consequence some received notions of that grace are and that not a few that have imbibed them have so well understood their true and natural inferences as to be thereby encouraged to let the Reins loose to all Ungodliness They also so state the Doctrine of imputed as to shew the absolute necessity of inhaerent Righteousness and that in a more intelligible way and less lyable to misconstruction than hath ordinarily been heretofore done As also the Doctrine of Gods grace so as to reconcile it with and shew the indispensableness of mens endeavours and as the Apostle doth they make Gods readiness to work in us to will by his preventing grace and to do by his assisting a motive to work out our own salvation And I have heard several of them do this in a more satisfactory and clear manner than most with whose Preaching I have been acquainted wherein as in the foregoing instances they have done in my opinion very worthy service But some hot-headed men from thence also take occasion greatly to vilifie them represent them as men Popishly affected and holding Justification by works as persons utterly unacquainted with the great Mystery of believing as those that make void the righteousness of Faith by establishing Moral righteousness and that set themselvs to cry up the power of Nature and to perswade their Hearers that they are able to convert themselvs without being beholden to the divine grace In all which it is easie to shew that they have performed the parts of most notorious Calumniators and shewed themselves if not too malicious which I would not think yet extremely weak Philal. You say that they are accused as men that make void the righteousness of Faith by establishing Moral righteousness I am thereby put in minde that they have another Name given them besides the Long one and that of Rational Preachers namely Moral Preachers Theoph. Then have you heard them so called Philal. Yes of late frequently Theoph. And do you think that an opprobrious name Philalethes Philal. No I assure you not I but I perceive they do that use it Theoph. I ever esteemed Morality as that which no ture Christian can have a slight opinion of and therefore thought it could never be judged a Crime to preach it Philal. But by Moral Preachers they mean such as are meerly so Theoph. If by Moral righteousness they understand a barely external conformity to or customary observance of the laws of Righteousness they most shamefully belye these Divines in saying that they preach no other Righteousness but if they mean thereby the whole duty of man to God his Neighbour and Himself which these Preachers insist upon as much as any whatsoever by the names of true holiness the divine life of vertue the righteousness which is of God by faith in Christ Iesus which he taught in his own person and by his Apostles and upon our using the means works in us by his Spirit or inward rectitude and integrity and doing all the good we can from the best and most divine principles or as one of them expresseth it that divine and heavenly life whose root is faith in God and our Saviour Christ and the branches or parts of it are humility purity and charity I say if they upon the account of their preaching up such a Righteousness alone as this call them in contempt Moral Preachers they expose onely themselvs to contempt by so doing Philal. Those men will tell you that Evangelical righteousness is as well to be insisted on as Moral nay and more than Moral too by persons that would be accounted Gospel-Preachers Theoph. Truly Philalethes I am so very dull as not to be able to make any distinction between these two as I have now described the later righteousness but think Evangelical to be such a Moral righteousness and such a Moral Evangelical Philal. But you know that they make a difference between them Theoph. It is strange they should understanding Moral righteousness for that which consisteth in the Regulation of both the outward and inward man according to the unchangeable Laws of righteousness which I must confess may be properly called Moral righteousness and is so in the most proper sence too for I am as certain as that the Gospel is true that its onely ultimate designe upon us is to work in us that Righteousness Let any man but consider the Precepts of it and he shall finde I 'll warrant him that they are all designed either mediately or immediately to make men in that sence morally righteous And I fear not to say that I am verily perswaded that if this were not the end of the Christian Religion it would not be worthy of the Son of God Let any one read our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount and then tell me whether he doth not think that if he were now upon the earth these men would not call him a Moral preacher He must have a strangely piercing eye of his own that can therein discern any other than such Moral discourses What doth the Apostle S. Paul tell us the grace of God that brings salvation teacheth us is it not that denying ungodliness and all worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godlily And if these Gentlemen suppose that living godlily implieth something that is not so Moral for I know they will not say so concerning living soberly and righteously they will finde themselvs very hard put to it to make it out For all Godliness our Saviour as hath been said referreth to the love of God and it would be strange if that should not be a Moral vertue What did S. Peter mean when speaking of our Saviour he saith that his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin might live to righteousness What righteousness should that be which he doth there oppose to sin if not such a one as is in the number of Morals And yet the Apostle tells us that our living to this was the designe of the death of Christ. This also is the end of the promises as well as precepts of the Gospel as the same S. Peter assureth us He hath given us saith he exceeding great and precious promises for what end is it that we should be swollen with high conceits of Gods special love to us and of our being the favourites and darlings of heaven Nothing less but it followeth that by these we might be partakers of the Divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust And what do those men think it is to escape the corruption of the world if not to be truly virtuous and in the best sence morally righteous Nay what can they imagine it is to partake of the divine or a divine nature if not this Can any thing be understood thereby but participating of the divine moral perfections such as Justice Mercy Purity I hope they will not say that an imitation of
Theoph. When we can put a favourable construction upon our brothers faults and not offer over-great violence to our own Reason we ought to do it and to look upon them as proceeding rather from infirmity than from a principle of immorality But yet Philalethes I would not have you take me to be more charitable than I am for though I will not conclude those censorious people to be all hypocrites yet I dare confidently pronounce them at best but of the lowest fourm in Christs School as great attainments as they may be thought to be arrived at by men of greater honesty than understanding Philal. But we have forgotten our business all this while Theoph. You do well to minde me of it You expect Philalethes that I should vindicate those friends of ours and all that are of their minde in the point in hand from opposing free grace and holding the Popish doctrine of Justification by works They are so far from being guilty in these particulars that I am amazed at their ignorance that say they are upon such slight grounds or rather upon none at all Nor do I think that an easier task can be imposed on any man that hath but a competent understanding of our Saviours Gospel than to clear the foregoing account of Faiths justifying from those hateful sequels For whereas 't is pretended that that doctrine is an enemy to free grace I may ask those that pretend so how Justification is free seeing it is necessary to believe in their sence in order to it they must at least acknowledge that if not so much as that lazie faith of theirs were requisite it would be so much the freer Philal. But the Antinomians will tell you that they make no faith at all nor any thing else necessary or requisite to their Justification and that their faith consists in believing that they are already justified and that they were so before they were born too nay as was said that their Justification is as old as God himself for he could be but from eternity Theoph. I confess these blades are swinging assertors of the freeness of their Justification and therefore the Question I now asked is nothing to them but I am sure it signifieth something to the second sort I told you of and that are gotten about one little remove from formal Antinomians But I say moreover that such a Faith as that we have described is absolutely necessary in it self to make us capable of that priviledge and meet objects of Gods grace Will they say that the Kings pardoning a notorious Traytor is ever the less free because that as far as he could judge of his heart he looked on him as a person that was resolved to become for the future a Loyal subject Me-thinks they should not and that for this reason because such a purpose is but necessary to qualifie him for a pardon it being an act of greater fondness and folly than of grace and goodness to forgive an offender that obstinately persists in his disobedience Or suppose his Majestie should confer upon one of them an honourable Office in his Court would he say he bought it or that it was not freely bestowed upon him because his Majestie required that before his investiture and admission into it he should learn good Breeding and how to behave himself in such a Place Surely he would not and that for the already-mentioned reason this he could not but know was no more than necessary to be enjoyned him for otherwise he could not be at all fit for the Office and the King would greatly disparage his wisdom in making such a choice And as little cause have any to imagine that to assert that God will pardon and receive into special favour none but such as so believe as to be heartily willing to obey his Sons Gospel is to derogate from the freeness of his grace Besides that glory and blessedness which consisteth in the enjoyment of God in the other world which is the consequent of Justification cannot be enjoyed by a wicked man the joys of heaven are of so spiritual a nature that carnal souls are as uncapable of them as are beasts of the intellectual delights of men They are onely the pure in heart that can as well as that shall see God Heathens will teach us this doctrine if we are to learn it Much less then in the third place is this doctrine of a working Faiths being the condition of our Justification at all a lessening of the freeness of Gods grace when as those that preach it do withal assert that this faith is Gods own gift a grace of his blessed Spirit They say indeed and that most truly that we are to use the means appointed us by him for the obtaining of it but they tell their hearers also that it must come from God if they ever have it Could we work this faith in our selvs and stood in no need of the divine assistance considering what hath been said it would make our Justification to be never the less free much less reason then is there that those should be charged with making it otherwise that preach that doctrine of Faiths being the condition of Justification when they declare that the power whereby we perform that condition comes from God Philal. I am sure that I have no power to invent any one Reply by way of objection Theoph. Well then we 'll to their next Cavil namely that to hold this doctrine is to maintain Justification by works which is indeed the same in their sence with the former but it is fit it should be distinctly spoken to because S. Paul in his Epistles especially to the Romans and Galatians doth so often deny works to have an influence into Justification and is found opposing them one while to Grace and another while to Faith as to this matter I cannot stand to cite the particular places but the consideration of these following things will enable any man to reconcile them with this Doctrine at the first sight of them 1. By the works of the Law whereby the Apostle saith that men cannot be justified we are frequently to understand those of the Jewish Law their External Rites and Observances And so they are to be understood in most if not all the places in the Epistle to the Galatians And by the understanding of that one thing that Epistle may with ease be defended from patronizing the Antinomian doctrine The chief designe of which as is most apparent being to vindicate the liberty of the Christian Religion from the Judaical Yoke which being by the Judaizing Galatian Converts imposed upon the Christian Gentiles as absolutely and indispensably necessary was like to prove a mighty obstacle to the progress of the Gospel among them 2. In some other places by works are meant absolutely perfect and altogether faultless ones And we are told that as the Law of Moses cannot nor ever could justifie by reason of its own weakness
lessen Gods grace to any whereupon for a while I was well pleased with that Middle way you now gave an intimation of till after better weighing it I found but very little if any thing gotten by it Then I fell to considering that other I have given you an account of and have ever since been as well satisfied with this as I was with that dissatisfied And so I took my leave of the forementioned Principle and was thereupon I thank God well rid of its troublesome attendants For some time I could not be perswaded that those sad consequences were so fast tyed to that opinion but that they might be loosed from each other whereupon I set my very teeth to the knot and tryed all my skill to undo it but when I found that it was labour in vain I was as I said chiefly encouraged by the acquaintance I took with this way to send both Principle and Conclusions packing together and so bade them all Goodnight Philal. I am no less beholden to it than you are nor do I think that any ones minde hath been more relieved by it than mine hath Theoph. And have you not found Philalethes that since you exchanged the Calvinistical for this way you love God better than before and can think of him with more delight and pleasure Philal. Yes I thank God And whereas before I loved him chiefly from some hopes I had that he loved me I can now love him for himself and the consideration of the amiableness of his nature and essential perfections And therefore my affection to him is more constant than it was while it chiefly depended upon the apprehension I had of his affecting me Theoph. So it must I should think needs be although you still loved him onely in regard of his love to you For though you may sometimes possibly be without any great sense of his love of complacence yet I dare say you now never want that of his love of benevolence Philal. No never Theoph. You have also a clearer sense of the goodness of the divine precepts and of the hatefulness and vileness of sin han't you Philal. Yes a much clearer which I hope hath some good influence upon my life Theoph. So your love alone must needs have but much more that and this together Philal. But Theophilus what a Catechist are you grown all of a suddain I pray desist from putting any more Questions of this nature Did I not so well know you I should have done but foolishly in thus freely answering those you have ask'd me And had I of mine own accord told you what you have now heard you your self would have accounted me too guilty of boasting and vain-glory But yet though thanks be to Gods grace I am somewhat better than I have been yet am I still sensible of so much weakness of such great discomposure of thoughts and disorderliness of affections as may well keep me exceedingly low in mine own eyes and Antidote me from pride and conceitedness in regard of my attainments were they greater than they are even though I should onely be beholden to my own strength for them But seeing you are so good at Catechizing why may not I be so also Theoph. So you have been I think sufficiently since the beginning of this discourse Philal. But why may not I repeat to you your own Questions Theoph. But you have time little enough at present for other matters don't you see the Sun grows low Philal. Well then to pursue more closely the business in hand Do not our Adversaries in this point accuse those Friends of ours of Arminianism in asserting Free-will notwithstanding that their Middle way Theoph. This way teacheth us to assert no Free-will that is opposite to Free-grace And onely thus much that men are invested by God with ability to do much in order to salvation as to abstain from the external acts of sin to hear his Word read it and consider it and to endeavour to subdue all their lusts and perform whatsoever duties are required of them c. And likewise by the infinitely-strong motives contained in the Gospel by the motions of his holy Spirit various providences or in one word by his preventing grace may they will so to do But that we can of ourselvs turn our own wills from the ways of sin to the ways of God is peremptorily denyed by us and for ought that I can learn by the Remonstrants themselvs also as much as they are accused by some for so asserting Philal. But don't we see that the generality of men that enjoy the means of grace are never the better for them but continue in wilful disobedience Theoph. 'T is too true and matter of saddest lamentation but what of that Let us in Gods name charge it wholly upon themselvs and not say they are not able to do otherwise if this were so I should think it the greatest folly in the world to be angry with a wicked man Don't we see that the threatning of an easie punishment or the promise of a small reward will make men finde a will to abstain from several sins which they would not be kept from by all the threatnings and promises in the Book of God Therefore surely by the help of these and especially if we take the other helps along with them that were but now named they may will not onely to keep from some sins but also to endeavour to keep from all Mens Wills being so seldom wrought upon doth not prove that they have no power to will thus to do For we see that it is the very same thing as to all other habits as well as sinful ones there is not one among many scarcely that will be broken of such Customs as are in themselvs very innocent no though they finde them prejudicial to them as I need not give you instances But then for so few mens being throughly converted by the means of grace let us much less run to Gods absolute decreeing their non-conversion or damnation to give a Solution of it Nor let us so wrong God as to say that it is any way long of him or that he hath been wanting to them and by this means excuse them What reason have we to imagine that they are not themselvs in all the fault and that God would not have given them such a measure of grace as would have effectually converted them had they but acted in some sutableness to the power he hath given them Had they but done what they could and might have willed to have done too but that they freely chose the contrary And against the checks of their own Consciences and all the methods of Gods grace with a free not fatal willingness preferred the pleasing of their senses before the salvation of their souls God hath said enough to perswade us not to imagine this as may be largely shewn Philal. I could never hear the most wicked wretch when he is wisest and most
being forbidden is now called wickedness and by that means make it Holiness But if this doth not raze and overturn the foundation of all Religion no opinion in the world tends so to do Philal. If Abraham was of that minde he strangely forgot himself when he said to his Maker Shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right And whether he was of that minde or no if the Doctrine be true he was guilty of a monstrously-absurd impertinence in so saying and yet which is more strange he had no check for it Theoph. Nay did not God himself appeal to mens innate notions and so confute that doctrine when he said to the Rebellious Jews Are not my ways equal and your ways unequal Can those men think that he onely meant Are not my ways such as I please to fancie and yours such as it is my pleasure to dislike Who would dare to fix such an expostulation as that on the infinitely-wise God Philal. Well I am clearly sensible that nothing reveled by God can possibly contradict those principles that are impressed in as I think indelible characters upon the souls of men and therefore whatsoever places may seem to speak mens being necessitated to be either sinners or miserable must be understood in another sence especially seeing that God hath so often declared that mens ruine is of themselvs and that their help is to be found in him and that he willeth not their death but the contrary and therefore much less can he will their sins as he hath also as plainly as can be declared And moreover affords them means whereby they may obtain happiness which who will not say that all that enjoy them are greatly beholden to God for and expresseth his grace and good will to them all without any exception Theoph. You have put me in minde of a passage I have met with in a Sermon of a most pious and learned Divine now in heaven which when I read it did greatly affect me It is this Consider impartially with your selvs what an unreasonable horrible thing it is seeing there are so many several frequent expressions of Gods general love and gracious favour to Mankinde inforced and strengthened with such protestations and solemn oaths that the cunningest Linguist of you all cannot in your whole lives study conceive or frame expressions more full and satisfactory I say is it not desperate madness for a man to shew such hatred and abomination at the comfortable and gracious promises of God that he can be content to spend almost his whole age in contriving and hunting after interpretations utterly contradicting and destroying the plain apparent sence of those Scriptures And will be glad and heartily comforted to hear tidings of a new-found-out gloss to pervert and rack and torment Gods holy Word Philal. Me-thinks this passage should affect any good man But Theophilus what should induce so many to be led by a few Scriptures against such a torrent of others to cry up such strange Doctrine Theoph. You love to ask me Questions which you can answer as well your self You know they pretend that this is the onely way to advance Gods grace in mens conversion and salvation And this no doubt is the onely motive that prevaileth with all the truly good men among them to go that way It sounds as harsh in many at least of their ears as it doth in ours as I have great reason to be assured And Calvin himself in the 608 page of his Institutions calls Absolute Reprobation Horribile Decretum And the President of the Synod at Dort said it was materia odiosa and therefore declared to the Remonstrants that that Controversie should be waved and said that they would onely hear their Arguments against Absolute Election for that was materia suavis As I finde in their Letters called Epistolae Ecclesiasticae c. I say it is very harsh doctrine to many of them as well as to us but because they cannot otherwise than by admitting it magnifie as they think they ought the divine grace to Gods elect they force themselvs to swallow the bitter Pill as much as their stomacks nauseate it and therefore as those that drink down loathsome Potions stop their noses so do these their ears to the clamours of their own Reason against it and will not sedately advert to but violently suppress the natural dictates of their understandings Have you not several times observed that the good-natured people of that way complain more than others of Blasphemous thoughts I am sure I have and have found when I have discoursed with them that this doctrine was the occasion of them So that whether they will or no their Reason or innate sense of their Souls call it which you please suggests to them the dreadful consequences of it which they would fain believe to be the devils temptations Philal. But don't you believe that the men of this opinion are also induced to it because they are not able to interpret in any other sence those places of Scripture that seem to make for it Theoph. I do not think that the Learned men are For I cannot imagine that those should think that such Scriptures are unintelligible in any other sence than that they understand them in that know how few and therefore how ambiguous the original words of the Hebrew Tongue are as also that there are different sences of the same Verb in several Conjugations and that there are strange Idioms and Proprieties of speech in that Language which are also imitated in the Greek Testament and lastly that the occasions of several passages do frequently make another sence necessary to be imposed on them from that which at first sight and considering them simply and absolutely and as entire propositions without relation to any other thing offereth it self Philal. I have sometimes thought that those need never despair of understanding the places they produce to serve their Hypotheses in a different sence from that they are so fond of who can invent a Figure to make All men nay and every man too to signifie but some few and can reconcile I will not the death of a sinner with I desire the death of most sinners and He will have all men to be SAVED with He will have the generality of men to be DAMNED and many the like Propositions which sound in my ears as contradictory one to the other as any I have ever heard or can invent So that Theophilus it must needs be as you said their desire to magnifie Gods grace to the Elect that alone prevaileth with those of them that are good-natured truly-pious people to go that way But yet I wonder that they should no more consider that to magnifie Gods grace to some few so as to deny it to all others and so to advance his mercy as to rob him of his holiness truth and justice is to take ten thousand times more from him than is given thereby to him Theoph.
I would advance Gods grace as highly as ever I am able and so I perswade my self would the Divines we have been speaking of so as not to destroy his other perfections nor do I nor I believe they desire to attribute any more to man in the business of his salvation than needs must and not suppose him a perfect Brute But to say the truth I and those I am acquainted with of those Divines do magnifie in all respects the grace of God as much as any of the other Way and in one respect incomparably more Philal. What is the way you take so to do Theoph. A middle one betwixt the Calvinists and Remonstrants which in short is this That there is such a thing as distinguishing grace whereby some persons are absolutely elected by vertue whereof they shall be having potent and infallible means prepared for them irresistibly saved But that others that are not in the number of those singular and special favourites are not at all in a desperate condition but have sufficient means appointed for them to qualifie them for greater or less degrees of happiness and have sufficient grace offered to them some way or other and some time or other and are in a capacity of salvation either greater or less through the merits of Jesus Christ and that none of them are damned but those that wilfully refuse to co-operate with that grace of God and will not act in some moral sutableness to that power they have received And as for those that have been in an extraordinary manner wrought upon and finde themselvs very powerfully excited and carried to that which is good such at least have reason so long as they are also careful to walk in all ways of holiness to believe themselvs in the number of the Absolutely elected Now as a learned Divine saith the Arminian need not repine at this way nor yet the Calvinist for whatsoever good Arminianism pretends to concerning all men is exhibited to the part not absolutely elected and to the other part the goodness of God is greater than is allotted by Arminius And whatsoever good is pretended in Calvinism to that part that is absolutely elected the same goodness is here exhibited and besides that direful vizard pulled off that Ignorance and Melancholy had put upon divine providence and the lovely face of the Gospel Philal. I am glad to understand that you and they have made choice of this way which is not new to me no more than another Middle way which I cannot be satisfied with but for some time I have been greatly inclined to prefer this before any other as having by much the fewest and least difficulties Theoph. I did not think you a stranger to it and believed you could not but like well of it nor can I conceive why either any Calvinist or Remonstrant should mislike it But that we see in all professions there are those that will hardly be brought to allow that there may be any farther improvements made than those which their great Masters had attained to Though both Calvin and Arminius were excellently-learned and pious persons yet methinks their respective greatest Admirers should acknowledge each of them short of infallibility and therefore not presume them in any thing attained to a Nè plus ultra Every Age sure enough improveth in knowledge having the help still of those foregoing and as this is seen in other Sciences so especially is it discernible in that of Divinity as all but ignorant and extremely prejudiced persons must needs acknowledge Philal. But this way is not so new as some have imagined it for I have read it in the History of the Council of Trent as that which Catharinus a Moderate and Learned man proposed there for the accommodation of the difference between the Dominicans and Franciscans about this point Theoph. The same person as I am informed by one that hath read it hath also written a very ingenious Piece upon that subject wherein he layeth down and defendeth very handsomely this very way Philal. But indeed if I did not think that this way were as much elder than that Gentleman as were our Saviour and his Apostles I should not have at all given credit to it Theoph. No nor I hope any else if they did not think so Id verum quod antiquissimum being in Divinity an indisputable Maxime And I verily believe that this way is much more befriended by the great Standard of Truth the Scriptures than any other But how it should if true have for some Ages the fewest if any Friends is no wonder For Truth is too frequently if not always lost in a Scuffle and forced to give place to extremes by eager contests And indeed this is too moderate and yeelding a way to have so much as entered into the thoughts of the Hot men of either party who like nothing so well as to keep themselvs at the greatest distance from each other And there is great cause to suspect that in most other Controversies that have been managed with that fierceness that this hath been the several contesting parties have over-done and out-shot the mark and that Truth will one day be found to have been on neither side but to have layn unobserved between the Combatants though nearer to some than others Philal. 'T is not unlikely Theoph. This way I must tell you Philalethes hath for divers years been a mighty ease to my minde And I will communicate to you something concerning my self that I never before now had occasin to tell you The Doctrine of Absolute Reprobation did ever since I was of years of discretion lie very unevenly and ruggedly in my brains and seemed extremely harsh to me And though I for some time thought that I was bound to believe it yet could I not endure much to think or to hear others talk of it But after I betook my self to studie the Controversie I had so quick a sense of the natural consequences of it as did greatly distract me For I was fearful of letting go the Premise as much as the Conclusions scar'd me But while I thought or rather feared that the Doctrine was too too true I was frequently disquieted with blasphemous thoughts and most black apprehensions of the loveliest of Beings nor could I think of God many times without consternation Those thoughts I was ready to look upon as injections from his and Mankindes enemy Till at length after I had weighed things more impartially having read a Book or two that prepared me with some free Principles I found that I had wrong'd the Devil and that my affrighting thoughts were the too natural off-spring of that Principle And came to be convinced that till I let go this I was not like to be rid of them But then I was as much to seek where to fix and how to steer my self as to the doctrine of Election for very fearful I was to entertain any opinion that might at all