work of our Christianity and therefore to every part of it and by consequence that this grace is not given us in consideration of any thing that we are able to do towards the obliging of God to bestow it upon us But I will not take upon me to inflame this abridgment with rehearsal of the testimonies of Church Writers that went afore Pelagius in both these points The testimonies of Fathers that went afore him which S. Augustine hath produced are enough to put those to silence which would have originall sin to be a devise of his But Vossius in his History of the Pelagians having comprised as well these as the rest concerning originall sin libro 11. parte 1. Thes VI. and those which concern the necessity of Grace libro III. parte I. Thes I. II. it will not be to the purpose to do any part of that which hath been sufficiently done already over again To me indeed it seems very considerable that Pelagius acknowledging for Grace first free Will and the Law which teacheth the difference between good and bad after that for the Grace of Christ his doctrine and example first then the illumination of the mind by the Holy Ghost Yet alwaies maintained that man without the help of Grace is able to love God above all to keep his Commandments and resist the greatest temptations to the contrary And in all these points was condemned by the Church as you may see there libro III. parte II. Thes I-VIII For certainly there is a vast difference between the doctrine of Gods Laws absolutely necessary to the doing of his Will even for Adam in the state of innocency and the preaching of the Gospell convincing mankind that they are under Gods wrath by sin tendering pardon to them that imbrace it assuring of everlasting life or death according as they observe the profession of it and shewing the way by our Lords example All which the Scriptures ascribe to the coming of Christ as granted in consideration of it How much more when he granteth the illumination of the Holy Ghost to shew what is to be done must he needs transgress his own position which saith that there is no difference between that state in which we are born and that which Adam was made saving his example but the difference between a man and a Babe For were we born as Adam was made what needed Christ to have purchased by his death the gift of the Holy Ghost to enlighten us inwardly in doing that which without it man is born able to do And having granted the reasons and motives upon which Christians act as Christians to be shewed them both outwardly and inwardly by the Grace of Christ to deny the necessity of the sayd Grace to the acts which proceed from the same can have no excuse but one that Christ came only to evidence the truth of his message leaving the embracing or rejecting of it to every mans choyce Which to maintain if Socinus was fain to make our Lord Christ a meer man that there might be no more in his rising after death then a miracle to assure it Pelagius acknwledging the Trinity will be streightned by S. Pauls consequence If righteousnesse come by the Law then is Christ dead in vain supposing the death of Christ to bring that help of Grace which a miracle by evidencing the truth of the Gospel doth not And seeing God could not be moved by any thing that man could do to give our Lord Christ and the helps which his coming bringeth with it there will be no more left for Pelagius to say But that these helps are not granted of Grace but received by the works which men prevent it with The foundation therefore of the Christian Faith consisting in Gods-sending our Lord Christ of his pure free grace by vertue whereof all the effects of it are works of the same Grace Necessary it was that Pelagius should be condemned for the denying of the necessity of Grace to all acts of Christianity and for affirming that Grace is given according to mans merits as you see there Thesi IX XI that he was Both upon the doctrine of S. Paul premised afore that God was not moved by the works either of Jews or Gentiles to send them those helpes to salvation which the Gospel tendreth Nevertheless the preaching of the Gospel and all the help which it bringeth toward the imbracing of it is no less the Grace of Christ because Pelagius was forced for the better colouring of his Heresie to acknowledge it Onely it is not therefore to be sayd that it is all the help which the Grace of God by Christ furnisheth toward that salvation which Christianity tendreth But to be left to further dispute what further help is granted by God before and without any consideration of mans merit to bring to effect those acts in which the discharge of our Christianity consisteth Excluding therefore the pretense of Pelagius that Moses before the godly Fathers pleased God by the meer strength of nature and that salvation was to be had under the Law by the same Besides the good works of the Gentiles wherewith God was pleased according to Pelagius whom the Church condemned in this Article also as you may see there Thes X. And truly Pelagius acknowledging the Gospel to be no more then the declaration of that Will of God by which man is to be saved after Christ as the Law before Christ utterly overthroweth the plea of the Church derived from the Apostles that the Fathers were saved by faith before and under the Law that the New Testament was in force under the Old by vertue of that commerce which God by his word which afterwards being incarnate was our Lord Christ held with the Fathers His Spirit as naturally planted in the word going along to procure the efficacy of it Whereas Socinus though he acknowledgeth the difference between the literal and mystical sense of the Law yet making our Lord Christ a meer man the vertue of whose death could not extend to the salvation of those who lived afore his coming destroyeth the ground of that which he acknowledgeth This supposition that Christianity is more ancient then Judaâ—sme being necessary to the maintaining of the Church against the Synago ue Which is verified by Gods designing of a Church for the spouse of his Sonne before the Fall figured by the marriage between Adam and Eve according to S. Paul Ephes V. 22-33 But presently after the Fall that Word which being incarnate in our Lord Christ having declared enmity betwen the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent saying It shall break thy head and thou shalt bruise the heel of it The first Adam became the figure of the second according to the same S. Paul Rom. V. 14. Whereupon the Spirit of the second Adam in those Preachers of righteousnesse to whom the Word of God came in that Angel whom the Fathers worshipped for God strove form
figure in saying That God would have that done which he will not do because he knowes sufficient reason to the contrary whether he declare it or not but setting that reason aside would have done Or that he would have that done which he provideth sufficient meanes to bring to passe But that all should signify some and the world the elect because God will not do all he can to save those whom he would have to be saved is a figure in Rhetorick called Mendacium when a man denies the Scripture to be true The same is the difficulty when our Lord Christ who saith to the Father John XVII 9. I ask for them I ask not for the world but for them whom thou hast given me for they are thine prayes upon the Crosse Father forgive them for they know not what they do For though he ask not that for the world which he askes for his disciples yet he would not have prayed for that which he knew not that God would have done His prayer being the reason moving God to grant meanes effectuall to bring to passe that which it desireth But had there been in God a purpose to exclude the Jews from the benefit of Christs death considering them as not having yet refused the grace which Christ prayed for it could not have been said that he would have our Lord Christ dy or pray for them and therefore that he would have them to be saved This is then my argument that the will of man is neither by the originall constitution of God determinable by his immediate operation nor by mans originall sinne subject to a necessity of doing or not doing this or that Because God treats with the posterity of Adam concerning the Covenant of the Law first and since concerning the Covenant of grace no otherwise then originally he treated with Adam about not eating the forbidden fruit For in conscience were it for the credit of Christianity that infidels whom we would perswade to be Christians should say True if you could shew me that God by his immediate act determines me to do as you require me without which you tell me I cannot do it and with which I cannot but do it Or that by the sinne of Adam I am not become subject to the necessity of doing or not doing this or that But supposing either of these if you move me to do what you professe I cannot do you are either a mad man your self or take me for one Do they take their hearers for men and Christians or for beasts who having first taught that man can do nothing but what God determines him to do inferre thereupon that they must indeavour themselves to do what God commands and what their Christianity requires Or that they are obliged by their Christianity to do that which their corruption from Adam necessitates them not to do Is it for the honour of Gods justice that it should be said that he intends to damne the most part of men for that which by their originall corruption they were utterly unable to do without giving them sufficient help to do it no help being sufficient which the determination of the will by the immediate operation of God makes not effectuall as they think Do they not make the Gospel of Christ a mockery that make it to require a condition impossible to be performed by any whom God determines not to perform it having resolved not to determine the greatest part of them that know it to performe it Certainly this is not to make the secret will of God contradict the declared will of God but to make the declared will of God a meer falshood unlesse the declaring will make contradictions true For to will that this be done for an end which God that willeth will not have come to pass makes contradictions the object of that will and that for the same consideration at the same time God from everlasting determining meerly in consideration of his own will that the condition of that which he would have to come to passe conditionally will not come to passe What is it then to declare all this to the posterity of Adam already lapsed without tendring help sufficient to inable them to imbrace what he tendereth For it is manifest that Adam had sufficient grace to doe what God commanded and it is as manifest that God tenders both the Law to the Israelite and the Gospell to the World in the same form as he tendred Adam the prohibition of eating the forbidden fruit Nor can it be denied that this prohibition contained in the force of it all the perswasions all the exhortations all the promises all the threatnings which either the Law or the Gospell to their respective ends and purposes can be inforced with It must therefore be concluded not that they suppose in Adams posterity an ability to do what they require as did the origiginall prohibition of eating the forbidden fruit but that they bring with them sufficient help to perform it not supposing any thing that may barre the efficacy thereof till the will of him to whom it is tendered makes it void And truly speaking of that which the naturall indowment of freedom necessarily imports in the reasonable creature it is utterly impossible that any thing should determine the will of man to do or not to do this or that but his own action formally or in the nature of a formal cause which therefore in the will cannot be the action of God nor be attributed imputed or ascribed to him to whom it were blasphemy to impute that which his creature is honoured with That God should immediately act upon the soul of man or his will is no inconvenience Because that act must end in the will or soul and not attaine that effect which the imperfection of the creature bringeth to passe Ending therefore in the creature and not in that which the action of the creature produceth it leaveth the same of necessity in the state wherein God first made it And I may well suppose here and will suppose that Gods act of creation continues the same for all the time that he maintaines the creature in that perfection of being that is to say in that ability of acting which from the beginning he gave it This discourse I confesse extendeth to the voiding of the immediate concurrence of God to the actions of his creature which my purpose necessarily requires me not to maintaine For concurrence-supposeth the creature to act without help of God that concurreth and therefore cannot be requisite on behalf of the cause being supposed to act of it self but on behalf of the effect wherein it endeth Which having a being is supposed necessarily to require immediate dependance upon the first being which is God A strange subtlety acknowledging the creature able to act and supposing it to act of it self to imagine that this act can end in nothing as that which it effecteth without Gods concurrence Which immediately attaining the
stand obliged to second the same with means sufficient to bring them to everlasting happinesse For the beginning of the worke being acknowledged to require Gods preventing Grace it cannot be said that those who are supposed to be thus saved are saved by works and not by grace or that in their regard Christ is dead in vaine the said helps being granted in consideration of Christs death But though it may without prejudice to christanity be said that God may dispense the helps of that grace which Christs death hath purchased besides and without the preaching of the Gospell yet can it not be said during the Gospell that any man attaineth the kingdom of heaven which Christianty promiseth but by it Now to be saved by the Gospell requires the profession of the faith and that the Sacrament of Baptisme at least in resolution and purpose So that whether among those nations where the gospell is not preached any man be saved by this way is a thing visible to be tried by examining whom this case hath been knowne to have become a Christian Of which I assure my selfe there will be found so few instances of historical truth that a discreet man will have no pleasure to introduce a position so neerely concerning the intent of Christs coming wherof there can so little effect appear For supposing instances might be alleaged to make the mater questionable how farr would they be from rendring a reason of that vast difference that is visible between the proceeding of God towards the salvation of those that are borne within the Pale of the Church and those that live and dye without hearing of christianity The one being so prevented with the knowledg of what they are to doe to be saved that they shall have much a do so to neglect it as to flatter their own concupiscence with any color of an excuse Whereas the other whatsoever conviction we may imagine them to have of one true God of an account to be made for all that wee doe of the guilt of sin which they are under without the Gospell it will be impossible to reduce the reason of the difficulties they are under more then the former to an equall desire in God of saving all together with the difference of mens complyance with the helps of Grace which it produceth And therefore considering the antecedent will of God is not absolutly Gods will but with a terme of abatement reserving the condition upon which it proceedeth I conceive it requisite as I have don to limit the signification thereof to those effects which we see God being to passe by vertue of it The utmost whereof being the provâ—dâ—ng of means for the preaching of the Gospell it is neverthelesse no prejudice to it that the Apostles are forbidden by the spâ—rit to preach in Bithynia or Asia Acts XVâ— 6 7. not because God would not have them to be saved or because the Macedonians by their works had obliged him to set them aside for their sakes who could have provided for both But for reasons knowne to himselfe alone and not reducible to any thing that appeares to us Especially considering the câ—se of infants dying before Baptisme in whose workes it is manifest there can be no ground of difference For to say that by the universality of that Grace which God declareth by Christ wee are to believe that they are all saved as many as live not to transgresse the Covenant of grace would be a novelty never heard of in the Catholike Church of Christ tending to unâ—ermine the foundation of our common salvation laid by our Lord â—o Nicodâ—mus Vnlâ—sse ye bâ— born againe of water and of the Holy Ghost ye cannot enter into the Kingdome of God For how should the generall tender of the Gospell intitle infants to the benefit thereof because they never transgressed that in which they were never estated It were in vaine then to looke about the scripture for examples to justifie any part of this position The widow of Sarepta to whom Elias was sent Naaman the Syrian who was sent to Eliseus Cyâ—us whom many supposed to have worshipped the onely God because in the end of the Chronicâ—es and beginning of Esdras he saith the God of heaven hath given me all the Kingdoms of the earth because the Prophet Esay makes him a figure of the Messias as the Kings of Gods people were for the freedom which they attained by his government the Centurion Cornelius to whom S. Peter was sen with the Gospell are all of one case which is the case of thâ—se strangers who living in the common-wealth of Israel though not circumcised yet woâ—shiped the onely true God under those lawes which the Jews tell us were delivered by God to Noe and by him to all his posterity and so were capable of thaâ— salvation which the Israelites had the meanes of under the Law though themselves not under it But neither have we evidence that their works under the light of nature obliged God to call them to the priviledg of stâ—angers in the hâ— use of Israel nor can the workes of Cornelius be taken for the workes of corrupt nature being in the state of Gods grace which was manifested under the Law and therefore prevented with those meanes of salvation which become necessary under the Gospell to the salvation which it tendreth So far are we from finding in them any argument of a Law obliging God to grant them those helps in consideration of their works don in the state of corrupt nature And therefore whatsoever examples we may find of this nature under Christianity they are to be referred to the free grace of God which as sometimes it may come to those of best conversation according to nature to whom the words oâ— our Lord To him that hath shall be given may be applied without prejudice to Christianity Math. XXV 19. Luk XIX 26. So also it fails not to call those who for their present state are most strangers to christianity that it may appeare that no Rule ties God but that free grace which his own secret wisdom dispenseth And truly those good works which corupt nature produceth necessarily depend upon those circumstances in which Gods proâ—â—dence placeth one man and not an other though both in the state of meere nature So that the one shall not be able to do that which is reasonable without overcoming those difficulties to which the other is not lyable In which regard it hath been said that the Heroick acts of the Heâ—hen may be attributed to the spirit of God moving them though not as granted in consideration of Christ but as conducting the whoâ—e worke of providence So little cause there is to imagine that the consideration of them should oblige God to grant those helps of grace the ground whereof is the obedience of Christ and the end the happinesse of the world to come CHAP. XXVI Predestination to grace absolute to glory respective Purpose of denying effectuall Grace
to mankind Seeing there is a reason to be given for all that fall under the same in the nature of the finall or the meritorious cause God stands as much glorified man as much obliged to worke out his salvation with feare and trembling as if he knew the bottome of Gods secret counsaile And thus the objection is void It remaineth that we consider the Tradition of the Church what it declareth concerning the truth of that which I have resolved or towards it Where we must take notice of the Monkes of Adrymetus under Valentine who received S. Agustines doctrine of Gods effectuall grace and predestination to it from everlasting in such a sense that they inferred from it all indeavours of men all exhortations reproofes instructions and prayers to be utterly fruitlesse and vaine as tending to that which dependeth upon the meere appointment of God which cannot be defeated and without which nothing can serve To rectifie this mistake S. Augustine lived to write them his book yet extant de correptione Gratia wherein he declareth all that he had said of the grace of God and the efficacy thereof to proceed upon supposition of free will in man though inslaved to sin by the fall of Adam from the bondage whereof the grace of Christ voluntarily though effectually redeemeth those that are freed by it whereby as by the rest of his writings concerning the grace of Christ against Pelagius he establisheth two points belonging to the foundation of the Christian faith The first of the freedome of mans will though not from sin since the fall of Adam yet from necessity determing the resolution of it when by the treaty which the Gospell advanceth it is invited to imbrace Christianity and to live according to it Which were all a mere nullity were not any man free to resolve himselfe upon it The second of the grace of God by Christ which if it may be purchased by the indevour of mans free will then was it not necessary to send our Lord Christ as the second Adam to repaire the breach which the first Adam had made This being the sum of the Catholike faith in this mater and the rest which is advanced to shew how those two points both stand true together belonging to the skill of a Divine not to the faith of a Christian so far as by maintayning them men destroy the foundation of Christianity on neither side Which it is no marvail that some things which S. Augustin had said in giving a reason hereof seemed to some to do seeing those that accepted of his doctrine in Africk drew from it a consequence utterly destructive to Christianity I speake of those in the parts of France about Provence and Marsailles who inferring from S. Augustines saying that in his opinion God makes the farr greater part of men on purpose to condemne them to death seemed to mainetaine the beginning of salvation to come from those indeavours of mans will born as he is under originall sin which God faileth not to second with those helps of Grace which the mater requireth There is great appearance of that which Jansenius disputeth so eagerly de Haeresi Pelag. VII 5. sâ—q that the maine ground of their opposition was the decree of predestination which S. Austine would have to be absolute As being perswaded that thereby the effects of free will become fatal in which that reason of reward and punishment which the Covenant of Grace establisheth requires contingence And herewith the occasion which Faustus pretendeth for the writing of his book de Gratia et Libero Arbitrio agreeth To wit that a certaine Priest called Lucidus is required by him in the name of a Synod held at Arles under Leontius Bishop to recant certaine positions tending to maintaine the necessity of being damned for originall sin by the foreknowledg of God in them for whom Christ dyed not dying onely for sin And this by a letter subscribed by one of the Bishops This recantation being made Faustus pretendeth to write at the intreaty of the Synod to lay forth their sense and reasons But to have added something upon the decree of an other Synod held afterwards at Lions True it is indeed which Vâ—ssius observeth Historiae Pelag. VI. Thesi XIV that whereas some of them insisted on nothing else others proceeded to deny the necessity of preventing grace For whatsoever we say of Cassianâ— who hath writ to severall purposes in severall places Faustus manifestly affirmeth that by the act of free will in beginning to believe a Christian obtaines the grace of God which his owne choice preventeth Which if we understand the Faith which he speaketh of to signifie Christianity and the act of believing to consist in becoming a Christian is nothing else but the fundamentall faith of Christianity That the habituall gift of the Holy Ghost is granted in consideration of a mans turning Christian But who believes that the actuall grace of the Holy Ghost whereby the world is converted to be as well as convicted that it ought to be Christiane is obtayned by the exaltation as purchased by the humiliation of Christ which Faustus supposing the preaching of the Gospell being the meanes which it useth no way denyeth acknowledgeth by consequence that act of faith which preventeth the habituall gift of the Holy Ghost to be prevented by the actuall helps of Grace which the preaching of the Gospel importeth And Jansenius de Haeresi Pelag VIII 1-9 acknowledgeth that they had no designe to destroy the grace of God through Christ as Pelagius had therefore did acknowledg not onely the outward preaching of the gospel but inward inspiration to make it effectuall Onely that making the effect of that grace which God appointeth to depend on free wil they fel into the heresy of Palagius which they desired to a void Now Pelagius indeed acckowledged that grace which the preaching of the gospell signifyed according to his own opinion which was false For not believing that our will is any thing the worse for Adams fall he could not allow that Christ hath purchased any help to repaire the breach and to cure the disease which he had made But as he could not deny it to be an act of bounty in God to propose the reward of everlasting life which is supernatupall So he must affirme that it is purchsed by the merre naturall act of free will without any help of grace granted of Gods mercy in Christ in consideration of his obedience And by this meanes he brought the death of Christ to no effect Seeing God might have assured the tender of his gospell to come indeed from him without it And so the merit of grace that is the reason that obliges God to give it is originally ascribed to the works of free Will according to Pelagius But according to those who acknowledging Originall sin acknowledg the cure of it by the helpe of grace purchased by Christ which the preaching of the gospell bringeth not
conceive maintaines the interest of Christianity best though a Iew or a Pagan much more a Jesuite or an Arminian had said it As for the opinion of Arminius and the decree of the Synod at Dort having already said why I have inlarged my considerations beyond the compasse of those termes upon which they disputed it shall suffice me to say That his opinion concerning Election and Reprobation is that which I have showed that all the Church hath alwaies held for mater of Faith To wit that God appoints them to be saved and to be damned who receive Christianity and persevere in the profession of it till death or not That in mine opinion they might have admitted some thing more To wit that God is not obliged by any workes of free will preventing the help of his Grace through Christ but by his own free pleasure to grant those helps of Grace which he knowes wil be effectuall to finall perseverance in Christianity to some which he refuseth to others And that the decree of granting them is Gods absolute predestination to Grace For I am confident that Arminius doth acknowledg the calling of Gods Grace to become effectuall by meanes of the congruity of those helps which God provideth with that disposition which God foreseeth in him whom he appointeth to be moved by the same Whether or no the decree of the Synod require further that they should acknowledg Predestination to glory to be absolute I hold not my selfe any waies obliged to dispute For I find that those persons that were â—mployed to the Synod from England have professed as well in the Synod as otherwise that they came not by any commission or instruction from the Church of England but onely as trusted by K. James of excellent memory to assist his good neighbours the states of the United Provinces in composing the differences in Religion raised among their Divines and people And therefore I cannot be concerned in the decree to which the Church of England never concurred Yet I say further that the persons that concurred to it whose opinions as Divines I cannot esteeme at an easy rate by waâ—ving the opinion of predetermination by acknowledging the death of Christ for all the operation of grace not irresistible but such as stands not with actual resistence do seem not to insist upon absolute predestination to glory And that if the decree do necessarily import it I do not know how to reconcile it with their own opinions Which whether it be also to be said of them of the reformed Churches in France who holding the decree do now acknowledg the death of Christ for all mankind let them that read their writings judge CHAP. XXVII The question concerning the satisfaction of Christ with Socinus The reason why Sacrifices are figures of Christ common to all sacrifices Why and what Sacrifices the Fathers had what the Law added Of our ransom by the price of Christs propitiatory Sacrifice HAving thus showed how the Gospel tenders a Covenant of Grace though requiring the condition of Christianity in regard of those helps which the Grace of God through Christ provideth for the performance of it I am now to show the same in regard of that right to which God accepteth that performance For if it appeare that God out of his grace in Christ and not for the worth of that which we doe accepteth it for a title duely qualifying us for remission of sinne and life everlasting then is it a Covenant of Grace which the Gospell tenders though it require the profession and practice of Christianity on our part And here I have to doe with the Socinians on the one extremity in the first place who will not allow the Gospell to continue the Covenant of grace if it be said that it tendereth remission of sins and life everlasting to those that are qualified as it requireth in consideration of the obedience and sufferings of Christ as the ransome and price of our sinnes Acknowledging allways that Christ died to settle and establish the New Covenant but not to oblige God by his death either to declare and become ingaged to it or to make it good having declared it but to assure mankind that God who of his owne free grace was ready to pardon and accept of those that should accept of the termes of reconcilment which his Gospell tendereth will not faile to make good that which by delivering his well beloved sonne to death he hath signed for his promise to us Indeed they goe about to strengthen this opinion by adding another reason and end of Christs death To wit the attaining of that Godhead wherewith God they say hath rewarded his obedience in doing the message which he trusted him with that thereby he might be able of himselfe to make good that which God by him had promised confounding all that may oppose the salvation of them that imbrace the Covenant of Grace But that it should be said that God declareth or giveth remission of sinnes and everlasting life to them that imbracâ— the same in consideration of the obedience and sufferings of Christ as satisfied thereby for that punishment which our sinne deserved of his justice this is that which they deny and the Church teacheth and therefore this it is which we must show how it is delivered by the Scriptures Which every man may observe to stand cheifely in those texts of Scripture which say that Christ died for us that he redeemed us and reconciled us to God by his death and bloud shed which being the utmost of his obedience comes most into account at all occasions of mentioning this subject in fine it is easy to be observed that the expressions of this point in holy Scripture have relation to the Sacrifices of the Old Testament as figuring the death of Christ whereby both agree we are delivered from sinne the question remaining whether ransomed or not And therefore I shall first consider how and to what effect the Sacrifices of Moses Law are figures of the sacrifice of our Lord upon the Crosse Where I must in the first place inferre from the principle premised of the twofold sense of the Old Testament that all the sacrifices thereof were figures of the death of Christ and our reconcilement with God by the same So farre I am from yeilding them that unreasonable demand that onely expiatory Sacrifices and especially that of the Solemne day of Atonement are properly so Onely I must declare my meaning to be this That whereas the sacrifices of the Fathers were so as they were pledges of Gods favour generally the sacrifices of the Law being the condition upon which that people in generall and every person thereof in particular held their interest in the land of promise expresse more correspondence with that interest in the world to come which Christians hold by Christs death on the Crosse For the land of Canaan being promised them upon condition of keeping the Law and every mans interest in the
XI 50. 51. 52. But in what sense doe Christians find it true Surely no man that ever prayed to God in Christs name need to be told it It is requisite therefore that we have recourse to the consideration of those thinges which the Scripture uses to joyne with the mention of Christs dying for us if we will rightly determine the meaning of it And so having premised the consideration of a sacrifice upon which our sinnes were charged of our ransome by the price of it of reconciliation and propitiation for sinne obtained for us by it we must conclude that when the Scripture speakes of Christs death for us the meaning of it cannot be satisfyed by granting that he died to move us to be Christians CHAP. XXIX The grant of Grace in consideration of Christ supposes satisfaction made by him for sinne Neither our sinnes imputable to Christ nor his sufferings to us formally and personally but as the meritorious causes which satisfaction answereth The effect of it the Covenant of Grace as well as help to performe it The Fathers saved by the Faith of Christ to come The Gospel a new Law The property of Satisfaction and Punishment in Christs sufferings Of the sense of the Catholike Church THere remaines one argument from the premises where I concluded that effectuall Grace is appointed from everlasting and therefore granted in time in consideration of Christ and his merits according to S. Paul Ephes I. 3-6 For if this grace be granted in consideration of Christ and life everlasting appointed from everlasting and granted in time in consideration of that quality which this grace effâ—cteth it cannot in reason be avoided that remission of sinne and life everlasting is granted here in right and title and in effect in the world to come in consideration of that quality which the effectuall helps of Grace of their own nature tend to produce which they are appointed by God to produce and which really and in effect thus are produced being granted by God in consideration of Christs obedience But why should I be so solicitous to restore all those Scriptures to their true meaning which they have set upon the rack to make them speak a false having such evidence of reason that by this position they make the death of Christ voide and needlesse even in their owne judgement For though if they should say that Christ came onely to show those workes that migh be sufficient to make his Gospell credible and give us good example I could not say that the death of Christ were to no end Yet would they say that it were to no competent end complaining as they do how much they are wronged when they are understood to acknowledge no further end of his coming But when they say that he died to induce men to be Christians by inacting the Covenant of Grace that is assuring them that God will stand to it on his part and that according to the example of Christ bearing his Crosse they shall attaine his glory I demand how all this can be more assurance then every man hath that is peremâ—orily assured otherwise as no man doubts but competently it may be assured otherwise that the Gospell of Christ is Gods message For when sufficient evidence is once made and a man is convinced to beleeve that God promises remission of sinnes and everlasting life to them that imbrace it can he that beleives God to be God remaine any more doubtfull of the truth of his promise To Pharao and to his people it was necessary that the wonders of God should be repeated till they stood convict that there was no God else which they beleived not afore But to them that admit the God of Israel to be the onely true God being convict that the Gospell is his promise is any further assurance requisite that he will stand to it who were not God if he should not stand to it when they say that Christ died to the end that being advanced to be God he might be able to bring his promises to effect I referre my selfe to the sense of any man that is able to thinke of God with due reverence whether it be possible to imagine that a meere man having made promises to mankind in Gods name can live with God to see Gods promises frustrate And by consequence whether it can appeare necessary that our Lord Christ should be advanced to be God that he might be able in his owne person to fullfill the promises which he had made us in his Fathers Name I referre my selfe to that which I have said to show the word of God which took the flesh of man from the Virgine to be God from everlasting as the Sonne of God and his everlasting wisâ—ome and image And therefore not advanced to be God in consideration of his obedience But that having condescended to that state which his obedience in doing his fathers message and testifying the truth thereof required the Sonne of God incarnate was advanced in our flesh by the appointment of God in reward of his obedience to the privilege of sending the Holy Ghost to make his Gospell effectuall to convert the nations to Christianity that by them he might be acknowledged and glorified for that which he was from everlasting So that the end of his coming being to obtaine that grace by which the world might be converted to Christianity and being converted obtaine remission of sinnes and life everlasting for it and neither of these purposes admitted by Socinus we may well say to him as S. Paul sayes to the Jews Gal. II 21. If righteousnesse be by the Law then is Christ deade in vaine So if righteousnesse came as Socinus would have it then is Christ deade to no purpose Because all that he requires might have been as well effected without it Whereas a due valuable consideration in regard whereof the converting grace of the Holy Ghost and remission of sinnes and life everlasting in consideration of the effect thereof should be granted could not have been had without it It is strange to be observed how litle Socinus hath to produce out of the scriptures to prove a position of such consequence as this All his businesse in a maner being to draw those texts which heitherto have been understood in the sense of the Church to his intent I can for the present recall no more then those frequent passages of the Apostles especially S. Paul whereby they affirme the righteousnesse and salvation of Christians to come by the meere grace of God and our Lord Christ Which I need not here repeate no wayes apprehending the infernce That it cannot be said to come from the meere grace of God if I suppose the consideration of Christs obedience and sufferinges as the purchase of it It is true in the wordes of the Prophet Jeremy XXXI 34-34 alleged by the Apostle Ebr. VIII 8-12 to be meant of the Gospell we find a promise of God to pardon the sinnes of his
for the waters are come in even unto my soul And Let not the water-stood drown me neither let the deep swallow me up And let not the pit shut her mouth upon me And XLII 9. One deep calleth another because of the noise of thy water-pipes All thy waves and billows are gone over me Whereupon S. Paul Romans VI. 3 4 5 Know ye not that as many as have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death We are therefore buried with him by baptism into death that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we should also walk in newnesse of life For if we have been planted into the like death of his then shall we be also into the like of his rising again For when he saith again Rom. X. 7. Who shall go down into the deep to wit to bring up Christ from the dead He sheweth plainly that by the waters of the deep he understands death whereby I suppose it appears sufficiently that the water of Baptism not the fire of the Holy Ghost is the antitype to the waters of the deluge Besides the Baptism of the Holy Ghost is not called Baptism but by resemblance of the fire thereof infusing it self into all the soul as the whole body is drenched in the waters of baptism Therefore it is not called absolutely Baptism but with an addition abating the property of the sense the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire Therefore where the term Baptism stands without this addition or any circumstance signifying the same it cannot be understood Again the interrogating of a good conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as all men of learning agree metonymically or by Synecdoche the answer or rather the stipulation consisting of the interrogatories of Baptism and the answer returned by him that is baptized undertaking to believe and to live like a Christian For it is manifest that it Fath been alwayes the custom in the Church of God as still in the Church of England which S. Peter here shews that it comes down from the Apostles to exact of him that is baptized a solemn vow promise or contract to stand to that which he undertaketh And this it is which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signifies whereof he that doubts may see enough in Grotius his Annotations to make him ashamed to doubt any more When therefore S. Peter saith that Baptism saveth us not the doing away the filth of the flesh but the answer of a good conscience towards God he does not intend to distinguish the Baptism of water from the Baptism of the Holy Ghost in opposition to the same But to distinguish in the Baptism of water the bodily act of cleansing the flesh from the reasonable act of professing Christianity which being done out of a good conscience towards God he saith saveth us And that by the resurrection of Jesus Christ By vertue whereof S. Paul also saith that if we planted into the like death to Christs death we shall also be planted into the like resurrection of Christs Supposing that whosoever is baptized takes upon him the profession of Christs Crosse that is the bearing of it when his Christianity cals him to it For when our Lord saith in the Gospel I have a Baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitned till it be accomplished Luk. XII 50. And again to the sons of Zebedee Mat. XX 22. Are ye able to be baptized with the Baptism which I shall be baptized with He shews sufficiently that his Baptism is his Crosse In consideration whereof that is of undertaking to bear it out of a good conscience as Christ was raised from death to life again by the Spirit of Holinesse which dwelt in him without measure So those that are planted into the likenesse of Christs death in Baptism are promised the Grace of Gods Spirit to dwell in them and to raise them from sin here to the life of Grace and from death hereafter to the life of Glory in the world to come as I shewed you in the first Book So that S. Pauls argument proceeds not upon consideration of the Ceremony of Baptism and the naturall resemblance it hath with the duty of a Christian to rise from sin because he professes to die to it For that were to think that the Apostles have but weak argumens to inforce the obligation of Christianity with when this prime one is made to signifie no more then an indecorisne impertinence or inconsequence in signifying and professing that by our Baptism which by our lives we perform not But maketh Baptism the protestation of a solemn vow and promise to God and men and Angels to live for the future as the profession of Christians importeth And is it possible to show man overtaken in sin a more valuable consideration to expect salvation upon and therefore a stronger means to inforce the performance of what he hath undertaken then his own ingagement upon such a consideration as that We are therefore baptized with Christ unto death because we have undertaken upon our Baptism to mortifie our selves to the world that we may live to Gods service And upon that condition we promise our selves that we shall be raised from the dead again though by vertue of Christs rising again Being buried with him in Baptism wherein ye are also risen with him by faith of the effectuall working of God which raised him from the dead saith S. Paul Col. II. 12. For by obliging our selves to the profession of Christianity from a good heart and clear conscience we obtain the promise of the Holy Ghost whereby God effecteth the raising of us to a new life of righteousnesse necessarily consequent to the mortifying of sinne Besides these how many and how excellent effects are attributed to Baptism in the writings of the Apostles which without S. Peters distinction might seem strange that they should depend upon the clensing of the flesh but that they should by Gods appointment depend upon that ingagement whereby we give our selvs up to Christ for the future according to his distinction not at all For that this ingagement should not be effectuall till consigned unto the Church at Baptism cannot seem strange to him that believes the Catholick Church to be as I have shewed a corporation founded for the maintenance and exercise of that Christianity to which we ingage our selves by Baptism When the Jewes were pricked in heart to see our Lord whom they had crucified to be risen again and asked the Apostles Men and Brethren What shall we doe Acts II. 37 38. Peter saith unto them Repent and be baptized every one of you unto remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost Which if it depend upon Baptism what promise of the Gospel is there that does not To the same purpose Heb. VI. 6. It is impossible for them that have once been inlightned and tasted the heavenly gift and become partakers
what they ought to do but to the consequence thereof which naturally and reasonably they are apt to produce but do not necessarily produce Againe on the other side Trust and confidence in God through Christ obtaines the promises of the Gospel who denyes it But is this trust alwaies well grounded and true Is it not possible for a man to imagine his title to the promises of the Gospel to be good when it is not I would we had no cause to believe how oft it comes to passe I grant that at the first hearing and believing the Gospel all the world have ground enough for that confidence that may save them from despairing to attaine the promises of it But hath he that hath ground not to despaire of being justified by faith ground to conside as justified by faith Or is that all one as to have ground enough for that confidence that they have right to the said promises I suppose there is a great gulfe between both For when the preaching of the Gospel convinceth a man that he is lost unlesse he accept it upon whatsoever condition it tendereth it is enough to keep any man that is in his wits from dispairing to know that there is a condition tendered by God the accepting whereof will intitle us to his promises Because being sincerely tendred in Gods name there can be no barre but on our part to the accepting of it But to have a well grounded confidence of our own right and just title to the promises it behoveth that the Spirit of a man which is in him know that there is in him a sincere resolution of accepting the conditions Which how much the better it is grounded and setled so much more shall his confidence be secure And to this confidence to bring a man from this former confidence is as great a work as to induce a man that believes the world to come to preferre it before this For I demand Is he that sins against God for love of this world enemy to God as the Apostle saith James IV. 4. or not Are not all men enemies to God when the Gospel calls them to become his friends If not why may they not be saved without it If so can they have confidence in their enemy by being discovered to be his enemies Indeed the Gospel tendring conditions of peace they have confidence that they may become friends with God by imbracing the same But the confidence of friends till they have imbraced them they cannot have It is therefore a dangerous a imposture to invite an unregenerate man so soon as he is descovered so to be to the confidence of a Christian in God through Christ As not to invite him to that confidence who may be a Christian is to drive him to despaire For not presupposing his conversion from sinne to God it is necessarily carnal presumption not the confidence of a Christian And if the Spirit of God should seal to any heart the promises of the Gospel not presupposing this ground it were not possible for any man to discern the illusions of the evil Spirit from the dictates of Gods The conscience of our submission to those terms being the onely test by which the difference is discernable For all they that trust in thee shall not be ashamed but such as transgresse without a cause shall be put to confusion Psal XXV 2. To transgresse without a cause and to put trust in God are terms incompetible So that wheresoever we are bid trust in God being implicitely forbid trust in the world or our selves which all that love the world or themselves not in order to God necessarily do there is supposed the ground of this trust inconsistent with the conscience of sinne And though this ungrounded confidence importeth carnal presumption yet may it occasion dispaire For when the guilt of sinne in the conscience stronger then all prejudicate opinion and imposture of false doctrine discovers that there is no ground for the confidence of a Christian and prejudice on the other side admits no recourse to that condition which is the ground of it no marvaile if it seem impossible to attain peace of conscience which appearance is the very horror of despair Seeing then that trust in God as reconcileable and for the attaining of remission of sinnes is the immediate fruit of the Gospel believed but trust in God as reconciled which is confidence of remission of sinnes obtained is necessarily the consequence of that faith which justifieth the justification of a Christian being a sinner before a Christian necessarily implying remission of sins what remaineth but that the professing of faith to God for the undergoing of Christianity be the condition upon which the promises of the Gospel become due that is to say that faith which alone justifieth For it is true the Gospel tendereth severall promises remission of sinnes in the first place because the first thing a man convict and sentenced to death seeks is his discharge But no man can have this discharge but upon the same terms he must become the sonne of God whether as regenerate by grace or as adopted to glory that is to the right and title of it and upon the same terms be sanctified by the holy Ghost which as I shewed before is promised as a gift that is habitually to be possessed onely to Christians and to all Christians And therefore it is impossible to imagine a man discharged of his sinnes that is not for the very same reason and therefore at the same instant of nature as well as of time regenerate adopted and sanctified It is indeed to be granted that justification signifies something different from all these promises in as much as it is manifest that in the language of the Scriptures it importeth not making of a man righteous but declaring him and accounting him righteous treating him and dealing with him as righteous All this is true And yet I shall not grant that it is so properly understood to be the act of God as sitting upon his throne of judgement whether according to mercy or justice as the act of God contracting with mâ—n for everlasting life upon condition of submitting to the Covenant of Grace and the terms of it Indeed the preaching of the Gospel premises the generall judgement to come as tendering the way to come clear of it to wit by Christ whom it declareth judge of quick and dead For S. Paul thus proposeth it to the Athenians Acts XVII 30 31. God who eversaw the times of ignorance now chargeth all men every where to repent Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world righteously by the man whom he hath appointed making faith hereof to all by raising him from the dead And of the overture thereof which he made to Felix S. Luke saith Acts XXIV 25. As he discoursed of righteousnesse and temperance and judgement to come And S. Paul speaking of the Gospel Rom. 1. 18. The wrath of God is
Christ how farre it is declared to us by the Scriptures and original Tradition of the Church Knowing neverthelesse that this being resolved the rest of the controversie concerning the holy Trinity necessarily falls to the ground of it self as having nothing whereupon to subsist when the everlasting Godhead of Christ is once maintained afore Now the ready way that I can think of to go through so great a dispute as briefly as is possible is to take in hand first the point of originall sinne in which the dispute between Pelagius and Socinus on the one side and the Church on the other side is grounded For therefore I hope it will appear the shortest way to dispatch the whole dispute because that being decided together with that which dependeth upon it as incident to it concerning the state of our Lord Christ before his coming in the flesh the rest will appear to consist either in controversies of Divines or in mistakes and disputes about words I begin with S. Paul because he it is who having laid forth the necessity of Christianity to the salvation as well of Jewes as of Gentiles in the beginning of his Epistle to the Romanes and in the fourth chapter by the Example of Abraham confirmed the same Or if you please answered the objection concerning the salvation of the Fathers before and under the Law proceeds in the fifth Chapter to lay forth both the ground upon which it is effectuall which is the death of Christ and the ground upon which it was necessary which is the sinne of Adam Thus then saith S. Paul Rom. V. 12 13 14. Therefore as by one man sinne entered into the world and death by sinne and so death passed upon all in whome all sinned For untill the Law sinne was in the world Now sinne is not imputed where there is no Law And yet death raigned from Adam until Moses even upon them that had not sinned after the likenesse of Adams transgression who is the figure of him that is to come It is said that the wordes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are to be translated in asmuch as all had sinned To signifie that Spirituall death came after Adam upon all that had sinned as Adam did inasmuch as they had sinned For as for bodily death they believe not no more then Pelagius that it was the punishment of Adams sinne but the condition of mans birth Onely the troubles the cares the sorrowes by which men come to their graves these as they acknowledge to be consequences as of Adams sinne so of all those sinnes whereby men follow and imitate Adam so they think to be meant by the sentence In the day wherein thou eatest thereof shalt thou die the death But this is no lesse then to deny the literall sense of the Scripture which the Church hath received for one of Origens errors in the interpretation of the beginning of Genesis What is it else to say That Adam was liable to bodily death by nature but to spiritual death by sinne For it is manifest by the premises that through all the Old Testament the second death is no otherwise preached then under the figure of the first death and that by virtue of the ground laid from the beginning that the Covenant of Grace which tendreth life and death everlasting was onely intimated under the Covenant of nature which the Law only received and limited to the happiness of the land of promise as to the Israelits tendring expresly only blessings and mercies of this life to the civil and outward obedience of Gods commandments And can it be imagined that in the very first tender that God made to man of life in consideration of obedience and death of disobedience this life and this death must be understood to be the second when the obedience was onely in abstaining from the forbidden fruit What was then that fruit of the tree of Life by eating whereof they might have preserved themselves from death I aske not what it signified but what it was For all reason will require admitting the premises that it signified that whereby the soul escapes spirituall death But the same reason will inforce that it must be the fruit of a tree which so long as they eat not of the tree of knowledge they were licensed to eat to preserve them from bodily death Neither is there any difficulty in that they aske How all the posterity of Adam should have come by the fruit of that tree that grew no where but in the garden of Eden For I suppose it had been as easie to have planted all parts of the world with the same tree as with the posterity of Adam had he continued in obedience Who being not driven out of Eden as upon his disobedience but sending his posterity to do that in the rest of the world which he did there had made all the world Eden by placing the Paradise of God wheresoever innocence dwelt In this case I see not why any man should take care for the tree of Life that no posterity of Adam might die No more then what should become of that innocent posterity which when it had so planted the World the counsel of God concerning the propagation of man kind may well be thought to have been come to ripenesse The Socinians indeed do alledge Josephus who speaking of the tree of life doth not say that it should have made man immortall but onely that it should have made him live to very great yeares But that is of no consequence In regard that it is not expressed in the Scripture that God would have had man live everlastingly upon the earth had he lived in obedience For supposing that it was a question among the Pharisees to which sect it appeares Josephus inclined most whether so or whether God would translate them to a heavenly life after a time of obedience here which to the Pharisees that acknowledge the resurrection and the world to come must needs seem credible enough it is no marvaile that Josephus should say That by virtue of the tree of life they had lived to a very great age though in case not translated they might as well have lived alwayes by virtue of it But let us hear S. Paul 1 Cor. XV. 21 22. For since by man came death by man also came the resurrection of the dead For as by Adam all died so by Christ shall all be made alive Is there any rising from bodily death but by Christ I say not any rising in the quality of those in whom the Spirit of Christ dwelleth of whom S. Paul saith that He who raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you Rom. VIII 11. But setting aside this quality it is the coming of Christ and his trump that raiseth againe even those that shall rise to judgement And can it for all this be doubted whether that life was lost by Adams fall which the rising of Christ shall
the second Adam is the meanes of our righteousnesse and therefore by that likenesse of reason which S. Pauls discourse proceeds upon the first Adam the meanes of our sinne And to this purpose speaketh that which followeth For when the Apostle argueth that whereas sinne is not imputed when there is no Law notwithstanding death raigned upon all those that had not sinned as Adam did That is by transgressing such an expresse law of God as Adam did transgresse Observing that the Fathers who walked with God whom Adam offended tasted neverthelesse of that death which Adam incurred he inferreth to us that the effect of Adams sinne remaines in the whole kind of his posterity to which death the punishment thereof belongeth And I beseech you of whom speaketh S. Paul but of all mankind when he writeth thus Rom. VII 5-13 For when we were in the flesh the passions of sinne which were by the Law were exercised in our members to bear fruit unto death But now are we voided to the Law that being dead by which we were held that we may live in the new Spirit not in the old letter What shall we say then Is the Law sinfull God forbid Nay I had not known sinne but by the Law For I had not known concupiscence had not the Law said Thou shalt not covet But sinne taking advantage by the commandment wrought in me all concupiscence For without the Law sinne was dead Now I lived somtime without the Law But the commandment coming sinne revived and I died And that commandment which was for life to me was found to death For sinne taking advantage by the commandement deceived me and slew me by it So the Law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good Did then that which was good become death to me God forbid But sinne that it might appear sinne wrought me death by that which was good that sinne by the commandment might become sinfull above measure For though S. Pauls speech here be concerning a Jew in the person of one that of a Jew was become a Christian yet seeing the proposition of the Apostle bears that the Gentile is much more involved in that condemnation to which the Jew is liable that which belongs to every Jew that comes to Christianity will be true much more a fortiori of the Gentile all mankinde being then compleatly divided into Jew and Gentile And therefore let no man think that my present purpose shall ingage me before I can make use of this Scripture to decide the question now on foot among Divines whether S. Paul here speakes in the person of an unregenerate man or regenerate which notwithstanding in another place I may be ingaged to decide For the present it is enough for my turn that an unregenerate man admitting S. Paul cannot refuse his owne case to be that which S. Paul here sets forth to be this That being in the flesh the passions of sinne were exercised in his members and so forth For I know it is said that to be in the flesh is to be in the custome of sinne But what difference makes that in the case when all to whom the Gospel first comes are in the flesh excepting those who under the Law though not by the meer Law came to that state of Grace in which the Fathers stood And therefore it is to me of no consequence whatsoever the meaning of the Apostle may be when he describes those sinfull passions which he saith were exercised in their members to be those that were through the Law I see there are two opinions of his meaning when he saith afterwards That sinne getting advantage by the comandment without which it was dead but the man alive and when it came sinne revived and he died So that the Law which tendred life became to his death because sin by advantage of the Law slew him deceitfully wrought in him all concupiscence For one opinion saies That when an unregenerate man becomes convict that the Law of God takes hold of his inward inclinations which he findes to be evil the inbred corruption of nature not submitting thereto upon this meer conviction flies out into utter defiance of God and his Law in all disobedience to it whereby the concupiscence that is opposed may be satisfied The other saith That the Law of Moses in the outward and literall sence thereof requiring onely civil obedience answerable to that temporall happinesse which it tendereth It is no marvaile that Jewes being tied to the letter of the Law as their study and businesse should think the outward and civile observation thereof to be the utmost intent of it which we see to this day to be the error that detaines them from Christianity And therefore it is properly said according to this opinion that sinne taking this advantage by the Law slew me by deceit But to me this dispute is of no consequence Or rather both opinions are to be admitted in relation to the two severall senses of the Law which I have advanced For as to the literall sense of the Law which the Gentile could have nothing to do with it is manifest this might be For it is manifest that it is become a scandale to the Jew to make him think that he stands right in Gods Court without any Gospel of Christ and thereupon to induce him to defie it But as to the spiritual sense of the law in which the Gentile also hath his interest as concerning things written in the hearts of all men whatsoever the occasion is by which it becomes revived in the heart in which at any time it may have been dead because it neither gives rule to the actions thereof nor bindes it over to judgement most certaine it is and most evident the meaning of S. Paul that when it cometh to convict a man of his duty and by consequence what he is liable to upon the faileure the Law that is for life will prove to death That is if Grace help not sinne will overcome For if the helpe of the Law convicting of one true God his providence and judgement even upon the secrets of the heart were not able to reclaime those that were bred under it to spirituall righteousnesse much lesse shal that conviction whereby the light of nature evidences the same be of force to the same purpose And this is that which S. Paul intimates Rom. VIII 3 4. For whereas the want of force in the Law was weake through the flesh God sending his sonne in the likenesse of sinfull flesh and concerning sinne condemned sinne in the flesh that the righteousnesse of the Law might be fulfilled in us that walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit For if the doctrine of Moses Law which as I have shewed giveth so really eminent advantages towards the choice of true righteousnesse was uneffectuall to the Jewes by reason of the flesh of necessity the light of nature must needs become uneffectual to the Gentiles
can be attributed to the spirit of God speaking of Gods own people in the mouth of David And without doubt as Idolatry was the originall of the most gross customes of sinne as appeares by the premises So can there be no greater argument of the corruption of mans nature then the departure of all nations from the worship of one true God to the worship of they knew not what That all nations coming of one blood from one God which at their first apostasy was so well known to them and not able to blot out of their own hearts the conscience of the service they ought him should imagine themselves discharged of that obligation by tendring it to what they pleased saving a small part of mankinde whom he reserved to himselfe by making them acquainted with himself through the familiarity which he used them with if all other arguments of a common principle of corruption in our common nature were lost is enough to make the apostasy of our first forefathers credible which the relation of Moses makes truth Wherefore when David attributes to himselfe by nature that which the people of God attribute to the Gentiles it must needs be understood in regard of a principle common to both which the Grace of God suffereth not to come to effect but preventeth in his people And when he attributeth the same to his malicious enemies Jewes onely by the first birth he warranteth us to say the same of those that are Jewes by the second birth so farre as the birth of both is the same I will not forbear to alledge here the Law of Leviticus that appoints a time of impurity for women that have brought forth as no lesse fit to signifie the evil inclination to which our nature by the fall of Adam is become liable then the ceremonies of the Law are fitly used by God to shadow the truth of the Gospel Not that I make any doubt that this impurity of it self is but legall as the impurity contracted by touching a dead man or a living creature that was unclean or that of the leprosie or by the custome of women or the like Which I am resolved amounts to no more then an incapacity of freely conversing with Gods people or an obligation to a sacrifice which is there called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it purged this incapacity which in regard of that positive Law may be called sinne But this being granted and these Legall incapacities being by the correspondence of the Law with the Gospel to signifie the cause for which men are uncapable of heaven As the leprosie of the body and the touching of a dead man or a living creature that is unclean by the law necessarily signifieth that incapacity which cometh by the custome of sinne So that uncleannesse which ariseth from those things which come from our own bodies seemeth by necessary correspondence to signifie that incapacity of coming to heaven which ariseth from the inward inclination of our nature to wickednesse Neither will I omit to allege the saying of the Prophet David alleging the reason of Gods compassion to his people in their sinnes to be their mortality Psal LXXVIII 40. For he considered that they were but flesh and even as a wind that passeth away and cometh not againe And Psal CIII 14-17 For he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust The dayes of man are as of grasse as the bud of the field so springeth he For a wind passeth upon it and it is not And the place knoweth it no more But the goodnesse of the Lord is from generation to generation upon them that fear him and his righteousnesse upon childrens children For having shewed that the bodily death to which Adam was sentenced implied in it spritituall death and supposed the same according to S. Paul I may well say that he could not expresse that reason which Christians alledge to God for his compassion upon their infirmities more properly to the time and state of the Law then by alleging the death which our bodies are subject to as an argument of sinne which it is allotted to punish And the antithesis which follows between our short life and the continuance of Gods mercies to his servants of their posterity comes corespondently to set forth the grace of the Gospel though sparingly signified as under the Law And here I must not forget the Wise mans exhortation Wisdome I. 12 Affect not death through the error of your life nor purchase destruction through the workes of your hands For God made not death nor taketh pleasure in the destruction of the living For he made all things to indure And the beginnings of the world were healthful and no deadly poyson among them nor any dominion of hell upon the earth For righteousnesse is immortall But the wicked with their words and works purchased it And thinking it their friend decayed and made a covenant with it because they are worthy to be on the side of it Here it is evident that the speech is of temporall death but so that by it is intimated spirituall death according to that which hath oft been observed and will oft come to be observed that the mystery of Christianity intimated in the old Testament begins more plainly to be discovered in these books then in the canonicall Scriptures And therefore though the purchase of death is attributed to the evil words and works of the wicked yet seeing it hath taken place over all the world contrary to the first institution of God thereby he leaves us to argue the corruption of nature which moveth mankinde to take pleasure in those workes by which death takes place Last of all I will allege not the authority of the Book of Job which is not questionable but the authority of the Greek Translation of it Be the author thereof who may be be the authority thereof what it may be it is manifest how ancient it is and that it came from the people of God while they continued the people of God and hath passed the approbation of the Apostles When therefore it is said that no man is clear of sin no not the infant of one day old upon earth It remaineth manifest that this was the sense of the then people of God As it appeares also by Philo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That to sinne is a property born with all that are born in as much as it is come to birth And divers sayings of the Heathens might be alledged as obscure arguments of that truth which the Gospel is grounded upon But that I conceive the disorders of the world the greatest whereof that can be named is that which I named even now of the worship of Idols are greater and more evidences of the same then any sayings of Writers Which therefore it will not be requisite to heap into this abridgement CHAP. XII The Haeresie of Simon Magus the beginning of the Gnosticks
then if nothing were revealed CHAP. XVIII The necessity of the grace of Christ is the evidence of originall sinne How the exaltation of our Lord depends upon his humiliation and the grace of Christ upon that All the work of Christianity is ascribed to the grace of Christ Gods predestination manifesteth the same THese things thus premised the evidence which I make for originall sinne from the grace of Christ as for the grace of Christ from originall sinne consists in this proposition That not onely the preaching of the Gospel but also the effect of it in converting us both to the profession and conversation of Christians is granted in consideration of the obedience of Christ for the cure of that wound which the disobedience of Adam made Here I must note that the conversation of Christians as it requireth and presupposeth the profession of Christianity so it comprehendeth all parts and offices of a mans life to be guided and lead according to that will and law of God which his word declareth So that to prove my intent it will be requisite to shew that it is through those helps which the grace of God by Christ that is in consideration of his obedience and sufferings furnisheth that any part of a mans duty is discharged like a Christian Which otherwise would have been imployed to the satisfaction of those inclinations which the corruption of mans nature by the fall of Adam hath brought forth This to do I will begin as afore with the Epistle to the Romanes In the beginning whereof S. Paul having proved that which Pelagius and Socinus both allow that there is no salvation without Christianity and coming to render a reason for the necessity thereof from those things which I pressed afore concerning the disobedience of Adam proceeds to maintain it by the antithesis of Christs obedience thus Rom. V. 15-19 having begun to say that Adam is the figure of him that was to come But the grace is not as the transgression For if by one mans transgression many are dead much more hath the grace of God and gift through the grace of one man Jesus Christ abounded to many Nor is the gift as that which came by one that sinned For judgement came of one to condemnation but the free gift is of many transgressions to righteousnesse For if by one mans transgression death reigned through one much more shall they who receive the abundance of the grace and the gift of righteousnesse reign in life through one Jesus Christ Therefore as by the transgression of one the matter proceeded to condemnation upon all so by the righteousnesse of one to justification of life For as by the disobedience of one many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous Here whosoever acknowledgeth that righteousnesse comes by Christ which the free gift that brings from many transgressions to righteousnesse and the abundance of the grace and gift of righteousnesse unto life manifestly argues can neither refuse the contrary unrighteousnesse which causeth condemnation and death to come from Adams sin nor yet the grace which voids it called by S. Paul the gift which comes through the grace of one man Jesus Christ that is that grace which he hath obtained with God to be granted in consideration of Christ through whom the Apostle saies they that receive the gift of righteousnesse shall raign in life For how shall they raign in life through him and through the gift of righteousnesse but that through him they receive the gift of righteousnesse Therefore S. Paul lamenting afterwards the conflict between sinne and grace Rom. VII 22 -25 I am content with the Law of God according to the inward man But I see another Law in my members warring with the Law of my mind and captivating me to the Law of sinne that is in my members Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ To wit because from God in consideration of J. Christ and his obedience and not onely through the doctrine which he taught he had help to overcome in so great a conflict Wherefore it followeth immediately Rom. VIII 1-4 There is therefore now no more condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the Law of sinne and death For whereas the inability of the Law was weake through the flesh God sending his Sonne in the likenesse of sinnefull flesh and for sinne condemned sinne in the flesh that the righteousnesse of the Law might be fulfilled in us that walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Whether you understand the Law of the Spirit of Life or Life to come in by or through Christ Jesus if we be freed from the Law of sin and death by Christ then by the helps God gives in consideration of his obedience For how is sin condemned in the flesh but because it is executed And how executed but because we are inabled to put it to death And how by Christs death but by the helps which God grants in consideration of it Therefore it followeth a little after If man have not the Spirit of Christ he is not his But if Christ be in you the body is dead indeed because of sinne but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies through his spirit that dwelleth in you That Spirit which makes righteousnesse a Law to us by Christ shall raise againe these mortall bodies which shall be destroyed because of sinne So as our rising from death is purchased by the resurrection of Christ so our rising from sin by his death which purchased his rising againe For consider what S. Paul writes againe of our Lord Christ Phil. II. 5-11 For Let that sense be in you that was also in Christ Jesus who being in the forme of God made it no occasion of pride that he was equal with God But emptied himself taking the forme of a servant becoming in the likenesse of man and being found in habit as a man humbled himself becoming obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse Therefore God also hath overexalted him and given him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should how of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confesse to the glory of God the Father that Jesus Christ is the Lord. Where seeing iâ— is manifest by the premises that our humbling of our selves is with God the consideration upon which he promises to exalt us being as hath appeared the condition of the Covenant of Grace it cannot be denied that the humiliation of Christ was the consideration for which he was
Whatsoever my Father giveth me shall come to me And No man can come to me unlesse my Father that sent me draw him And the Apostle 1 John VI. 19. We love him because he loved us first Heb. XII 2. Every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights with whom is no change or shadow of turning Gal. VI. 3. If any man think himself something being nothing he deceives himself Heb. XIII 22. God make you of one mind in every good work to do his will working in you that which is acceptable before him through Jesus Christ To wit by the meanes of his Spirit 2 Tim. â— 9 10. It is God that hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but his owâ— purpose and grace given us through Christ Jesus before eternall times but now manifested by the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ having abolished death but shined forth life and incorruption by the Gospel The abolishing of death and the declaration of eternall life wherein the calling of men to Christianity consists together with the saving of us which is effected by meanes of the Sonne how these things come by Christ we learn from his words John XII 24 31 32 33. Verily verily I say unto you If a graine of wheat fall not into the earth and dy it remaineth alone But if it dy it beareth much fruit And Now is the judgement of this world Now shall the prince of this world be cast forth And I when I am lifted uâ— from the earth will draw all men to me This he said signifying what death he should dy But signifying also what should be the force and effect of that death Then those Scriptures which make charity to be the gift of God and of the holy Ghost John IV. 7. Rom. V. 5. 1 Cor. XII 31. XIII 1. Gal. V. 22. which holy Ghost our Lord Christ by his death hath obtained for us as afore Unto all which I will adde in the last place those which speake of the predestination of God as it signifies no more then the preparation of that grace from everlasting whereby we are saved in time S. Paul indeed when he excludes the presumption which the Jews had of being saved by the Law as the Fathers they thought were distinguishing between the seed of Abraham according to the flesh and according to promise Rom. IX 6-13 which promise he supposes to be the forerunner of Christs Gospel Manifestly declares no more then the question which he is there engaged in requires him to declare To wit that they were not saved by virtue of the Law but by virtue of that Grace which now the Gospel openly tendereth So that Israel and Esau holding the figure of the Jews that expected to be saved by the works of the Law Isaac and Jacob consequently answer the Christians who expect salvation not by their birth but by Gods promise not by works but by him that calleth To wit to the said promise Whereby it appeareth that the words of the Prophet which he alledgeth Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated signify no more according to the spirituall sense of the Old Testament which the New Testament yeildeth but the accepting of the Church in stead of the Synagogue of the Christians in stead of the Jews And that this is the purpose of God according to choice which S. Paul speakes of immediately afore In as much as God purposed from the beginning when first he took the seed of Abraham from among the Nations to place his name among them that his choice ones of Isaacs posterity as well as Abrahams should be those that bore the figure of the Christian Church promised afore and born upon the promise that they should be beloved All this being granted which I count most true and undeniable notwithstanding the purpose of God according to choice as it expresses a declaration of receiving the Church in stead of the Synagogue so it implies and presupposes a purpose of God to make and to build Christs mysticall body which is the Church upon which purpose of God all those prophesies are grounded whereby God foretelleth of his new people Israel according to the Spirit which Christians know to be those children which he raised up to Abraham out of the stones For we cannot think so slightly of Gods providence that by foretelling this secret he obliges himself onely to finde sufficient meanes to convert men to Christianity But also those which should take effect and bring to passe the conversion of the World to Christianity by the Gospel of Christ Seeing then that the Church is nothing but the souls whereof it consisteth and that the foreknowing and the foretelling of the Church which Christians believe to be fulfilled consisteth in foreknowing and foretelling the conversion of those persons who have constituted and shall constitute the number of believers from the preaching of Christianity til the worlds end It followeth that this purpose of God according to election can no way stand without an intent of God to bring the said election that is this multitude of Gods choice ones to Christianity whether by the preaching of the Gospel or by the helps which depend thereupon as it depends upon Christs death And this is most manifest by S. Pauls answer to an objection which followes upon his conclusion of this point That if God hath mercy upon whom he pleaseth and pardons whom he pleaseth he has no cause to complaine of any man to wit of the Jews who believe not because no man can resist his will That is to say because he is able to convert them if he please Which inference S. Paul not denying that God could convert the unbelieving Jews if he pleased thus avoideth Nay O man who art thou that disputest with God shall the pot say to the potter Why hast thou made me thus and afore What shall we say then Is there injustice with God God forbid For he saith to Moses I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I compassionate So it is not in the willing nor in the running but in God that shewes mercy Rom IX 18 19 20. 15 16. Where it is plaine that S. Paul no way denies the truth of the assumption That God may if he please imploy such meanes as shall make any man a Christian How he avoides the consequence is another matter and not belonging to this dispute inasmuch as it is manifest to all that understand learning that it is one thing to prove a truth another to clear the objections that ly against it That I shall indeavour to do before I leave the businesse In this I shall think thus much evidenced by the premises that God who knew from the beginning of the sending of Christ and inabling his Apostles and their successors of the Church to convict the world of it who should obey the Gospel and who
Catechising which the Church tendered those who stood for Baptisme the subject of that Thanksgiving which the Eucharist was consecrated with do more effectually evidence the common sense of Christians in the mater of our common Christianity then the sayings of divines being solicitous so to maintaine the grace of God that the free will of man which the interest of our common Christianity equally obligeth us justly to maintaine may suffer no prejudice How much more when it is to be justified that those sayings of divines expounded by other sayings of their owne and principles evidently acknowledged by themselves can create no other sense then the necessity of preventing grace might the Church be able and obliged to proceed to those decrees Though as for the persons whom we do not find involved in any further censure then the mark set upon their writings by the See of Rome as there is cause to think that respect was had to them because their principles did not really ingage them in any contradiction to the faith of the Church So is there cause to think that being better informed in it by the treaty of that Council they surceased for the future all opposition to the decrees of it For the evidence of that which hath been said in the point of fact I remit the reader to my author so oft named with these considerations pointing out the consequence of each particular His ingenuity learning and diligence is such that I have neither found my self obliged to quarrel at any thing that he hath delivered in point of historicall truth nor to seek for more then he hath laid forth And by that which hath been said we presume not that the preaching of the Gospel is not the grace of Christ which Pelagius acknowledged necessary to salvation but that the determination of the will to imbrace that grace which the grace of the gospel tendereth is not effected by the will alone without those helps of grace which are granted in consideration of Christ though depending upon the preaching of the Gospel and the reasons and motives which it tendereth to imbrace it Here then you see I might have made a great book to set forâ—h those things which are commonly alledged by those that write of the great dispute between grace and free will now on foot to show what the Church insisted upon and what reasons it did proceed upon against Pelagius But because there is no question made of all this by those that deny the consequences of it it shall serve my turne to have pointed out the reasons of those consequences and now to take notice of this great dispute which is come in my way so crosse that it is not possible for me to voide the difficulties which I have undertaken concerning the Covenant of Grace without voiding of it For having first shewed that the condition which the Covenant of Grace requires on our part consists in an act of mans free will to imbrace and persevere in Christianity till death And now that man is not able to perform this condition without the help of Gods grace by Christ The question is at the height how the act of free will depends upon Gods free grace and a man becomes intitled to the promise for doing that which without the help of Gods grace he cannot do And this the greater because if the help of grace determine the free will of them that imbrace and persevere in Christianity so to do then it seems the sinne and damnation of those that do not so is to be imputed to the want of those helps and Gods appointment of not giving them to those that have them not CHAP. XX. Wherein Originall sinne consisteth What opinions are on foot That it is not Adams sinne imputed to his posterity Whether man were at the first created to a supernaturall end or not An estate of meer nature but innocent possible Originall sinne is Concupiscence How Baptisme voids it Concerning the late novelty in the Church of England about Originall sinne THIS inquiry must begin with the question about originall sinne wherein it consists because thereupon depends the question of the effect and consequence thereof which is to say what is the estate wherein the Gospel of Christ overtakes the naturall man For it is well enough known that there is a question yet on foot in the Church Whether Originall sinne do consist in Concupiscence or in the want of Originall righteousnesse which having been planted in our first parents their posterity ought to have And whosoever thinks there can be little difficulty in this dispute little considers the difficulty that S. Augustine found in satisfying the Pelagians how Concupiscence can be taken away by Baptisme which all Christians find to remaine in the regenerate Seeing there can be no question made that Originall sin is taken away by Baptisme Christianity pretending to take away all sinne and Baptisme being the solemn execution of Christianity that is the solemn profession of the Christian faith This is evidently the onely difficulty that driveth so many of the Schoole Doctors to have recourse not onely to S. Anselms devise of the want of originall righteousnesse but to another more extravagant speculation of a state of pure nature which God might have created man in had he not thought more fit of his goodnesse to create him in a state of supernaturall grace that is to say indowed with those gifts and graces that might inable him to attaine that happinesse of the world to come which is now promised to Christians This state of pure nature they hold to be liable to concupiscence as the product by consequence of the principles of mans nature compounded of a materiall and spirituall a mortall and immortall substance and originally inclined the one to the sensual good of the body the other to the spiritual good of the soul here which the eternal good of it is consequent to in the world to come The nature of man liable to this condition they say was prevented by supernaturall grace as a bridle to rule and moderate the inclination of nature not to come into effect so long as so over-ruled But so that this grace being forfeited by the rebellion of Adam consequently it came into effect without more adoe and that by consequence originall sinne cannot consist in this opposition between the inclinations to sensuall and spirituall good which man hath but in the want of that grace from whence it proceedeth This controversie Doctor Field in his learned work of the Church counteth to be of such consequence that he maintaineth all the difference which the Reformation hath with the Churche of Rome about Justification free will the merit of good works and the fulfilling of the Law and the like to be grounded upon it so that there can be no cause of difference supposing it to be set aside His reason is because the opinion of Justification by inherent righteousnesse supposes that the reluctation of our sensuall
Eve was the Mother of the living And though conceived in sin yet was not be in sin or sinfull But whether every one that turns from sin to Faith turn from sinfull custome as from his Mother to life one of the twelve Prophets will be my witnesse saying shall I give my first-born for impiety the fruit of my belly for the sin of my Soul He traduceth not him that said Increase and multiply but he calleth the first inclinations from our birth by which we are ignorant of God impieties He saith most truly that they cannot render a reason how we are born under Adams curse but by charging God He granteth actuall sin in conception but that not the sin of the Child that is conceived He saith the custome of sin may be our Mother Eve in the mysticall sense of David But he ascribeth it to those first motions from our birth which make mankind ignorant of God till they turn to Christianity Whether this be my plea or no let him that hath perused the Premises judge This same is to be said of S. Chrysostome in his Homily ad Neophytos denying that Infants are baptized because they are polluted with sin To wit that he appropriateth the name of sin to actuall sin But as Clemens acknowledges the first motions that we have from our birth to tend to ignorance of God So S. Chrysostome Hom. XI in VI. ad Rom. Hom. XIII in VII ad Rom. cleerly ascribes the coming in of concupiscence to Adams sin or rather to the sentence of mortality inflicted by God upon it wherein he is followed by Theodoret in V. ad Rom. observing that the want of things necessary to the sustenance of our mortality provokes excesses and that sins If this reason can generally hold so that all concupiscence may be said to be the consequence of mortality Christianity will be sound the necessity of Christs coming for the repair of Adams fall remaining the same But this is the reason why the same S. Chrysostome Hom. X. in VI. ad Rom. when S. Paul saith By one mans disobedience many are made sinners understandeth by sinners liable to death Concupiscence wherein Originall sinne consisteth as I have shewed being the consequence of mortality according to S. Chrysostome As for those that censure books at Oxford if they like not this I demand but one thing what they think of Zuinglius his Writings For I suppose none of them believes that Zuinglius holds originall sinne to be properly sinne or that infants are damned for it though whether they come to everlasting life or no notwithstanding their concupiscence which they are born with I find not that he saith Let them therefore choose whether they will censure Zuinglius his bookes or professe that they have the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons And therefore I do not understand why I should make any more of this difference of language then of that which was on foot in the ancient Church about the terms of hypostasis in the blessed Trinity among those who haâ—tily adhered to the Faith of the Church And I conceive I may compare it with the difference between the Latine and the Greek Church about the procession of the Holy Ghost whether from the Father and the Sonne oâ— from the Father by the Sonne For though I do believe with the Western Church that he proceedeth from both Yet the Eastern Church acknowledging as it doth from the Father by the Sonne If it had been in me the matter should never have come to a breach in the Church about that difference Even so the terme of Originall sinne being received in the Western Church to exclude the heresie of Pelagius I do not intend to take offence at the using or give offence by the refusing of it But I shall not therefore condemn those times or persons of the Church that used it not as unsound or defective in the Faith the Tradition whereof is not to be derived but by that which all parts agree in professing As for the punishment of everlasting torments upon infants that depart with it it is a thing utterly past my capacity to understand how it concerns the necessity of Christs coming that those infants who are not cured by it should be thought liable to them Would his death be in vaine would the Grace which it purchaseth be unnecessary unlesse those infants that have committed no actuall sinne go into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels Shall the corruption of our nature by the fall of Adam be counted a fable unlesse I be able to maintaine that infants are there or shew where they are if not there Or will any man undertake to shew me that consent of the whole Church in this point which is visible by the premises as concerning that corruption of nature which I challenge to be mater of Faith It is not to be denied that S. Augustine and enow after him have maintained it and perhaps thought that the Faith cannot be maintained otherwise But can that therefore be the Tradition of the whole Church which Doctors allowed by the Church do not believe In this as in other instances we see a difference between maters of Faith and Ecclesiasticall doctrines of which you have a Book of Gernadius intituled dâ— dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis For such positions as passe without offense when they are held and professed by such as injoy the communion of the Church or more then so rank of authority in it must necessarily be counted doctrines of the Church And yet if it appear that the contrary hath been held other whiles and else where they do not oblige our belief as matters of Faith As for the article of the Church of England which ascribeth the desert of Gods wrath and damnation to Originall sinne â— conceive it is alwaies the duty of every sonne of the Church so to interpret so to limit or to extend the acts of the Church of England that is the sense of them that it may agree with the Faith of the Catholick Church Because all such acts serve and are to serve onely to maintaine the Church of England a member thereof by maintaining the Faith of it How much more at this time that unity and communion which these acts tendred to maintain amongst our selves being irrecoverably violated by men equally concerned in the cherishing of it For admitting the Faith and the Laws of the primitive Church what can any Church allege why they are not one with us Not admitting them what can we alledge why we are not one with others It followeth therefore of necessity that the wrath of God and damnation which Originall sin deserveth according to the Article of the Church of England be confined to the losse and coming short of that salvation to which the first Adam being appointed the second Adam hath restored us There being no more to be had either by necessary consequence from the Scripture or by Tradition
absolute of punishing respective The end to which God predestinates is not the end for which he predestinates Grace the reward of the right use of Grace How much of the question the Gospell determines not That our indeavours are ingaged no lesse then if predestination were not it determineth Of the Tradition of the Church and of Semipelagians Predestinatians and Arminians I Am now come to the upshot of the controversy concerning the covenant of grace and free will in imbraceing and performing of the covenant of grace which is the dispute about Gods predestination whether it proceeds upon the absolute will of God or in consideration of mans being qualified as the gospel requires Which though of it selfe never so intricate the premises being supposed must of necessity be thus resolved That predestination being the appointment of grace and glory as reprobation on the other side the decree of not giving effectuall grace and of condemning to paine the appointment of glory and misery cannot be absolute but the appointment to actuall grace and perseverance or not necâ—ssarily is The reason supposing the premises is not liable to be contradicted in either part of it For it cannot stand with the wisdome and truth of God to execute his counsailes upon other reasons and in other considerations then from everlasting he purposed to do Therefore for what reason and in what consideration God shall in due time give life and death to them whom he shall give it to for the same reason he did resolve to give it from everlasting But nothing is more evident in Christianity then this that God at the last day shall give sentence of life and death according as men shall be found to have behaved themselves as Christians or not And all that I have premised to manifest the condition of the Covenant of grace makes good the same For the state of life or death cannot become any mans owne upon other termes then the right and title to it becomes his Therefore God from everlasting determined to give life oâ— death to every man in consideration of his being found qualified for this or for that according â—o those termes which the covenant of grace proposeth On the other side it being resolved that man as he is borne into the world is not able to do any thing that can oblige God to grant him those helps of grace which onely will be effectuall to inable him to imbrace and goe through with that condition which the gospell tendreth It is manifest that the reason why he provides effectually sufficient helps for some which others have not why he tenders them to some in those circumstances in which he knowes they will be effectuall to others not must take rise and begin at his owne free choice in granting maters of free grace to whom he pleaseth and not to others Though of each mans proceeding or not proceeding in the way of Christianity a reason is to be given from the good or bad use of those sufficient helps which he had been prevented with For seeing it was in the meere appointment of God to have caused any man to be borne or after to live where he should have met with sufficient helps to convict him of the truth of Christianity and those so presented to him as he best knew they would not be refused there is nothing more manifest then that it was onely in the meere will of God that it was appointed so as it is and not otherwise But this is no hinderance why the sufficient helps of Gods grace should not proceed from the Will of mans happinesse in God though they take no further effect through mans fauâ—â— And the having or not having of further helps which God either doth or might have seconded them with be imputed to the good or bad use of those which went afore Because it hath been made manifest by the premises that the end of Gods gifts is the happynesse of his creature though it come not to passe But the reason of the particulars which he actually bestowes or refuses is to be resolved into the quality of the persons that receive them or not but so that the order of all depending upon the first helps of free grace which every man is prevented with there is no reason to be given for the whole in the nature of a meritorious cause Against the two parts of this resolution there are two objections one against each which so far as we shall be able to resolve so far shall we be able to leave the businesse cleare For seeing that the end is fiâ—st desiâ—ed and then the meanes the reason why the meanes are desired being derived from the desire of the end and referred to it And that the end of all grace is glory the end of all the meanes of salvation the salvation intended by it It seemes that Gods predestination must of force appoint salvation to them that are to be saved in the first place from thence proceeding to designe the way and order by which the person designed to it may be induced of his owne free choice to accept the meanes of it This slight mistake seemes to have been the occasion of many horrible imaginations which even Christian divines have had of Gods designe from evarlasting to create the most part of men on purpose to gloâ—â—fie himselfe by condemning them to everlasting torments though in consideration of the sins which they shal have don That which had been granted in Gods predestination to life upon this mistake seeming necessarily to extend it selfe to his reprobation signifying the decree of condemning to everlasting torments But the mistake is that the end of the creature by Gods appointment is taken for Gods end Which though it be his end because he appointeth it for his creature yet it is not any end that he seeks for himselfe The reason is so punctually laid downe in the premises that it can be but repeated here That God being of himselfe sufficient for himselfe can have no end upon his creature Because nothing accrues to him nothing goes from him whatsoever accrues to his creature or goes from it And though God having now resolved to make the world for himselfe that is for his owne glory it is necessary we suppose him to designe the government of it so as it may be a fit meanes to obtaine that end yet is it to be much considered that God having once given a Law to his understanding creatures tendring happinesse as the reward of abiding by his Law it can no longer stand with that tender that it should be a fit meanes of Gods glory to give happynesse to his creature not considered as qualified by his law and therefore not to resolve to give it Whether we consider the interest of Gods justice in requiring that Law it cannot be imagined that the love of any creature can move him to waive it Or whether we consider his truth in making it good being once declared it is
is plaine that the objection is the same against S. Paul as against the resolution proposed For as this answer supposes the reason why the Gentiles were converted to be Christians the Jewes not to be resolved into the will of God so the resolution here proposed resolves the reason of the true Christianity and finall perseverance in it of those that shall be saved into that disposition of motives resolving free will which Gods free grace onely appointeth And the question is evidently the same if as one ingredient into the disposition of each mans salvation or damnation it be demanded why God suffered man to fall from the state of innocence but procureth that the preaching of the Gospell arrive at the knowledg of some people and not of others For if supposing sufficient helps of grace the reason where by they become effectuall is neverthelesse resolved into the immediate disposition of God Then though we consider man as not faâ—â—e from the state of innocence and resolve the reason why God should bring him into that estate in which he foresaw that he would fall intending to propagate his kind under the condition of this lapsed estate we have recourse to no other reason then that which S. Paul imployed before us Where we may see the fault which hath been committed by them who to attaine the end of his glory by the absolute salvation of some and damnation of others no otherwaies qualified then as such persons have made the object of Gods predestination to be mankind not made but to be made the purpose of making mankind being the next meanes subordinate to the attaining of that end which the first decree proposed to God For besides that this ingages God to procure the fall of man and the sins in which the reprobate finally persevere no otherwise then the grace in which the Elect depart it makes God to predestinate onely a number and to reprobate the same there being no other consideration possible to be had upon those that are supposed not to be as yet but onely that they may be so many as God shall appoint of either kind So that the glory of God according to this monstrous imagination shall consist onely in saving such a number and in damning such an other rather then one more or one lesse of either sort Neither is this inconvenience cured by the position of those that have been called Sublapsariaus by as monstrous name as the other of Supralapsaians That God seeing mankind Lapsed from the state of innocence resolving to save so many of them to damne so many provided to send our Lord Christ with effectual means to save these leaving those unprovided of sufficient means to find their owne ruine For solong as those that are appointed to be saved and to be damned are qualified no otherwise then as men found in the common case of mans fall the glory of God is made to consist in damning somany of them and saving so many rather then one more or one lesse For the originall corruption in which we are borne though it renders the first Adam unrecoverable without the second yet it leaves every man in every instance undetermined to evill till by his owne choice of evill before good and the habit whâ—ch accrews by custome his naturall inclination to it become so determined that his choice determines without deliberating any more But suppose so many absolutely appointed to life and so many to death in this estate you suppose them respectively determined though not in particular what good or what evill they shall doe yet in generall to sin and to dye in sin or oâ— the other side to attaine the state of grace and to dye in it Vnlesse we thinke that God being God the absolute appointment of his Providence can â—e defeated Whereas in making God determine to save and to damne those who are qualified for each according to the Gospell But to give effectuall meanes of being so qualified to the one which out of his freedome he refutes the others granting them what he deemes to be sufficient we make the glory of God visible here in the one point not disparaging it if in the other it be for the present acknowledged with Saint Paul to be invisible For if there were any other Religion in the World which could pretend maintaynig the differences between good and bad the providence of God in all things and the reward of good and bad in another world to give further reason of the coming in and continuance of evill in the world there might be some pretense of prejudice to the priviledg which Christianity claimeth in maintayning those principles from the inability of declareing the reasons by which God dispenseth the meanes of his effectuall grace But there never was any other religion in the world that could pretend any such thing The Greekish Philosophers who were the Divines of the Gentiles some of them openly professed necessity and fate as the Stoicke thereby destroying freedome and contingence by the consequence Religion and all difference between good and bad much more the truth of Christianity consisting in a treaty for imbracing good and rejecting bad Others supposing this either renounced Providence and by consequence the being of God As Epicurus and his predecessors and followers or at least doubted of it in which mire it is more then probable that our master Aristotle sticks If with Plato and Pythagoras we suppose them clearely to acknowledge all this yet is there a way left either by making the materiall cause coexistent which God from everlasting with Plato or by presupposing those contrarieties of good and evill which Pithagoras imagined to have beene from everlasting made by consequence the principles of all that comes to passe in the World to advance some other cause of good and evill in this world then mans will under Gods providence And it is very remarkable that Epiphanius observes all the Sects of the Gnostickes whereof he of all others hath given us the most particulars proceeded upon a pretence of giving a reason for the coming in of evill into the world To wit by setting up two principles or Gods one the fountaine of evill the other of good Which together with the expresse testimonies of divers others of the Fathers witnessing that they had theire principles from the Greekish Philosophers seems to argue that they took their rise from a pretense of rendring an account of the beginning of evill as well as of good intimating thereby that Christianity did not sufficiently performe it as not pretending all to be declared till the generall judgement And this is the case of Marcionists Manichees For as for Jewes and Mahumetans I suppose there is no man so little read in the difference between them and Christians as to conceive that they can give account of Gods providence in the evill which he maintaineth to be in the world together with the meanes by which some come to life others to
death If Christians by their profession cannot doe it Nor is it to be doubted that the dispute about free will and providence consequently predestination so far as the world to come is acknowledged hath been and in part remaines alive as well among Gentiles Jewes and Mahumetans as we see it is among Christians So that we may justly inferr that seeing no other religion either antecedent to Christianity or that hath come after it can pretend that satisfaction to this dispute which Christianity giveth by the coming in of sin upon the fall of Adam that it is no disparagement to it not to be able to declare the reason of Gods proceeding with particular persons in dispensing to them the meanes of effectuall grace when it remaines manifest both that Christianity goes further in declaring the same then any other Religion can doe and that there may justly be those reasons reserved to God which he notwithstanding the grace which he publishes by Christ findeth no cause to declare The answer then to the objection consists in this That as it is not necessary for the maintenance of Christianity to give account why God disposeth of his effectuall grace as he doth So is there no opinion able to reconcile it to the freedome of mans will without the bonds of Christianity but that which maketh predestination to Glory conditionall to Grace absolute It may be the readers lot as it hath been mine to heare an objection cast forth That if Gods predestination be unmoveable it is vaine for Christans to indeavour to live as Christians And the answer so insufficient as to leave more offense in his mind then before it it was made According to that which is some times said That unskilfull Conjurers some times raise a Devil whom they cannot lay againe For certainely it serves not the turn to say That God as he hath appointed the end so hath appointed the meanes For it is the secret will of God which is alwaies effectuall that appoints the end But his revealed will that appoints the meanes by commanding comes not alwaies to effect And therefore if God have absolutly appointed the end he that knowes not whether he hath appointed it or not can have no reason to goe about the means till he knew it as absolutely appointed as the end is Nor servs it the turn to adxe to say further That God as he apointeth the end so he appointeth also the meanes to be freely imployed by man for the attaining it Which the opinion of Predetermination may say For all the incouragement this can give a man to imploy his freedome to any purpose is That if God determine him he shall freely imploy it if not he shall freely not imploy it to that purpose Which is to say in English That his freedome being called freedom but is not can not be imployed by him that is incouraged to imploy it And therefore it is reasonable for him to say I shall freely doe so if God hath appointed it and freely not do so if he have not appointed it If it be said further and that according to my opinion that no event is determined by God but supposing mans freewill and foreseeing what choice it will make upon the considerations which a man is outwardly or inwardly moved with Neither wil this be enough to move a reasonable mans indevours supposing himselfe absolutely predestinated to life or to death before For that life and death being absolutely appointed becomes Gods end though subordinate to a further end of his glory and not onely the end of the meanes which he provideth for it A thing no lesse destructive to the supreme Majesty of God then to that which I said afore For that which God absolutely desireth that he ingageth his supreme Majesty to execute and bring to effect Vnlesse it can be thought that a Soveraigne can be soveraigne and not stand obliged make it his Interest that no designe of his be defeated Which if God do what availeth it the creature that the will thereof is free and the effects of that will are not determined but by the free choice thereof Whenas being the will of a creature and necessary proceeding upon consideration of those objects which providence inwardly or outwardly presenteth it with it is by a former act of that providence determined to that which may and must be the meanes of producing that end which God had designed afore And upon these termes providence will stand ingaged not to permit but to procure the sins upon which the sentence of eternall death as the good works upon which the sentence of eternall life proceedeth And he who knows that whatsoever he doth though never so freely shall certainely bring him at length to that estate which God had appointed for him before he considered what he would or would not doe wâ—at reason can he have to imploy the indevours of his will to doe what God commandeth for the obtaining or avoiding of that which he hath appointed before any consideration of his indeavours But absolute Predestination to the first helps that effectually bring a man to the state of Grace produceth not the like consequence For as supposing good and bad in the world and that the Gospell is refused by some and imbraced by others it is meerely the worke of providence that a man is borne under the obligation of it or not and cannot be imputed to any act of his owne So he that supposeth that God hath not appointed him to life or to death but in consideration of his own doings shall no lesse stand obliged to follow those sufficient reasons of well doing which Gods spirit by the preaching of the Gospell meetes him with then if it did not lye in the worke of providence to make them effectuall or not As for all the rest of every manâ— life that falls between the time that he is sufficiently convinced that he ought to live and dye a good Christian and that state of grace or of sin in which he deceaseth It is evident that the helps of Grace are dispensed all along upon that reason of reward or punishment which the covenant of grace establisheth For seeing the Holy Ghost is promised to assist all Christians in the performing of that which they undertake by their Baptisme it cannot be imagined that God should destitute any christian of helps requisite of the fulfilling of his Christianity whose profession was not counterfeit from the beginning that is not so reall as it should have been untill he faile of complying with the motions of it There is in deed some difference of opinion according to which a difference will arise in the termes by which we expresse our selves in this businesse There be those in the Church of Rome who hold that a Christian once setled in the state of Grace may by Gods ordinary grace here live without even veniall sin till death Supposing this done the helps of grace which God assisteth such a man
with are the effects of his justice which consisteth in keeping promise Though Originally the effects of meere Grace because it was meere Grace that moved him to make that promise Those that hold absolute predestination to life or to death and justifying faith to be nothing but the revelation of a mans predestination to life can no more allow that such a one may fall from the state of Grace then that Gods promise can faile or Christs death be to no purpose So that not onely the sins which they doe are to them occasion of good as S. Paul saith that all things cooperate for good to them that love God Rom. VIII 28. but the permission which in that opinion is the procuring of them is an effect of their predestination to life according to this opinion also the helps of Geace are the effects of that Justice which consisteth in keeping as well as of that grace which was seen in making Gods promise though the condition of that promise be cleared in this opinion at the first instant that a man believeth in the other not till the last instant that he liveth Though I have already laid aside both the suppositions upon which this opinion standeth yet I suppose it not refuted as yet because there must be a time on purpose to consider the arguments which it pretendeth But because one of the contradictions which it involveth is this that making justification to consist in remission of sins it alloweth the regenerate to become guilty of sin and yet maintaineth him justified at the same time an other contradiction that it involveth must needs be this That the helps of Grace requisite to the saving of him that is justified which as I said afore according to this opinion are due to the elect by the justice of Gods promise are granted of meere grace to the Justifying of him who being justifyed is notwithstanding acknowledged to need remission of sin For to tye God by promise to helpe any man out of sin as often as he shall please to fall back into sin who of Grace may allow waies freely to do it is to make the Gospel a passeport for sin And therefore notwithstanding this opinion I shall not let to presume here before I have spoken to it that the helps of grace requisite to the recovering of him that is falne from the state of grace come not by the vertue of the promise wherein the Covenant of Grace consisteth the right whereof is forfeited in that case but by vertue of that meere grace which first moved God to tender it though in consideration of the merits and suffering of our Lord Christ which purchased it Whereupon the truth is that the helps of grace that are requisite to maintaine them in the state of grace which have attained it are due by that justice of God which consisteth in keeping promise And though Gods cleare dealing with man requires that from the first heareing of the Covenant of grace that is from the first preaching of the Gospell or from the first calling of him that is fallne from the state of grace a man be inabled to imbrace that which is tendred yet that he shall effectually imbrace it will alwaies remaine the effect of meere grace So the gifts of nature and the death of Christ for mankind are provided by God for the salvation of all not as Gods end but as the end of the said meanes which he provideth But that by providing the death of Christ for the salvation of mankind he oblâ—geth himself to grant them who never heard of Christ inspirations and revelations convicting them that they are to be Christians as he obligeth the Church to cause them to heare of Christ I grant not though I find it not to be prejudiciall to the Faith Because then must all men be judged by the Gospell of Christ reason being showed that they to whom it is not preached shall be judged by the Law of Nature And upon these termes S. Paul may reject the demand Why God should complaine seeing no man can resist his will but he may make whomsoever he shall please a good Christian But God to have absolutely appointed all men to life or to death and so to be ingaged by the interest of his Soveraigne Majesty not to see his designe defeated but to provide the meanes by which he designeth to bring his appointment to passe S. Paul might allow the demand and his Gospell to have no answer for it And therefore the comparison of the potter that followes though it hold thus farre that God indeed makes the vessels that come to honour and shame in the world to come by the government of him that made them yet it holdeth not in this that Gods glory is interested to procure them to be saved that shall be saved and them damned that shall be damned as it concerneth the potters trade to be furnished aswel with vessels for dishonourable as for honourable uses Nor wil the instance of Pharaoh bear it according to S. Pauls words For had God spared Pharaohs life out of a designe to bring him to those torments which his obstinacy in refusing the plagues that succeeded should deserve he could not be said to beare with much long-suffering the vessells of wrath that are fit to be destroyed though intending at length to show wrath and make his power known The decree then of predestination proceeding partly upon the terms of the gospell but in those things to which the Gospell extendeth not and in those men that shall be judged by the law of Nature upon the Soverainty of God the reasons whereof either we cannot understand or God will not declare contayneth all the decrees whereby the motives upon which God foresees a man will imbrace and persevere in his Christianity to the end or not persevere to the end whether he imbrace it or not or finally not so much as hearing of it will resolve for the better or for the worse from the beginning of his life to the end of it which our understanding necessarily distinguisheth by the objects which they bring to passe The order of them is the same with the reasons which the Sripture inableth us to give for the effects which they produce either in the nature of the finall or meritorius cause speaking onely of that which comes from Gods declared will not from his secret pleasure Which as it alwaies verifieth his declared will so extends to that which the other compriseth not And it is as easy to comprise in the same decree which is the pure essence of God willing to glorifie it selfe by doing that which it might have glorified it selfe by doing otherwise the order of the reasons upon which all mankind comes to that estate in which they shal continue everlastingly in the world to come Seeing then all the effects of it fall not under Gods revealed will there can be no reason given for the whole decree whether respective to any man or
to the intrinsecall value of the workes which freewill alone doth but to the promise annexed by God to the works which freewill by the help of Grace purchased by Christ produceth It was no marvaile indeed that they who had overseen the actuall helps of Grace should a scribe the merit of habituall grace so the language of that time spoke to the act of freewill in beginning to believe that is to be a Christian as not depending upon that operation of grace which themselves supposed though they oversaw it But it were ridiculous to think that he who by the preaching of the Gospel and the reasons which it letteth forth why men are to be Christians is effectually moved to become a Christian is not to impute his being so to that grace which preventeth him with those reasons How much more when those reasons are acknowledged to be the instrument whereby the Holy Ghost worketh a mans conversion at the first or his perseverance at the last is it necessary to impute it to the grace of Christ that is to those helps which God in regard to Christs death preventeth us with Surely should grace immediately determin the wil to it the effects that should be imputable to grace would be the same neither the cov of grace nor the experience of common sense remaining the same which wil not allow such a chang in a mans life as becoming a good christian of an enemy to Christs Crosse to succeed without an express change in the wil upon reasons convincing the judgement that this world is to be set behind the world to com It is now to be acknowledged that S. Austine writing against these mens positions as they were revealed to him by the letters of Prosper and Hilary his book now extant de Praedestinatione sanctorum de dono Perseverantiae hath determined the reason why one man is converted and persevereth unto death an other not to consist in nothing that can resolve into any act of mans will but ends in Gods free appointment That Pope Celestinus writing to the Bishops of Gaule upon the sollicitation of the same Prosper and Hilary in recommendation of S. Austines dostrine then so much questioned in those parts determines not onely the sufficience but the efficacy of the meanes of Grace to come from Gods Grace That the second councile of Orange determining the same in divers particulares concerning the conversion of man to become a true Christian concerning his perseverance to the end in that estate hath onely determined that by the helpe and assistance of Christ and the grace received in Baptisme a Christian may if he will faithfully labour fullfill whatsoever his salvation requireth Is there any thing in all this to signifie that a mans will before he determine is determined by God to imbrace Christianity and persevere in it to the end or not That every man is determined to everlasting glory or paine without consideration of those deeds of his for which at the last he shall be sentenced to it and either suffer or injoy it Here I must have recourse againe to Vossius his Collections finding them sufficient and my model not allowing me to say more Whether no helpe of Grace but that which takes effect be sufficient That is whether men refuse Christianity or faile of performing it because they could not imbrace and persevere in it or because they would not when they might let him that shall have perused what he hath collected in the second part of this seventh book say as to the perswasion of the whole Church Whether God would have all men to be saved and hath appointed the death of our Lord Christ to that intent let him that shall have perused the first part of the same Thesi II. III. give sentence what the Church hath allwaies believed No lesse manifest is it by that which he saith there parte II. thesi II. Parte III. thes I. II. that there is no reason to be given why any man sinneth or is damned because God would have it so On the contrary that the reason why a man is not saved to whom the Gospell is tendred is because he refuseth it which God for his part tendreth to all mankind In fine that the Catholike Church from the beginning believed no more then that those who should believe and persevere to the end good Christians were appointed by God to be saved Understanding this to be don by vertue of Gods Grace for which no reason can be rendred from any thing that a man can doe as preventing all his indeavours I acknowledg to appeare by that which he hath said Lib. VI. thes VIII When therefore S. Austine maintainneth as I have acknowledged that he doth mainetaine that the reason why one man is converted and perseveres unto death another not resolves into Gods meere appointment I will not dispute whether this be more then the whole Church delivereth for that which it is necessary to salvation to believe It is enough for me to maintaine that it seemeth to follow by good consequence of the best reasons that I can see from that sense of our Lord and his Apostles doctrine which the Church hath alwaies taught Which will allow me to maintaine as well the predetermination of the will as absolut predestination to glory and paine to be inconsistent as with the Covenant of Grace so with the Tradition of the Church I find that Gennadius being manifestly one of those in Gaule that contradicted some thing of S. Austines doctrine by his commending of Faustus and Cassiane and censuring not onely Prosper who confuted Cassianus but even S. Austine in his booke of Eclesiasticall writers in a certaine addition to that list of heresies which S. Jerom hath made reckoneth them in the list of the Heretickes condemned by the Church who teach absolute Predestination under the name of Predestinatians After him not onely Hincmarus of Rheims condemning Gotescalcus a Monk of his Province for maintayning it being transmitted to him by Rabanus of Ments who in a Synod there had condemned him for the same hath supposed it condemned for an heresy by the ancient Church but also before Hincmarus Arnobius that hath expounded the Psalms called Arnobius the younger by some and a certaine continuation of S. Hieromes Cronicle under the the name of Tiro Prosper the one contradicteth them the later mentions that they had their beginning from S. Austins writings Sirmondus also the learned Jesuite hath published a peece so ancient that pretending to make a list of Heresies it goeth no further then Nestorius reckoning next after him the Predestinatians as those who derived themselves from S. Austines doctrine To which it is well enough knowne what opposition is now made by them who believe not that there ever was any such Heresy but that the adversaries of S. Austine in Gaule do pretend that such a Sect did indeed rise upon misunderstanding his Doctrine And certainely there are properly no Heretickes
paines to make them partizans in questions which they understand not and give them the confidence to censure for Arminians those that resolve them in such termes as they comprehend not Neverthelesse at the last judgement of God they may have cause to complaine of them if not for teaching them to tye knoâ—s which they cannot teach them to loose yet for inducing them to breake the peace of the Church to obtaine freedome of professing or imposing upon others the beliefe of things thus prejudiciall to Christianity In the meane time it shall be enough for me by this short resolution to have drawn a line which they that will tread the Labyrinth of this dispute may be guided by the best that I can show from falling headlong on either side Not doubting that the skill of those who being more traded in it resolve to avoid both extremities may produce that information which may oblige me for further intelligence as well as the rest of the Church But having confidence that the denying of Gods Predetermination is not the denying of Gods effectuall Grace which I have showed that it doth stand with freewill according to the supposition that I advance though I undertake not to show how reason reconciles the parts of it And truly I am confident that when S. Austine in his book de Correptione Gratia distinguishes between that help of Grace without which we cannot obay the Gospell of Christ and that help by which we do it auxilium quo auxilium sine quo non and whensoever else he makes the efficacy of Grace to attaine the doing of that which it effecteth not onely the inabling of man to do it he never intended to determine the maner how it is effected For though S. Austin himselfe hath balked the ground which himselfe had laid for the distinction between the antcedent and consequent will of God in his book de Spiritu litera Chap. XXXIII by bringing in other expositions of S. Pauls words God would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledg of the truth that are inconsistent with it Though I have not found him distinguish betweene necessity upon supposition and antecedent as Anselme in pursuance of his Doctrine hath don yet he that shall read what he hath said of the redemption of all mankind upon Psalm XCV besides abundance of other passages whereby he concurreth to witnesse that sense of the redemption of all mankind of Gods will that all be saved of sufficient Grace that is not effectuall which the Church generally declareth as I showed you before I say he that considereth them will find it more reasonable to reconcile him to his owne doctrine then to pretend a change in his judgement where he acknowledges none as in the mater of preventing Grace he doth not acknowledge Certainely seeing that Prosper in defending him frequently and clearely acknowledges Christ to have dyed for all mankind out of Gods will that all might be saved But the author of the book de â—â—catione Gentium never yet suspected for a partizane of the Semipelagians hath so plentifully maintained it during the time that the parties in Gaule charged one another for Semipelagians and Praedestinatians For during that time was it writ without peradventure they will never deserve well of S. Austine that defend him otherwise So far are we from being obliged by his doctrine to acknowledge grace to come to effect by Gods predetermining the wil of man to all that coms to passe when I have shâ—wed a supposition according to which it may be don without prejudice to Christianity though beyond my understanding to show how For supposing the common faith to be this That God appointeth them to life or to death whom he foreseeth to imbrace or not imbrace Christianity and to persevere or not persevere in the practice of it till death Can it not be true also that he hath appointed some and not others the meanes whereby he foresees that they will persevere Nay if some only persevere in the state of Grace when all might as the Council of Orange hath decreed what is there but Gods will to create the difference much more between them that never heare of the Gospell and those that refuse it And what hath Christianity hereupon to answer but Porphyries question why Christ came not afore That is why God suffered man to fall and sin to come into the world Why he maketh not all men true Christians when he might For one answer would serve all these questions Which if it be a scandall to Christianity that it is not answered it remaines that Christians be Porphyries disciples In the mean time absolute predestination to grace infers not absolute predestination to glory Nor obliges God to procure sin as the meanes to his end or as the meanes to that meanes to predetermine mans will to doe it But did Saint Austines doctrine in my opinion containe any thing contrary to the doctrine of the rest of the Church concerning the antecedent consequent will of God the coming of evill into the world and that the foreknowledge of God does not effect but suppose it the freedome of the will from necessity while slave to sin I would think my selfe obliged to renounce him that I might adhere to the rest of the Church Counting it a thing ridiculous and contrary to the principles of Christian truth acknowledging the tradition of Faith to come from the whole Church to advance the doctrine of a member thereof though so eminent as S. Austine against that which the rest of the Church is acknowledged to have taught If iâ— be said that the supposition of Gods foreseeing the event of mens resolutions by the objects and considerations which he appoints them to be moved with is an invention of the Jesuites or at least hath been much maintained by them I demand what advantage they have that espouâ—e the supposition of the Dominicans the first Inquisitors that is Ministers of persecution for Religion by the interest of the Church of Rome with secular powers Especially adding unto it the position of justifying faith by believing that we are predestinate so destructive to the Covenant of Grace Yet I give the reader that is willing to take the paines of being informed notice that the supposition which I advance is rather in the forme that is to be collected out of Durandus then in that which the Iesuites since have given it In fine let Maldonat and Jesuites think it their honour to professe that they like not such and such expositions of scripture because they come from the Hereticks by which names we know whom they meane Let Puritan preachers coâ—fe their simple heareâ—s with a prejudice against all that they like not as drawne from Arminians or Jesuites whose positions they understood not and when they are understood are nearer the truth then their owne I shall find my selfe never the lesse oâ—liged to follow that truth for Christs sake which I
people without expressing any consideration in regard whereof he would doe it And likewâ—se our Lord in the Parable of the master that forgave his servant ten thousand talents Mat. XIIII 23 Seemes to expresse Gods pardon which his Gospell publisheth to be free from any consideration in which it is either proclaimed or granted But as I said to our Antinomians who will needes beleive upon the warrant of the Prophets words that their sinnes are pardoned meerely in consideration of Christ without regard to any disposition requisite to qualify them for it by the Gospell That it was neither requisite nor fit that the termes upon which the blessinges promised by the Gospell are granted should be expressed by the Propheâ—y that onely foretelleth the coming of it being to be gathered from that proportion which the Law in regard of the land of promise holds to the Gospell in regard of the world to come So say I to the Socinians who will needs have the same wordes to signify That supposing the disposition that qualifies for the promises of the Gospell they suppose no consideration of the obedience of of Christ That though the termes of the Gospell are not expressed by the Prophet foretelling the coming of it as being included in those of the Law by virtue of the proportion aforesaid it were strange to thinke that the coming and death of Christ is not sufficient since to determine the meaning of the Prophets words to it And so likewise to the Parable that if our Saviour found it not fit to expresse the consideration upon which the pardon which the Gospell publishes is passed yet his death and suffringes coming after to interpret the intent of that which he hâ—d said before that was to be declared it is strange that they should not be thought sufficient to adde that consideration which before he had neither expressed nor denyed As for the free grace of the Gospell I challenge all the reason in the world to say If Gods free act in providing the means of salvation by Christ and sending him to publish the conditions upon which he is ready to be reconciled to those that accept them tendering withall sufficient help so to doe be not a valuable reason for which the Gospell is to be called the Covenant of grace though granted in consideration of thâ—t ransome by Christ which the free grace of God provideth Whether our Antinomians have not as good reason to say that the promises of the Gospell are not free if they require the condition of Christianity as the Socinians if they suppose Christ and his obedience Here followes I confesse a very valuable reason of Socinus so long as that satisfaction of Christ which the Church teacheth is not understood which it is no mervaile if it cary them aside not understanding the faith and doctrine of the Church aright They allege that there can be no ground in reason upon which one man may be punished for another mans sinne Guilt being a morall consequence of an act that is naturally past and gone that is for the present nothing in rerum natura upon a due ground of reason which imputes the acts of reasonable creatures to their account because they are under a Law of doing thus and not otherwise But that thâ— sinnes of one man should be imputed to another who cannot be obliged for another to doe or not to doe that which redounds to the others account if done or not done is no more possible then that he should have done or not done that which the other is supposed to have done or not done If it be said that Christ voluntarily took upon him the punishment of our sinnes as a surety answeres for his freinds debt It is acknowledged that this way turnes off the Debt from him that it is payd for to the surety but extinguishes it not as the undergoing of punishment extinguishes the crime in all the Justice of the world so that he who had right to punish can exact that no more for which he hath received satisfaction once Which is to say that the sufferinges of Christ are not the punishment of our sinnes And I truely doe freely acknowledge that the instances which have been brought either out of the scriptures to show that one man hath been punished for another mans sin among civil people so that it is not to be thought against the light of nature are either insufficient or impertinent to the case For I have learned from my beginning in the Schooles that God when he visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children does not inflict upon them more punishment then their owne sinne deserues but makes their sinnes his opportunity of bringing to passe his judgements against the sinnes of their predecessors or those who in regard of other relations are reasonably taken to be punished by their punishment And this I will here prove no further but taking it for granted inferre that it comes not home to the case of our Lord Christ purchasing us by his death remission of sinnes everlasting life But my reason is because it is evident to me that one mans doings or sufferings may be understood or said to be imputed to another two wayes First immediately and personally supposing that there is a ground in reason for it And this that opinion requires which holds that faith which alone justifieth to consist in beleiving that a man is praedestinate to life meerely in consideration of Christs death suffering for the elect alone For how should we be justified by beleeving this but supposing that Christ suffered upon this ground to this purpose But having showed this opinion to be utterly false by showing that the Gospell supposes the condition of Christianity in that Faith which alone justifieth I must here presume that this sense of the imputation of Christs merits and therefore this intent of his death is meerely imaginary And the supposition whereupon it proceedes to wit that one mans doings or sufferings may be personally and immediately imputed to another mans account utterly unreasonable And therefore must and doe say that as it is sufficient so it is true that the sufferings of Christ are imputed unto us in the nature of a meritorious cause moving God to gâ—ant mankind those termes of reconcilement which the Gospell importeth This is evident by the opposition which S. Paul maketh betweene the disobedience of Adam and the obedience of Christ Rom. V. 12. 18. 19. Where discovering the ground of our reconcilement with God whâ—ch the Gospell publisheth he imputeth it to the obedience of Christ in the rest of his discourse attributing it to his death For having said that Christ died for us being sinners and that we are justified by his bloud and reconciled by the death of his sonne being enimies he inferreth therefore as by one man sinne came into the world and death by sinne and so death passed upon all Signifying by the other part of the comparison which he rendreth not
from damnation by his sufferings And therefore that this cannot be the intent of Christs descent into hell which the Apostles Creed declares I pretend not here to dispute what are the paines of the damned or what were the paines of the soul which our Lord Christ indure-ed upon the Crosse Or in order to it How essentially requisite it is in the paines of the damned that they should despair of Gods favour for ever and therefore ever to come free of that estate This I inferre upon the premises that the redemption of mankind doth not require that Christ should suffer the same kind of paines which we must have suffered had not â—e interposed for us But that he tendred that obedience to God in undergoing whatsoever the execution of that commission which God hâ—d imposed upon him required which coming from the Sonne of God was valuable in worth to move God to dispense in that Original Law which he had made the rule of our actions by right of our creation upon paine of everlasting death and to allow everlasting life upon remission of sinnes to all that should imbrace Christianity For seeing the sufferings of Christ were not intended meer for punishment so that he induring that which we were liable to we should no longer remaine chargeable with it but to tender God a consideration valuable to satisfy him not to execute the penalty of his Originall Law upon us but to abate of it by tendring us new terms of reconcilement and peace with him there can be no reason why he should undergo the same kind and nature of punishment which we must have suffered had not â—e interposed And therefore whatsoever the paines were which Christ indured in his soule either upon the Crosse or in order to his Crosse being abandoned by God to the will of Satan and his ministers even unto death which here I am not concerned to dispute this I must inferre from the premises That we are to seeke for no other consideration for which we are admitted to Grace but that which the whole tenor of the Scriptures and the consent of Christs Church holds forth to us that is to say the precious bloud of our Lord Christ shed upon the Crosse for us Having thus excluded the two extreme opinions concerning the justification of sinners by the Gospell of Christ which I hold to be equally destructive to Christianity on contrary sides the one acknowledging no condition to qualify us for the promises of the Gospell but the immediate imputation of the merits and sufferings of Christ sent to dy for us The other acknowledging no consideration of Christ in sending or accepting the Covenant of Grace and the condition which it requires I will now proceed to resolve the merit of meane opinions concerning the same from the premises The first is the opinion of many of the Reformation that make the justification of sinners by the Gospell to consist in remission of sinnes tendred and imbraced by that Faith which consisteth in a resolution of trusting and reposing confidence in God for the obtaining of his promises tendred us in Christ Jesus But supposing allwayes and premising Repentance as a condition requisite to make this confidence lively and Christian not sensuall carnall and presumtive And supposing allwayes and inferring upon it the promise of Gods spirit sanctifying and inabling to performe that new obedience which qualifieth for the world to come That there is this opinion amongst the Reformed and those of them that labor most to interpret the Reformation so as not to contradict the Faith of the Church I may well say without going further then my selfe who doe acknowledge this to have been mine opinion for many yeares and doe certainly know that it was maintained in my time against the furious pretenses of Zelots in the University of Cambridge And of this opinion I will say three thinges First that it is not destructive to the true Faith of Gods Church My reason is because of that Repentance which it supposeth and the consideration of new obedience in obtaining everlasting life which it inferreth For Repentance in this argument cannot signify conversion from any particular sinne but the change of the whole man of his intentions and by consequence of his actions to seek God in stead of himselfe and this world And therefore containeth in it whatsoever the Gospell can require to make any man that is surprised in the state of sinne capable of Gods grace by Christ In as much as this change cannot be wrought without the tender of pardon for Christs sake upon that which his Gospell requireth For Repentance thus understood as it turneth from all sinne so it importeth a resolution to all that goodnesse which Christianity prescribeth Which is all that he who is presently surprised in sinne can have to come out of it supposing this resolution not to be supperâ—iciall but rooted in him by frequent prayers and teares which such workes of humiliation as are onely able and absolutely requisite to make effectuall impression in mans mind allwayes apt through variety of objects to entertaine impressions tending to contrary resolutions And therefore this Repentance being required to the truth of living and justifying Faith as new obedience to the attaining of the world to come And every thing required by Gods Law being of necessity that which qualifyeth for Gods promises in his account who tenders the Law The condition which this opinion requireth to qualify for the promises of the Gospell is materially and for the things it contains the same which I have showed that the Gospell requires Though formally and in expresse termes it renounces all consideration in the justification of sinners but that of Christ and his obedience imbraced by Faith as I have said This I may say that in the remembrances of those thinges which I have said in publick to the people concerning this point during the time that I was of this opinion I doe not remember now that their is any thing that I could not presently say my Judgment being thus farre changed For secondly I must say that this opinion is not true As may appear by that which hath been said to show what it is the Gospell requires on our part to qualify us for the promises which it tenders on Gods and by consequence what is that Faith which alone justifieth For having showed the true sense of the Scriptures according to that which the Jewes opinion that S. Paul disputs against still extant and visible in their Constitutions which the consent of Christs Church which the consequences of the difference between the literall and mysticall sense of Moses Law pointed out in part by some moderne writers hath taught me I doe conclude the sense of them which this opinion inferreth though it be not destructive to Christianity yet not deducible from the principles of it by good divinity And truly to require repentance to the truth of that faith which onely justifieth and not to make
say that there is enough in the doctrine of the Schoole or in the dâ—cree of the Council of Trent to show that they cannot intend the first sense but that they must acknowledge it to Gods free promise which being accepted becomes the Covenant of Grace This followes upon severall points of their doctrine First as they make at least the materiall of originall sinne to consist in concupiscence the remains whereof in the regenâ—rate â—re therefore even with them of the same nature and kind though rebated and acquiâ—ed of the nature and effect of sinne which is to make liable to death For this cannot hold but in regard of severall Lawes whereof the one forbiddeth this concupiscence the other allowes reconciliation and grace supposing it as I said afore that Law that succeedes being the Covenant of Grace Secondly as it requires the Sacrament of Baptisme to the allowance of this righteousnesse in lieu of the reward which it challenges For the Sacrament of baptisme being a part of the Christian Law which is the Covenant of Grace and so a Secondary and positive provision for the salvation of mankind lost by Gods originall Law it were a contradiction to say that any thing claimed by viâ—tue thereof should be due by Gods originall Law Thirdly and lastly in regard of that sound sense in which they clearely and freely maintaine the satisfaction of Christ which by the promises is nothing else but the consideration for which God accepts the acts and the quâ—litiâ—â— which the Gospell requires in due plea for that which it premisâ—s For imputation being nothing else in common reason but the immediate consequencâ— of satisfaction the righteousnesse which God imputes to Abrahams spirituall seed as to his person according to S. Paul Roâ— IV. 16 24 cannot depend upon the meer worth of the condition required but upon the free grace of God accepting it for that it is not worth in consideration of the obedience of Christ Lastly I say there is appearance of reason to move men that are jealous of the glory of Gods grace to thinke that they claâ—me the promises of the Gospel as due by Gods originall Law to that infused righteousnesse by having whereof they say we are righteous before God First in that they depart from the language of the Scripture and the true meaning thereof in making justification to consist in the infusion of righteousnesse which though it presupposeth by the premises formally it signifieth not For having showed that the condition which the Gospell requires is allowed of grace in consideration of Christ to qualify us for the promises of it it remains beyond question that the righteousnesse which the Gospell requireâ— is of it selfe râ—all true righteousnesse because it is God that allowes it and accepts it to that effect to which he accepts not the righteousnesse of an hypocrite Allwayeâ— understanding it to be the righteousnesse of one that turneth from sinne with a sincere and effectuall resolutâ—on to serve God in all thinges for the future Whose righteousnesse may well be called infused righteousnesse in regard of the helpes of Gods grace whereby it is effected though we suppose no other kiâ—d of quality beside that disposition which brings a man to Baptisme to succeede upon it but onely the habituall assistance of the Holy Ghost promised â—o inable all them that sincerely undertake Christianity to preforme what they undertake Thus then making justification to consist not in Gods allowance but in his act of infusing righteousnesse they create appearance â—o reason that the righteousnesse so infused is in their opinion that righteousnesse before God to which the promises of the Gospell are due by his originall Law For if there were not other points of theire doctrine to create another interpretation of it there could be no other sense for it then this Secondly in that they make this righteousnesse to consist not in any acceptation and allowance of God but in his grace really infused into that soule which out of an act of the love of God raised by the helpes of his grace supposing faith and hope joyned with servile feare afore had resolved upon Baptisme For what allowance can this love be imagined to need as of grace to make the promises of the Gospell by Gods originall Law due to it if it be admitted for righteousnesse before God Here I must doe them right I must not say that it is the Council of Trent or that it is any act of the Church obligatory to all the Communion that ownes it that obliges them to attribute the effect of justifying to Gods infused Grace by virtue of the nature of it and not by virtue of his Grace in accepting it to that purpose For it is notorious and you may find the names of the Doctors in Vasquez in 1. 2. Disput CCIV. Num. 1. 2. 3. that hold this grace not to render men gracefull to God for it selfe but by his free accepting it to that effect The Nominals in particular besides Durandus and Alliacensis by name In the meane time no man can deny that it is lawfull to â—old that we are justâ—fied by the worth and naturall perfection of Gods infused Grace Which though he freely giveth yet can he not refuse justification having given it And therefore they who place their Religion in making theire distance from Hereticks as our Puritaines from Antichrist as wide as they can possible have taught and still doe teach that the supernaturall infused righteousnesse of Christans which as I said they make to consist principally in the love of God above all thinges of it owne worth and intrinsecall perfection and not by Gods accepting of it to that effect not onely formally remitteth sinne as formally it expelleth the same but so justifieth that God were unjust should he not justify Christians in consideration of it And what could have been said more expresse that it is due by Gods originall law not by any dispensation in it which the promise of the Gospell importeth That the grace of God in Christ iâ— not seene in rewarding that disposition which the Gospell requireth but in giving those helpes whereby we attaine unto it A thing never a whit more contradictory to that which hath been proved here then to other points of their owne Profession alleged even now Before I leave this point for the clearing of that which I said that the Council of Trâ—â—t seemeth to have inacted the doctrine of the Scholâ— for mater of Faith not that indeed it hath so done I will observe that it hath not decreede that we are justified by Grace habitually dwelling in the Soule But onely that through the merit of Christs passion the love of God is diffused in the harts of those that are justified and is inherent in them so that in theire justification with remission of sinnes they receive Faith Hope and Charity as infused into them Sâ—ss VI. Cap VII For here it is expressely claimed by Doctors of that Church not
suspended and interrupted as in him that cannot have confidence in God as reconciled to God in regard of these sinnes the seed of it notwithstanding remaining by virtue of that act of Faith whereby being reconciled as these are that are for ever reconciled to him he remains certaine of helpes of grace that shall be effectuall to work in him true repentance and of reconcilement upon supposition of it Whereupon it must be said the contrary that those whom God receiveth into grace without any purpose of granting them the grace of perseverance cannot be said to be justified without some terme of abatement signifying the justification granted them to be as to the sense of the Church or to an opinion unduely conceived by themselves but not as to God So that their faith also must be understood to be a confidence unduely grounded the failing whereof is not the disanulling of that which once was good but the discovering of that which once seemed good and was not This opinion so limited as I have said I should not think destructive to Christianity for the reason delivered afore concerning that opinion of justiing faith upon which it followes But as I then concluded that though not destructive to the Faith yet that opinion from whence it followeth is not true according to the true sense of the Scriptures wherein the skill of a Divine consisteth So must I here conclude that this opinion of perseverance which proceedeth upon that supposition of justifying faith which though not destructive to the Faith yet is not true is also not true though not destructive to the Faith The other which proceeds upon that supposition of justifying faith and predestination which is destructive to the faith remaining both untrue and destructive to the faith I grant that though the gift of the holy Ghost which is as I have said the habituall assistance of it being granted in consideration of a mans undertaking Christianity becomes void upon not performing that which a man undertakes yet God of his free goodnesse not as obliged by any promise of the Gospel may continue the assistance thereof but upon the same terms as he first grants the help of it to bring men out of the state of sinne into the state of grace I grant that the resolution of believing the faith of Christ and of living according to the same in the profession of Christianity having been once made upon reasons convincing a man that he is bound so to do cannot be changed at his pleasure in an instant though it fall out that he be overtaken with some sinne that laies wast the conscience But the promises of the Gospel being made in consideration of undertaking the profession of Christianity and therefore incompetible to those that live not according to it I say that they all become void to him that falls into such a sinne For the Covenant of Grace passing upon supposition of originall concupiscence remaining in the regenerate and insnaring them all with the occasions of sinne It cannot be imagined that all sinne makes it void But on the other side some sinnes being of so grosse a nature that a man cannot be surprized by them but that the being so conquered must imply a resolution to preferre this world before the world to come must needs forfeit those promises which depend upon the Covenant of Grace a rebellion against which they containe and declare So that unlesse the free grace of God by the operation of his Spirit bring a man back to repentance the whole resolution of being a Christian shall in time be blotted out though the profession because it imports the benefit of this world in Christian states remain counterfeit This is then the reason of my resolution necessarily following upon the premises that the sincere profession of Christianity is the condition of the Covenant of Grace seeing it is not imaginable that any man should hold any priviledge at Gods hands by professing that which he performeth not The profession as it serveth to aggravate the sinne which it committed under it as done in despite of all the grace of God and the conviction which it tendereth to reduce us to Christianity and the profession made in submission to the same condemning a man by his own sentence So containing the condition upon which all the promises become due upon the violation whereof on the contrary they must of necessity become void And this is the reason that leaves no place for any composition of this difference by saying that a man remains absolutely justified when the particular sinne which is not yet repented of is not pardoned For seeing the wages of it is death so farre as the Covenant of Grace dispenses not and seeing the Covenant of Grace cannot protect him that transgresseth the termes of it of necessity he falls into the same estate which he was under setting the Covenant of Grace aside as if to him our Lord Christ had neither been borne nor crucified nor risen againe Those that suffer the truth of this condition to be obscured by defective interpretations of that faith which alone justifieth and the scripturs concerning the same it is no mervaile if they can imagine a reconciliation betweene the state of sinne and the state of grace in the same man at the same time which makes the positive will of God declared by the Gospell to dispense with the necessary and naturall hate he beares to all sinners for their sinne But when it is once discoverd that by the termes of the Gospell God who declares himselfe ready to be reconciled to all sinners is declared unreconcileable to any so long as he continueth in sinne then must it necessarily appeare that the positive will of God declared by the Gospell concurring with the naturall detestation of sinne which is essentiall to the purity of his nature whosoever is under the guilt of sinne remains liable to his wrath And proceeding upon this ground as I doe I shall not thinke my selfe obliged to take notice of those thinges which have lately beene disputed in great volumes upon this point to and againe For presuming that the parties have not the ground upon which I proceed in debate As of necessity he who seemes to come short of proving his intent without it may with it be able to make the conviction effectuall which he tenders So he that seemes to have made the worse cause seeme the better without considering it must provide new evidence to make the condition of the Covenant of Grace seeme otherwise then I have showed it to be before he can thinke to have done his worke Notwithstanding because there are many texts of Scripture which evidently fortify the summe of Christianity setled upon the termes of the Covenant of Grace by demonstrating the failleure of the promise upon failleure of the condition to which the Gospell makes it due I take it to be part of my businesse to point at the cheife of them without being much troubled to
Law cousened and slaine as enimy to Christianity which tenders the onely cure of sinne Whereunto the conclusion agrees well enough For when having questioned Miserable man that I am who shall deliver me out of the body of this death He answereth I thank God by Jesus Christ our Lord He seemeth to declare that the Gospel having overtaken him in this estate and discovered him to himself in it the imbracing of it cured him and gave him cause to thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ for his deliverance from it All the rest that followeth between these terms in the discourse of Saint Paul serving for a very lively description of that mans estate who being convinced of the truth of Christianity findeth difficulty in renouncing the pleasures which sinne furnisheth for the obtaining of those promises which the Gospel tendreth There remaineth yet one difficulty concerning the Polygamy of the ancient Fathers before and under the Law which to me hath allways seemed an argument for the truth which I maintaine rather then an objection against it If any soule sensible of the feare of God can imagine that Gods Jewells his choice ones the first fruits of his creatures knowing themselves to be under the Law of having but one wife not to be parted with till death should notwithstanding take many and those many times so qualified as the Law much more Christianity allows not as Jacob two sisters Abraham his neece and so Amram and to outface the Law hold them till death and never come short of Gods favour whose Law they transgresse with bare face as the Scripture speakes let him believe that a Christian living in sinne can be in the state of grace But he that sees the Law to have restrained marying with the neice which he sees practiced afore and sees withall that plurality of wives is not forbidden by the Law for besides wives of an inferior ranke which may be called concubines a captive Deut. XXI 11. and an Ebrew maid sold for a slave Ex. XXI 8. 9. 10. there can be no question in the Law of two wives whereof the one is beloved the other not Deut. XXI 15. besides that the Law restraining the King from having many wives seemes to allow him more then every man hadde and therefore that David might be within compasse of the Law though Solomon trode it under foot I say he that considers these things will be moved to be of opinion that the Pharises interpretation of Levit. XVIII 18. is true and that before that Law there was no prohibition for a man to marry two sisters which is there first introduced and yet with an exception in Deuteronomy in the case of a brother deade without issue which before the Law was also in force as by the story of Judah Gen. XXXVIII doth appeare I will therefore conclude that as the knowledge of God increased by giving the Law so was the posterity of Abraham restrained from more by the Law then the posterity of Noe upon the promises given them had been restrained from after the deluge From whence in all reason it will follow that the posterity of Abraham according to the spirit which is the Church of Christ should be still restrained from more then the posterity of Abraham according to the flesh by the law And so that the Fathers before and under the Law living in Gods grace did not withall live in open violation of Gods Law but that they knew themselves not to be under the Law of one wife to one husband though intended in Paradise by virtue of Gods dispensation in it till Christianity should come For unlesse we presume that not onely all thinges necessary to our salvation but all thinge necessary to the salvation of all men since the world stood are recorded in the Scriptures there can be no reason to presume that they could not understand what Lawes they were under but by those Scriptures which for our salvation have been granted us I argue yet further that it will be impossible for true Christians and good Christians to attaine unto assurance of the state of Grace if it be to be had for them that commit such sinnes as Christianity consists not with And this upon supposition of the premises for the ground of this assurance For without doubt were not some thing in the condition which the Gospell requireth impossible for flesh and blood to bring forth it were not possible for him that imbraceth the Gospell to assure himselfe that he doeth it out of obedience to God not out of those reasons which hypocrites may follow But I having declared afore and maintaining now that no man by the force of flesh and blood that is to say of that inclination to goodnesse which a man is born into the world with is able to profess Christianity out of a resolute and clear intention to stand to it am consequently bound to maintaine that he who soe doeth not onely may but must needes assure himselfe of the favour of God in as much as he cannot but assure himself of that which himselfe doeth For in as much as he knowes what himselfe means and what he does as S. Paul sayes that no man knowes what is in man but the spirit of a man which is in him so sure it is that a mans selfe knowes what he means and what he does as it is sure that another man knowes it not But not allowing nor presupposing this ground of a mans knowledge how shall he know it Shall a man by having a perswasion that he is in the number of Gods elect or by having in himself an assurance of Gods love to the effect of everlasting happinesse be assured that his assurance is well grounded and that he is of that number which is elected to life everlasting As if it were not possible for the temptations of Satan and carnall presumption to possesse a man as much even to this effect as the Spirit of God can do Where is then the effect of Christianity seen if not in limiting such grounds and such termes as he that proceedeth upon shall not faile of that grace of God whereof he assureth himself upon those grounds But he that placeth that faith which alone justifyeth in believing that he who believeth is predestinate to life everlasting Or in the confidence of Gods grace in attaining the same I demand upon what ground he can pretend to distinguish this faith from that which he cannot deny that it may be false For if it be said that the Spirit of God that is in him assureth him that his perswasion is well grounded It is easie for me to say that the question to be cleared that is to say whether it be the Spirit of God that tells him so or not cannot be the evidence to clear it self And therefore that he standeth obliged to bethink himself of some meanes whereupon he may assure himself that it is the Spirit of God not the temptation of Satan or carnall
apprehend that the Scripture representing the friendship of God with his children according to his Gospel by the patern of that love which the best men show to those whom they intertaine friendship with doth intend to expresse him disobliged upon every offense But unlesse we thinke it commendable for God to love men more then righteousnesse for the love of Christ to whom the same righteousnesse is no lesse deare then to God will never thinke it agreeable to the honor of the Gospell to propose the reward of that righteousnesse which it requireth but upon supposition of performing of it Certainly Celsus had done the Christians no wrong in slandering them that they received all the wicked persons whom the world spued out into an assurance of everlasting happinesse nor could Zosimus be blamed for imputing the change of Constantine the Great to a desire of easing his conscience of the guilt of those sinnes which Paganisme could show him no means to expiate had the Christians of that time acknowledged that they tendred assurance of pardon to any man but upon supposition of conversion from his sinne These thinges supposed it will be easy to resolue that the assurance of salvation which the Gospell inables a good Christian to attaine is not the act of justifying Faith but the consequence of it Indeed if a man were justifyed by believing that he is justifyed so farre as a man hath the act of justifying Faith so farre he must necessarily rest assured not onely of his right to salvation at present but of his everlasting salvation in the world to come But neither is that opinion which maketh justifying Faith to consist in the trust and confidence which a Christian reposeth in God through Christ for the obtaining of his promises liable to the horrible and grosse consequence of the same To exclude all Christians from salvation that are not as sure that they shall be saved at they are of theire Creede is a consequence as desperate as it is grosse to make that assurance the act of justifying Faith The true act of justifying Faith which is constancy in Christianity the more lively and resolute it is the more assurance it createth of those consequences which the Gospell warranteth For no man is ignorant of his owne resolutions Nor can be lesse assured that it is Gods Spirit that creates this assurance then he is assured that his owne resolusions are not counterfeit And therefore his trust in God not as reconcileable but as reconciled must needes be answerable And the same trust may warrant the same assurance though not of it selfe but upon the conscience of that Christianity whereupon it is grounded And by those things which were disputed not onely during the Council of Trent but also since the deâ—ree thereof it is manifest that the Church of Rome doth not teach it to be the duty of a good Christian to be allwayes in doubt of Gods grace But alloweth that opinion to be maintained which maketh assurance of salvation attainable upon these termes and therefore incourageth good Christians to contend for it As for the assurance of future salvation which dependeth upon the assurance of preseverance till death or a mans departure in the state of Grace you see S. Paul involveth all Christians in it with himselfe by saying I am perswaded that neither life nor death shall bee able to separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord And therefore I conceive is was a very great impertinence to dreame of any privilege of immediate revelation for the means by which he hadde it Whosoever is a Christian so farre as he is a Christian hath it Adouble minded man that is unconstant in all his wayes as S. James speakes that is who is not resolved to live and dy a good Christian cannot have it Whosoever hath that resolution in as much as he hath that resolution that is so firme as his resolution is so firme is his assurance For knowing his owne resolutions he knowes them not easily changeable in a water importing the end of a mans whole course And therefore knowing God unchangeable while he so continues is able to say full as much as Saint Paul saith I am perswaded that neither life nor death shall be able to separate â—e from the love of God in Christ Jesus As for the sense of the primitive and Catholick Church putting you in mind of that which I said before to show that it placeth justifying Faith in professing Christianity the effect whereof in justifying must needes fail so soon as a man faileth of performing that Christianity in the profession whereof his justification standeth I shall not need to allege the opinions of particulare Fathers to make evidence of it having Lawes of the Church to make evidence that those who were ruled by them must needs thinke the promises of the Gospell to depend upon the Covenant of our Baptisme and therefore that they become forfeit by transgressing the same The promise of persevering in the profession of the Faith untill death and of living like a Christian was allways expressely exacted of all that were baptized as now in the Church of England And upon this promise and not otherwise remission of sinne right to Gods kingdome and the Gift of his Spirit was to be expected As if it were not made with a serious intent at the present baptisme did nothing but damne him that received it So if it were transgressed by grosse sins not to be imputed to the surprizes of concupiscence For the condition failing that which dependeth upon the same must needs faile For the means by which they expected to recover the state of Grace thus forfeited we have the Penitentiall Canons which as they had the force of Law all over the Church all the better times of the Church So I show from the beginning that they had theire beginning from the Apostles themselves to assure us that all beleived that without which there could be no ground for that which all did practice Can any man imagine that the Church should appoint severall times and severall measures of Penance for severall sinnes to be debarred the Communion of the Eucharist and to demonstrate unto the Church by theire outward conversation the sincerity of theire conversion to theire first profession of Christianity had not all acknowledged that the promises of the Gospell forfeited by transgressing the profession of baptisme were not to be recovered otherwise And that the deeper the offense was the more difficulty was presumed in replanting the resolution of Christianity in that heart which was presumed to have deserted it according to the measure of the sinne whereby it had violated the same This is enough to prescribe unto reasonable men against such little consequences as now and then are made upon some passages of the Fathers which upon by occasions seeme to speake otherwise S. Augustine is the maine hope of the cause so farre as it hath any joy in
the consent of the Church But what joy they can have of S. Augustine may easily be judged by his opinion of the VII to the Romanes and the difference which I have observed betweene it and theirs For what can any man imagine to be the reason why he should understand S. Paul to speake onely of the surprizes which the regenerate are subject to remaining regenerate but because he was assured that they remaine not such when they fall away to these grosse sinnes which no man is surprized with And he that shall take the pains to peruse what S. Augustine hath written in his bookes de correptione gratia And de predestinatione sanctorum may justly mervaile how any man could come to have such an opinion of S. Augustine Besides in his worke de Civitate dei and in many other places he hath so clearly expressed himselfe that unlesse a man resolve not to distinguish betweene the state of grace and the purpose of God to bring a man to everlasting life which he that useth the common reason of all men cannot but distinguish it is a mervaile how S. Augustine should be taken to say that the state of grace cannot become voide because it is true he sayes so often that the decree of predestination cannot become voide S. Gregory is taken for one of the same opinion because expounding the words of the Prophet Jeremy Lament IV. 1. How is gold obscured the pure masse changed The stones of the Sanctuary scattered in the head of every street Concerning Christians that fall from theire profession according to the true reason of the mysticall sense he hath these wordes Aurum quod â—bscurari potâ—it aurum in conspectu dei nunquam fuit That gold which could be darkned was never gold in Gods sight But is it not easy to understand that the sight of God is that freeknowledge which the decree of predestination either supposeth or produceth And that those whom God â—oreseeth to fall from theire Christianity were never gold in his esteeme in regard of it As I said afore that he never knew them whome he ever knew that they would not ever continue his And seeing S. Austine expressely distinguished between sonnes of God according to that which they are at present and according to Gods foresight and purpose it will be necessary consequently to distinguish upon the attributes of members of Christ and of his Body ingrafted into Christ and his disciples That those are truly called such according to S. Austine that shall continue such for everlasting though those that shall not so continue are so for the present according to S. Austine As it is peremtorily evident by one exception in that he maketh the difference between some of them who have the gift of perseverance and others that have it not to consist in this That some are cut of by death while they are in that estate others are suffred to survive till they fall from it A thing many times repeated in the bookes aforenamed and which could not have been said but by him that held both for the present to be in the state of Grace Nor could he indeed dispute of perseverance not supposing the truth of that in which he requireth Grace to persevere I acknowlege to have seen the Preface to one of the Volumâ— that I spoke of and in it some pretense of making S. Austine and S. Gregory especially for the contrary purpose But I doe not acknowlege to have found any thing at all alleged there that had not been fully answered before it was alleged there in Vossiâ—â— his Collections Historiâ— Pelagianae libro VI. Thâ—sâ— XII-XV And therefore I will discharge my selfe upon him in this point rather then repeate breifly in this abridgement that which he hath fully said there For you shall find also there upon what termes and by what means Christians may and doe overcome that anxiety of mind which the possibility of falling from Grace may affect them with according to the Fathers Even the same as according to S. Paul whose assurance needed no revelation of Gods secret purpose but the knowlege of that resolution which Gods spirit had settled in his spirit which beeing assured that God will not forsake while he forsakes not God assureth him that by Gods helpe he will not forsake God And not onely he but all whom S. Paul comprises in the plurall us as grounded like S. Paul Otherwise that a Christian from the first instant of his conversion should be able to say so that whosoever is saved before death must say so out of the same confidence knowing by faith that he is predestinate as it is meere frenzy once to imagine so never did any of the Fathers maintaine Onely whereas the author of that Preface acknowledging that the Dominicans and Jansenians who hold up the Doctrine of S. Austine concerning the Grace of Preseverance suppose neverthelesse them to be regenerate that are not predestinate nor shall be saved imputes it to the abominable fictions of implicite saith and the efficacy of the Sacraments in exhibiting and convaying the Grace which they seale I would not have him thinke the efficacy of Baptisme can be counted a fiction by any but fained Christans Of the Sacraments I say nothing in this place For I need not so much as suppose what a Sacrament is And whether Baptisme be a Sacrament or not though a thing that no man questions is nothing to my present purpose That God contracteth with man for the promises of his Gospell upon condition of Christianity and that this contract is not onely solemnized but inacted by receiving Baptisme is not now to be proved having been done from the beginning of this book And he that would be free of that which he contracteth for by his Baptisme whereby he holdeth his title to all that the Gospell promiseth would make that step to the renouncing of his Christianity What implicite Faith should pervert the understanding of Doctors whose Faith is explicite in all maters of Faith I understand not unlesse he meane to acknowlege that which is most true that there never needed any expresse decree of the Church in this point as in other points questioned by Pelagius because never any man held otherwise If this be the implicite Faith which he means because the whole Church allwayes held it but never decreed it I shall agree to it but not that any Christian can be seduced by following it Jovinian we reade onely of confuted in this opinion by S. Jerome not condemned by the Church because he could never make it considerable and so dangerous to the Church But in very deed implicite Faith here signifies nothing being onely imployed to make a noise for a reason of that for which no reason can be rendred How that can be thought to be the sense of S. Austine which never any of his followers all zelous of his Doctrine in the matter of Grace could find in his writings And therefore the whole
bloud as understanding themselves aright all Christians must needs do Unlesse wee can maintain that wee receive the body and blood of Christ not onely when wee receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist but also by receiving it there is no cause why our Lord should say This is my body this is bloud when hee delivered onely the sign of it to good and bad and therefore not out of any consideration of the quality of them that received it And what a grosse thing were it to say that our Savior took such care to leave his Church by the act of his last will a legacy which imports no more than that which they might at all times bestow upon themselves And let mee know whether the Church could not devise signes enow to renew the memory of Christs death or if that be likewise included to expresse their profession also of dying with Christ by bearing his Crosse if our Lords intent had been no more than to appoint a Ceremony that might serve to commemorate our Lords death or to expresse our own profession of conformity to the same For certainly they who make no more of it whom I said wee may therefore properly call Sacramentaries cannot assign any further effect of Gods grace for which it may have been instituted and yet make it a meer sign of Christs death or of our own profession to dy with Christ or for Christ But if I allow them that make it more than such a sign to have departed from a pessilent conceit and utterly destructive to Christianity I cannot allow them to speak things consequent to their own position when they will not have these words to signifie that the elements are the body and bloud of Christ when they are received but become so upon being received with living faith which will allow no more of the body and bloud of Christ to be in the Sacrament than out of it For the act of living faith importeth the eating and drinking of the flesh and bloud of Christ no lesse without the Sacrament than in it Certainly it is no such abstruse consequence no such farr fetched argument to inferr If this is my body this is my bloud signifies no more than this is the sign of my body and bloud then is the Sacrament of the Eucharist a meer sign of the body and bloud of Christ without any promise of spiritual grace Seeing that being now a Sacrament by being become a Sacrament it is become no more than a sign of the body and bloud of Christ which though a living faith spiritually eateth and drinketh when it receives the Sacrament yet should it have done no lesse without receiving the same I will here allege the discourse of our Lord to them that followed him to Capernaum John VI. 26-63 upon occasion of having been fed by the miracle of five loaves and a few little fishes Supposing that which any man of common sense must grant that it signifies no more than they that heard it could understand by it and that the Sacrament of the Eucharist not being then ordained they could not understand that hee spake of it but ought to understand him to speak of believing the Gospel and becoming Christians under the allegory of eating his flesh and drinking his bloud But when the Eucharist was instituted the correspondence of the ceremony thereof with the allegory which here hee discourseth is evidence enough that as well the promise which hee tendreth as the duty which hee requireth have their effect and accomplishment in and by the receiving of it I must here call you to minde that which I said of the Sacrament of Baptisme that when our Lord discoursed with Nicodemus of regeneration by water and the Holy Ghost John III. not having yet instituted the Sacrament of Baptisme in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost nor declared the promise of giving the Holy Ghost to them that should receive the same it must needs be thought that hee made way thereby to the introducing of that Ordinance the condition and promise whereof hee meant by the processe of his own and his Apostles doctrine further to limit and determine In like maner I must here insist and suppose that hee speaks not here immediately of eating and drinking his flesh and bloud in the Eucharist which his hearers could not then fore-tell that hee meant to ordain but that the action thereof being instituted with such correspondence to this discourse the intent of it may be and is to be argued from the same Now I have showed in due place that the sayings and doings of our Lord in the Gospel are mystical to signifie his kingdome of Glory to the which hee bringeth us through his kingdome of Grace So that when our Savior fed that great multitude with the loaves and the fishes which hee multiplied by miracle to the intent that they might not faint in following him and his doctrine it is manifest that hee intimateth thereby a promise of Grace to sustain us in our travail here till wee come to our Countrey of the Land of Promise When therefore hee proposeth the theme of this discourse saying Yee seek mee not because yee have seen miracles which serve to recommend my doctrine but because yee have eaten of the loaves and were filled Labor not for the meat that perisheth but for that which indures to life everlasting hee showes two things First that his flesh and bloud sustain us in our pilgrimage here because hee showes the Manna which the Fathers lived on in the Wildernesse to be a figure of it Secondly that they bring us to immortality and everlasting life in the world to come by expounding the figure to consist in this that as they were maintained by manna till they died so his new Israelites by his flesh and bloud by eating his flesh and drinking his bloud which hee was giving for the life of the world never to dye Now wherein the eating and drinking of his flesh and bloud consisteth hee showes by his answer to their question upon this Warning them to work for the meat that lasts unto everlasting life which hee tenders and not for that which perisheth The question is What shall wee do to work Gods works And the answer The work of God is this to believe in him whom hee hath sent I have showed in due place that the condition which makes the promises of the Gospel due is oâ—r Christianity to wit to professe the faith of Christ faithfully that is not in vain Therefore when our Lord saith The work of God is this To believe on him whom hee hath sent hee means this fidelity in professing Christianity For indeed who can imagine otherwise that hee should call the act of believing in Christ that work of God which Christ came to teach Gods people Hee then that considers the death of Christ that is to say the crucifying of his flesh and the pouring out of his bloud with that faith which supposes all
Brethren if any man of you go astray from the truth and some body bring him back let him know that he who brings back a sinner from the errâ—r of his way shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sinnes For it is plain by S. Paul that this extendeth to the recovery of a sinner by the Keyes of the Church as they were managed during the Apostles time Certainly if we understand S. Pauls words 1 Tim. V. 22. 24. of imposition of hands in Penance as I have showed in my Book of the Right of the Church p. 23. that they may and ought to be understood it is necessarily to be inferred seeing they who admit those sinners to be reconciled unto God by the Prayers which the Church makes for them with imposition of hands signifying thereby that it alloweth them to be sâ—ncerely penitent are partakers of their sinnes which shall follow upon the readmitting of them to the Church being not worthy qualified for it Therefore the Church is to see that a man be qualified for reconciliation with the Church upon supposition of his reconciliation with God before he be reconciled to the Church And in first procuring him and then judging him to be so qualified consists the right use of those Keyes which God hath given the Church towards them that transgresse the profession of Christianity after they have made it The reason of all this is derived from those things which have been setled by the premises The condition which the Gospel proposeth for the remission of sinnes to them who stâ—nd convict by it that they are under sinne is that they return from sinne â—nd believing that our Lord Châ—iâ—t was senâ— by God to cure it undertake to professe that which he taught and to live according to the same Those which professe so to do the Church accepteth of wiâ—hout exception because this being the first account she hath of them she cannot expect more at their hands then that they submit the rest of their lives to that Christianity which she obligeth them to If by trâ—nâ—gressing this obligation which they have undertaken they forfeit the right which they obtainâ—d thereby is it in the power of the Church to restore them at pleasurâ— In vain then is all that hath been said to show that the Gospel and Christianity in order of nature and reason is more ancient then the constitution of the Church and the corporation of it And that all the power of the Chuâ—ch presupposeth the condition upon which those blessings which it tendreth are due And certainly our Lord when he saith to his Diâ—ciples Joh. XX. 23. Whosesoever sinne ye remit they are remitted intended not to contradict the sense of the Sâ—râ—bes when they say Who can forgive sinnes but God alone Mark II. 7. Luk. V. 21. Much lesse to reverse the word of his Prophets ascribing this power of him alone Esay XLIII 25. Mich. VII 18. Psal XXXII 5 What is then the effect of this promise to them that have forfeited the right of their Baptism supposing that when men first become Christians the Disciples of Christ and his Church remit sinnes by making them Christians according to that which hath been declared Surely the same observing the difference of the case For he who being convict of his disease and of the cure of it by the preaching of Christianity is effectually moved by the helpe of Gods Spirit to imbrace that cure which none but the Church which tenders it can furnish attains it not but by using it That is by being baptized But he who being baptized hath failed of his trust and forfeited his interest in Christ cannot so easily be restored I have showed you what works of mortification of devotion and mercy the recovering of Gods grace and favour requirâ—s Let no man therefore thinke that the power of remitting sinnes in the Church can abate any thing of that which the Gospel upon which the Church is grounded requiteth to the remission of finne done after Baptism The authority of the Church is provided by God to oblige those who are overtaken in sinne to undergo that which may satisfie the Church of the sincere intent of their returne And the Church being so satisfied warranteth their restitution to the right which they had forfeited upon as good ground as it warranteth their first estate in it But this presupposeth the wrath of God appeased his favour regained and the inordinâ—te love of the creature which caused the forfeit blotted out and changed through that course of mortification which hath been performed into the true love of goodnesse for Gods sake The Church therefore hath received of God no power to forgive sinnes immediately as if it were in the Church to pardon sâ—nne without that diâ—poâ—ition which by the Gospel qualifieth a man for it Or as if the act of the Church pardoning did produce it But in as much as the knowledge thereof directeth and the authority thereof constraineth to use the means which the Gospell prescribeth in so much is the remission of sinnes thereby obtained truly ascribed to the Church Lazarus was first dead before he was bound up in his Grave clothes And when he was restored to life he remained bound till he was loosed by the Apostles The Church bindeth no man but him that is first dead in sinne If the voice of Christ call him out of that death he is not revived till the love of sin be mortified and the love of God made alive in him by a due course of Penance performed If the motion of Gods spirit upon the preaching of the Gospel convincing a man that there is no means but Christianity to escape out of sinne and prevailing with him to imbrace it be effectuall to obtain the promises of the Gospel Much more shall the actuall operation of the same moving him that is dead in sinne to put sinne to death in himself that he may live a Christian for the future be effectuall to regain the grace of God for him who hath not yet the life of grace in him but is in the way of recovering it by the helpe of Gods grace But he who is thus recovered to life by the ministery of the Church is not yet loosed of the bands of his sinne till he be loosed by the Church because he was first bound by it as our Lord having raised Lazarus to live commands him to be loosed by his Apostles For if he who accepteth of the Gospel and the terms of it remain bound to be baptized by the Church for the remission of his sinne Is it strange that he who hath forfeited his pardon obtained by the Church even in the judgement and knowledge of the Church should not obtain the restoring of it but by the act of the Church And therefore the Church remitteth sinne after Baptism not onely as a Physician prescribing the cure but as a judge admitting it to be effected And the satisfaction of the Church presupposeth
LXIII If a Clergy-man knowing that his wife hath committed adultery dismiss her not LXV Sodomites LXXI If a woman forsaking an adulterer whom she had married afore marry another LXXII If a Christian be slain or confiscate upon the information of a Christian LXXIII If a man accuse a Clergy-man to wit criminally as a subject a subject before secular Powers of a crime which he cannot prove LXXV We see by these very particulars an abatement of that which Tertullian stood upon that no adultery should ever be restored to communion again For here Penance is allowed adultery the first time by the VII And she that leaves her Husband and maryes another is allowed the communion in danger of death As also after her first Husband is dead by the IX And so are Virgines that turn Whores if afterwards they repent and abstain before death by the XIII So for murther a Christian Woman that kills her maid is admitted to Penance by the V. And a Catechumena that is a woman professing Christianity before Baptism that kills the childe conceived of adultery by the LXVIII So in Idolatry Those who onely wear such a Crown as those that sacrificed did wear but sacrifice not nor are at the charge of sacrificing by the LV. And truly that VII Canon which allowes Penance upon adultery onely the first time but refuses the communion of the second time even in danger of death is manifestly more severe then that Rule which divers of the Fathers Origen in Levit. XXV Hom. XV. S. Ambrose de Paenit II. 10. 11. S. Augustine Epist LIII LIV. Hanil L. do mention as in force and use at their time to wit that Penance cannot be done the second time For though a man be not readmitted to communion by Penance upon falling into the same or a more grievous crime the second time yet may be allowed the communion in danger of death Just as S. Ambrose ad Virginâ—â— Lapsam cap. VIII censures her to do Penance till death Innocent I. Pope Epist II. expresly affirms that this was done in consideration of the times because if men were lightly admitted after having fallen in persecution who would hazard life for the profession of his faith But that afterwards either the Church must be Novatians or grant Penance in danger of death And truly the breach which the Novatians made must needs oblige the Church to readmit unto communion in danger of death But if the Church were obliged to be strict when there was fear of persecution least all should fall away then was it obliged to abate when many were fallen away that the Body thereof might be recovered and restored And the words of Innocent that follow are sufficient to show how much the Church then presumed upon that Penance that Absolution that communion which a man was admitted to upon confession of sinne in danger of death For he saith Tribuetur ergo cum Poenitentiâ extrema Communio The last Communion therefore shall be allowed with Penaâ—ce Now it is evident by the Canons which Gratiane hath compiled XXVI Quaest VI. VII VIII Quaest VII cap I. that when a man was admitted to Penance upon confession in danger of death the communion was given him provisionally as well to obtain the grace of God to strengthen him in that exigent as for the quiet of his conscience but neverthelesse he stood bound over to perform the Penance which was or should be injoyned in case he recovered And therefore when Pope Caelestine I Epist I. invayes against those who refused Absolution and the communion in danger of death and Leo I. Pope Epist LIX orders that they be reconciled by giving them the Communion It is to be supposed that they understand this Penance to be injoyned in that case because the custome of the Church required it And this serves to void the doubt that may be made what the Keyes of the Church can have to do in the remitting of sinnes as soon as they are confessed which serve to loose sinne no further then they serve to procure and to create that disposition which qualifies for forgivenesse You saw afore in the second Book what difficulty the ancient Church made in warranting the salvation of those that repented upon their Death bed though they proceeded to submit themselves and their sinnes to the Keyes of the Church for their absolution and the communion of the Eucharist at their departure And though Gennadius de dogmatibus Eccles cap. LXXX say freely that he is a Novation and not a Christian that presumes not faithfully of Gods mercifull purpose to save that which was lost even in him that departs upon confessing his sinne yet still this is but a presumption of what may be not a warrant of what is which the power of the Keyes regularly used promises Otherwise what would Gennadius say to the great Councill of Arles under Constantine which denies absolution in that case Can. I. as you see the Eliberitane Canons do True it is which S. Cyprian saith Nunquam sera est poenitentia si sit vera Repentance is never late if it be true But who will maintain that to be true which the terrour of death and remorse of conscience may rack out of him in whom the love of God and goodnesse hath not formed that resolution of maintaining his professed Christianity which makes God the end of all his actions when as all that is done in such a case by common experience may be imputed to a true grounded desire of avoiding punishment for his own sake with a superficiall desire of doing well for Gods sake Though on the other side it may be presumed that such a one is not first moved with dislike of his sinne when first he submits it to the Keyes of the Church but hath first done many such acts of sincere contrition as his own judgement directed him to for the gaining of Gods grace And at length to give himselfe further satisfaction resolves to humble himselfe not onely to the declaring of his own shame but to the undergoing of that Penance upon performance whereof the Rules of the Church also warrant his forgivenesse Between these contrary presumptions the primitive severity of the Church it appears refused absolution and the communion even in danger of death to some of the most grievous sins Which afterwards was thought fit to be abated Not proclaiming dispair to any sinner but to oblige him not lightly to presume upon pardon of that sinne which the Church could never presume that a man can repent him of enough For on the other side it appears what inconvenience the granting of reconcilement to all at the point of death may produce if the intent of the Church in binding over to Penance him that escapes be not understood Namely to give men cause to presume of pardon by the Church when the Keyes thereof cannot have their operation in producing the disposition that is requisite And thus the primitive practice of the Church
about to impose new Laws upon the Church But those new Laws I show you were excepted against from the beginning of pretending them Let any man show me that voluntary confession of secret sins was ever exceped against in Tertullian who writ that Book when he was of the Catholick Church earnestly perswading to it Likewise though he writ his Book de Pâ—dicitia when he was become a Montanist yet it is easie to discern what he speaks in it as a Montanist by discerning what the Catholick Church contests and what it allows of his doctrine In the seventh Chapter of that Book it is manifest that he calls those sinnes to Penance which he were a mad man that should take either for scandalous or for notorious The Novatians being a branch of the Montanists and refusing to reconcile the greatest sins are to be thought to have followed their order in reconciling lesse sins as it is manifest by S. Ambrose de Poenit. V. 2. that they did Therefore they and therefore the Catholick Church did practice the discipline of Penance upon sins neither notorious nor scandalous In S. Cyprianâ— you have severall places where he mentions Penance for those sinnes which were to be confessed according to the custome of the Church after a certain time of humiliation when they were to be admitted to imposition of hands that is to the prayers of the Church for the pardon of him whom the Bishops blessing which the â—mposition of hands signifies acknowledged hopefull for remission of sinnes Epist X. LV. The same S. Cypriane de lapsis manifestly instances in those that had committed Idolatry secretly or had resolved towards it what befel them because they revealed it not to the Church so that sometimes they did reveal it Here cometh in the fact of Nectarius related by Socrates V. 19. because the custome being to confesse to a Priest deputed to that purpose sinnes not otherwise known who was to direct what she should publickly declare when she came before the congregation a certain noble Woman whose case is there related proceeded to declare that which caused such scandall that thereupon Nectarius then Bishop of Constantinople thought fit to put down the office which that Priest then held and executed of receiving the confession of those sinnes which were afterwards in part to be made known to the Church as the Priest intrusted should direct For Socrates relating the discourse which he had with the Priest which advised Nectarius to abolish the office aforesaid saith that he told him it was to be feared that he had given occasion to bring S. Pauls precept to no effect which saith Communicate not in the fruitlesse workes of darknesse but rather reprove them Which must suppose the publishing of those sinnes which a man may pretend by brotherly correction to restore And it is manifest that secret confession of sinnes hath remained in the Eastern Church and in that of Constantinople particularly even to this time So that no man can imagine that it was abrogated by Nectarius Origen in Psal XXXVII Hom. II. advises indeed to look about you for a skilful Physitian to whom you may open the disease of your soul good reason For there being a number of Presbyters by whom every Church was governed and it being in a mans choice whom he would have recourse to were he not to blame that should not make diligent choice But when he adviseth further that if he think the sinne fit to be declared to the assembly of the Church as where it is to be cured doth he not require necessary Penance upon voluntary confessions S. Ambrose de Pâ—nit II. 7. I. 6. II. 8. 9. laboureth to abate the shame of confessing sinnes If he speak of publick sinnes there can be no reason why For what hath he to do to abate that shame that cannot be avoided That which may be avoided is that which cometh by confessing such sins as it is in a mans power to conceal The same is evident in S. Augustinâ— Hom. ult ex L. And is further cleared by this that it is evident that he who was discovered not to have discovered to the Church that sinne which he was privy to but the world was not is by many acts of the Church constrained to undergo Penance for that default And in the Eliberitanâ— Canons it is provided that he who confesseth of his own accord shall come off with a lighter Penance he who is revealed by another shall be liable to a harder censure Can. LXXVI But no evidence can be so effectuall as the introducing of the Law of auricular confession that is of confessing once a year as well as receiving the Eucharist once a year For be it granted as it is most true that this Law comes into force and effect by the secular power of those soveraignties of Christendom which complying with the interest of the Church of Rome have agreed and do agree to inact the decrees of those Councils which have been held by the authority of it or the provisions thereof during the time that no Councils are held by temporall penalties upon their iubjects Is it therefore imaginable that the Councill could have pretended to introduce this limitation and demand the secular power to inact it had it not been a custome in force before that act was done that people should submit themselves to Penance for those sinâ—es which the Church without themselves could not charge them with Could any man offer so much violence to his own reason as to affirm that which himself cannot believe he would easily be convinced by producing the fashion of Ashwednesday and the order for the greatest part of Christians to declare themselves Penitents at the beginning of Lent with a pretence of obtaining absolution to the intent of receiving the communion of the Eucharist at Easter Which being more ancient then that law sufficiently demonstrateth that the effect of it was not to introduce the confession of secret sinnes which alwayes had been in use and force in the Church but expresly to limit and determine that which had been alwayes done formerly for the future to be done by all and at the least once a year It remains now to show the originall and generall practice of the Church that there is no Tradition to evidence that no sinne after Baptism can obtain remission but by the Church speaking of such sinnes as make the grace of Baptism void which is sufficiently done already if we remenber that not only the Montâ—nists or the Novatians but the Church also did sometimes exclude some sinnes from all hope of reconciliation by the Church not excluding them neverthelesse from hope of pardon with God but not ingaging the Church to warrant it For I demand in what consideration that pardon is obtained which the Church supposes possible for them to obtain Is it not upon the same score as all Christians obtain padon of sin To wit by being qualified for it with that disposition of mind which
to the answer to the Jesuits challenge in Ireland CHAP. IX Penance is not required to redeem tho debt of temporall punishment when the sinne is pardoned What assurance of forgivenesse the law of auricular Confession as it is used in the Church of Rome procureth Of injoyning Penance after absolution performed Setting aside abuses the Law is agreeable to Gods Of the order taken by the Church of England ANd now it is time to inferre from the premises the judgement that we are to make of the law of secret confession and Penance in the Church of Rome premising in the first place that which is evident supposing the premises that the works of Penance which they call Satisfactions because they will have them to make satisfaction for the debt of temporall punishment remaining when the guilt and stain of sinne is abolished were never required by the Church but according to the word of God to render the conversion of the Penitent so sincere and resolute as may qualifie him for pardon and Gods grace It is not necessary for this purpose that I undertake here to show that God pardoning sinne cannot or ever doth reserve a debt of temporall punishment to be inflicted in consideration of it It is manifest to any man that is neither acted by passion nor by faction that the death which God inflicted on Davids child gotten in adultery and the other judgements which the Prophet pronounces against him 1 Sam. XII 10-11 were punishments inflicted in consideration of those sinnes which the nature and kind of them answers expresly for murther that the sword shall not depart from his house for adultery that his wives should be defiled before the Sun Therefore when the Prophet sayes to him The Lord hath set aside thine iniquity thou shalt not die It will be requisite to take notice that though his sinne is pardoned speaking absolutely because his life his spared which was forfeit by Gods Law though into no mans hands but Gods yet this pardon extended not to extinguish the sentence pronounced nor yet that which he proceedeth further to pronounce concerning the childs death Whither you will say that in such a case sinne is remitted because absolutely the man is restored to Gods grace or not remitted because as to the punishments allotted he suffers by Gods vindicative justice is a controversie about words which I will not spend words to determine This cannot be denied that neither Gods originall justice nor any covenant of his with man hinders him so to proceed But what is this to the intent of Penance imposed by the Church which I have evidenced both by the Scriptures and the originall practice of the whole Church to have pretended the abolishing of the guilt and stain of sinne Indeed it is not to be denied that there is something more in that Penance which the Church imposeth For he that exacts the same revenge upon himself at his own discretion and conscience which the Church by the Canons thereof should exact pretends onelp to satisfie his own discretion and conscience that God is satisfied with his repentance And there lies the danger of satisfying a mans self with a palliative cure instead of a sound one whereas he that does it upon the sentence of the Church pretends to satisfie the Church that God is satisfied with it and to assure himself of his cure But when this satisfaction to the Church presupposes satisfaction ro God at least a presumption thereof whither onely legall or also reasonable well may I without this exception make this the pretense of Ecclesiasticall Penance Neither had there been any cause to question the doctrine and practice of the Catholick Church concerning the satisfaction of Penance had not the Church of Rome suffered it to be taught for I should do them wrong to say that they have injoyned it to be taught that it tendeth to recompense the debt of temporal punishment remaining when the sinne is remitted For though under the Gospel also God may decree temporal punishment upon that sin which afterwards comes to be remitted repentance yet he who is restored to the state of Gods grace to whom all things cooperate to good as S. Paul saith Rom. VIII 28. though he suffer temporall punishment for his sin by Gods justice yet by Gods grace to which he is restored it is converted into the means of salvation and of bringing to pass Gods everlasting purpose of it Before I go further I must call you to mind that which I said of the change of attrition into contrition how it may be allowed by the covenant of Grace and how it intimateth an abusive opinion that the change which qualifieth a man for the promises which the Gospel tendreth taketh effect in consideration of the intrinsecall worth of it and not onely of Gods promise which you have seen to be false This dispute was a long time canvased in the Schools without any reference to the remission of sinne by the Keyes of the Church But the difficulty being started that Confession not made in charity that is out of the love of God above all things may satisfie the positive precept but cannot avail to the remission of sin Some sought a salve for this sore in the form of Absolution which then proceeded partly as a Prayer partly as a definitive sentence For they thought the Prayer obtained that Grace which might be a due ground for the sentence But when the opinion prevailed that the form ought to be indicative it remained to say how Confession and Absolution should render him contrite that comes onely attrite Thomas Aquinas to say how the Keys of the Church may be understood to attain the production of Grace imagined the immediate effect of them to be a certain ornament of the soul fitting it for Grace by virtue whereof that Grace which a man gets not by Penance when he is not contrite quickens in him when he becomes contrite As he that is baptized without that resolution which obtaineth the promises becomes estated in them when it is rectified And this opinion had vogue among his followers till the last age afore this when finding it more proper to raise then to resolve questions it was laid aside by Cardinall Caâ—etane first then by the rest of his followers In the mean time the dispute of the change of attrition into contrition remained most maintaining contrition to be necessary before absolution till the Council of Trent upon the decree whereof Sess XIV cap. VI. Melchior Canus first maintained sorrow conceived upon meet fear of punishment with the Keys to qualifie for pardon of sinne Whose opinion is now grown so ordinary that those who hardly satisfie themselves in giving warning of the harm their own doctrine may do go down the stream notwithstanding in yielding to an opinion that hath so great vogue I do not intend hereby to say that that the Council of Trent hath decreed this opinion and obliged all to maintain it The terms which
that managed the power of the Keyes in behalfe of the Church and by their judgement whether at large or limited by Canons provided afore-hand for the Church was the cure appointed The Council of Trent granteth that God hath not forbidden publick confession of secret sinne My reasons inferre more That confession of sinne in secret is an abatement of that discipline which our Lord and his Apostles instituted for the cure of sinne by the Church and by consequence an abatement to the efficacy of his Ordinance Neither can any thing be alledged for it but the decay of Christianity by the coming of the world into the Church and the necessity which that bringeth upon the Church to abate of that which the primitive institution requireth that the Ordinances of our Lord may be preserved to such effects as can be obtained with the unity of the Church And therefore I deny not that this Law may be abused to become a torture and snare and an occasion of infinite scandals to well disposed Consciences For who will provide Laws for so vast a Body as the whole Church of Christendome yet is that shall give no occasion of offence They that pretend it are but Absoloms Disciples that to cure one advance innumerable No more do I deny that the skill of all Confessors that is all that must be trusted with that power which this Law constituteth is not nor can probably be able to value the sinnes that are brought to them and to prescribe the cure which they requite supposing their conscience such as will not fail to require that which their skill finds to be requisite In questions of this nature though it were to be wished that such Laws could be provided for the Church as being unblameable might render the Church unblameable Yet they that are capable of giving sentence what is best for so vast a body will find it best as in all other Corporations or Common-wealths to improve the Ordinances of God to the best of that which can be obtained with the unity of the Church And therefore setting aside those gross abuses which may follow upon the perswasion that those penalties which are to be imposed by the power of the Keyes to produce that disposition which qualifieth penitents for remission of sinnes tend onely to satisfie for the temporall penalty remaining due when the sinne is pardoned And setting aside those abuses in the practice of Penance which tend to introduce this perswasion I must freely glorifie God by freely professing that in my judgement no Christian Kingdom or State can maintain it selfe to be that which it pretendeth more effectually then by giving force and effect to the Law of private confession once a year by such means as may seem both requisite and effectuall to inforce it Not that I do condemn that order which the Church of England at the Reformation contented it selfe with as rendring the Reformation thereof no Reformation and leaving men destitute of sufficient means for the remission of sinne after Baptism to leave it to the discretion and conscience of those who found themselves burthened with sinne to seek help by the means of their Pastors as appeareth both in the Communion service and in the visitation of the sick But because I see the Church of England hath failed of that great peece of Reformation which it aimed at in this point To wit the receiving of publick Penance This aime you shall find expressed in the beginning of the Commination against sinners in these words Brethren in the primitive Church there was a godly discipline that at the beginning of Lent such persons as were notorious sinners were put to open Penance and punished in this world that their souls might be saved in the day of our Lord And that others admonished by their example might be more afraid to offend In the stead whereof untill the said discipline may be restored again which is much to be wished it is thought good What is the reason that â—o godly a desire of so evident a Reformation could not take place when Reformation in the Church was so generally sought besides those common obstructions with all good pretenses will necessarily find in all communities of Christians I shall not much labour to perswade him that shall consider the â—ares of Puritantism to have been sowed together with the grain of Reformation in the Church of England This I will say that where visible Penance is exercised for sins of themselves visible and much more which the conscience of those who commit them makes visible there is a reasonable ground of presumption that those who see this done upon others will not advance to the communion of the Eucharist without visiting their own consciences and exacting competent revenge upon their sins though they use not the help of their Pastoâ—s in taxing it That vulgar Christians would have been moved voluntarily to seek the help of their Pastors in taxing the cure of their sins without seeing the practice of that medicine upon notorious sins which the discipline of the Church required who can imagine For nothing but example teaches vulgar people the benefit of good Laws Noâ— did secret Penance ever get the force of a general Law but by example But where there is no pretense of casting notorious offenders out of the company of Christians that thereby they may be moved to submit to the cure of their sinnes by satisfying the Church of their Repentance because the secular Power inforces no sentence of excommunication it is no Christian Kingdom or Common-wealth though Christians may live in it â—as Christians may be cast upon a coast that is not inhabited by Christians For he that believes not onely that there is a Catholick Church in the world but that he must be saved by being a member of it may and will find imperfection enough in those Laws by which the Keyes of the Church are imployed and exercised but if he find no reconciliation of sinne by the Keyes of the Church because no excluding of sinners from the communion of it will find no part of the Catholick Church there because no part of the Catholick Church was ever without it And therefore I must not fail to declare my opinion in this place that in a Christian Common-wealth if by any means those that are convicted of capitall crimes by Law come to escape death either by favour of the Law or by Grace of the Soveraign as many times it falls out and likewise all those that are convicted of crimes that are infamous having satisfied the justice of the Law ought to stand excommunicate till they satisfie the Church And for the same reason those whom the Church convicteth of crimes which civill justice punisheth not but Christianity maketh inconsistent with the hope of Christians being excommunicate upon such conviction ought not to be restored to the communion of the Church until by just demonstrations of their converâ—ion the Church be satisfied of them as qualified for
the Church and to make voâ—â— the Laws which settled it they cryed up this position as much as the rest But when it came to order that confusion which they had made themselves they then found it necessary to limit both the mater and form though not the words which the offices of divine service should be celebrated with Which what was it but Plowdens case that for the form of Gods service to be prescribed by themselves it is not only lawful but requisite by the Church altogether abâ—â—inable And indeed those who must needs take upon them to appoint the persons who are to minister to the People must needs take upon them to appoint the form in which it was to be done They who make the one to depend upon the moâ—ion of Gods Spirit must make the other do the like though never able to make evidence of any such motion in any person that ever pretended it And yet is that all that ever hath been alledged so farre as I know for all opinions so new to Gods Church That S. Paul forbiddeth to quench the spirit 1 Thes V. 19. I do not deny that other texts of S. Paul have been alleged who in 1 Cor. XXI XIV discourseth so largely of the use of spiritual graces ordering also how they should be exercised and imployed in the said Church Nor that writting to the Romans VIII 23. 26. 27. he saith That the Spirit which groaneth for the resurrection in those that have the first fruits of it helpeth the infirmities of the Saints not knowing what to pray for as they ought interceding for them with grones unutterable which the searcher of hearts knowing the mind of the Spirit findeth to be made after the will of God But in these sayings there is nothing like a precept much lesse such a one as may seem to oblige the whole Church On the contrary the evidences are so frequent and so palpable in the discourse of S. Paul to the Corinthians that the Graces whereof he speaketh are miraculous Graces such as God then furnished the Church with to evidence the presence of his Spirit in it as well as 〈◊〉 their edification in Christianity assistance in Gods service that it were madnesse to require the Church to sollow the rules which suppose them which now appear no more in the Church And truly with what conscience can he alledge against the Church of Rome that miracles are ceased the grace whereof is ranked by S. Paâ—l with those which tend to the edification of the Church 1 Cor. XII 8. 9 10 28 29 30. who challengeth for himselfe or his fellows the priviledge of those Graces in Gods Church With what conscience can they hear S. Paul say 1 Cor. X. 17. That the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with And challenge themselves the priviledge of profiting the Church by Teaching or by Praying without any manifestation of the Spirit For are they not challenged every day to make manifest that ever any of them did speak by Gods Spirit and not by the Spirit of this World inspiring the fruits of the flesh by carnal or rather diabolical pride innovating in matters of Faith and destroying the uniformity of Gods service And therefore when S. Paul having said Quench not the Spirit addeth Deipise not Prophesies what hath been alleged what can be alleged why it should not be thought that he repeateth in brief that order which he had declared so largely to the Corinthians that the grace of speaking in unknown languages should not be discountenanced in the Church and so the Spirit extinguished But that Prophesies the grace whereof he there preferreth so farr before it should no way be neglected for it Truly he that saith The manifestation of the spirit is given to all to profit with doth say in effect that the Spirit which groâ—neth for the resurrection in them which have the first fruits that is the prime graces of it makes intercession for the Saints according to God by helping that infirmity of theirs whereby they know not what to pray for of themselves For those who had not alwayes had the Apostles Doctrine sounding in their ears but onely were instructed by them and their fellows so farr as to be fit for Baptism remaining neverthelesse novices in Christianity why should we think them fit to know what to pray for in all occasions Why should we think it strange that God should give the first fruits of his Spirit to profit them with in this case But the faith of Christ with the reasons and consequences thereof being setled and the order of the Church being established as the gift of miracles ceased as well to the bodily health and support of Christians and the Church as to the demonstration of Gods presence and witnesse to the truth of Christianity As the delivering of incorrigible sinners to Satan to the destruction of the flesh by bodily diseases and death ceased when obedience to Gods Church was established so is it no marvail if the Graces of Gods Spirit which profited the Church in teaching them what to pray for should no more be granted when the Church had not onely knowledge but good order established by which those offices might be preformed to the profit and edification of Christians Let them then who find that they can cure the sick by their prayers anoint them with oyl upon that ground and to that purpose Let them who can sing Psalms extempore so as to become the praises of God because S. Paul saith When ye come together every one of you hath a Psalm hath a doctrine hath a tongue hath a revelation hath an interpretation And that may be as well suggested upon the place as afore hand S. Paul saith that if a stranger coming into the Church should hear divers speak in strange languages that which they made not their hearers understand he would say were madd 1 Cor. XIV 23. dotwithstanding that it might appear that they would not speak those languages but by Gods Spirit I will onely demand of them not to abuse and dishonour Gods Spirit by imputing â—nto it those operations which it is not for the honour of God to acknowledge And then tell them that they must be tried by our common Christianity whether that they pretend to say or to do by the same agree with it But further order of Gods service in the Church let us proceed according to the principles premised comparing that which we find extant in the Scriptures with the original and general practice of Gods Church to say That the service of God consisting of his praises the doctrine of the Scriptures read and expounded and the prayers of the Church especially those which the communion of the Eucharist is celebrated with In the first place the Psalms of David that is the Book of Psalms is necessarily by the practice of the whole Church a form of Gods praises determined to the Church Which conclusion as it
the Church according to the affirmation of S. Basil that this Prayer is a Tradition of the whole Church Many are the Lâ—â—urgies that is the formes of celebrating the Eucharist in the Eastern Churches under Constantinople Alexandria and Antiochia yet extant which show the substance of it after the Deacon had said Lift up your hearts the People answering Wee life them up to the Lord which evidently pointeth ouâ— that which S. Paul calls the Thanksgiving or Blessing wherein the Consecration of the Sacrament consisteth beginning there and ending with the Lords Prayer in all of them to be this Repeating the creation of all things and the fall of man to praise God that hee left him not helpless but called first the Fathers then gave the Law and when it appeared that all this would not serve to reclaim him to God sent his onely Son to redeem him by his Cross who instituted this remembrance of it Praising God therefore for all this but especially for the death and resurrection of Christ and praying that the Spirit promised may come upon the elements presently set forth and make them the Body and Bloud of Christ that they who receive them with living Faith may be filled with the Grace of it I acknowledg that the repetition of the creation and fall of man the calling of the Patriarchs and giving the Law is all silenced or left out in the Latine Canon that is that Canonical Prayer which this Sacrament is consecrated and communicated with neither can I say that it is extant in the Ambrosian or any form besides that may appear to have been anciently in use in any part of the Western Church Though I have reason enough to conceive that it was used from the beginning and afterwards cut off for the shortning of the service because of the great consent that is found among forms used in the Eastern parts and because wee see how the Psalms and Lessons retained in them are abridged of that length which by the Constitutions of the Apostles and other ancienter records of the Church may appear to have been used in former ages But there can be no reason to say that the leaving out of all this being so remote a ground of the present action makes any difference in the substance and effect of that prayer which it is done and performed with And the rest being the same in all forms that remain extant inables mee to conclude that the Prayers of the Church which the Eucharist is to be consecrated with were from the beginning prescribed not for so many words but for the substance of them not in writing but by silent custom and Tradition received by the Church from the Apostles and ought to continue the same to the end of the world in all Churches There is a little objection to be made against this from that which Walafridus Strabo and other Latine Writers concerning the Offices of the Church have reported from some passages of S. Jerome and S. Gregory the Great That S. Peter at the first did consecrate the Eucharist with the Lords Prayer onely Which if it all this falls to the ground and the form of consecrating the Eucharist hath proved so uniform meerly by the consent of after ages and will remain subject to be changed again seeing that the Lords Prayer may for the substance of it be rendred into other terms and conceptions as many wayes as a man pleases But there is I have showed you a mistake in the meaning of these passages intended onely in opposition to that variety of Psalms and Lessons and Hymns and Prayers which afterwards were brought in to make the celebration of the Sacrament more solemn in regard whereof they say that S. Peter consecrated onely with the Lords Prayer not with any of those additions for solemnities sake when hee consecrated by that Thanksgiving or Blessing which our Lord consecrated the Sacrament at his last Supper with adding onely in stead of all other solemnities the Lords Prayer which the Consecration is still concluded with in all ancient forms For when the Order and occasions of Assemblies were not setled but the Offices of Christianity were to be ministred upon such opportunities as they could finde out for themselves it is no mervail if S. Peter himself might be obliged to abare all but meerly what was requisite And truly I may here seasonably say that I conceive the Lords Prayer is justly called by Tertullian Oratio legitima or the Prayer which the Law that is the precept of our Lord in the Gospel When yee pray say thus prescribeth not as if hee would have them serve him with no other prayer but this But that they should alwayes use this as a set prayer whatever other occasions they might have of addressing themselves to God with other prayers For accordingly I do observe that in all prescribed forms upon what occasion soever not onely of celebrating the Eucharist which assemblies have therefore been called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Missae in Latine from the dismission of them as in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the gathering of them whereas the Latine word Collectae which answers it is extended to other assemblies but other more dayly and hourly occasions according to the premises concerning Five hours of Prayer in the day in S. Cyprians time which since have come to seven that there is alwayes a room for the Lords Prayer as if the service of God were not lawfull according to the precept When yee pray say thus unless it be used Which is that which I shall advise them of who either exclude it as unlawfull or forbear it as offensive that they may consider how they count themselves members of Christs Church waiving that which the whole Church hath practiced in obedience to his precept for conformity with the enemies of his Church There is yet another sort of Prayers which are offered to God at the celebration of the Eucharist according to S. Pauls command for all estates and orders of men whether in the world or in the Church and for all their necessities in regard whereof I showed you afore that the Eucharist is counted a Sacrifice for the Church or rather for all mankinde As the High Priest when hee went into the Holy of Holies according to Philo prayed for the whole world representing the intercession of Christ for the same now at the right hand of God which the Church in his name by celebrating this Sacrament executeth and commemorateth upon earth And the form hereof I can easily say by the same reason is for mater and substance though not for so many words and for the conceptions it is expressed with prescribed according to S. Pauls command by the custom of the Church received by Tradition from the Apostles For when I have once named the necessities of all Orders and Estates without or within the Church in general supposing what Christianity requires Christians to pray for as well in behalf of
in nature as the worship of the true God and the worship of the Devil for God because that is done before an image Let us survay the matters of fact which we have in the Scriptures Moses thus warneth the Israelites Deut. IV. 15-19 Take heed unto your selves least you corrupt your selves and make you a graven image the similitude of any figure the likenesse of male or female the likenesse of any beast that is on the earth the likeness of any winged foul that flieth in the aire the likenesse of any thing that creepeth on the ground the likenesse of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth And least thou lift up thine eyes to heaven and when thou seest the Sunne and the Moone and the Starres even all the host of heaven shouldest be pushed aside to worship them and to serve them which the Lord thy God hath imparted unto all nations under the whole heavens It is like enough that the first Idolatry that ever was practised was the worship of the Sunne the Moone and the Stars But that it was a part of the Gentiles Idolatries by the Scripture alone it is evident and certaine The Jewes as Moses Maimoâ—i relateth in the Title of Idolatry at the beginning tell us that out of admiration of the beauty and constant motions of those glorious bodies men began of themselves to conceive that it would be a thing pleasing to God to addresse themselves to him by the mediation of those creatures which they could not chuse but think so much nearer to him then themselves That this conceit being seconded with pretended revelations to the same purpose brought forth in time the offering of sacrifices to them and making of images of them by meanes whereof the blessings of God might be procured through their influence And Origen often gathereth out of those words that God allowed the Gentiles afore the Law to worship the Sunne and the Moone and the Starrs that they might proceed no further to worse Idolatries Though so farre as I have observed he is not seconded herein by any of the Fathers Nor can he in my opinion be any further excused then the Booke of Wisdome doth excuse him making the worship of the Elements of the World the lightest sort of Idolatries Wisd XIII 10. It is a thing agreeable to all experience that by degrees and not in an instant mankind should be seduced to forget God having had the knowledge of God at the first derived unto them from their first parents and to take his creatures for God But will any man therefore undertake that when they were come so farre as to worship the Sunne and the Moon and the Starres by sacrifices and incense and all those actions whereby the honour of God was first expressed all this was done in honour to God because they were conceived to be nearer him then other of his creatures How will he then answer S. Paul when he saith Rom. I. 25. That the Gentiles changed the true God into a ly and worshipped and served the creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides or parallel to the Creator who is God blessed for evermore For where was the ly but in taking the creature for God And how could they worship and serve the creature hand in hand with God but by degrading God into the rank of his creature and advancing the creature into the rank to which God was degraded by their false and lying conceit How could they expresse this honour by actions formerly appropriated to the service of God had they not first been seduced in the conceit of that honour which they robbed God of to give it his creatures But it is a thing certaine and palpable in the Idolatries of the Gentiles that they deified dead men by attributing unto them the names of the Heavens the Sunne the Moone the rest of the Planets and other Constellations of the Aire the Earth the Waters in fine of the World and the Elements of it So that Idolatry was committed both to the men and to those worldly bodies at once In this case will any man be so willfull as to hold still that these worldly Bodies were no otherwise honoured then in relation to God as his creatures when as it appeareth that the honour due to God alone was studiously procured for dead men by insinuating ridiculous perswasions into the mindes of people seduced to think that they were deified in those Bodies Wherefore it is not to be denied that those creatures were advanced to the honour of God by degrading God into the rank of his creatures as if there might as well be more Gods then one as more creatures of a kind then one Againe when Moses warneth them of making the image of any creature can any man doubt that his reason is least it should be worshipped with the same honour which immediately he forbids the Sunne and Moone and Starres to be honoured with And could the meer priviledge of being Gods creature move any man to take any before another and to make an image of it that under it he might honour God that made it Or was it requisite that first men should conceive an excellence in the creature which if expressed with the same actions whereby they honoured God of necessity it must be taken for the same which they attributed to God And what is that but the opinion of more Gods Can any man find fault with that which the Fathers have so frequently objected to the Gentiles that the gods whom they worshipped were dead men seeing before his eyes in the records of the Romanes Macedonians and Persians during the time of Historicall truth that their Princes were of course as it were deified and worshipped as gods after their death And was all this done in relation to one true God whose graces they had been the meanes to convey to so great a part of mankind Or in despite of that light of one true God though inshrined in their brests they suffered to be overwhelmed with that ignorance which custome had brought to passe Is it possible to imagine that the Egyptians should tremble at those living creatures or those fruits of their gardens which they honoured for their gods if they had taken them for creatures of one true God whom they intended to honour by and under those his creatures Or was it necessary that they should further conceive the Godhead in one City to be inclosed in this creature in another in that and thereupon find themselves obliged to honour the same for God In fine doth not the Scripture in many places plainly declare that which I pointed at in proposing my argument that the Idolatry of the Gentiles was the worshipping of Devils in stead of God Why the Israelites are commanded to sacrifice no where but before the Tabernacle the reason is given Levit XVII 7. And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils after whom they have gone a whoring Deut. XXXIII 17. They
of rejoycing are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming 1 Pet. I. 5. Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time 1 Cor. V. 5. that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 2 Tim. IV. 8. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousnesse which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day Luke XIV 14. Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just For all which there were no reason to be given but the mention of the day of judgement would be every where utterly impertinent if the reward were declared at the houre of death and that judgement which then passeth For how can that be expected which is already injoyed You have seen the souls of the Martyrs that appear to Saint John before Gods Throne where none but Martyrs appeare as I have argued bidden to expect the conâ—ummation of their company before the vengeance of God be exercised upon their persecutors Apoc. VI. 9 10 11. VII 14 After this vengeance is exercised and they had raigned M. yeares with Christ and the devil was loosed againe and had brought Gog and Magog to fight against Gods Church and they had been destroyed and the generall judgement represented Apoc. XX. the Spirit returneth to show Saint John the New Jerusalem containing those that see Gods face and have his Name upon their foreheads Apoc. XXI XXII 1-5 Who have no need of the Sunne because God is their light and shall raigne for everlasting For after all this againe The Spirit and the bride say come And let him that heareth say come And let him that thirsteth come and let who will come and take of the water of life for nothing And he that testifyeth these things saith Indeed I come quickly Amen Even so come Lord Jesus What demandeth all this That which seemeth not to be refused admitting the consequence of the Visions That those souls who appear before Gods Throne pray for the second coming of Christ and the consummation of all things The renewing of their prayer Apoc. VI. after the representation of the generall judgement Apoc. XX. inforceth it The Saints therefore in heaven still desiring the second coming of Christ is it marvaile if there remaine something to be prayed for on behalf of inferiour rankes having showed that those who were sealed and saved in Jewry are not described to appeare in heaven before Gods Throne Whither we admit all that dy in the state of Grace to be with Christ as well as S. Paul and that in Paradise taken for the third heavens Or reserve as well we may reserve so much privilege to an Apostle and a martyr according to that which I have showed you out of the Apocalypse as not to equall with him all that dy in the state of Grace Certaine we are the estate of those that dy in Gods grace admits a solicitous expectation of the day of judgement though assured of the issue of it That is it which so many texts of Scripture alledged afore signifie nothing if they signify it not What is it then that reason grounded upon the Scriptures requires Certainly did our justification consist in the immediate imputation of Christs righteousnesse revealed by that Faith which therefore justifieth no man could dy in the state of Grace but be must be as pure as the Blessed Virgine and he that can digest such excessive assertions may think strange that any difference should be made among them that dye in Grace But I must and do suppose that which I have proved that the performance of that common Christianity the undertaking whereof justifies makes as much difference between the righteousnesse of severall Christians as must needes be found between the Highest of Gods Saints and the Lowest of those that escape the second death And therefore inferre that the difference of theire estates between death and the generall judgement must needes be answereable though from their death they know to whether lot they be deputed as for their particular judgment And this will necessarily follow supposing this world to be the Race and the next the Gole according to the tenor of the Covenant of Grace which hath been declared For supposing that he who keepeth account of his steps and watcheth over his wayes may be ready for Gods call and appeare before him without sinne having washed it away by the blood of Christ infused in the tears of finall repentance Must we not of necessity suppose that they who doe not so who are evidently the farre greater part of Christians departing with the guilt and slaine of such sinne upon them must needs appear with it before God notwithstanding the Covenant of Grace Againe the ove of this world and of our selves from whence such sinne proceedeth and would have proceeded should men proceed to live suppose it be such as drives not Gods Spirit away because incident to that humane â—railty which the Covenant of Grace presupposeth how shall it be washed out of that soule after death by virtue of the Covenant of Grace which hath failed of the Covenant of Grace in not washing it away being alive It is therefore necessarily consequent upon the premises that Christiane soules which escape the second death because the love of God was alive in them to strive against sinne though not to clear them of it continue in that estate wherein they departed till the generall judgement As for the love of God or of the World so for the joy or remorse which they have in them selves for it That the purity of this joy or the mixture of it with remorse be not meerly the punishment of sinne committed but the effect and consequence of the estate in which it departeth though the sin which it committed in the Body be the meanes to constitute this estate That the departure thereof bring it to that anxiety concerning the everlasting judgement which is proportionable to the love of the creature which it departeth with That being reposed in an estate and place of refreshment which those secret receptacles and chambers of Esdras seem to signify it remaine subject as well to those clouds of sorrow and remorse which the sense of sinne done and the love of God which hath not conquered the love of the Creature produceth as to that light and refreshment which the Spirit of God may create That the end of all this may be the trial of the day of judgement purging away all the dregs and drosse of sinne and of the love of this world which may remaine in soules that depart or are found then alive in the state of Grace by the fiercenesse and sharpnesse of that griefe which the triall of the generall judgement shall cause It may be thought that the fire wherewith the day of the Lord is revealed seizing their bodies which they shall have resumed by the paine which it