of his in his Book de Cive cap. 6. pag. 70. ascribes to power respectively irresistible or to Soveraign Magistrates whose power he makes to be as absolute as a mans power is over himself not to be limitted by any thing but onely by their strength The greatest propugners of Soveraign power think it enough for Princes to challenge an immunity from coercive power but acknowledge that the Law hath a directtive power over them But T. H. will have no limits but their strength Whatsoever they do by power they do justly But saith he God objected no sin to Job but justified his afflicting him by his power First this is an Argument from authority negatively that is to say worth nothing Secondly the afflictions of Job were no vindicatory punishments to take vengeance of his sins whereof we dispute but probarory chasstisements to make triall of his graces Thirdly Iob was not so pure but that God might justly have laid greater punishments upon him than those afflictions which he suffered Witness his impatience even to the cursing of the day of his nativity Job 3. 3. Indeed God said to Job where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth Job 38. 4. that is how canst thou judge of the things that were done before thou wast born or comprehend the secret causes of my judgements And Job 42. 9. Hast thou an arm like God As if he should say why art thou impatient doest thou think thy self able to strive with God But that God should punish Job without desert here is not a word Concerning the blind man mentioned John 9. his blindness was rarher a blessing to him than a punishment being the means to raise his Soul illuminated and to bring him to see the face of God in Jesus Christ. The sight of the body is common to us with Ants and Flies but the sight of the soul with the blessed Angels We read of some who have put out their bodily eyes because they thought they were an impediment to the eye of the Soul Again neither he nor his parents were innocent being conceived and born in sin and iniquity Psal. 51. 5. And in many things we offend all Jam. 3. 2. But our Saviours meaning is evident by the Disciples question ver 2. They had not so sinned that he should be born blind Or they were not more grievous sinners than other men to deserve an examplary judgment more than they but this corporal blindness befel him principally by the extraordinary providence of God for the manifestation of his own glory in restoring him to his sight So his instance halts on both sides neither was this a punishment nor the blind man free from sin His third instance of the death and torments of Beasts is of no more weight than the two former The death of brute Beasts is not a punishment of sin but a debt of nature And though they be often slaughtered for the use of man yet there is a vast difference between those light and momentary pangs and the unsufferable and endless pains of hell between the meer depriving of a creature of remporal life and the subjecting of it to eternal death I know the Philosophical speculations of some who affirme that entity is better than non-entity that it is better to be miserable and suffer the tormenss of the damned than to be annihilated and cease to be altogether This entity which they speak of is a Metaphysical entity abstracted from the matter which is better than non-entity in respect of some goodness not moral nor natural but trancendental which accompanies every being But in the concrete it is far otherwise where that of our Saviour often takes place Mat. 26. 24. Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed It had been good for that man that he had not been born I add that there is an Analogical Juctice and Mercy due even to the brute Beasts Thou shalâ— not musâ—â—e the mouth of the Oxe that treadeth out the corn And a just man is merciful to his Beast f But his greatest errour is that which I touched before to make Justice to be the proper result of Power Power doth not measure and regulate Justice but Justice measures and regulates Power The Will of God and the Eternal Law which is in God himself is properly the rule and measure of Justice As all goodness whether Natural or Moral is a participation of divine goodness and all created Rectitude is but a participation of divine Rectitude so all Lawes are but participations of the eternall Law from whence they derive their power The rule of Justice then is the same both in God and us but it is in God as in him that doth regulate and measure in us as in those who are regulated and measured As the Will of God is immutable alwayes willing what is just and right and good So his justice likewise is immutable And that individual action which is justly punished as sinful in us cannot possibly proceed from the special influence and determinative power of a just cause See then how grossely T. H. doth understand that old and true principle that the Will of God is the rule of Justice as if by willing things in themselves unjust he did render them just by reason of his absolute dominion and irresistible power as fire doth assimilate other things to it self and convert them into the nature of fire This were to make the eternal Law a Lesbian rule Sin is defined to be that which is done or said or thought contrary to the eternall Law But by this doctrine nothing is done nor said nor thought contrary to the Will of God St. Anselm said most truly then the will of man is good and just and right when he wills that which God would have him to will but according to this doctrine every man alwayes wills that which God would have him to will If this be true we need not pray Thy Will be done in earth as it is in heaven T. H. hath devised a new kind of heaven upon earth The worst is it is an heaven without Justice Justice is a constant and perpetual act of the Will to give every one his own But to inflict punishment for those things which the Judge himself did determine and necessitate to be done is not to give every one his own right punitive Justice is a relation of equallity and proportion between the demerit and the punishment But supposing this opinion of absolute and universal necessity there is no demerit in the World we use to say that right springs from Law and Fact as in this Syllogism Every thief ought to be punished there 's the Law But such an one is a thief there 's the Fact therefore he ought to be punished there 's the right But this opinion of T. H. grounds the right to be punished neither upon Law nor upon Fact but upon the irresistible power of God Yea it overturneth as much as in
he shall have to morrow or an hower or any time after Intervening occasions business which the Bishop calls trifles Trifles of which the Bishop maketh here a great business to change the Will No man can say what he will do to morrow unless he foreknow which no man can what shall happen before to morrow And this being the substance of my opinion it must needs be that when he deduceth from it that Counsells Arts Armes Medicines Teachers Praise Prayer and Piety are in vain that his deduction is false and his ratiocination fallacy And though I need make no other answer to all that he can object against me yet I shall here mark out the causes of his several Parologismes Those Lawes he saith are unjust and tyrannical which do prescribe things absolutly impossible to be done and punish men for not doing of them In which words this is one absurdity that a Law can be unjust for all Lawes are Divine or Civil neither of which can be unjust Of the first there is no doubt And as for Civil Lawes they are made by every man that is subject to them because every one of them consenteth to the placing of the Legislative Power Another is this in the same words that he supposeth there may be Lawes that are not Tyrannical for if he that maketh them have the soveraign Power they may be Regal but not Tyrannical if Tyrant signifie not King as he thinks it doth not Another is in the same words that a Law may prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be done When he sayes impossible in themselves he understands not what himself means Impossible in themselves are contradictions onely as to be and not to be at the same time which the Divines say is not possible to God All other things are possible at least in themselves Raising from the dead changing the course of nature making of a new Heaven and a new Earth are things possible in themselves for there is nothing in their nature able to resist the Will of God and if Laws do not prescribe such things why should I believe they prescribe other things that are more impossible Did he ever readin Suarez of any Tyrant that made a Law commanding any man to do and not to do the same Action or to be and not to be at the same place in one and the same moment of time But out of the doctrine of Necessity it followeth he sayes that all Lawes do prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done Here he has left out in themselves which is a wilfull Fallacy He further sayes that Just Lawes are the Ordinances of right Reason which is an error that hath cost many thousands of men their lives Was there ever King that made a Law which in right reason had been better unmade and shall those Lawes therefore not be obeyed shall we rather rebell I think not though I am not so great a Divine as he I think rather that the Reason of him that hath the Soveraign Authority and by whose Sword we look to be protected both against war from abroad and injuries at home whether it be Right or Erronious in it seslf ought to stand for Right to us that have submitted our selves thereunto by receiving the protection But the Bishop putteth his greatest confidence in this that whether the things be impossible in themselves or made impossible by some unseen accident yet there is no reason that men should be punished for not doing them It seemes he taketh punishment for a kind of revenge and can never therefore agree with me that take it for nothing else but for a correction or for an example which hath for end the framing and necessitating of the Will to virtue and that he is no good man that upon any provocation useth his power though a power lawfully obtained to afflict another man without this end to reforme the will of him or others Nor can I comprehend as having onely humane Idea's that that punishment which neither intendeth the correction of the offender nor the correction of others by example doth proceed from God b He saith that no Law can possibly be unjust c. Against this he replies that the Law of Pharaoh to drown the Male Children of the Israelites and of Nebuckadnezxar to worship the golden Image and of Darius against praying to any but him in thirty dayes and of Ahashuerosh to destroy the Jewes and of the Pharisees to excommunicate the confessors of Christ were all unjust Lawes The Lawes of these Kings as they were Lawes have relation onely to the men that were their subjects And the making of them which was the action of every one of those Kings who were subjects to another King namely to God Almighty had relation to the Law of God In the first relation there could be no injustice in them because all Laws made by him to whom the people had given the Legislative Power are the Acts of every one of that people and no man can do injustice to himself But in relation to God if God have by a Law forbidden it the making of such Lawes is injustice Which Law of God was to those Heathen Princes no other but salus populi that is to say the properest use of their natural reason for the preservation of their subjects If therefore those Lawes were ordained out of wantonness or cruelty or envy or for the pleasing of a Favorite or out of any other sinister end as it seemes they were the making of those Lawes was unjust But if in right Reason they were necessary for the preservation of those people of whom they had undertaken the charge then was it not unjust And for the Pharisees who had the same written Law of God that we have their excommunication of the Christians proceeding as it did from envy was an Act of malicious injustice If it had proceeded from misinterpretation of their own Scriptures it had been a sin of ignorance Nevertheless as it was a Law to their subjects in case they had the Legislative Power which I doubt of the Law was not unjust But the making of it was an unjust action of which they were to give account to none but God I fear the Bishop will think this discourse too subtile but the judgement is the Readers c The ground of this error c. is this That every man makes by his consent the Law which he is bound to keep c. The reason why he thinketh this an error is because the positive Law of God conteined in the Bible is a Law with out our assent the Law of Nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God without our assent the Lawes of Conquerours who come in by the power of the Sword were made without our assent and so were the Lawes of our Ancestors which were made before we were born It is a strange thing that he that understands the non-sense of the Schoolmen should not be able to
it s left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or to make it void And Josh. 24. 15. Choose you this day whom you will serve c. But I and my house will serve the Lord. He makes his own choice and leaves them to the liberty of their election And 2 Sam. 24 12. I offer thee three things choose thee which of them I shall do If one of these three things was necessarily determined and the other two impossible how was it left to him to choose what should be done Therefore we have true liberty T. H. ANd the first place of Scripture taken from Numb 30. 14 is one of them that look another way The words are If a Wife make a vow it is left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or make it void for it prooves no more but that the Husband is a free or voluntary Agent but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not determined to what he shall choose by praecedent necessary causes J. D. MY first Argument from Scripture is thus formed Arg. 1. Whosoever have a liberty or power of election are not determined to one by praecedent necessary causes But men have liberty of election The assumption or minor proposition is prooved by three places of Scripture Numb 30. 14. Josh. 24. 15. 2 Sam. 24. 12. I need not insist upon these because T. H. acknowledgeth that it is clearly prooved that there is election in Man But he denieth the major Proposition because saith he Man is necessitated or determined to what he shall choose by praecedent necessary causes I take away this answer three wayes First by Reason Election is evermore either of things 1. possible or at least of things conceived to be possible that is efficacious election when a man hopeth or thinketh of obteining the object Whatsoever the will chooseth it chooseth under the notion of good either honest or delightful or profitable but there can be no reall goodness apprehended in that which is known to be impossible It is true there may be some wandring pendulous wishes of known impossibilities as a man also that hath comitted an offence may wish he had not committed it but to choose efficaciously an impossibility is as impossible as an impossibility it self No man can think to obtein that which he knows impossible to be obteined but he who knows that all things are antecedently determined by necessary causes knows that it is impossible for any thing to be otherwise than it is Therefore to ascribe unto him a power of election to choose this or that indifferently is to make the same thing to be determined to one and to be not determined to one which are contradictories Again whosoever hath an elective power or a liberty to choose hath also a liberty or power to refuse Isa. 7. 10. Before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good He who chooseth this rather than that refuseth that rather than this As Moses choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God did thereby refuse the pleasures of sin Heb. 11. 24. But no man hath any power to refuse that which is necessarily praedetermined to be unlesse it be as the Fox refused the Grapes which were beyond his reach When one thing of two or three is absolutely determined the other are made thereby simply impossible a Secondly I proove it by instances and by that universal 2. notion which the world hath of election what is the difference between an elective and hereditary Kingdom but that in an elective Kingdom they have power or liberty to choose this or that Man indifferently But in an hereditary Kingdome they have no such power nor liberty Where the Law makes a certain Heir there is a necessitation to one where the Law doth not name a certain Heir there is no necessitation to one and there they have power or liberty to choose An haereditary prince may be as grateful and acceptable to his subjects and as willingly received by them according to that liberty which is opposed to compulsion or violence as he who is chosen yet he is not therefore an elective Prince In Germany all the Nobility and Commons may assent to the choice of the Emperour or be well pleased with it when it is concluded yet none of them elect or choose the Emperour but onely those six Princes who have a consultative deliberative and determinative power in his Election And if their votes or suffrages be equally divided three to three then the King of Bohemia hath the casting voice So likewise in Corporations or Common-wealths sometimes the People sometimes the Common Councell have power to name so many persons for such an office and the Supreme Magistrate or Senate or lesser Councel respectively to choose one of those And all this is done with that caution and secrecy by billets or other means that no man knowes which way any man gave his vote or with whom to be offended If it were necessarily and inevitably predetermined that this individual person and no other shall and must be chosen what needed all this circuit and caution to do that which is not possible to be done otherwise which one may do as well as a thousand and for doing of which no rational man can be offended if the electors were necessarily predetermined to elect this man and no other And though T. H. was pleased to passe by my University instance yet I may not untill I see what he is able to say unto it The Junior of the Mess in Cambridge divides the meat in four parts the Senior chooseth first then the second and third in their order The Junior is determined to one and hath no choice left unless it be to choose whether he will take that part which the rest have refused or none at all It may be this part is more agreable to his mind that any of the others would have been but for all that he cannot be said to choose it because he is determined to this one Even such a liberty of election is that which is established by T. H. Or rather much worse in two respects The Junior hath yet a liberty of contradiction left to choose whether he will take that part or not take any part but he who is precisely predetermined to the choice of this object hath no liberty to refuse it Secondly the Junior by dividing carefully may preserve to himself an equal share but he who is wholly determined by extrinsecal causes is left altogether to the mercy and disposition of another Thirdly I proove it by the texts alleadged Numb 30. 3. 13. If a Wife make a vow it is left to her Husbands choice either to establish it or make it void But if it be predetermined that he shall establish it it is not in his power to make it void If it be predetermined that he shall make it void it is not in his power to establish it
the sin of David in killing Uriah Nor when one is cause both of the action and of the Law how another can be cause of the disagreement between them no more than how one man making a longer and shorter garment another can make the inequality that is between them This I know God cannot sin because his doing a thing makes it just and consequently no sin And because whatsoever can sin is subject to anothers Law which God is not And therefore t is blasphemy to say God can sin But to say that God can so order the world as a sin may be necessarily caused thereby in a man I do not see how it is any dishonour to him Howsoever if such or other distinctions can make it clear that St. Paul did not think Esaus or Pharaohs actions proceeded from the will and purpose of God or that proceeding from his will could not therefore without injustice be blamed or punished I will as soon as I understand them turn unto J. D's opinion For I now hold nothing in all this Question between us but what seemeth to me not obscurely but most expresly said in this place by Saint Paul And thus much in answer to his places of Scripture J. D. T. H. thinks to kill two birds with one stone and satisfie two Arguments with one answer whereas in truth he satisfieth neither First for my third reason a Though all he say here were as true as an Oracle Though punishment were an act of dominion not of Justice in God yet this is no sufficient cause why God should deny his own act or why he should chide or expostulate with men why they did that which he himself did necessitate them to do and whereof he was the actor more than they they being but as the stone but he the hand that threw it Notwithstanding any thing which is pleaded here this Stoical opinion doth stick hypocrisie and dissimulation close to God who is Truth it self And to my fift Argument which he changeth and relateth amiss as by comparing mine with his may appear His chiefest answer is to oppose a difficult place of St. Paul Rom. 9. 11. Hath he never heard that to propose adoubt is not to answer an Argument Nec bene respondet qni litem lite resolvit But I will not pay him in his own coin Wherefore to this place alledged by him I answer The case is not the same The Question moved there is how God did keep his promise made to Abraham to be the God of him and of his seed if the Jews who were the legimate progeny of Abraham were deserted To which the Apostle answers ver 6 7 8. That that promise was not made to the carnal seed of Abraham that is the Jewes but to his spiritual Sons which were the Heirs of his Faith that is to the beleeving Christians which answer he explicateth first by the Allegory of Isaack and Ishmael and after in the place cited of Esau and of Jacob. Yet neither doth he speak there so much of their persons as of their posterities And though some words may be accommodated to Gods predestination which are there uttered yet it is not the scope of that text to treat of the reprobation of any man to Hell fire All the posterity of Esau were not eternally reprobated as holy Job and many others But this Question which is now agitated between us is quite of another nature how a man can be a criminal who doth nothing but that which he is extrinsecally necessitated to do or how God in Justice can punish a man with eternal torments for doing that which it was never in his power to leave undone That he who did imprint the motion in the heart of man should punish man who did only receive the impression from him So his answer looks another way But because he grounds so much upon this text that if it can be cleared he is ready to change his opinion I will examine all those passages which may seem to favour his cause First these words ver 11. being not yet borne neither having done any good or evil upon which the whole weight of his argument doth depend have no reference at all to those words ver 13. Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated for those words were first uttered by the Prophet Malachy many ages after Jacob and Esau were dead Mal. 1. 2. and intended of the posterity of Esau who were not redeemed from captivity as the Israelites were But they are referred to those other words ver 12. The elder shall serve the younger which indeed were spoken before Jacob or Esau were Born Gen. 5. 23. And though those words of Malachy had been used of Jacob and Esau before they were Born yet it had advantaged his cause nothing for hatred in that text doth not signifie any reprobation to the flames of Hell much less the execution of that decree or the actual imposition of punishment nor any act contrary to love God saw all that he had made and it was very good Goodness it self cannot hate that which is good But hatred there signifies Comparative hatred or a less degree of love or at the most a negation of love As Gen. 29. 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated we may not conclude thence that Jocob hated his Wife The precedent verse doth fully expound the sense ver 30. Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah So Mat. 6. 24. No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and lóve the other So Luke 14. 26. If any man hate not his Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple St. Matthew tells us the sense of it Mat. 10. 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Secondly those words ver 15. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy do prove no more but this that the preferring of Jacob before Esau and of the Christians before the Jewes was not a debt from God either to the one or to the other but a work of mercy And what of this All men confess that Gods mercies do exceed mans deserts but Gods punishments do never exceed mans misdeeds As we see in the Parable of the Labourers Matth. 20. Friend I do the no wrong did not I agree with thee for a penny Is it not lawful for me to do with mine own as I will Is thy eye evil because I am good Acts of mercy are free but acts of Justice are due That which followes ver 17. comes something nearer the cause The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh for this same purpose I have raised the up that is I have made thee a King or I have preserved thee that I might shew my power in thee But this particle that doth not alwaies signifie the main end of an action but sometimes only a consequent of it As Matt. 2. 15. He departed into Egypt that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
the Power he hath and exerciseth in distributing blessings and afflictions Justice is not in God as in man the observation of the Lawes made by his superiours Nor is Wisedom in God a logicall examination of the means by the end as it is in men but an incomprehensible Attribute given to an incomprehensible nature for to honour him It is the Bishop that erres in thinking nothing to be Power but Riches and High place wherein to dominere and please himself and vex those that submit not to his opinions d Thirdly this opinion of absolute Necessity destroyes the Truth of God making him to command one thing openly and to necessitate another privately c. It destroyes the goodness of God making him to be a hater of mankind c. It destroyes the Justice of God making him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act c. It destroyes the very Power of God making him to be the true Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world If the opinion of absolute necessity do all this then the opinion of Gods Prescience does the same for God foreknoweth nothing that can possibly not come to pass but that which cannot possibly not come to pass cometh to pass of necessity But how doth necessity destroy the Truth of God by commanding and hindering what he commandeth Truth consisteth in Affirmation and Negation not in commanding and hindering it does not therefore follow if all things be necessary that come to pass that therefore God hath spoken an untruth Nor that he professesseth one thing and intendeth another The Scripture which is his word is not the profession of what he intendeth but an indication of what those men shall necessarily intend whom he hath chosen to salvation and whom he hath determined to destruction But on the other side from the Negation of necessity there followeth necessarily the Negation of Gods Prescience which is in the Bishop if not ignorance impiety Or how destroyeth it the Goodness of God or maketh him to be an hater of mankind and to delight in the torments of his creatures whereas the very doggs licked the sores of Lazarus in pitty and commiseration of him I cannot imagine when living creatures of all sorts are often in torments as well as men that God can be displeased with it without whose will they neither are nor could be at all tormented Nor yet is he delighted with it but health sickness â—ase torments life and death are without all passion in him dispenced by him and he putteth an end to them then when they end and a beginning when they begin according to his eternal purpose which cannot be resisted That the necessity argueth a delight of God in the torments of his creatures is even as true as that it was pitty and commiseration in the doggs that made them lick the sores of Lazarus Or how doth the opinion of necessity destroy the Justice of God or make him to punish the creatures for that which was his own act If all afflictions be punishments for whose act are all other Creatures punished which cannot sin Why may not God make the affliction both of those men that he hath elected and also of those whom he hath reprobated the necessary causes of the conversion of those he hath elected their own afflictions serving therein as chastisements and the afflictions of the rest as examples But he may perhaps think it no injustice to punish the creatures that cannot sin with temporary punishments when nevertheless it would be injustice to torment the same creatures eternally This may be somewhat to Meekness and Cruelty but nothing at all to Justice and Injustice For in punishing the innocent the injustice is equall though the punishments be unequal And what cruelty can be greaner than that which may be inferred from this opinion of the Bishop that God doth torment eternally and with the extreamest degree of torment all those men which have sinned that is to say all mankind from the creation to the end of the world which have not believed in Jesus Christ whereof very few in respect of the multitude of others have so much as heard of his name and this when Faith in Christ is the gift of God himself and the hearts of all men in his hands to frame them to the belief of whatsoever he will have them to believe He hath no reason therefore for his part to tax any opinion for ascribing to God either cruelty or injustice Or how doth it destroy the Power of God or make him to be the Author of all the defects and evils which are in the world First he seemeth not to understand what Author signifies Author is he which owneth an Action or giveth a warrant to do it Doe I say that any man hath in the Scripture which is all the warrant we have from God for any Action whatsoever a Warrant to commit Theft Murder or any other sin Does the opinion of necessity inferre that there is such a warrant in the Scripture Perhaps he will say no but that this opinion makes him the cause of sin But does not the Bishop think him the cause of all Actions And are not sins of commission Actions Is Murder no Action And does not God himself say Non est malum in civitate quod ego non feci And was not murder one of those evils whether it were or not I say no more but that God is the cause not the Author of all Actions and Motions Whether sin be the Action or the Defect or the Irregularity I mean not to dispute Nevertheless I am of opinion that the distinction of Causes into Efficient and Deficient is Bohu and signifies nothing e How shall a man praise God for his Goodness who beleeves him to be a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault to express his Power If Tyrant signifie as it did when it came first in use a King t is no dishonour to beleeve that God is a greater Tyrant than ever was in the world for he is the King of all Kings Emperours and Common-Wealths But if we take the word as it is now used to signifie those Kings onely which they that call them Tyrants are displeased with that is that Govern not as they would have them the Bishop is nearer the calling him a Tyrant than I am making that to be Tyranny which is but the exercise of an absolute Power For he holdeth though he see it not by consequence in withdrawing the Will of man from Gods dominion that every man is a King of himself And if a man cannot praise God for his Goodness who creates millions to burn eternally without their fault how can the Bishop praise God for his Goodness who thinks he hath created millions of millions to burn eternally when he could have kept them so easily from committing any fault And to his How shall a man hear
opinions when they are taught as they are often in Divinity Books and from the Pulpit I could hardly guesse but that I remember that there have been Books written to intitle the Bishops to a Divine right underived from the civil Soveraign But because he maketh it so â—aynous a matter that the supreme civil Magistrate should be Christs Lieutenant upon earth let us suppose that a Bishop or a Synode of Bishops should be set up which I hope never shall for our civil Soveraign then that which he objecteth here I could object in the same words against himself For I could say in his oâ—n words This is life eternal to know the onely true God and Jesus Christ Joh. 17. 3. Pure Religion and undefiled before God is this to visit the Fatherless c. James 1. 27. Fear God and keep his Commandments Eccles. 12. 13. But the Bishop hath found a more compendious way to Heaven namely that true Religion consisteth in obedience to Christs Lieutenants that is now by supposition to the Bishops That is to say that every Christian of what nation soever coming into the Country which the Bishopâ— governe should be of their Religion He would make the civil Magistrate to be Christs Lieutenant upon earth for matters of Religion and supreme Judge in all controversies and say they ought to be obeyed by al how strange soever and uncouth it seem to him now the Soveraignity being in others And I may say to him what if the Magistrate himself I mean by supposition the Bishops should be wicked 〈…〉 What if they should command as much contrary to the â—…w of 〈◊〉 oâ— nature as every any Christian King did which is very possible must we obey them rather then God Is the civill Magistrate become now the onely ground and pâ—â—lar of truth No. Synedri jussum est voce Episcoporum Ipsum quod colit ut colamus omnes Aeternum colemus Principem dierum Factorem Dominumque Epilcoporum And thus the Bishop may see there is 〈…〉 difference between his Ode and my â—arode to it and that both of them are of equal force 〈◊〉 conclud nothinâ— The Bishop knows that the Kings of England since the time of Henry the 8. have been 〈…〉 by 〈…〉 Parliament supream Governors oâ— the Church of England in 〈…〉 both civil and Ecclesiastical that is to say 〈…〉 matters both Ecclesiastical and civil anâ— consequently oâ— this Church Supreme head on Earth though perhaps he will not allow that 〈…〉 me of Hâ—â—d I should wonder therefore whom the Bishop would have to be Christs Lieutenant here in England for matters of Religion if not the supreme Governor â—nd Head of the Church of England 〈…〉 Man or Women whosoever he be that hath the Soveraign Power but that I know he challenges it to the Bishops and thinks thaâ— King Henry the 8. took the Ecclesiastical Power away from the Pope to settle it not in himself but them But he ought to have known that what 〈…〉 or Power oâ— Ordaiâ—ing 〈…〉 the Popâ—s had here in the time of the Kings Predecessours til Henry the 8. they derived it all from the Kings Power though they did not acknowledge it and the Kings connived at it either not knowing their own right or not daring to challenge it til such tiâ—e as the behaviour of the Romane Clergie had undeceived the people which otherwise would have sided with them Nor was it unlawful for the King to take from them the Authority he had given them as being Pope enough in his own Kingdome without depending on a forraign one nor is it to be called Schisme unlesse it be Schisme also in the head of a Family to discharge as often 〈◊〉 he shall see cause the School-Masters he enter â—ineth to teach his Children If the Bishop and Dr. Hammond when they did write in defence of the Church of England against imputation of Schisme quitting their own pretences of jurisdiction and Jus divinum had gone upon these principles of mine they had not been so shrewdly handled as they have been by an English Papist that wrote against them And now I have done answering to his Arguments I shall here â—n the end of all taee that Liberty of censuring his while Book which he hath taken in the beginning of censuring mine I have saith he Numb 1. perused T. H. his answers considered his reasons and conclude he hath missed and miâ—â—aid the question that his answers are evasions that his Arguments are â—aralogismes and that the opinion of absolute and universal necessity is but a 〈…〉 some groundless and ill chosen Principles And now it is my turn to censure And first â—oâ— the strength of his discourse and knowledge of the point in question I think it much inferiour to that which might have been written by any man living that had no other learning besides the ability to wriâ—e his mind but as well perhaps as the same man would have done it if to the ability of writing his mind he had added the study of School-Divinity Secondly for the manners of it for to a publick writing there belongeth good manners it consisteth in railing and exclaiming and scurrilous jesting with now and then an unclean and mean instance And lastly for his elocution the vertue whereof lieth not in the flux of words but in perspicuity it is the same Language with that of the Kingdome of Darkness One shall find in it especially where â—e should speak most closely to the question such words as these Divided sense Compounded sense Hypothetical necessity Liberty of Exercise Liberty of specification Liberty of contradiction Liberty of contrariety Knowledge of approbation Practical knowledge General influence Special influence Instinct Qualities infused Efficatious election Moral efficacy Moral motion Metaphorical motion Practice practicum Motus primo primi Actus eliciti Actus imperati Permissive will Consequent will Negative obduration Deficient cause Simple act Nunc stans other like words of non-sense divided besides many propositions such as thâ—se The Will is the Mistris of humane Actions The understanding iâ— her counseller The Will chuseth The Will willeth The Will suspends its own Act The Understanding understandeth I wonder how he mist saying The Understanding suspendeth its own Act The Will applies the understanding to deliberate The Will requires of the Understanding a riview The Wil determines it self A change may be Willed without changing of the Will Man concurrs with God in causing his own Will The Will causeth willing Motives determine the Will not naturally but morally The same Action may be both future and not future God is not Just but Justice not eternal but eternity Eternity is Nunc stans Eternity is an infinite point which comprehendeth al time not formally but eminently Al eternity is coexistent with to day and the same coexistent with to morrow and many other like speeches of non-sense compounded Which the truth can never stand in need of Perhaps the Bishop will say these Terms and Phrases
not at all the same but quite different as may appear by these particulars first those words before they had done either good or evill are not cannot be refered to those other words Esau have I hated Secondly If they could yet it is less than nothing because before Esau had actually sinned his future sins were known to God Thirdly by the Potters clay here is not to be understood the pure mass but the corrupted mass of mankind Fourthly the hating here mentioned is only a comparative hatred that is a less degree of love Fiftly the hardening which St. Paul speaks of is not a positive but a negative obduration or a not imparting of grace Sixtly St. Paul speaketh not of any positive reprobation to eternal punishment much less doth he speak of the actual inflicting of punishment without sin which is the Question between us and wherein T. H. differs from all that I remember to have read who do all acknowledge that punishment is never actually inflicted but for sin If the Question be put why God doth good to one more than to another or why God imparteth more grace to one than to another as it is there the answer is just and fit because it is his pleasure and it is sawciness in a creature in this case to reply May not God do what he will with his own Matth. 20. 15. No man doubteth but God imparteth grace beyond mans desert c But if the case be put why God doth punish one more than another or why he throws one into hell fire and not another which is the present case agitated between us To say with T. H. that it is because God is Omnipotent or because his power is irresistible or meerly because it is his pleasure is not only not warranted but is plainly condemned by St. Paul in this place So many differences there are between those two cases It is not therefore against God that I reply but against T. H. I do not call my Creator to the Bar but my fellow creature I ask no account of Gods counsails but of mans presumptions It is the mode of these times to father their own fancies upon God and when they cannot justifie them by reason to plead his Omnipotence or to cry O altitudo that the wayes of God are unsearchable If they may justifie their drowsie dreams because Gods power and dominion is absolute much more may we reject such phantastical devises which are inconsistent with the â—ruth and goodness and justice of God and make him to be a Tyrant who is the Father of Mercies and the God af all consolation The unsearchableness of Gods wayes should be a bridle to restrain presumption and not a sanctuary for spirits of error Secondly this objection conteined ver 19. to which the Apostle answers ver 20. is not made in the person of Esau or Pharaoh as T. H. supposeth but of the unbelieving Jews who thought much at that grace and favour which God was pleased to vouchsafe unto the Gentiles to acknowledge them for his people which honour they would have appropriated to the posterity of Abraham And the Apostles answer is not onely drawn from the Soveraign Dominion of God to impart his grace to whom he pleaseth as hath been shewed already but also from the obstinacy and proper fault of the Jews as appeareth ver 22. What if God willing that is by a consequent will to shew his wrath and to make his power known endureth with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction They acted God endured They were toltrated by God but fitted to destruction by themselves for their much wrong doing here is Gods much long suffering And more plainly ver 31. Israel hath not atteined to the Law of righteousness wherefore because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the works of the Law This reason is set down yet more emphaâ—ically in the next Chapter ver 3. They that is the Israelites being ignorant of Gods righteousness that is by faith in Christ and going about to establish their own righteousness that is by the works of the Law have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God And yet most expresly Chap. 11. ver 20. Because of undelief they were broken off but thou standest by faith Neither was there any precedent binding decree of God to necessitate them to unbelief and consequently to punishment It was in their own power by their concurrence with Gods grace to prevent these judgements and to recover their former estate ver 23. If they that is the unbelidving Jews abide not still in unbelief they shall be grafted in The Crown and the Sword are immovable to use St. Anselmes comparison but it is we that move change places Sometimes the Jews were under the Crown and the Gentiles under the Sword sometimes the Jews under the Sword and â—he Gentiles under the Crown Thirdly though I confess that human pacts are not the measure of Gods Justice but his justice is his own immutable will whereby he is ready to give every man that which is his own as rewards to the good punishments to the bad so nevertheless God may oblige himself freely to his creature He made the Covenant of works with mankind in Adam and therefore he punisheth not man contrary to his own Covenant but for the transgression of his duty And Divine justice is not measured by Omnipotence or by irresistible power but by Gods will God can do many things according to his absolute power which he doth not He could raise up children to Abraham of stones but he never did so It is a rule in Theology that God cannot do any thing which argues any wickedness or imperfection as God cannot deny himself 2 Tim 2. 13. He cannot lie Tit. 1. 2. These and the like are fruits of impotence not of power So God cannot destroy the righteous with the wicked Gen. 18. 25. He could not destroy Shdome whil'st Lot was in it Gen. 19 22. not for want of dominion or power but because it was not agreeable to his Justice nor to that Law which himself had constituted The Apostle saith Heb. 6. 10. God is not unrighteous to forget your work As it is a good consequence to say this is from God therefore it is righteous so is this also This thing is unrighteous therefore it cannot proceed from God We see how all creatures by instinct of nature do love their young as the Hen her Chickens how they will expose themselves to death for them And yet all these are but shadowes of that love which is in God towards his Creatures How impious is it then to conceive that God did create so many millions of souls to be tormented eternally in hell without any fault of theirs except such as he himself did necessitate them unto meerly to shew his dominion and because his power is irresistible The same priviledge which T. H. appropriates here to power absolutely irresistible a friend