laboured more than they all yet not I but the grace of God with me The Scripture calls us Workers in Gods Vineyard not Tools and Instruments Call the Labourers and give them their hire And again We shall all receive a reward according to our works Mark 16.20 They went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them 2 Cor. 6.1 We then as workers together with him beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain But in vain they would receive it if they would not cooperate with it If St. Paul whom St. Chrysostome calls the best child of grace thought it no disparagement to the grace of God to say he was a worker together with God towards their Conversion how can it be a disparagement to the grace of God to say we together with God work out our own Salvation It were in vain to persuade us to do what God alone solely and wholly doth in us Now how many persuasions in Scripture do we meet withal To make you a new heart to put off the old man and to put on the new These plainly prove a liberty of Will and that we must work out our own Salvation or else safety it self will not save us How pathetically doth God wish the Conversion of sinners Jer. 13.27 O Jerusalem wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be Oh that my people would have hearkned unto me for if Israel had walked in my ways c. Who reading such Texts can imagine that God did not expect mens co-operation or that the cause of their ruine was only because Grace was so slenderly offered by God that it proved ineffectual unto them when God says Jer. 51.9 We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her The judgment inflicted plainly shews God was not wanting to her but she was wanting to her self All Comminations and threatnings were in vain if the Will did not or could not cooperate with the grace of God How could men fall from grace if God leave us not to the mutability of the Will It would be in vain to exhort such to do their first works and threaten them if they did not if they were meerly passive in every act of saving grace nay certainly if God withdraw his grace it is meerly because we walk unworthy of it for to him that hath shall be given and he shall have more abundance but from him that hath not that is hath not well improved it shall be taken away even that which he hath Some men think they can never exalt the grace of God enough unless they debase the powers and light of Nature far more than Adam debased them by his Fall But the Law of Nature written in the heart is no less the Law of God than those Laws of God which are written in the Scripture else Murther and Adultery in the Heathen should not be sins for where there is no Law there is no Transgression Rom. 2.14 The Gentiles which have not the Law and do by nature the things contained in the Law shall judge the Circumcised which transgress the Law which place doth plainly shew unto us that the light of Nature is good as being the Candle of the Lord and that it is not wholly extinguished in us but only darkened by Adams Transgression I come now to answer those Arguments which are brought against this truth And first it is objected that Christ is said to fill all in all Ephes 1. ult My answer is These words are not to be so taken as if we were to do nothing at all towards our own Salvation for they are spoken figuratively where by a Synecdoche the chief part is put for the whole As suppose a man should say Towards a mans maintenance Money is all in all not but that Food and Rayment do maintain him more immediately but because these cannot usually be procured without Money that answering all things the saying is usual and none except against it Their second Argument is taken from verse 19. of that Chapter where the Apostle says We believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Whence they infer the grace of Faith is wrought by an infinite power in the heart but we can contribute nothing to an infinite power therefore nothing towards our own Faith My answer is St. Pauls Faith and so of the Primitive Christians was not wrought only by means as ours now adays is but also by Miracles The Apostles preached and the Lord confirmed the Word with signs following Mark 16.20 which signs and wonders when the people saw they believed according to the working of this mighty power But our Faith now is not so wrought but only by hearing without seeing such an Almighty power to confirm the Doctrine yet are we never the less blessed but rather the more Thomas because thou hast seen thou hast believed blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed Thirdly it is objected If the Will of man have power to assent or not assent to grace offered man shall do more towards his own Conversion than God for the act is more perfect than a meer power to act I answer although in a Metaphysical sense the act is more perfect than a meer power to act as the end of a thing is preferred before the means tending to it yet in a Moral sense it is not always so neither doth man by accepting do more than God by offering his grace God gives us power to get Wealth say we get it are we more beholden now to our selves therefore than to God for our riches I trow not The case is the same in the point of grace when we have accepted of his goodness we ought to say Not unto us Lord not unto us but to thy name give the praise If a Benefactor give an indigent person a considerable sum of money and he accept it is he more beholden to himself for his acceptance than to the Donor for his kindness If so then their Argument is of force but not else Fourthly it is objected If the Will of man hath power to assent to grace offered and he do assent another hath the same grace offered and he doth not assent all the difference must needs come from mans Will and so he that believes and assents makes himself to differ from him that assents not contrary to that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.7 I confess this Argument hath stumbled many learned men as if the Apostle had spoken these words concerning the act of Conversion or of receiving sanctifying grace but it is spoken only concerning receiving Ministerial Offices in the Church See the first verse else Let a man so account of us as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God 〈◊〉 he taxes as St. Ambrose well observes the pride and arrogancy of some Teachers who did insinuate into the people that
as Civil It is no less dangerous to teach that People may rebel upon grievances on the outward State and that Nature then teaches them by the meer force of rationality to constitute another Governour or institute another Government My answer to this is manifold first Who shall be judge of those grievances If you say the Common People alas what incompetent Judges are they in weighty matters especially where they are concerned themselves If you say the Nobles and chief of the People why these are not infallible see Num. 16.1 2 3. Corah Dathan and Abiram and two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly famous in the Congregation men of renown gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them ye take too much upon you Wherefore lift you up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord Will ye put out the eyes of this people c. It is as possible now adays people may be ignorant or ambitious as in former times But be it granted for argument sake there be a real grievance is not the Law open to redress it Will not the great Council of the Kingdom think you move the King to give him up to justice who durst advise the King to go against Law thereby weakening his Throne which is upheld by Justice thereby dishonouring the King and making him less valuable to his People Will nothing serve but stretching forth the hand against Gods Anointed or rising up in Rebellion Certainly both these courses are as plainly forbid in Scripture as the Word of God can speak it If objected But those that killed Tyrants were always admired for sacrificing their own lives for the good of their Country I answer It was greatly done for Lucretia Cato or Cleopatra in their circumstances to kill themselves but yet done wickedly and so here only the greatness of the action causeth men to take false measures of it and so admire and commend it especially if good follow upon it it more blinds their judgments But you must not judge by the good event the goodness of the action for sometimes a bad one hath a good event and a good one bad success nor by the good meaning for Peter meant well when he drew his Sword to defend his Master but by a lawful call they had to undertake it Now who made those private persons judges or avengers in such cases Or how can they be sure that Anarchy and Confusion will not follow upon such attempts Which if it do they have sacrificed their lives to the ruine of their Country There ought to be none but lawful courses taken to redress unlawful grievances but Rebellion is judged an unlawful course both by the Law of God and the Law of the Land Again grant it but lawful in any one case to rebel and you give Rebels an Inch which they will soon make an Ell And every small grievance shall be made that very case or cousin-german to it As men we ought to consider humane frailty even in Governouts and bear with small faults considering what great benefits we still enjoy by their Government I have read of a Nation that upon the death of their King would permit by a Law made to that effect that every body might do what was right in his own eyes for three days but the murtherings and plunderings and outrages in so short a time were usually so many that the next King needed not so much his own virtues as the remembrance of the interregnum Vices to endear his Government to his People even Tyranny it self is not so bad as Anarchy There is a mean between Rebellion and losing our Liberty even when it is intrencht upon namely a patient waiting until a redress may legally be had and Reason and Law be heard in cold bloud to speak untill we give away our Liberties or give up our Laws we have still a birthright to them even under oppression And if we repent of our sins which caused God to set such a Governour over us he can change the Governour 's heart for it is in his hands to turn whether he pleases or he can change the Governour for another provided we change first One way or other we may hope deliverance will come for God doth not willingly grieve the Children of men but until it do come we must patiently bear Gods scourge in this kind as we do sickness ill weather at Sea or Land Pestilence Famine or the like This is Christian Doctrine of the Church of England witness the first part of the Homily against Rebellion where having said God gives a People such Kings usually as they deserveat subjoyns for Subjects to deserve for their sins to have an evil Prince set over them and then rebel against him were double and treble evil Nay let us either deserve to have a good Prince or let us patiently suffer and obey such as we deserve If People rebel one of these three things must happen Either the King must conquer and then the Subjects have fairly mended the matter have they not If it were a Rod in his hands before they may justly now expect a Scorpion Or else they must conquer if so who shall keep them from tyrannizing over the King and their fellow Subjects Or who shall keep from Factions and Change of Government every month I hope we have had too late experience in both these kinds to trust to any fair pretence again in hast Or thirdly there will be an Accommodation if so yet many dear lives are like first to be lost and then we are at best but where we are now for at last some body must be trusted with the Supremacy upon their honesty So that to Rebel seems to me a remedy worse than the disease at all times for Rebels always go without a Commission and therefore whatever they do cannot be said to go beyond it many times they complain without a just cause or upon a very slender one not worthy of such a decision as the Sword It is usually said of the English man that he never knows when a thing is well insomuch that being over-curious intending still to amend his work he often mars all or at leastwise makes it worse Certainly our English Constitution of Government is well enough in all reason We are at this day blessed be God and our gracious King at least as free as any Nation in the known world let us not screw the strings so high till they break and all the Harmony be spoiled there remains nothing to make us happy under this Government but to think our selves happy in it to bless God for it and to pay our duties unto it Some of which are these that follow First To live quietly under it God and the Law hath given the King the Sword and whoever else takes it is an Usurper of another mans right and deserves to perish by it Hazael was confident he should never do so wickedly with his power as the
to love God and to give him thanks to hate God is so intrinsically evil that it is impossible but that it should be forbid If it were possible for this not to be forbid it were possible for this to be lawful for where there is no Law there is no Transgression but it is utterly impossible it should be lawful therefore it must be granted there is an evil in order of nature before the prohibition of it and so some things must needs be good in their own nature as bearing a resemblance of the Image and goodness of God before any external Law pass upon them These things premised my answer is Although the Will of God be a rule of justice to us yet it is not a rule of justice to himself but his justice is rather a rule of his Works and of his Will and he works all things according to the Counsel of his Will and that Counsel adviseth nothing rashly or unmercifully unreasonably or unjustly but according to the greatest Equity and Chancery in the world and therefore cannot without the greatest violence to Reason and Religion be thought to make irrespective Decrees to torture for ever the greatest part of mankind chiesly for the pleasure of his Will Again they say Omnipotent Power authorizes all actions Now if God will make Vessels of wrath what hath any one to do with it May he not do what he pleases with his own Creatures My answer is we must not magnifie Gods Power so much as to eclipse his goodness or his truth which doth assure us that he is loving unto every man and that he delights not in the death of any sinner These men make God a Tyrant rather than a King and attribute such Prerogatives to God as are broadly inconsistent with his nature Acts of Power are not good in themselves but as they are accompanied with Justice and Mercy otherwise they are bad and lay a mans honour in the dust we must not so magnifie one Attribute in God as to justle out all the rest The Lord proclaimes his name to Moses Exod. 34.6 after this manner The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Now Gods name is every ways agreeing to his nature which is rather than his Creature should perish to forgive iniquity transgression and sin and not to decree everlasting fire to it without the intuition of sin Let us not therefore entertain any hard thoughts of Almighty God Rev. 20.12 13. when the earth and the Sea gave up their dead they were all judged according to what was found in the Books and those Books were written only according to their works Conscience is one of those Books which shall be opened at the last day and it will acquit God of all hard dealing towards men that perish When Moses prayed thus Exod. 32.32 Either forgive this People or blot we out of the Book which thou hast written The Lord said Whosoever sins against me him will I blot out of my book Where you see sin only blots out of Gods Book and not any Fatal Decree If it should happen to men according to their Lots to be under such or such a Decree and not according to their Works there would nothing be remaining for us to do but only patiently to obey Fate for if an irrespective Decree do shut up the most of men under Condemnation can any one of those men by all his industry alter his Destiny Surely no unless he were stronger than he that made that Decree To what purpose then were all his endeavours or to what purpose should we beat the air and persuade him to impossiblities Yes to good purpose say the Abettors of such a Decree because no particular man knows under which Decree he is I confess this answer is the best they have to give but it nothing enervates the Argument for it is not the knowing of a Decree or the being ignorant of a Decree makes any thing to the altering of a Decree for neither if I know it will it be repealed neither if I be ignorant of it will it cease to be accomplished Now then although no particular man knows under which Decree he is yet he must needs know he is under one of them if there be such Decrees and under which soever he be he is bound with an Adamantine Chain unto it and his end is fixt by reason of it as unalterably as the Laws of the Medes and Persians Who then believing this can believe that his fasting weeping or mourning renting heart or garment can avail any thing to the altering of that Decree under which it was his Lot to be born So that he that hath imbibed this Doctrine hath cut the Sinews of all industry if he acts consequentially to what he himself doth believe Nay but the means are ordained as well as the end may some say True they are so But to the far greatest part of men if their opinion were true God should command them to seek his face in vain for those means could never attain the end for which men should use them namely the Salvation of their souls For never any man from the foundation of the world under that Decreo was sav'd neither indeed can be though Moses and Samuel should pray for him or an Angel from heaven preach unto him he could not believe To what purpose now was the means ordained to these or the use of them Nay to what purpose should God wish the conversion of such sinners send his Embassadors to intreat and beseech them expostulate the case with them Why will ye die swear unto them As I live I had rather you should live if in the mean while he hath decreed their death before they did good or evil and in order to that Decree was resolved never to afford them power to perform any one act of saving grace Now whether there be insincerity in these Expressions or in their Opinions judg ye Nay let God be true and every man a liar Let us heartily believe that every mans destruction is wholly from himself and not from any fatal Decree of God Lastly it is objected the seventeenth Article of the Church of England says God hath decreed before the foundations of the world were laid by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from Curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind From whence they thus argue Before the foundations of the world were laid no man could do good or evil but even then some were chosen and consequently some not therefore those that were not chosen were rejected before they had done good or evil To this I answer as some were chosen in Christ and consequently others not chosen before the foundations of the world were laid so known unto God were all things before the foundations of the world were laid He knew the first man would fall