance or without any Artificial or External Help to draw move or impell it Freedom in this sense is opposed only to Coaction to Constraint or Inforcement As when water is drawn or impelled to such a course which left to it self it would not take we say it is a Forced Stream or Current not a Free Stream And so we call those Grounds Forced which bring forth little or no fruit without great labour toyl or cost unto such as Till or dress them And in this Sense the Latin word Liberum unto which our English Freedom or Liberty doth more properly and directly answer then unto the Latin Spontaneum is sometimes used to wit as it is opposed only to Coaction or Inforcement So a Poet describing the happy Estate of the world in the Golden Age saith Ipsaque tellus Omnia liberiùs nullo poscente ferebat The Earth did bring forth all things necessary or expedient for the use or comfort of man Freely that is Of its own Accord without the Labour industry or provident dressing of man Thus This and Other * Of that Age Ovid. Met. Lib. 1. Ipsa quoque immunis rastroque intacta nec ullis Saucia vomeâ—ibus per se dabat omnia Tâ—llus Mox etiam fruges Tellus inarata ferebat Nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis Poets speak of the Golden Age from some Broken Notions or Traditions of mans First Estate in Paradise and of that Estate wherein the world and all things should have continued if Man had not fallen But this Temper of the Earth is much altered or rather inverted by the fall of man Most men it may be have heard or read of that Answer which an Ancient Philosopher made to this Question See Horace his Arva Beata Epod. 16. Reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata quotannis c. Illic injussae veniunt ad mulctra capellae c. Why Nettles Thistles and other like weeds should grow so fast in such abundance of their own accord when as flowers herbs or comfortable fruits did not grow at all or seldom come to any good proof without the extraordinary pains or skill of man The best Answer which the Philosopher could make was this That the Earth was a Natural and Kind Mother unto Nettles weeds and grass but a Step-mother only to Flowers Herbs or Fruit. Now the Answer though for those times held witty was no way Satisfactory For a man might have further asked him why the Earth should be a kind mother and Loving nurse to weeds and a hard or Cruel Step-mother to herbs or Fruits Unto this Question the youngest Child amongst us that is rightly Catechized in the Grounds of Religion or hath but read the three first Chapters of the first Book of Moses may give a more full and satisfactory Answer then the wisest Philosophers without the Principles of Christian Religion could do The Cause then or Reason is from the Curse wherewith God cursed the Earth for mans Transgression Gen. 3. 17 â—8 19. Because thou hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying thou shalt not eat of it cursed is the ground for thy sake In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the dayes of thy life Thorns also and Thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalâ— eat the herb of the field In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground But though the Heathâ—nâ— could not know this Story by Light of Nature yet thus much being revealed or made known unto them they might easily have gathered That if the Earth was thus accursed for Mans sake the Nature of man was first accursed or corrupted As in very deed this preposterous and untoward inclination of the Earth to bring forth weeds Freely and plentifully and good Fruit hardly or by Constraint or Coaction is but an Emblem or visible Picture of the untoward and corrupt disposition of mans heart to bring forth the Fruits of the Flesh Voluntarily Freely and plentifully whereas it doth not it cannot bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit without the skill and husbandry of Him that made it We have the seeds of sin and iniquity planted in us by Nature and they fructisie and increase by our sloath and negligence As for the fruits of Righteousnesse the Seeds of them must be sown in us by the Spirit of God And being sown they do not grow up and prosper without his Extraordinary Blessing upon his own plants and his Servants Labours Though Paul may plant and Apollo water yet it is God only that gives the increase I am the Vine saith our Saviour John 15. 1. and my Father is the Husbandman And as the Apostle 1. Cor 3. 9. speaks we are his Husbandry So that in Respect of the Fruits of Righteousness and Works Spiritual mans Nature is not Free according to this First Acception or Sense of Freedom that is as it was opposed unto Coaction But in respect of the Fruits of the Flesh our corrupt Nature is most Free These it brings forth of its own accord more Freely and more plentifully then the Earth which God hath cursed for mans sake doth Nettles Thistles or any worse kind of weed And yet the more Freely our Nature brings forth the Fruits of sin the more deeply it is still tainted with the Servitude of Sin So that Freedom and Servitude in some cases at least in respect of divers Objects are not Opposite but Coincident or Compatible in One and the same subject or Person 2. This kind of Freedom which is only opposed to Coaction or Inforcement Of the Radical Difference between Creatures Inanimate and Vegetahles though it be truly and properly in Creatures Inanimate and void of life yet is it in an higher Degree in Creatures Vegetable or Sensitive Inanimate or Livelesse creatures have their Inclinations so set by †Arist Eth. Nicom Lib 2. Cap. 1. Nature that no Contrary Inclination can be implanted in them by Custome As if you move a stone every hour of the day upwards it will still move its selfas Freely and as swiftly downwards as it did at the First
glory shine to the Israelites whom he was now preparing for vessels of mercy the hearts of whose posteritie he did not so effectually fitt or season for the infusion of his sanctifying Grace by any secondary meanes whatsoever as by the perpetual memory of this glorious victory over Pharaoh and his mighty host But this faithless generation whose reformation our Apostle so anxiously seeks did take all these glorious tokens of Gods extraordinary free love and mercy towards their Fathers for irrevocable Earnests or obligements to effect their Absolute Predestination unto honour and glory and to prepare the Gentiles to be vessels of infamie and destruction Now our Apostles earnest desire and unquenchable zeal to prevent this dangerous presumption in his Country-men enforceth him in stead of applying this second Answer to the point in question to advertise them for Conclusion that the Egyptians Case was now to become theirs and that the Gentiles should be made Vessels of mercy and Glorie in their stead All which the Event hath proved most true For have not the sons of Jacob been hardened as strangely as Pharaoh was Have they not been reserved as spectacles of terror to most nations after they had deserved to have been utterly cutt off from the earth yea to have gone quick into hell Nor have the riches of Gods mercy towards us Gentiles been more manifested by any other apparent or visible document than by scattering of these Jews through those Countries See the 1. Book Chap. 24. and 27 c. wherein the seed of the Gospel hath been sown The third General Point proposed concerning the Logical determination of this Proposition whom he will he hardeneth or concerning the immediate or proper Object of the Induration here spoken of 14. PHaraoh we grant was hardened by Gods Absolute Irresistible Will Could Beza can Piscator or any other Expositor living enforce any more out of the literal meaning of these texts Whether granting thus much we must grant withall what their followers to my apprehension demand that Pharaoh was an absolute Reprobate from the womb or that he was by Gods Irresistible Will ordained to this hardening which by Gods Irresistible Will did take possession of his heart is the Question to be disputed They unlesse I mistake their meaning affirm I must even to death deny Willing I am to put my life in question with my Opinion upon condition I may enjoy the ancient priviledge of Priests to be tryed by my Peeres which God wot must be no great ones I will except against no man of what profession place or condition soever either for being my Judge or of my Jury so his brains be qualifyed with the speculative Rules of syllogizing and his heart seasoned with the doctrine of the ninth Commandement which is Not to bear false witnesse against his Neighbour against his knowledge 15. To avoid the Sophistical Chinkes of scattered Propositions wherein Truth often lyes hid in Rhetorical or popular discourse we will joyn issue in this Syllogism Whatsoever God from eternitie decrees by his irresistible Will is absolutely necessarie and inevitable or impossible to be avoided God from Eternitie decreed to harden Pharaoh by his Irresistible Will Ergò The hardening of Pharoh was absolutely necessarie and impossible to be avoided And if his hardning were inevitable or impossible to be avoided it will be taken as granted that he was a Reprobate from the womb Damnatus antequà m natus the absolute child of eternal death before he was made partaker of mortal life The Major Proposition is a Maxim not questioned by any Christian Jew or Mahumetan A discovery of the Fallacie wherewith Beza and others have in this argument been deceived And out of it we may draw another Major as unquestionable but more immediate in respect of the Conclusion proposed Whomsoever God decrees to harden by his Irresistible Will his hardening is absolutely inevitable altogether impossible to be avoided The Minor Pharaoh was hardned by Gods Irresistible Will is granted by us and as we are perswaded avouched in Termes Equivalent by our Apostle The difference is about the Conclusion or connexion of the Termes which without better Limitation than is expressed in the Proposition or Corollarie annexed is loose and Sophistical 16. Would some brain which God hath blest with natural perspicacitie art and opportunitie vouchsafe to take but a little paines in moulding such fitt Cases for the Praedicates as Aristotle hath done for the Subjects of Propositions though those we often use not or use amisse those seeming Syllogismes whose secret flaws clear sighted judgements can hardly discern by light of arts would crack so fouly in the framing that blear eyes would espie their ruptures without spectacles it shall suffice me at this time to shew how grosly the Syllogism proposed failes in one Fundamental Rule of all Affirmative Syllogismes The Rule is Quaecunque conveniunt cum aliquo tertio inter se conveniunt All other Rules concerning the quantitie of propositions or their disposition in certain Mood and Figure serve only to this end that the convenience or Indentitie of the Major and Minor with the Medium may be made apparent This being made apparent by Rules of Art the Light of Nature assures us that the Connexion between the Extremes is true and indissoluble Now this Identitie or Vnitie for that is the highest and surest degree of Convenience is of three sorts of Essence of Qualitie of Quantitie or proportion under which is comprehended the Identitie of time Whatsoever is truly called one and the same is so called in one of these respects And all these Identities may be either Specifical or Common or Numerical Mixt or Single Most Fallacies arise from substitution of one Identitie for another As he that would admit that proposition for true of Specifical Identitie which is most true of Numerical might be cheated by this Syllogism I cannot ow you the same summe which I have paid you But I have paid you ten pounds in Gold Ergo I do not ow you ten pounds in Gold The Negative included in the Major is true of the same Individual or Numerical summe but not of the same Specifical For suppose twenty pounds in gold were due the one moytie might be paid and the other yet owing But men of common understanding are not so apt to be deceived in matters of money or commoditie with captious collections of this kind as unable to give them a punctual Solution Every Creditor in his own case would be ready to give this or the like sufficient practical Answer I do not demand my ten pounds which are already paid but the other ten Pounds which are yet behind that is as a Logician would say The same summe specie which hath been paid may yet be owing not the same numero Or the same summe by Equivalence not the same Individual coynes 17. But the Intrusion or admission of one Numerical Identitie for another of different kind is not so easily