shall give the effectualness to his Grace and so be slothfull and perish by that presumption § 69. Whether the Scheme as it is set by learned men abstracting now from the truth of it be in any considerable degree lyable to this danger I leave those that are favourable to it to consider presuming that if it be it will not be thought fit to be pitcht upon as the most commodious without either the authority of Scripture or some other preponderating advantages tendred by it which to me are yet invisible And thus much may serve for the doctrine of Gods Decrees which if I mistake not leaves them in relation to man in this posture as far as the Scripture-light leads us § 70. 1. That God decreed to create man after his own image a free and rationall agent to give him a Law of perfect unsinning obedience and conferr on him grace and faculties to perform it and to reward that obedience with eternal bliss and proportionably to punish disobedience 2. That foreseeing the willfull fall of the first Man with whom and with all mankind in him this Covenant was made and consequent to that the depravation of that image and that Grace the image of Satan corruption of the will and all the faculties taking the place of it he decreed to give his Son to seek and to save that which was lost making in him and sealing in his blood a new Covenant consisting of a promise of pardon and sufficient Grace and requiring of all the condition of uniform sincere obedience 3. That he decreed to commissionate messengers to preach this Covenant to all mankind promised to accompany the preaching of it to all hearts with his inward sufficient grace enabling men to perform it in such a degree as he in this second covenant had promised to accept of 4. That the method which he hath decreed to use in dispensing this sufficient Grace is 1. to prevent and prepare mens hearts by giving them the grace of humility repentance and probity of heart i. e. by awaking and convincing men of sin and giving them in answer to their diligent prayers grace sufficient to produce this in their hearts and then upon their making use of this Grace to the designed end to add more powerfull assistances and excitations enabling them both to will and to do and upon their constant right use of these still to advance them to an higher degree of sanctification and perseverance till at length he accomplish and reward them with a crown of Glory § 71. On the other side to forsake them in justice that obstinately resist and frustrate all these wise and gracious methods of his and having most affectionately set life and death before them and conjured them to choose one and avoid the other still to leave unto them as to free and rationall Agents a liberty to refuse all his calls to let his talents lye by them unprofitably which if out of their own perverse choices they continue to do he decrees to punish the contumacy finally by assigning them their own options to take their talents from them and cast them into outer darkness where shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth § 72. How clearly every part of this Scheme is agreeable to the several parables whereby Christ was pleased to adumbrate the kingdome of heaven and innumerable other passages in the Gospel and the whole purport of the new Covenant I leave to every man to consider and then to judge for himself whether it be not safer and more Christian to content our selves with this portion which Christ hath thought fit to reveal to us then to permit our curiosities to deeper and more pragmatick searches especially if those shall either directly or but consequentially undo or but darken what is thus explicitly settled § 73. I proceed now to your second head of Discourse which also I suppose is by what hath been already considered competently established concerning the efficacy of Grace c. where your Proposition is thus set down § 74. That in the conversion of a sinner and the begetting of Faith in the heart of man the Grace of God hath the main stroke chiefest operation yet so that the free will of man doth in some sort cooperate therewith for no man is converted or believeth without his own consent all parties pretend to agree The point of difference is how to state the manner and degree of the cooperation as well of the one as of the other so as neither the glory of Gods Grace be eclipsed nor the freedome of mans will destroyed In which difficult point you say you think it fitter to acquiesce in those aforesaid acknowledged truths in which both sides agree then to hold close to either opinion § 75. In this proposition it being by you in the Conclusion most undeniably and Christianly resolved that the one care ought to be that neither the glory of Gods Grace be eclipsed nor the freedome of man's will destroyed It would not be amiss a little to reflect on the former part and demand whether your expression were not a little too cautious in saying the grace of God hath the main stroke and chiefest operation did I not discern the ground of that caution because you were to express that whereunto all parties must be supposed to consent This being abundantly sufficient to account for your caution I shall not doubt of your concurrence with me that it may with truth be said and I suppose also by the agreement if not of all Christians yet of both parties in this debate particularly of the Remonstrants that the Grace of God is in lapsed man the one sole principle of spirituall life Conversion Regeneration Repentance Faith and all other Evangelical vertues and that all that can justly be attributed to our will in any of these is the obeying the motions and making use of the powers which are thus bestowed upon us by that supernatural principle To work and work out our own salvation upon the strength of Gods giving us to will and to do by giving us to will and to do meaning his giving us power to each as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 1. is giving us power to serve him in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our lives every initiall and more perfect act of holiness especially persevering in it all our dayes being wholly imputable to that power which is given by Gods Spirit For indeed when it is considered what the state of our corrupt will is being naturally averted from God and strongly inclined to evil it seems to me scarce proper to call this in relation to supernatural vertues a free will till God by his preventing Grace hath in some degree manumitted it till Christ hath made it free Being then what it is i. e. in some degree emancipated by Gods Grace and by Grace onely this act of Christs love and Grace being reached out to enemies to
no salvation possible to lapsed man by any other Covenant Which being set in opposition to the first Covenant of perfect unsinning obedience and therefore called a second and Evangelical Covenant on condition onely of sincere obedience of doing what by Gods gift purchased by Christ men are enabled to do it follows still that whatsoever acceptation or mercy they who never heard of Christ can be imagined to have afforded them by God must be conformable to the tenure of the Evangelicall Covenant and so to the praise of the Glory of that Grace whereby whosoever is accepted by God is accepted in the beloved § 45. The second Consideration is the analogy which in one respect is observable between those to whom the Gospel is not revealed and all children and Idiots within the pale of the Church for although believing in Christ were supposed equally by the law of Scripture to be exacted of all and so of both those sorts nay by the intervention of the vow of Baptism to be more expresly the obligation of those that are baptized then those that are not yet there is no reason producible to free the Christian children and idiots from the blame of not believing which will not with equall force be producible for those heathens to whom the Gospel was never revealed it being as impossible to see without the presence of the object as without the faculty of sight without the Sun as without eyes without the revelation of Christ as without the intellective faculty which if it be not part of the importance of that decree of heaven Go and preach and then he that believeth not shall be damned yet it is fully accordant to it and shews that that Text was not designed to give suffrage to the damnation of all but Christians which is all that your Corollary or my observations have aspired unto to which it is yet farther necessarily consequent that these Scripture Decrees which you speak of and whosoever speaks of any other must be resolved to speak from some other dictate then that of Scripture comprize not all men no nor all baptized Christians under them being terminated onely in those to whom the Gospel is revealed and those certainly are not all that are brought into the world or even to Baptismal new birth § 46. The third consideration is that seeing the Scripture assures us that they which have received more of them more shall be required and that he that knoweth and doeth not shall be beaten with many stripes this must needs advertise us that whatever priviledges Christians may have beyond heathens this is not one that a smaller degree of obedience and performances shall be accepted of them then of heathens would be but the contrary that to whom less is given less will be required according to that of S. Augustine Ex eo quod non accepit nullus reus est No man is guilty from that which he hath not received § 47. The fourth Consideration is that God rewards those that have made use of the single talent that lowest proportion of Grace which he is pleased to give and the method of his rewarding is by giving them more grace which as it is in some degree applicable to heathens who have certainly the talent of naturall knowledge and are strictly responsible for it so if they use not that but retain the truth in unrighteousness Rom. 1. 18. that makes their condition but the same with ours who are finally lost also and at the present have our talent taken away from us if we make not the due use of it § 48. This 't is visible hath befaln those Nations who once had the Gospel preacht to them and after the knowledge of the truth return'd to their heathen sins and so had their candlestick taken from them to which and not to Gods primary denying them Evangelical Grace their present Barbarity is to be imputed And the onely conclusion which we can hence duely make is the acknowledgement of Gods just judgements on them and reasonable fear lest he deal in like manner with us if we transcribe their copy imitate them in their demerits Should God most justly thus punish this nation at this time could it either now or in future ages be reasonable hence to argue against the Doctrine of Vniversal Grace in case there were a concurrence of all other evidences for the truth of the Doctrine Certainly it could not In like manner then it cannot be reasonable to argue thus from the like fate and effects on other Nations § 49. To which I may add that Christ being we know in Gods decree and promise the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world if this argument be now of force against the heathens it must equally hold against all that understood no more of the Predictions of Christ then the Pagans do now of the History § 50. And then it must should it have force follow not onely that the Sacrifice of Christ was intended to be of avail to none but the Jews to whom onely the Oracles of God were committed which yet you acknowledge was intended to all but also that as far as we have wayes of judging a very small part of those Jews received the salvifick Grace of Christ if it were confined and annext to the revelation and belief of him For if we may judge of other ages by that wherein Christ appeared the Prophecies of the Crucified Messias were very little understood by that people All this makes it more prudent and rationall and pious to search our own wayes then to pass sentence on other men which is the onely thing I have aimed at in these four Considerations § 51. Your second Proposition which you tender as a Conjecture I cannot but own under an higher style of an evident truth of Scripture It is this That there is to the outward tender of Grace in the ministry of the Gospel annexed an inward offer also of the same to the heart by the spirit of God going along with his word which some of the Schoolmen call auxilium Gratiae generale sufficient in it self to convert the soul of the hearer if he do not resist the Holy Ghost and reject the Grace offerr'd which as it is grounded upon these words Behold I stand at the door and knock and upon very many other passages of Scripture beside so it standeth with reason that the offer if it were accepted should be sufficient ex parte sui to do the work which if not accepted is sufficient to leave the person not accepting the same unexcusable This I say I am obliged to assent to in the terms and upon the double ground both of Scripture and reason whereon you induce it If there were but one text of Scripture so convincingly inferring it that sure would advance it above a barely probable Conjecture But I think the whole tenure of the new Testament inforceth the same and though you name but one
as a farther evidence of that built a wine-press in expectation of its bearing fruit by strength of what he had done to it which could not well be affirmed by or of God if it were not probable and rational that in some it should have the desired effect § 55. And if what on account both of Scripture and reason the onely wayes left us to judge by in this matter is thus far removed from improbable may be supposed to have any truth in it i. e. if the sufficient Grace annexed to the authorized sufficient means have without farther addition ever converted any it then follows necessarily in the third place that the Election and Dereliction now proposed by you must have for its object not indefinitely as before you set it man preach'd unto or all that part of mankind to whom the Gospel is offered and that Grace annexed thereto but onely that portion of such as are not wrought upon or who God in his infinite prescience discerns would not be wrought upon effectually and converted by that measure of sufficient Grace which he hath annext to the word preach'd For without enquiring what proportion of the number of men preach'd unto may probably be placed in that rank or without assuming any more then that it is neither impossible nor improbable that there should be such a rank of men converted and persevering by the strength of that foresaid sufficient Grace annexed to the word the inference is undeniable that all whether few or many that are of this rank it being no way probable there should be none shall certainly be saved by force of the second Covenant which decreed eternall life to all that should believe on him and receive him as the Gospel tenders him as their Lord and Saviour and so cannot be comprised in the number of them to whom this supereffluence of goodness is supposed to be vouchsafed in the granting of which ex mero beneplacito your conjecture makes the Scripture-Election to consist and in the Dereliction and Preterition of the rest in respect of that speciall favour the Decree of Reprobation § 56. The plain issue whereof is but this that if this conjecture thus explicated be adhered to then many not onely of Children Idiots heathen formerly reserved to Gods secret judgements but of adult baptized Christians also either are or may be saved who are not of the number of the Scripture-Elect Which whether it be reconcile able with the purport of those places which in Scripture seem to you to respect Election or to favour this opinion I must leave to farther consideration being as yet incompetent to interpose any judgement of it because I know not what those places are which most seem to favour it § 57. As for the Doctrine it self of supereffluence of Grace to some abstracted from making it any account of Gods Decrees of Election and Reprobation It is such as I can no way question for certainly God being granted to give sufficient Grace to all there is no objection imaginable against this superabounding to some ex mero beneplacito Nothing more agreeable to an infinite abyss and unexhaustible fountain of goodness then such supereffluence and he that hath not his part in it yet having his portion and that supposed sufficient ought not to have an evil eye to complain and murmure at this partiality and inequality of distribution of Gods goodness or if he do the words of the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard must here have place Friend I do thee no wrong did not I agree with thee for a penny take that is thine and go thy way is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own Mat. xx 13 14 15. And it is there observable that all the occasion of murmuring arose from the order there observed in accounting with and paying the Labourers beginning with them that came last into the vineyard for by that means they being allowed a dayes wages for an hours labour the others expectation was raised to an higher pitch then probably it would if they had been paid and discharged first for then not seeing the liberality that others tasted of they would in all probability have expected no more then the hire for which they agreed And then why should so casual a circumstance as the being paid last or first have any influence on their minds or tempt them to murmure at Gods goodness who from the nature of the thing had no least temptation to it § 58. Onely by the way it must be yielded to the force of that parable that that supereffluence of which some are there supposed to tast was no part of the Covenant of Grace his agreement with them being but in these words Go into the vineyard and what is right you shall receive v. 7. but above what his bargain or covenant obligeth of his good pleasure though on the other side it be observable 1. That an allowable account is there given by those men of their not coming sooner into the Vineyard and consequently of their not bearing the heat of the day in which all the disproportion between them and others all the seeming supereffluence is founded viz. they were no sooner called or hired by any man and 2. that by the application of the parable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to those that came first and those that came later into the Apostleship to Peter and Paul there might still be place for more abundant labouring in those that came last and so for reward in proportion though through mercy to that more abundant labouring according to the way of setting down the same parable among the Jews in Gemara Hierosol where the Kings answer to the murmurers is He in those two hours hath laboured as much as you have done all the day § 59. But without examining the Acts of Gods munificence according to any rules but those of munificence and again without insisting on the method which God himself seems to direct us to in this matter in the parable of the Talents where the Rule is generall that to him that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance i. e. that the supereffluence of Grace is ordinarily proportioned to the faithful discharge of former trusts making use of the foregoing sufficient Grace there will be little reason to doubt but that God out of his meer good pleasure without any desert on our part doth thus dispense his favours to one more then to another to one servant five talents to another ten but to all some onely the difficulties will be 1. whether it be not as possible though not as probable that the supereffluence of Grace may be resisted as the lower but sufficient degree and then whether the condemnation be not the greater there will be no doubt Paul that is the most pregnant example of the supereffluence is still under a woe obliged to preach the
ab aeterno that they will not repent But you take no heed to the place of Scripture which I demonstrated it by turne you turne you why will you dye and as I live I delight not in the death of him that dyes where it is evident God seriously if an oath be a note of seriousnesse calls those who dye and will dye Why do you not lay this to heart when it is so cleare and you yet give me your leave to say unanswerable § 82. I said when God calls to a man not to fall he is not fallen and you say true but he is fallen in Gods prescience I now ask you how you know he is Your onely possible answer is that if he be fallen then by the doctrine of prescience God must foresee him fallen and you now by way of supposition which 't is lawfull for disputations sake to make take it for granted i. e. suppose he is fallen And then as even now I said to your voluntary supposition all is due and with that I cannot reconcile the contradictory and so still what is this to prescience § 83. Again you conclude that God sees A. B. will never rise again how do you know or imagine God sees it but because you suppose it true that he will never rise again and if it be true then it is also infallibly true whether God see it or no. And so still what have you gained your supposing it true is it to which adheres the supposition of Gods foreseeing and infallibility consequent to that but that addes no weight to that which was before supposed infallible § 84. Again you aske can God seriously call him who he sees will never repent seriously do that he sees useless and absolutely ineffectuall I have oft told you and proved to you that he may 't is certain he called Pharaoh when he had predicted he would not hearken and he most seriously doth things to salvifick ends which do not eventually attain those ends and he foresees they do not § 85. I said that what God doth thus in time he ab aeterno decreed to do this as it is apparent by the antecedent to which the relative thus belongs I spake of Gods calling men some not to fall others to rise again and you reply that it seemes to you utterly improbable that God should do whatsoever he doth by an antecedent decree I have no temptation to leave our present taske which is sufficient for the day to dispute that question with you in the latitude as your whatsoever he doth importeth It will suffice if God doth any thing by an antecedent decree or decree any thing before he do it for if any thing then sure his calls and warnings which are parts of his covenant of grace and that is sub decreto decreed by him And then what I said before is still of full force Gods foreseeing mens disobediences to his calls was in order of nature posteriour and subsequent to his decree of calling and giving them grace and being so cannot move him to change what went before or presently to disannull it and till it be disannulled 't is certain and exacted by veracity that he act according to it i. e. that he call those seriously who yet he foresees resist him Why you should here farther inlarge of the greater improbability that God should without consideration decree what afterward he perceives would be uselesse I guess not being sure no words of mine gave you temptation to think that I affixt inconsiderate decrees to our God of all wisdome or counted those calls uselesse which through our obstinacy onely faile of their designed good effect § 86. No more did I give you cause for that harsh-sounding phrase of Gods necessarily pursuing it because it was decreed I should rather have suggested to you these words instead of them that God is faithfull and just and veracious and so performes his part of the covenant of grace with men howsoever they are and he foresees them wanting to their own part § 87. What you say you understand not in my last papers I thus explaine those calls of God which the obdurate reject are most seriously meant by God to their reformation else he would not punish them for rejecting them as he doth by withdrawing them c. This God decrees to do ab aeterno which he could not unlesse he soresaw their rejection of them and yet neither could he foresee their so criminal rejecting them unlesse he foresaw the seriousnesse of them and if he foresaw that then it is as certain as any thing that God foresees that they are serious and although God do not actually inflict punishment upon bare foresight of sin yet sure he may decree to punish those whom he foresees to deserve it and that is all that is necessary to my arguing Else I might tell you that God that accepts not a temporary faith will never accept such a man as is answerable to the stony or thorny ground who in time of tryall would fall away though he should be taken away before temptations approach § 88. In that of Judas you grant that the prophecy as terminated in him could not have been fulfilled had he never been born but then your quere remaines say you whether it might not have been fullfilled in another I answer 1. it could not have been fullfilled in another without some other disciples doing what he did and 't is certain no other did so and therefore what was foretold must have been fulfilled in him or else which may not be believed of a divine Oracle had not been fulfilled But then 2. Christs words to John pointing out Judas for the Traitour he that dippeth c. was a prediction of God perfectly terminated in Judas's person and could not be fulfilled in any other and so your new quere is answered also And that gives you a farther reason if what was said before to your second quere were not sufficient that our Saviours prediction was not conditional but categorically enunciative verily I say unto you that one of you shall or will betray me and he that dippeth at that time when Christ spake it deictically i. e. Judas is that person § 89. In your view of what I said to your second question you first insist on my answer that the event proved the denunciation against Iudas was not like that against Niniveh conditional but I foresaw the small force of that which I used onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore added a second that the prediction of Iudas was of his sin as well as punishment and the prediction of his sin could not be conditional nor the prediction of the Ninivites punishment any way be applicable to it leaving therefore the weaker I adhered onely to this which when you labour also to evacuate by interpreting one of you will betray me by unlesse he repent c. he will betray me You consider not 1. that Christs
thy wisdom see it not yet a season for so ful a deliverance Lord defer not we beseech thee such a degree of it as may at least secure her a being if she cannot recover her beauty yet O Lord grant her health such a soundness of constitution as may preserve her from dissolution Let thy providence find out some good Samaritans to cure her present wounds and to whomsoever thou shalt commit that important work Lord give them skilful hands and compassionate hearts direct them to such applications as may most speedily and yet most soundly heal the hurt of the daughter of Sion and make them so advert to the interests both of truth and peace that no lawful condescension may be omitted nor any unlawful made And do thou who art both the wonderful Counsellor and Prince of peace so guide and prosper all pacifick endeavors that all our distractions may be composed and our Jerusalem may again become a City at unity in it self that those happy primitive dayes may at length revert wherein Vice was the onely heresie that all our intestine contentions may be converted into a vigorous opposition of our common enemy our unbrotherly feuds into a Christian zeal against all that exalts it self against the obedience of Christ Lord hear us and ordain peace for us even for his sake whom thou hast ordained our Peace-maker Jesus Christ our Lord. Prayer II. O Most gracious Lord who doest not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men who smitest not till the importunitie of our sins enforce thee and then correctest in measure we thy unworthy creatures humbly acknowledge that we have abundantly tasted of this patience and lenity of thine To what an enormous height were our sins arriv'd ere thou beganst to visit them and when thou couldst no longer forbear yet mastering thy power thou hast not proportion'd thy vengeance to our crimes but to thy own gracious design of reducing and reclaiming us Lord had the first stroke of thy hand been exterminating our guilts had justified the method but thou hast proceeded by such easy and gentle degrees as witness how much thou desiredst to be interrupted and shew us that all that sad weight we have long groaned under hath been accumulated onely by our own incorrigibleness 'T is now O Lord these many years that this Nation hath been in the furnace and yet our drosse wasts not but increases and it is owing onely to thy unspeakable mercy that we who would not be purified are not consumed that we remain a Nation who cease not to be a most sinfull and provoking nation O Lord let not this long-suffering of thine serve onely to upbraid our obstinacy and enhanse our guilt but let it at last have the proper effect on us melt our hearts and lead us to repentance And oh that this may be the day for us thus to discern the things that belong to our peace that all who are yea and all who are not cast down this day in an external humiliation may by the operation of thy mighty Spirit have their souls laid prostrate before thee in a sincere contrition O thou who canst out of the very stones raise up children unto Abraham work our stony flinty hearts into such a temper as may be malleable to the impressions of thy grace that all the sinners in Sion may tremble that we may not by a persevering obstinacy seal to our selves both temporal and eternal ruine but instead of our mutinous complaining at the punishments of our sins search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. O be thou pleas'd to grant us this one grand fundamental mercy that we who so impatiently thirst after a change without us may render that possible and safe by this better and more necessary change within us that our sins may not as they have so often done interpose and eclipse that light which now begins to break out upon us Lord thy dove seems to approach us with an olive-branch in her mouth oh let not our silth and noysomness chace her away but grant us that true repentance which may at one thee and that Christian charity which may reconcile us with one another Lord let not our breach either with thee or among our selves be incurable but by making up the first prepare us for the healing of the latter And because O Lord the way to make us one fold is to have one shepheard be pleas'd to put us all under the conduct of Him to whom that charge belongs bow the hearts of this people as of one man that the onely contention may be who shall be most forward in bringing back our David O let none reflect on their past guilts as an argument to persevere but repent and to make their return so sincere as may qualify them not onely for his but thy Mercy And Lord be pleas'd so to guide the hearts of all who shall be intrusted with that great concernment of setling this nation that they may weigh all their deliberations in the ballance of the Sanctuary that conscience not interest may be the ruling principle and that they may render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods that they may become healers of our breaches and happy repairers of the sad ruines both in Church and State and grant O Lord that as those sins which made them are become Nationall so the repentance may be Nationall also that evidenc'd by the proper fruits of it by zeal of restoring the rights both of thee and thine Anointed And doe thou O Lord so dispose all hearts and remove all obstacles that none may have the will much lesse the power to hinder his peaceable restitution And Lord let him bring with him an heart so intirely devoted to thee that he may wish his own honour onely as a means to advance thine O let the precepts and example of his Blessed Father never depart from his mind and as thou wert pleas'd to perfect the one by suffering so perfect the other by acting thy will that He may be a blessed instrument of replanting the power instead of the form of Godliness among us of restoring Christian vertue in a prophane and almost barbarous Nation And if any wish him for any distant ends if any desire his shadow as a shelter for their riots and licenciousnesse O let him come a great but happy defeat to all such not bring fewel but cure to their inordinate appetites and by his example as a Christian and his Authority as a King so invite to good and restrain from evil that he may not onely release our temporall but our spiritual bondage suppress those foul and scandalous vices which have so long captivated us and by securing our inward provide for the perpetuating our outward peace Lord establish thou his throne in righteousnesse make him a signall instrument of thy glory and our happinesse and let him reap the fruits of it in comfort here
and in blisse hereafter that so his earthly Crown may serve to enhanse and enrich his heavenly Grant this O King of Kings for the sake and intercession of our Blessed Mediator Jesus Christ THE END LONDON Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1660. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Pet. 1. 5. Five Positions agreed on by all Three heads of difficulty Of reconciling Praescience with Liberty of Contingency Of the manner and measure of the cooperation of Effectuall Grace with the free will of man How to attribute all good to God and evil to our selves * Matth xi †Rom. x. Saint Pauls O the Depth An History of Doctor Sandersons thoughts in these points D. Twiss his way Causes of rejecting it * L. 1. digr 9. †Ibid. digr 10. The Supralapsarians way The Sublapsarians Reasons against both The negative part sufficient to Peace c Our Churches moderation The Kings Declaration in order to Peace Good life Difference between Opinions and Conjectures Three Propositions concerning Gods Decrees Mans Fall The giving of Christ for Mankind The new Covenant The Decree of publishing the Gospel to all the world Evangelical Obedience Matters of Conjecture The first The object of Scripture Election All Scripture decrees conditionate Temerity of introducing absolute Decrees Whether the heathens have Evangelical Grace Of the condition of those to whom the Gospel is not revealed Four Considerations concerning them The first The second The third De lib. Aâ—bit l. 3. c. 16 The fourth The second Conjecture an undoubted truth Inward grace annexed to the Ministry of the Gospel The third Conjecture of effectual Grace and Scripture-Election and Reprobation Animadversions on this Conjecture The first The second from Scripture And Reason In Ep. ad Epictes In libel de fide symbolo in Tom. iii. And the unreconcile ableness of this conjecture with making man preach'd to the object of the Decrees The Doctrine of supereffluence of Grace to some acknowledged But this of supereffluence no part of the Covenant of grace * â—â—d Beraâ—â—â—th Difficulties concerning supereffluence I. Whether it be not Resistible II. Whether it belong not rather to providence then Grace III. Whether this be it to which Election is determined Considerations from Scripture opposed to the former conjecture Luk. ix 62 Act. xiii 48. Jo. vii 17. Mat. xiii 8. Luc viii 15 Mat xiii 1â— Jam iv 6 Mat xi 5 Mat. xix 14. and v. 3. Luc. vi 22. 1 Cor. 1. 27. The ground of Effectualness of grace more probably deduced from probity of heart * â—er iv 3. This probity no natural preparation but of Gods planting by preventing grace The one objection against this satisfied * Mat. xiii 13. The safeness of this stating * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. Bostr Compared with the other * Cap. iv 5. An Anacephalaecsis of the Doctrine of Gods Decreess Of Election Of Reprobation The Conclusion Of the Efficacy of Grace The Power of Grace in conversion c What the freedome of will now it Ability to sin All good due to Grace Predetermination and irresistibility How unreconcileable with Christian principles Of Arminians attributing too little to Grace Of Judas whether he were not converted * Joh. xvii 12 Whence discrimination comes From mans liberty to resist From Gods Preventions Nothing imputed to man but power of resisting The whole work of conversion to Grace Of the congruous manner c. making Grace effectuall This a member of the former Conjecture Fortiter suaviter What is the only question here Mat. xi 21. a special prejudice to the Conjecture Consistance of Grace and free will The difficulties in the Schoolmens way whence How easily superseded Of falling from Grace Our Article Grounds of it in Scripture In the old Testament Ch. iii. 20. xviii 24. In the 〈◊〉 Luk. xxii 32 Joh. xxi 25. Mar. xiv 29 31. Joh. xvii 12. vi 37. 1 Tim. 1. 20. 2 Tim. ii 17. 1 Cor. x. 12. 2 Pet. ii 21. S. Augustin Of perseverance of the elect Mat. 24. 30. Heb. 10. 30. Temporary faith may be true The elect subject to intercisions The falls of those that have been once regenerate no more reconcileable with Gods favour then of the unregenerate Nay the advantage is on the unregenerates part 1 Tim. 1. 13. Certainty of the object Certatinty of the subject 〈…〉 Of Gods favour to rebellious children No comfort for such from 2 Tim. ii 19. The Marcusians heresie in this point a good warning The Conclusion Two difficultyes An argument from the unfathomableness of Gods providence The distinction between providence and grace The force thereof against the forementioned conjecture Other considerations to prejudice it The other way confirmed from the parable of the sower The question what makes sufficient grace effectuall Punctually answered by Christ The fourfold difference of soile The one question divided into foure The first The second The third The fourth The Character of the honest heart The Conjecture compared with this other way One pretension for the Conjecture From the finding the hidden treasure The conversion of Augustine Of Saul The distant fate of two children Answered The point of the difficulty Whether the barely sufficient Grace be universally inefficacious No pretense for this Providence allowed to assist Grace But is of no force to the Question A Phansie of Gods giving the Elect ipsam non-resistentiam Examined and found weake Considered in relation to this phansie Phil. ii 13. The second difficultye Concerning Gods withdrawing sufficient grace The severall wayes of Gods withdrawing grace The first rather with-holding Consists with his affording sufficient The second Not totall The third totall but only for the time and neither simply totall Rom. li. 4. The fourth total yet it self designed as a Grace most effectuall of any 2 Cor. xiii 10. 1 Tim. i. 20. Gods punishments instruments of his Grace The fifth totall and finall withdrawing of all Grace by excision The sixth before excision The word is not accompanied with Grace to the damned or the highest degree of obdurate Rom. 1. 1â— Where any softness none of that Pharaoh the onely example of it in Scripture Rom. ix 17. Necessitas ex hypothesi Objective being Socinus's doctrine Calvins Gods foresight of sins Difference betwixt Praedetermination and Praevision Omniscience proportionable to Omnipotence Future contingents with in Gods reach Proved by Gods immensity Socinus's argument answered Of the contradiction A second objection Inconveniences enumerated and answered The first The second The third The fourth The fifth The foreseeing of Judas's sin The argument from thence defended Hom. 83. â—â— Mat. The ground of our assertion Gods immensity and the no implicancy of a contradiction Gods immensity extends to the knowledge of all things possible An objection against that answered Gods immensity supposed not proved A second objection What is meant by commensuration to all time A third objection Answered What is future is objicible to God So what is meerly possible A fourth objection answered Orat. 4â— No proportion between our finite and Gods infinite Asist objection answered God may know that which actually is not A sixt objection answered Gods seeing every thing as it is A seventh objection answered An eigth objection answered Difference between possible and future All Gods acts are not ab aeterno A ninth objection answered Gods knowledge suitable to his power Gods coexistence to all that ever is not to what never shall be The enforcements of the former objections answered The first enforcement of the first The second Possible and meerly possible differ Scientia media The third de Fato The first nforcement of the second The second The third Great difference betwixt rendring and finding certain The great consequence of this difference The defence of the objected inconveniences answered The first The second Prescience makes not exhortations vain The example of Pharoah Acts of Gods wisdome not submitted to our censure Gods antecedent and consequent will The uneffectuallness of Gods acts not chargeable on him Force not competible to a rational vineyard The third Wilfull falls are not unavoidable Nor made so by Gods prescience Gods love to mankind engages him not to prevent them by death whose fall be foresees If it did it is nothing to the case of prescience here Adams sin foreseen by God yet not prevented Evidence that it was foreseen The same of all other sinnes That prescience derogates not from omnipotence Gods prescience derogates not from his goodness S. Augustine and Lud. Vives their sense of prescience Philocal c. 23. c. 11. Origens testimony p. 72. p. 73. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Hypothetical foreknowledg The fourth 's Salvability of Judas as conclusible from Prescience as damnation The fifth Gods serious call to those who he sees will die Gods foresight of mans rejecting his calls and the criminousness thereof a proof of the seriousnes of them The predictions of Judas could not be fulfilled in another Not conditionall So that of Peters denyall Prediction of sin cannot be conditionall The issue of the whole question whether prescience of contingents imply a contradiction The lawes of contradictions The argument holds equally against the Trinity and unity What is present to God is not eternall Two propositions The first of God immense science The proof of it The second of contingency and liberty The proof of it The conclusion