Which privation is the greatest punishment here 2. They are hereupon left to the power of their own Corruption which desertion is a grievous punishment 3. They have pain and sorrow 4. And they die And if they have all this suffering here it is unlikely that they are wholly free hereafter if not pardoned Because 1. They have immortal Souls that are capable 2. And future as well as temporal death or misery is the wages of sin And that their suffering is for sin is undoubted from Rom. 5 c. And the Pelagians scarce deny but that Adam's sin caused it And if it be proved that they have moral pravity or sin of their own then it is for their own sin And if so it is their own punishment All the doubt then is Whether all Infants are forgiven And for that 1. We see that the temporal punishment is not forgiven them 2. We see as soon as they come to action that to many at least the foresaid penal desertion and privation of the Spirit of Sanctification is not forgiven them And 3. Without holiness none can see God 4. They that affirm it must prove it which they neither do nor can do There is no word of Scripture which telleth it us How then should that be part of our Faith which is no part of Gods Word If you say that Christ being the second Adam saveth the World from all the sin and misery brought on them by the first Adam I answer 1. Conditionally he doth He hath purchased Salvation to be given men on the terms of the Covenant of Grace and all that perform the Conditions shall have Salvation But 2. His bare Sacrifice it self without such application saveth none any further than to bring them under the terms of the said Covenant It is apparent by experience that Christ doth not undo all the hurt that Adam did immediately to all or any one in the world no not till death no nor till the Resurrection Sin and misery is still upon us Infants shew as soon as they come to the use of reason that they were not brought to the Innocency that Adam had before the Fall You your selves distinguish the Impetration from the Application of Salvation as to the adult and the reason is the same as to Infants though the condition be not the same Shew us a promise of the Salvation of all Infants and we will believe it 5. Indeed they are saved conditionally as the adult are and the condition is expressed in Scripture That they be the Children of the Faithful dedicated to God The Parents and their Seed are in the same Covenant And this is all that God revealeth of them * Saith Twisse Cont. Corvin pag. 136. c. 2 De Infantibus infantia sua morientibus falsum est quod nobis obtrudit Neque enim dicimus ullos Infantes credentium foederatorum Dei in infantia decedentes ad exitium destinatos Sanctos enim eos pronunciat Apostolus Et una cum parentibus fidelibus in foedere Dei comprehenduntur But I doubt he befriendeth the Anabaptists more than he was aware of when he addeth Obsignant Sacramenta credentibus remissionem peccatorum vitam aeternam At Infantibus quoties administratur Baptismus non tam credentibus quam credituris obsignat promissiones istas Non credituris autem nihil obsignant If so then to them that die in Infancy or yet are Infants no pardon is delivered and sealed by Baptism which is not sound Of our guilt of nearer Parents Sin Let them that reject me in this hear Augustine in Enchirid. c. 46. Paâ—entum quoque peccatis parvulâ—â— obligari non solum primorum hominum sed etiam suorum de quibus ipsi nati sunt non improbabiliter dicitur Illa quippe divina sententia Râ—ddam peccata patrum in filios tenet hos utique antequam per regenerationem ad testamentum novum incipiant poenitere Reperiuntur plura peccata alia parentum quae etsi non ita possunt mutare naturam reatu tamen obligant filios nisi graâ—uita gratia miserecordia divina subveniat But whether God do also without a Promise save any of the Children of the Heathen World or of wicked Parents and how many and with what Salvation and also what degree of punishment they have in the life to come we take for unrevealed things which we are so far from making Articles of our Faith that we take it to be presumptuous arrogancy to dispute it and meddle with the Secrets of the Almighty The Papists themselves are not agreed whether Infants have only the poenam damni as shut out of Heaven or also poenam sensus Jansenius and many more yea most have written for the first and Petavius and others for the latter But secret things belong to God A. We cannot prove that all Infants are saved nor do we presume to tell you what Salvation it is that they shall have But we hope the best And I am glad to find that you take the Salvation of true Believers dying Infants to be sure by the same Covenant which pardoneth their Parents and that you do not peremptorily condemn all the rest B. You know that the Synod of Dort have said the same that I do of true Believers Children Art 1. Sect. 17. and the rest they meddle not with A. But I pray you tell me your thoughts Whether Infants themselves do perish for Adam's sin alone And what remedy is provided for them B. The whole tenor of the Scripture putteth me past doubt that Divines have strangely erred by over-looking the common Interest and Communion of all Parents and Children and appropriating our Original Guilt to Adam's sin alone But this requireth a larger Disputation by it self At present consider 1. That no Text of Scripture doth so appropriate it or make Adam only the Corrupter of our Natures But only maketh him the Original of our Guilt and Pravity as he was the Original of our Nature And so he only is the Original of our Death and Punishment 2. That the whole scope of Scripture containeth Promises and Penalties to Children with the Parents for and by the Parents sins more plainly than any was antecedently expressed of Adam's Posterity as his Yea the very Moral Law in the Second Commandment and in the Proclamation of Gods Name and Nature to Moses Exod. 34. 6 7. which nothing but prejudice and partiality can deny to be a valid proof of a secondary Birth sin derived to us And he that will read the Sacred History from the Curse on the Seed of Cain and Cham of the Case of Ishmael Esau Moab Amnon Sauls Grand-Children hanged and so on to Matth. 23. 38. On this Generation shall come all the righteous blood c. And His blood be on us and on our Children with all the Promises to the Seed of the Righteous only and Threatning to the Houses and Seed of the Wicked with the reason of Infant-Baptism it self 1
How will you prove it against them that think Solomon had but common Grace till he wrote Ecclesiastes or repented of his Fall A. He was a pen-man of the Scripture the Proverbs before And he was beloved of God and excelled all others in Wisdom B. 1. Whether he wrote or only spake the Proverbs you prove not 2. You cannot prove that writing part of the Scripture is a more certain sign of a Saint than speaking part of it And Balaam spake part of it what Job's Friends were I know not And if many Workers of Iniquity did by the Spirit prophesie and cast out Devils in Christ's Name how prove you that they may not write part of the Scriptures To pass by that Pilate Festus Claâ—dius Lystaâ— and other such wrote part of it And an ungodly Preacher may now speak and write excellent things 3. His Wisdom which he begged and is magnified for is described objectively to be political physical and ethical but how far spiritual the Text doth not speak 4. God might be said to love him as Christ did that man that was not far from the Kingdom of God Complacencially according to the good that was in him And benevolently as he purposed his future Sanctification and Salvation I write not this as my own Opinion but to tell you that you cannot prove so much as you think you can The fifth Crimination A. * Even Bradwardine l. 2. c. 15. who goeth as high against Free-will as Hobs or any man doth yet confidently holdeth the Apostacy of Saints though not of the Elect and questioning what causeth perseverance in Glory he consuteth all thâ—t lay it on any thing as sufficient but Gods Will which he calleth his Love and the Holy Ghost 1. Them that lay it on the nature of Grace 2. Or the degree of Grace 3. Or the sight of God 4. Or the intenseness of that sight 5. Or the delight in God 6. Or the degree of that Delight 7. Or on uniting adhesion to God 8. Or the degree of that adhesion 9. Or on our not seeing any good which we want 10. Or the fear of misery by sinning 11. Or that the joy taketh away Free-will 12. Or on a perfect beatitude in all these All which he saith are insufficient and Gods Will is the cause though using these And so in this life men stand or fall not because God giveth some his inward Grace for that may be lost and others not but because God willeth the persevering and obedience of one and willeth it not to another This is over-doing of the Champion of Grace against Free-will They shew exceeding much immodesty 1. In holding an Opinion which is contrary to the Doctrine of the universal Church from the Apostles till of late times neither Orthodox nor Heretick being ever known to hold it unless perhaps Jovinian alone till above a thousand years after Christ No not Augustine and his Disciples who were thought by many to run towards an extream in over-pleading for Grace so that they were called by some Predestinarian Hereticks 2. And yet they have the face instead of being ashamed of their own singularity to revile others as heterodox if not heretical who will not be as singular as they and set as light by the judgement of Christs Church B. I am not one of them that will cite any scraps of the Fathers contrary to their current expressions to contradict you Vossius hath copiously related their judgments in his Pelagian History and that as favourably for perseverance as there was cause And Dr. Twisse who frequently speaketh his distast of him saith nothing to prove his History false Which in this he that readeth the Fathers must confess to be true But this should somewhat moderate you in your censure 1. That the Writers of the first three hundred years are few and their Writings except Tertullians Origine and Cyprian very short even Clements Alexand. and Justins not long And few of them very learned and accurate Writers who are the common Managers of Controversies nor was this Controversie started in their times and therefore not accurately searcht into 2. And if you say that this is the more for your cause if it were not so much as made a Controversie I add that the Platonick Philosophy which then most prevailed might do somewhat to dispose them that way For as Grotius de fato hath copiously proved out of above thirty Philosophers and philosophical Christians most of all the Philosophers especially Platonists were for Free-will and most learned Christian Doctors came out of Plato's School and most of the learned Hereticks too 3. And yet Laertius in Zenone tells us That the Stoicks were against falling away and taught that no truly virtuous man did ever cease to be such 2. But above all I would have you consider 1. That this Point was not held by these consenting Doctors for an Article of Faith and necessary to Church-Concord and Salvation but as one of those many Opinions which were left free 2. And that many or most of these Fathers did agree in some Opinions that are not true 3. Yea that the greater part of them are by the Papists themselves charged with several Errors and some and not a few with Heresies 4. And that therefore the holy Scriptures being the only and sufficient Rule of Faith we need not be so much ashamed as you intimate in some things to differ from the generality of those Fathers if the Scripture be more for us than them There is many a Text of Scripture which Papists themselves interpret contrary to most of the Fathers notwithstanding their Trent Oath to the contrary Therefore your heavy Accusation of immodest singularity is too keen But as for their Cross-Accusation of you as heterodox I now meddle not with the truth nor excuse any uncharitableness therein The sixth Crimination A. They contradict abundance of express Scripture which asserteth that the godly may fall finally from true Grace B. And they think that you rather contradict abundance of Texts that speak expresly for the contrary It is none of my work now to defend either them or you I have long ago written a peculiar Tractate of my own Opinion herein Who is in the right I am not now determining But that you over-magnifie the difference on both sides usually I shall shew you in the end No doubt but the Scripture is of it self sufficient to decide all Controversies as a Rule of sound Doctrine so far as God would have them clearly decided But yet he that denieth that some things in Scripture are hard to be understood will contradict not only Peter's words but his own and all mens experience For as it pleased God to make up the World of variety of Creatures so also to make up the Scripture of Truths of various degrees of necessity and evidence And in this Point there are so many Texts that both Sides think do favour their Opinions that we have not the same certainty
Justification Quest 2. Shew me how many of these six hundred Texts do not speak of such Inherent or Performed personal Righteousness as is distinct from such as you describe in your sense of Imputation Try whether one of twenty or forty or an hundred have such a sence Lib. Not if such false teachers as you must be the expositor of them P. Let us try some of them and be you the expositor 1 Joh. â— 29. every one which doth Righteousness is born of God 1 Joh. 3. 7 10. he That personal Righteousness is necessary that doth Righteousness is righteous Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God Lib. You choose out those texts which countenance your own ends P. My question is but Whether Gods word talk of any Righteousness which consisteth in any thing that is in or of our selves Lib. Yes that cannot be denyed But not in order to our Justification P. Of the use we must speak â—non Quest 3. I next ask you then Wâ—â—â—ther all these texts be not True and whether we may not speak 〈…〉 Lib. Yes We question not the Truth but the meaning of the 〈…〉 P. Quest 4. Is this Righteousness aâ— such in that 〈…〉 have it abominable to God Doth not God command it and requireâ—â— to obey his Laws sincerely And doth he hate the obedience of his â—â—â—â— Is not Holiness his Nature and Image in us And doth he hate his Image and the Divine Nature Is it not the mark of a Malignant to be a Hater of Holiness yea of the Devil himself And can you think that God â—â—â—â— Hater of Holiness What I he that hath said Be holy for I am â—â—â—â— and Without Holiness none shall see God Lib. If you were not an unholy deociver you would not intimate by such questions as if I took God to be a Hater of Holiness P. Is it not Holiness which the Scripture and we mean by Inherent Righteousness Lib. But God hateth it not as Holiness but as mixt with sin P. Do you Believe and Love God sincerely and Love the Godly or not Lib. Better than such as you do or else wo to me P. And doth God Hate all your Faith and Love because it is mixt with sin If he do What difference between it and wickedness or between you and a wicked man God can but hate what they do and doth he so by all that you do also Why then may not your Neighbours imitate God and hate all that you do why may they not then deride and persecute you for that which is hateful to God For shame never more blame then your scorners or persecutors Lib. I do not say that God hateth my Faith Love Humility and patience as such but as mixt with sin Therefore properly it is sin that God hateth and not my Faith and Love it self P. And is all come to this What mean you then to rail at us that say the same We all say that God hateth our sin and the faulty imperfection of our holiness and obedience and what say you more Lib. But you say not that God hateth your Righteousness for the sin that cleaveth to it though not for it self as we do Your Goodness is like an Apple faln into the dirt or poysoned and you are for wiping it and keeping it but God and wise men abhor it for the filth and cast it away P. Then it seems you cast away all Love to God and man all faith all honesty and obedience chastity and temperance because sin cleaveth to it Lib. By casting it away I do not mean giving over to Love God and obey him and turning wickedly to the contrary but I mean that I count it dung in order to my Justification P. I perceive by Teaching me you are but Learning to speak your self I further ask you Doth not God Love the Faith Love Obedience and Holiness of his servants notwithstanding all their faults and imperfections Joh. 16. 27. The Father himself loveth you because you have Loved me and believed c. 2 Cor. 9. 7. God loveth a cheerful giver Psal 11. 7. The righteous Lord Loveth righteousness with many the like passages Doth he not Love his Image Lib. That is because we are in Christ and our persons and graces and duties are accepted all in him being perfumed with his righteousness and all our sins and imperfections pardoned and covered thereby And as our Graces are the works of the holy Ghost and not primarily as ours P. Are you come so far already All this is held not only by us but by the Papists also You confess then that for the merits of Christs Righteousness our sins are pardoned and not only our persons but our faith Love and obedience accepted and loved though culpably imperfect and mixt with sin And so all your noise is come to nothing and you say as we II. But having found that we must have Inherent Righteousness let us Of Reward and Worâ—thiness or Merit next consider What use we may make of it and how far it may and must be valued and trusted to And Quest 1. Tell me whether God hath made any promise of a Reward to it or not Turn to the word Reward in your Concordance if you remember not the Texts and see Lib. Your Legal principles and spirits makes the Scripture a snare and a stumbling block to you as Christ himself is When God talketh of Reward metaphorically you take it properly as if we could merit any thing of God P. I only ask you Whether God hath promised us a Reward Lib. Yes But it is a Reward properly to Christ by whose grace we live and not to our selves P. When Christ saith Great is your Reward in Heaven and your father shall reward you openly Matth. 5. 12. 6. 4 6. and you shall not lose your reward and Heb. 11. 26. he had an eye to the recompence of reward and Heb. 11. 6. God is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him c. is the meaning Great is Christs Reward in Heaven and God will reward Christ openly and is a Rewarder of Christ only as diligently seeking him c. Lib. You would make me ridiculous I mean that it is for Christs Merits or Righteousness which he did himself and not for any thing in us or done by us that we are rewarded P. Say you so Doth diligent seeking him Heb. 11. 6. and praying and giving alms in secret Matth. 6. 1 2 3 4. and suffering for Christ Matth. 5. 11 12. and feeding visiting c. Christ in his members Matth. 25. c. mean only that which Christ did and not we Is it Christs prayers and almes and charity and sufferings that the text meaneth Look over many such texts and judge Lib. Still you would make my words contemptible It is our duties that are rewarded but it is not for themselves or any worth that is in them but for the merits of Christ only P. If God have no respect
Supereminence consisteth in 1. The Sub-propriety which we have in Inferiour Creatures 2. The Sub-government 3. That we are under God Their End and Benefactors SECT III. The several inadequate Conceptions which in order make up our Knowledge of God 21. BY the Knowledge of our own Acts we know our Powers and the Nature of our own souls though imperfectly And by the Knowledge of our souls we know the nature of other Intellectual Spirits And by the Knowledge of our selves and them and the Scripture expressions of his Attributes we know so much of God as we can here know And accordingly must speak of Him or be silent For we have no higher notions than such as are thus Analogical expressing that which is in God in an unconceivable eminency and transcendency by words which first signifie that which is formally in the soul as is said 22. And so we must conceive of God by all these following inadequate Conceptions confessing the impropriety but having no better I. The Essence of God who in Scripture is called in two words An Infinite Spirit is necessarily conceived of by these Three Conceptions 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Vita 3. Perfectio The two first being the substantial Conceptus of a Spirit and the third that which answereth to all perfective degrees properties and accidents in Creatures and comprehendeth a multitude of Perfective Attributes which I express in the Abstract being loth much to use Concretes or Adjectives of God Of these as the first answereth to Matter in Materials and to the Genus and substantia abstractè sumpta in Spirits so doth the second to the Form and Difference when yet in God there is no Composition or Matter 23. II. And the Formal Conceptus VITA must it self be conceived of in this Threefold inadequate Conception 1. * * * It is a great dispute with the Schoolmen Whether Gods Power be any thing but his Intellect and Will that is a necessary distinct conceptus inadaequatus of God For he is one simple essence Durand 1. d. 38. q. 1. justly affirmeth it Vasqu in 1. Tho. q. 23. d. 102. c. 2. saith Haec sententia noâ—null is recentioribus mirum in modum probatur yet he is against it though Suarez be for it But it is partly by misconceiving of the Potentia Vital is in man as if it were only Executive ad extra or in the inferior faculties and partly on such frivolous reasons as tend also to a denyal of his Intellection and Volition Methinks they that acknowledge Gods Understanding and Will to be analogically so called mans being the first which the word signifieth though Gods infinitely more excellent should on the same reason grant that Vita Potentia activa are terms as applicable to God For which denomination many reasons and cogent may be given And I am sure the language of the Scripture and our Creed will warrant this conception Potentia-Actus 2. Intellectus 3. Voluntas I call the first Potentia-Actus to avoid Concretes and to signifie that as God hath no Potentia Passiva so his Potentia-Activa is not an idle cessant Power but in perpetual perfect Act and that Act is a most Powerful-Act so that neither Potentia alone nor Actus alone but both together are our best Conception of this first Principle in the Deity And I take it for granted that even in Mans soul the Potentia-Vitalis Activa the Intellect and Will are not as Thomas thought Accidents but the formal essence of the soul as the Scotists and Nominals better say And I have largely elsewhere proved and therefore stand not here upon it 24. III. And the Existence of this Divine Essence must be known by us in this Gradual Threefold Conception 1. As in Virtute vel Potentia 2. In Actu Immanente 3. In Actione Transeunte Of the first I shall say no more but what is said before By the second I mean Gods own most perfect Essence as Active in it self without extrinsick effect or object By the third I mean not the Creature or the Divine Action ut recipitur in passo or the effect But the Divine Essence it self in the state of Agency ad extra which the Schools conclude to be Eternal though the effect be but in Time Yet if any will call this a free and not a necessary state of the Divine Essence I contend not 25. IV. The Essential Immanent Acts of God are Three 1. SIBI VIVERE or to be Essential Active Life in Himself 2. SE INTELLIGERE to know Himself 3. SE AMARE or to be Amor sui 26. V. The Trinity of Divine Subsistences or Persons also must be here acknowledged 1. The FATHER 2. The WORD or SON 3. The HOLY SPIRIT Of which the School-men have said so much if not far too much as that I may turn the Reader to them 27. I have elsewhere shewed that many of them and other Divines do take the Three last named Immanent Acts in God to be the same with the Three Persons or Subsistences Even the Three Divine Principles Potentia-Actus Intellectus Volunt as as in Act thus Immanently But of these great Mysteries elsewhere All that I say here is that seeing the Trinity of Divine Principles or formal Essentialities and the Threefold Act are so certainly evident to Natural Reason it self that no understanding person can deny them we have no Reason to think the Trinity of Eternal Subsistences incredible and a thing that the Christian faith is to be suspected for but the quite contrary though they are mysteries above our reach as all of God is as to a full or formal apprehension 28. Though God have no Real Accidents we are fain to conceive of Him with some Analogie to Accidents where 1. The Universal Conception is PERFECTION which comprehendeth all 2. The Divine Principles considered in PERFECTION denominate God 1. Potentissimus 2. Sapientissimus 3. Optimus 29. The Attributes of the Divine Persons are 1. Distinguishing viz. 1. GENERANS Patris 2. GENITUS Filii 3. PROCEDENS Spiritus Sancti 2. Common to all such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 30. The particular Attributes analogical as to Creatures Comparate Relative and Negative are very many But yet in Order to be conceived of and not confusedly which elsewhere I offer to the Readers view 31. VI. Gods Causal Relations to his Creatures are in General those named by S. Paul Rom. 11. 36. OF HIM and THROUGH HIM and TO HIM are all things And he is 1. The first EFFICIENT 2. The supream DIRIGENT 3. The Ultimate FINAL Cause of all things 32. Gods EFFICIENCY is terminated 1. On the Things in their Being 2. In their Action and Operation 1. And in the first respect he is the Cause 1. Of their Existing Essence 2. Of their Order 3. Of their Goodness or Perfection And so he is 1. The CREATOR and Conserver 2. The ORDINATOR 3. The BENEFACTOR of all the world And in the second respect as to Action
si in Ecclesia Christi ut talis est aliquae leges judiciales siâ—t necessariae ad politicum regimen Ecclesiasticum quod suo modo spirituale est nihilominus noluit Christus dominus per se ipsum illas leges ferre sed id Vicariis suis commisit potestatem ad illas ferendas eis tribuendo Et ideo illae Leges non sub Lege Divina sed sub canonica computantur Prâ—prie igitur loquendo de Lege divina nova in illa non inveniuntur praecepta judicialia So that Christ never made the Papacy nor any of its Laws But indeed he appointed Baptism as our Church-entrance and more than a Ceremony and the state of Câ—uâ—ch Officers and their work and discipline Mat. 18. And what his Spirit did in the Apostles he did in another sort than he doth by any ordinary Ministers that have but the Spirits ordinary help b b b Aquinas and many other Papists â—oyn with some late Secâ—aâ—ies and say that it 's the Spirits Operation on the Heart that is the Lex nova and that it is not written But he could not deny but that yet the Gospel is Lex nova Scripta But falsly de nomine taketh this but for the secondary sense of the lâ—x which is the first and that the obliging Law and the other the effects of it as various as persons are that have it and not the Rule of Obligation And else-where I have shewed also de Lege natura As to the question Whether Christ's Law be exterior insignis vocal and written or in the Heart by the Spirit Suarez truly saith That lex imperans is in signis in Scripture words but lex impellens is the Spirit which though here the chief yet is not properly but metaphorically called a Law pag. 819. li. 1. in principio Though he add that it was eight years before the Gospel was written by Matthew and longer by the rest and that all that time and since it is written in the Heart But memory may retain a vocal Law before the Heart by love and subjection do receive it 61. In this Law or Covenant is made a free universal Deed of Gift of Christ first and of Pardon Spirit and Glory in and by him to all Mankind without exception who will believingly accept it in its true nature as it is offered therein Or If they will so accept it as Believers 62. This Covenant is to be preached by Christ's Ministers and men invited to believe and consent And all that so do are to profess that consent by a solemn Covenant in their Baptism and so to give up themselves devotedly to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Devil Flesh and World 63. For Faith in God the Father is as essential a part of that Faith which we must profess in Baptism and is called commonly justifying as Faith in Christ is And so is Faith in the Holy Ghost in its place For it is not possible to believe in Christ without believing first in God to whom he is the way and with whom he is our Mediator nor to believe in him fully as Christ unless we believe in him as giving us the sanctifying Spirit 64. This Covenant is nevertheless free as to the donation of the Gifts for being conditional For the Condition is not the purchase procurement by efficient causality or any way a proper cause of the Gift as given but only a dispositive cause of our reception of it and of the Gift as received It is a removens prohibens The Condition as imposed and as the mode of the Promise is only a suspension of the Donation and Right till it be performed The Condition as performed is a removing the suspension And so it is a receiving cause which is but dispositio materiae receptivae of which more in due place 65. And the Gift is nevertheless free because the Condition is but such as is morally-antecedently necessary to the reception of free Gifts For though physical Donation oft make its own way and pre-require not such Conditions as these at least yet moral Donation by Deed of Gift supposeth that the person will receive it and despising or unthankful refusal or turning it against the Donor nullifieth such a Donation in the Civil Laws of men 66. And the Benefits are nevertheless conditionally given though the Spirit of Christ cause us to perform the Condition For they are called conditional from the mode or form of the Covenant which giveth men Right to Christ and Life expresly on condition of believing 67. Though this believing be sometimes described as the assent of the Intellect and sometimes as the consent of the Will and sometime as a practical affiance trusting Christ as a Saviour to save us with Soul and Body to the renouncing and letting go all other trust Yet when ever Justification and Life is promised to Faith all these three are the essential parts of it 68. The clearest discovery of the true nature of Gods Covenant with man and of that Faith by which we partake of the benefits of it is in Baptism it self which hath ever been the entrance of men into Gods Covenant as consented to and mutual and so into a visible state of Christianity and membership of Christ and the Catholick Church And therefore it is happy for us that Christ so expresly delivered the form of the Baptismal Covenant and the Universal Church hath so safely in her practice kept it 69. This Baptismal Covenant which is conditional and the consent to which doth make us Christians must be still distinguished from the Covenant between the Father and Christ or his Law of Redemption And God promiseth not to us all that he promiseth to Christ for us nor giveth all to us which he giveth to him 70. And it must be distinguished from Gods meer Predictions concerning his Elect that he will call them renew them and save them or if those Predictions run in the form of a Promise either as they are promises to Christ concerning the Elect or as promises to the Church in general how God will perfect it still they give no man a Law-Title or Right to any of the Benefits till he is a Believer They justifie and pardon no man And so they must not be confounded with the Baptismal Covenant which is Gods stated Instrument of Justification and of Government and the Law by which he will Judge us at the last 71. This Baptismal Covenant is the character and test by which we must judge who are Christians and members of the Catholick Church of Christ and not by their Subjection to a pretended vicarious universal Monarch And this is the character with consent to his relation there by which every mans fitness for membership in a particular Church must be judged of And not by other Covenants besides that consent and proofs of Conversion not here included And this containeth the true Characters by which every man may know himself
c. and the latter they call the formal nature of Grace viz. quatenus Deo gratiosi seu amati sumus So Alvarez de Aux disp 60. p. 275. Gratiam augeri in esse gratiae similiter charitas in esse charitatis nihil aliud est quam quod per illam acceptetur justus ad majorem gloriam By which he decideth the question whether Grace or Charity be increased by remiss acts or only by intense acts saying that 1. Gratia in esse gratiae similiter Charitas in esse Charitatis statim augentur etiam per actus remissos that is We are made more acceptable to God for greater glory But augmentum gratiae charitatis in esse Habitûs quod homo meretur per actus remissos dabitur postea in primo instanti glorificationis And it seems that so they sometimes take Charitas too both for the Habit and Act of our Love and for our Amability or Dearness to God Now this is ill done For these equivocal words signifie these not as one but as two distinct things Amor Amabilitas or Dearness are two things Though Love be materially our Loveliness yet not formally the latter being an obâ—ective relation resulting from the former Wisdom and Goodness are Inadequate conceptions of One God so all together are a more perfect expression of him than one of them alone Now in all these the former is still implyed in the latter as to the very sense of the word but not contrarily Power doth not alway signifie Wisdom or Love but Wisdom signifieth the wisdom of one Potent including power for there is Potentia Intellectiva And Will or Love include Power and Act. So Action may be without ORDER or Rectitude and Perfection but the order and perfection of Acts include or suppose the Acts. § 8. It is therefore the glory of Gods SAPIENTIAL work of Government which eminently shineth forth in the communications of Grace by the Spirit of Christ But not that Government which was fitted to the state of Innocency but that which stands nearer to the End as more demonstrating Love and tending more effectually to it § 9. Therefore it is much to be noted that all this frame of Grace as tending to Glory is usually called in Scripture The Kingdom of God and The Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 13. 45 c. which containeth the whole frame of Political Order and Government § 10. This Kingdom is the state of Relation between God and the Mediator as the Head or Ruler and Man as the Subject as he is to be guided by Grace to Glory God who is Physically neither Pars nor Totum maketh himself here as it were a Relative Part being the supream Head and the Mediator the supream official Head or general Administrator who hath under him a course of Political means for the accomplishment of this his work § 11. As Christ himself is the Head Means or second Cause so under him are Prophets and Apostles eminently qualified to make them fit to do this work so as tendeth to success § 12. These Prophets and Apostles were endued with that special infallible Spirit by which they certainly delivered Christs doctrine and actions and faithfully discharged all their trust § 13. They had the power of working Miracles many wayes to confirm their doctrine as the Truth of God Besides Christs Mâ—racles § 14. The Scriptures are Gods Record which they left us to be the continual standing signifier of his will § 15. In these Scriptures are his Doctrine to teach his precepts to make duty and oblige and forbid sin by prohibition his own and servants examples to move his threatnings to drive his promises to draw formed into a Covenant strongly to engage the Records also of his Judgements and Mercies upon others that they might every way be fitted to their sanctifying use § 16. He hath also instituted his Sacraments by which the mutual Covenant might be celebrated the more obligingly for its effects § 17. He hath appointed his ordinary Ministers as his standing officers through all generations to preach this word And he endoweth them with special gifts thereto and chargeth them vehemently to preach in season and out of season with urgency and importunity even to all mankind 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Mat. 28. 19 20. whatever it cost them and whatever they undergoe § 18. He hath appointed also Prayer as his Means to obtain Grace by preparing the heart to a due receptivity by the excitation of desires after it And Praise and Thanksgiving to sweeten it to us in the review when we have received it § 19. He hath commanded exercises of humiliation confession bringing down the body to fit us to receive it by a due sense of our sins unworthiness and wants § 20. He hath appointed the publick assembling of his servants that concurse might augment the Sacred flame in the performance of all this Sacred work § 21. He hath instituted the Lords day to be wholly employed in such works and helps that it be not neglected and lightly done § 22. He hath commanded every private Christian to be a helper to others by conference exhortation and good example § 23. He hath made Pastoral discipline a great ordinance to promote the due performance of all the rest § 24. He hath commanded us by secret Meditation Consideration Examination c. to preach to our selves and night and day to think on Scripture God Christ Glory c. and to stir up all Gods graces in our selves and to reprove our selves for all our sins § 25. He hath made it the duty of Parents to teach their Children diligently his word lying down and rising up at home and abroad Deut. 6. 11. and to educate them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord having bound them first in Covenant to God and the Mediator § 26. He hath made it the duty of husband and wife to help each other herein and of masters to help their servants and all relations to sanctifie their places and opportunities to this use § 27. He doth by multitudes of mercies and deliverances further all this work to make known the more his Love to win the hearts of men § 28. He greatly promoteth it also by seasonable afflictions to humble the proud and awake the sleepy § 29. He maketh it mens great duty to tame the body and mortifie concupiscence and make no provision for the flesh to satisfie the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 13 14. 8. 13. Gal. 5. 21 22. § 30. He commandeth us to avoid the company of the wicked and to joyn in the Communion of Saints and walk with such as will be our helpers toward Heaven § 31. He commandeth us to avoid all Temptations of Satan and the world and flesh and to live in a continual war against them § 32. He maketh all the world about us the book or glass in which we may see our maker and his will yea even our own natures and every
be an Active Spirit * Indifferentia Voluntatis in ordine ad auxilium praevium est indifferentia passiva caeterum in ordint ad actum liberum quâ—m producit praedeterminata tali motionâ— praevia indifferentia Voluntatis est activa libera Alvarez de Aux disp 23. pag. 115. and therefore what ever it receiveth it receiveth it as it is in that nature 2. But the same soul is Passive as well as Active and that in the prior instant of nature For it must receive from God the first cause which made the Greek antient Doctors and many of the Latines say as Damascene in sense though in grosser words that the soul in respect to bodies was immaterial or incorporeal but it was material in respect of God § 2. Not only in its Receiving the Spirits first Impulse to Believe the soul is Passive before it is Active but also in its Reception of every sort of Divine Influx even to every natural act So that in this there is no difference between Conversion and any common act For the soul is first passive in allâ— even in receiving that Natural Influx by which we Live and Move and Be. § 3. But the soul which is passive in Receiving Gods Impulse to believe the first effect is Active in the producing of its own Act of believing which is the effect of many Concauses And as I said It is not the Habit of faith properly so called which it passively Receiveth before the Act. SECT XVIII Whether the first Grace and the New and Soft Heart be Promised and Given Absolutely or on any Condition on our part And so of faith it self Answ § 1. BY the first Grace is meant either simply the first or the first special renewing Grace on the soul proper to them that shall be Justified Of the first Grace simply there is no Condition for it is given Universally to all viz. a Reprieval a Law of Grace a Redeemer c. And after this there is much common personal mercy given conditionally and much absolutely to all or some * * * And as to the first moving inward Grace see how copiously the Jesuit Ruiz as Vasquez and others proveth that it hath no initium in us no not an occasion or disposition much less merit for which it is given And he reasoneth from the Names Creation Generation by the seed of God resuscitation and Gods being found of them that sought him not and from the Cause of the difference between man and man De pradest Tr. 3. disp 18. â— 4 5 6 7 8 c. p. 227 228 c. Even Medina 12. p. 596. is so hesitant as to say Esse probabilem sententiam Doctorum quod facienti quod in se est ex facultate naturae Deus ex sua misericordia nunquam denegat gratiam Sed dico quod probabilius est magis consentaneum sanctis patriâ—us praeclpuâ— Augustino non esse Legem infallibilem quod homini pâ—â—atori facienti quod in se est ex facultate natura continub conferatur gratia Nam si esser Lex infallibilis certè initium bona pars justificationis esset à nobis c. Thus the Papists herein differ as much as the Protestants among themselves § 2. It seemeth to me an error which by oversight I was long entangled in my self to think that by the new and soft heart is meant the first special Grace For most Divines agree that it is proper sanctification which is meant by it as distinct from antecedent Vocation Vid. Ames Medul de Vocat Rolloc de Vocat Bishop G. Downame against Pemble Hookers Souls Vocation Joh. Rogers of faith and many others In Vocation they suppose the Act of Faith and Repentance suscitated by the Spirit and thereupon a Covenant-Relation to Christ and to the Holy Ghost with Regenerating Sanctifying Habits â—o be given And I see no reason to be singular herein § 3. That faith is by the Law of Grace made a Condition of this Sanctification and the Spirit promised us if we will believe and so the Spirit given to us by Covenant in Baptism when we believe is plain ill Scripture and the commonest doctrine of all Divines § 4. Therefore if it be this Spirit of Sanctification that is meant by the New the Tender the Circumcised heart it is not promised and given absolutely but on condition of faith § 5. Let us peruse the several Texts where it is promised Dent. 30. 1 2 3 6. When thou shalt call to mind among all the Nations and shalt return unto the Lord thy God and obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day thou and thy children with â—â— thy heart and all thy soul that then the Lord thy God will turn thy câ—â—tivity And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou maist live Here it is a Grace consequent to a condition even to much obedience which is described And Deut. 10. 16. it is a command Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts and be no more stiff-necked Jer. 32. 36 37 c. I will gather them out of all Countreys whither I have driven them and will bring them again into this place and I will cause them to dwell safely and they shall be my people and I will be their God and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever So Ezek. 11. 16 17 18 19 20. And Ezek. 36. 25 26 27 28 29. In all which there is a promissory Prophecy how great a deliverance God would give the Nation of the Jews both for body and soul And their temporal return and liberty is promised and prophesied in the same manner as a new heart is But here is not a syllable to prove that this is the first special Grace any more than perseverance is which in the same manner is promised in Jer. 32. 40. I will put my fear in their hearts and they shall not depart To say nothing how far in the first sense this was National to the Jews nor how the performance did expound it For doubtless it is performed the Text it self premiseth I will be their God and they shall be my people with other mercies And no doubt but Faith and Repentance go before this Covenant-Relation to God and therefore before the following gift of the Spirit ver 9. and Ch. 11. 19. And Ezek. 18. 31. the same is commanded Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit § 6. The promissory Prophecy of Jer. 31. 31 c. is recited by the Penman of Heb. 8. 8 c. to prove the cessation of the old Jewish Câ—venant and that a better should succeed And this much is easily proved out of both 1. That God would certainly have a holy people among the
sort of grace We may presume of many things as received from our Teachers but it is hard to prove that Adam the next moment after his sin was totally deprived of all degrees of love to God and goodness and so was privatively as bad as Devils or that all mankind are naturally so Though I believe that it was of grace even Gods first pardoning act as our Redeemer not so totally to execute the Law nor take away his grace and leave man to the utmost penalty of his sin but to keep nature from being as bad as else it would have been But sure Man is Man still and not a Devil And I speak with few or none that seem not to have some liking of God and goodness or Justice as such though they love not God or goodness as contrary to their fleshly lusts nor love God as their Sanctifier and Ultimate End And thus the Carnal Mind is Enmity to God being not subject to his Law though this be consistent with loving him secundum quid IV. I believe him that there is a faith such as the Devils which may be without Justification both in habit and act But that the same Faith which after justifieth can be many years Habitually before Justification that is Sanctification as he meaneth it I believe not Seeing God hath promised that all that believe thus shall be justified and have his Spirit V. Jansenius seems to me to set too light by Habitual Grace as if it were some common thing in comparison of the Act Whereas I take a Habit of love to God to differ from an act either as a Spring or Rivolet from a drop or as Honesty from an honest act or Learning from a learned exercise or as a fixed friendly Inclination which is like to Nature differeth from a friendly action and to be more excellent than a particular act XVIII His judgement of the Matter of the Reward that it is but God himself seen and perfectly loved for himself is of great use But yet it is both lawful and ex individuationis principiis ex natura humana necessary that we take and desire this as our own felicity and so under God intend our selves And quoad rationem praemii it is the Reward of a Rewardable state or work and therefore of the free act of a creature not meerly necessitated It may be a gift without Respect to our Liberty and Obedience but not a reward But it is both a gift and a Reward XIX That Fear and its effects are good and yet not of Christs grace that they are of Gods Spirit but not the Spirit given by Christ but the grace of some other Providence All this I take for unsound and injurious to Christ and grace Where doth the Scripture tell us since the fall of any grace given to the World but by the Redeemer who is Head over all things to his Church If you say that God can give men the grace to fear him and depart from evil without a Saviour or Mediator how can you prove that he may not do so by the rest Either he giveth this grace as Rector according to his Laws or not If not then on the same reason you may feign that most men are not his subject nor under any Law of God and so sin not nor are punishable If yea then it is according to the Law of Innocency or of Grace For if Moses Law as Jewish be called a third it is nothing to our case If it be by a Law of grace it is Christs Law either of the first Edition called the Promise or of the second called the Gospel The Spirit and grace in various measures given by both are of Christ It 's a dangerous assertion that there is any yea so much grace which is not Christs It prejudiceth me against Jansenius's Opinion that it should cast him on such absurdities as to deny so much of the grace of Christ while he pretendeth to honour it and to set up such a feigned way and sort of grace without a Saviour and yet speak so hardly of the Pelagians as he doth for wronging grace 2. As Fear is one of mans natural passions though but subservient to love so the sanctifying of it is one part of the Work of Christs Spirit 3. I am sure Christ himself commandeth Fear Luke 12. 4 5. Heb. 4. 1. 12. 28 29. passim And is it our own Legal Righteousness to obey the commands of Christ Indeed if Fear were all or had no conjunct hope and love it would be Legal and shew the Spirit of bondage from which Christ delivereth us by the Spirit of Power and Love and a sound mind which are the fruits of the Spirit of Adoption For Moses Law separated by the Infidel Jews from the Law of Grace or Promise of a Justifying Mediator could have no better effects than Fear But Abraham that believed and foresaw Christs day rejoyced in that Faith and yet had a Law of obedience which had its penalty and so hath the Law of Grace which we obey XX. Of Free-will I have said enough before Natural Liberty as distinct from the Moral freedom from sin and ill disposition is sure more than meer Voluntariness And I think if God gave Satan or man power to take away from a Saint all his Habitual and Actual love of God and goodness whilest antecedently the person did hate such a change and pray against it by making him willing of evil and making a Devil of him remedilesly he would take away or cross the Natural as well as the Moral Liberty of his will though it were Willingness that were caused If any think otherwise remember that it is but de nomine for de re we are agreed that such a change would be our great misery XXI I take it to be the commendation of Jansenius that he renounceth the Dominicans Physical Efficient Predetermining Premotion as naturally necessary to all actions natural and free But his habitation converse and worldly interest tempted him factiously to calumniate Calvin lest he himself should become odious with his own party and so miss of his expected success which hath prevailed also with Gibieuf Arnoldus and most other Papists to do the like when they differ from their Brethren XXII He well saith that Permission of the first sin is no effect of Reprobation But his ordination of Gods acts into this Before and that After and so his differencing the Election of Angels and men I fear hath somewhat in it presumptuous and unproved In conclusion I much mislike in Jansenius 1. His contempt of the Sacred Scriptures as being not properly Christs Laws but some odd occasional Writings his Laws being only in the heart and tradition 2. His slighting of Habitual Grace comparatively which yet is indeed Christs Law and Gods Image in the heart 3. His â—eigning a new or odd sort of grace fear which is none of the grace of Christ no not preparatory to his higher
his overlooking and undervaluing Gods Design in Making and Governing free Intellectual agents by his Sapiential Moral Directive way He supposeth this way to be so much below that of Physical Motion and Determination as that it is not to be considered but as an instrument thereof As if it were unworthy of God to give any creature a Meer Power Liberty Law and Moral Means alone and not to Necessitate him Positively or Negatively to Obey or Disobey And this looking only at Physical Good Being and Motion and thereby thinking lightly of Sapiential Regency is the summ as of his so of Hobbes Spinosa's Alvarez Bradwardines Twisses Rutherfords and the rest of the Predeterminants errors herein And had not I other thoughts of this one thing I should come over to their Opinion For I confess the case to be of very great difficulty § 28. I think that as the Divine Life and Power glorifieth it self eminently in the Causation of the Being Motion and Life of the creatures so the Divine Wisdom eminently glorifieth it self in the Order of all things and in the Moral Directive Sapiential Regiment of Intellectual free agents And that Gods Laws and Doctrine are the Image of his Wisdom and an admirable harmonious and beautiful frame And that all would think so and be wonderfully delighted in them were they compleatly printed on our Minds and Hearts § 29. II. And accordingly I think that the glory of his governing Wisdom and Punishing and Rewarding Justice is a great and notable part of that glory which man must give him now and for ever And that this Justice is not his physical using all things according to their physical aptitude only But his Judging and Executing according to that moral aptitude commonly called Merit by Punishments and Rewards And that to deny God the glory of all this is no small error in a Philosopher or Divine § 30. III. Accordingly I think that God made man a free self-determining agent that he might be capable of such Sapiential Rule And that it is a great Honour to God to make so noble a Nature as hath a Power to determine its own elections And though such are not of the highest rank of Creatures they are far above the lowest And that God who we see delighteth to make up beauty and harmony of diversities doth delight in the Sapiential Moral Government of this free sort of Creatures And though man be not Independent yet to be so far like God himself as to be a kind of first-determiner of many of his own Volitions and Nolitions is part of Gods Natural Image on Man § 31. IV. Accordingly I take Duty to be Rewardable and Laudable and sin to be odious as it is the Act of a free agent And that the Nature of Moral Good and Evil consisteth not in its being the meer effect of physical premotion but in being a Voluntary Conformity or Disconformity to the Sapiential Rule of duty by a free agent that had Power to do otherwise § 32. V. Free-will then is not only the same with willing it self or a meer agency according to Nature by the premotion of the first determining necessitating Mover It is not only such a freedom as Fire Water Beasts and every moved thing hath to be moved according to the first Moyers action which is in the will of man But it is a Power to be a first determining Specifier of its own acts as Moral Not that it is never predetermined but that it can do this § 33. VI. Accordingly I judge of Guilt and Shame and the Accusation of Conscience which will not be a bare discerning what God made us do or be but what we voluntarily did or were when we could do otherwise § 34. VII And I am past all doubt that he grosly mistaketh the nature and distinction of Law and Gospel 1. To think that Gods Law when it is not accompained with physical predetermination is but to shew us that we are creatures that cannot but sin 2. Yea hereby he wrongeth the glory of the Creator that made no creature with a power to do any thing but evil unless predetermined physically thereto 3. It 's gross to say that all the Doctrine of Redemption and Faith and Justification by Christ as a meer signum Letter or Law is the Law or Covenant of Works and so that every Command is the Covenant of Works and Physical Efficiency of Good in us is the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For that which we call the Gospel is not true if this be true For this Gospel is a preached word spoken by mans mouth which some believe and some believe not but reject and disobey and therefore perish Matth. 4. 23. 11. 5. 24. 14. 26. 13. Mark 16. 15. Luke 4. 18. 1 Cor. 9. 14 16 18. Heh 4. 2. 1 Pet. 1. 25. 1 Pet. 4. 6. 2. Thess 1. 8 10 11. Matth. 13. 10. Acts. 13. 7. It is a Law by which men shall be judged to life or death Rom. 2. 16. Mar. 16. 15 16. 2 Thes 1. 8. Rom. 10. 16. John 3. 19 20 21. 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. It is a word which some pervert Gal. 1. 7. and many sin against Gal. 2. 14. 1 Pet. 4. 17. The rejecters of it are to speed worse than Sodom and Gomorrah and they cannot escape that neglect so great salvation Whereas by his description 1. No man ever yet sinned against the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For it is not that Covenant or Gospel further than it is a physical effect on the soul 2. And every Heathen that hath any good effect on his soul by Common Grace hath so much Gospel 3. Yea why is not then all Gods Creation being a physical effect the Covenant of Grace if that he doth be it and all that he commandeth as such be the Law of Works 4. And how then can the Law of Works and Grace be two if every proper Law be the Law of Works For a Law is sub genere signi and a produced event is another thing 5. And what sense will be found throughout the Scripture if we must hold that It is the Covenant or Law of Works which telleth us that the Law of Works is abolished and calleth us to believe in Christ for free Justification and not to expect Justification by the Works of the Law and offereth us pardon and life in Christ c. But I will add no more seeing the plainness of the matter makes it needless § 35. The truth is he distinguisheth between the Law and the effect of the Law and Spirit of God and calleth one the Law of Works and the other the Gospel whereas the Scripture only maketh it the excellency of the Gospel that by it the Spirit effectually worketh on the soul more usually and more excellently and no meer Law of Works or Grace will renew us without the Spirit § 36. VIII And if Redemption be nothing but Physical efficiency by Christ who as a creating Mediator
and believe or not is never the more ascertained for Grace if it give men but a power For you leave it still to Free-will to use that power or not use it I speak but of some of you 2. And hereby you contrive Grace into this conception that it is but some common thing like nature and as a man that hath power to sit or stand or go may use that power as he will himself so all men where the Gospel cometh have a power to obey it which they may use as they will But to the Will it self Grace giveth but this power And if that were true that a habit of the Will were but a power to will fair fall Pelagius A. It 's well you charge us not all with that Opinion But I confess I am not yet satisfied that it is false and that the Will hath any thing but power and act But power facilitateth the act B. You may say it facilitateth because â—it maketh it possible which is easier than that which is impossible Is that facility But mark 1. If that Opinion be true then 1. Gods inward workings are not suitable to his outward means For his means are Perswasions and Exhortations and Mercies and Corrections which are not only to make men able but willing And if they make them willing they do in primo instanti dispose them to be willing and then procure actual willingness and then fix the Will in an habitual propensity 2. If that Doctrine be true then a habit hath no moral good or evil in it it is no Virtue or Vice And then there is no Virtue or Vice that is no such thing as moral Habits but only Acts. For no man should call meer power or impotency which is neither habitual dispositive or actual willingness or unwillingness by the name of Virtue or Vice It is not goodness meerly to be able to do good nor evil to be able to do evil unless as eating walking may be good or bad materially by participation so far as voluntary 3. If that Doctrine be true the Will as a Will should be an unsanctified or unrenewed faculty further than it is found in action For its disposition is its holiness and rectitude 4. And a man should have no Grace in his sleep or when he is minding natural things alone unless you will say as I hinted before that sleeping and waking he hath still a Latent insensible Volition in act which is it that we call a habit But if you acknowledge such a habit even a fixed latent deep constant act inclining to other holy acts the strife then is but about a name 5. It is certain that the Soul hath in it besides power and observed acts a natural inseparable inclination The form of the Soul is not only potentia but potentia seu vis vel virtus inclinata Man is not only able to love good as good and felicity as such and sensible Pleasure as such but he is inclined to it And if there be such a thing as natural inclination or propensity besides power and act then 1. It is possible and probable there may be a gracious inclination 2. Yea and if the whole Soul be sanctified must not its inclination be sanctified 6. Why else are we said to be New Creatures and have soft and tender hearts and to be made partakers of the Divine Nature Nature in active things is a principle inclined to action and not only able for it And surely a Divine Nature can signifie no less than an inclination to holiness and the love of God 7. Whence can you imagine that a wicked man should rise every morning so ready to go on in wickedness again that sleep doth not end his sin yea that he is so obstinate in such acts if besides the act he hath nothing but a power to do evil If you say that it is also a disability to do better or forbear 1. You will extenuate his sin by saying that he can do no better 2. Experience telleth you that his sin is sensuality And Appetite inordinate which ruleth him is more than Power Impotency or Act It is also an inclination to that Act. 8. No doubt but each faculty hath Grace suited to its nature and use And therefore as the potentia vitalis activa executiva hath its power and vivacity so the Intellect hath Illumination and the Will holy Love in disposition and in act 9. Lastly The Scripture calleth that which is given us by the name of the Spirit of God and I would the Church would hold to that name and say Men have or have not the Spirit of holiness But the word Spirit cannot be judged to signifie nothing but power and act Yea it is expresly named in reference to our three sanctified faculties the Spirit of Power and of Love and of a sound Mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. And the Spirit of Love or Adoption Gal. 4. 6. Rom. 18. 16 26. is not only a power to love A Child hath more than a power to love a Father It is a filial loving nature which is called our regenerate state And if it were only the Act also why is it called a Spirit and Nature A. To confess the truth you have said much to prove that we have ill managed this Controversie about Power and Impotency to repent and believe And for my part I mean hereafter to use most the common and Scripture phrase and say as to the efficient that men have or have not the Spirit and as to the effect that Power Disposition or Inclination Act or Habit are things to us observable in the Soul and that cannot and will not must not be confounded And if it be moral or logical Power that I speak of I will mention it properly as it is in the effect or event called Possible or Impossible rather than as it connoteth the faculty called Potent or Impotent thereto lest I deceive men And I will let them perceive an impossibility of consequence from an impotency of sufficiency For I know that when it 's true that logically in ordine dicendi it cannot be that is be true that God fore-seeth or decreeth that Peter will not sin and yet that he will sin yet it is not true that Peter had not power to sin But I proceed The third Crimination A. They make man so corrupted and that by Adam's sin without his own consent as that there is no good in him But he is dead in sin And so all men should be utterly and equally wicked B. * Melanct Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 7. Etsi peccatum Originis vitiat naturam non prorsus aufert eam nec delet nec mutat eam in aliam speciem Et sp sanctus non abolet sed adolet naturam non destruit sed sanat Et Ambros de Voc. Gent. l. 1. c. 3. Nec quia spiritu Dei agitur ideo putet se libero arb carere quiae nec tunc perdidit quando
stir up their distast of others B. The question may have three several senses of passiveness as man is considered 1. In his Nature 2. In his Action And therein 1. In the reception of the Divine Influx 2. In the acting thereupon And so the questions are 1. VVhether mans Soul be an active nature or passive matter only 2. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in the reception of the Divine Influx ad agendum 3. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in its own first act of Faith or Repentance Tell me Are not these three distinct questions And are they not all that you can devise unless you will make another whether we are merly passive in the preparatory part And are you not now ashamed to confess that you need any answer to any one of these three questions I. All the world is agreed save the Hobbists and Somatists and Sadduces that mans Soul is not meer passive nature but is an active nature inclined to Action as passive Elements are to non-action And that when God moveth it he moveth not Earth Water or Air but a Spirit whose nature is self-moving as fire under the first mover II. All the world is agreed that the Soul and all Spirits are not so purely and meerly active as God is but are partly and first passive and that they do and needs must be receptive of the Divine Influx before they can act For all Creatures depend on the first Cause and both Being Nature and Action would cease if Gods emanation to it ceased And all the world agreeth that no man before Conversion or after doth any act of Faith Love c. no nor eating and drinking and going c. but he is in the first instant passive as influenced by God before he is active Who ever doubted whether physice recipere be pati Did you ever know such a man III. All the world is agreed that man is not meerly passive when he acteth An Act is an Act sure And to believe repent and love is an Act and an act of mans Soul And Scotus who thinketh that immanent Act are qualities as we think of habits yet thinketh that the Soul is truly active antecedently to that quality Where now is there any room for a Controversie C. You would make me believe that we are very ignorant Wranglers that make a noise in our dream and will not suffer others to rest Do not the Arminians say that man concurreth with God to the first act of his own Faith yea that he maketh Gods Grace effectual B. You shall not again tempt me to anticipate the question of effectual Grace though enough is said before to it as far as this Objection is concerned in it Gods Influx on the Soul is one thing mans natural faculty receiving that Influx passively is another And mans Act is another To thrust in here a general word man concurreth and so to run away from clear and necessary distinction is not the part of a man of knowledge Did ever man yet deny that man herein concurreth as aforesaid 1. Man concurreth not to make his Soul nor to continue it in being or power 2. Man concurreth not as any efficient of Gods Influx on his Soul ad agendum 3. But man receptively or passively concurreth as a Receiver of that Influx 4. And man actively thereupon concurreth to believe and repent Is not all this true But you would tempt the Arminians to say that it is you and not they that are herein to be accused For what mean you else by confining the Controversie to the first act of Faith or to our first Conversion Would you make men believe that a converted man is not as truly passive in believing loving God c. as the unconverted is Must not the holiest person be passive in receiving the Divine Influx on his Soul before he do any holy Act You seem to deny this and then you are the person that err by ascribing too much to man If not shew the difference C. There is a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act And it is in respect to that habit that the Arminians say we are active procurers of it which we deny But the godly operate from a habit B. You speak a private Opinion of your own brain against the sense of the Concordant Churches Where doth Scripture say that a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act Mr. Pemble * Vind. Gratâ— saith so indeed yet he sometime calleth that but a Seed which at other times he calleth a habit Dr. Ames in his Medulla contradicteth it Bishop Downame * In the end of his Treatise Of Perseverance Le Blank de diss Grat. 2. Thes 22. speaking of our being passive as to operating Grace saith truly Non videntur hac in parte Reformati a sanioribus inter Scholasticos dissentire licet aliis verbis mentem suam exprimant The School-men and Protestants little differ in the method of operations of Grace and all are drawn by Controversies too near curiosity beyond their reach hath written a large Confutation of Mr. Pemble The generality of Protestant Divines contradict it and thus with Rollock de Vocat distinguish Vocation from Sanctification that they suppose Vocation to cause the first act of Faith and Repentance and Sanctification to give us the fixed habit the act intervening Mr. Tho. Hooker is large upon it in his Souls Vocation Will you start one mans Opinion which Calvinists and Arminians are against and feign this to be a difference between Calvinists and Arminians And perhaps Mr. Pemble himself by his first semen or habit meaneth no more than the Divine Influx ad actum received I have before told you how unsearchable the nature of that Influx is and how hard it is to know the true nature of an Habit. C. But Mr. Pemble saith It is the Spirit that is given before we believe B. Away with Ambiguity By the Spirit is meant either the meer received Influx of the Spirit ad agendum and so it is granted Bad men receive the Spirits Influx to such acts as he moveth them to Or else you mean the foresaid fixed Habits and Dispositions to a ready and facile ordinary Operation Or else you mean the Spirit given relatively by Covenant undertaking to be the Sanctifier and Preserver of the Soul In both these latter senses the Spirit is not given before the first act of Faith to Infidels They have not the fixed habits of Holiness Love Hope Obedience c. Otherwise they were holy Infidels No Scripture speaketh it nay contrarily it promiseth the Spirit as to Believers and affirmeth it given after Faith Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 14. 17. 15. 26. Gal. 3. 14. 4. 6. Joh. 7. 39. And that the Holy Ghost is not given in Covenant to Infidels I need not prove to them that will not baptize Infidels The sixth Crimination C. They hold that none are damned only for Adam's sin imputed * Yes Vasqu and other
And the sum of his opinion about the nature and cause of our holy actions is 1. That Gods universal influx or causation is necessary on our will to make them acts 2. That Free-Will is the cause that they are these particular acts about this object rather than another 3. That Gods particular or special influx of Grace is the cause that they are supernatural acts And that preventing Grace doth give men good thoughts and the first motion of the affections before deliberation and choice or liberty as Vasquez also saith which seemeth the same with the Doctrine of Ockam Buridane and the rest of the Nominals who call it Complacency as antecedent to Election yea and Intention To be pleased with the thing simply on the first apprehension they call a necessary natural act Though the Scotists say that quoad exercitium actus vel libertatem contradictionis even that is free And it seems the same which Augustine and Jansenius call primam aelectationem But converting Grace it self Molina takes to be a habit wrought by Gods special help in and with the word or means His words are of men that are hearing Gods Word or thinking on it Influit Deuâ— in â—easdem notitias inâ—luxâ— quodam particulari ac supernaturali quo cognitionem illam adjuvat tum ut res melius dilucidius expendatur peâ—etret â—umâ—etiam ut notitia illa jam limites notitia supernaturalis ad finem supernaturalom in suo ordine attingat Inde oritur in voluntate motus affectionis c. Yet no Jesuite is supposed to go further from the Calvinists than this man In truth I cannot perceive but that Jesuites Arminians Lutherans and all such are willing to ascribe as much to Gods Grace as they think consistent with mans Free-will and Gods not being the cause of sin which is the same thing that the Calvinists also endeavour thoughâ—hey seem not to hit on the same names and notions to do the thing desired save themselves and those that hear them 1. Tim. 4. 16. And that he that converts a sinner doth save a soul from death James 6. ult And that the word is the immortal incorruptible seed by which we are begotten again and which remaineth in us Are you now in doubt of this C. It is one thing for God to work with the Word and another thing to work by the Word The first we confess But if God work by the Word then he must operate first on the Word which is the Preachers act and so by that Word on the soul and not immediately Therefore I rather think that the word is a concomitant than an instrumental cause B. 1. You wrong your self and Christ in that you will not believe him John 3. that we mortals know not the way and manner of the Spirits accesses and operations on the soul any more than the cause of the wind whose sound we hear Do you not know that you do not know how Gods Spirit moveth our intellect and wills and how he maketh use of instruments except secundum quid in some particles revealed 2. An hundred Texts of Scripture which I omit lest I be tedious tell us that the Word is a means or subordinate cause to God of his informing and reforming operations on mens souls And it 's dangerous to dream of any second cause that is so concomitant as to be but co-ordinate with the first cause and not subordinate to it And the word is not only subordinate to God as Instituter by Legislation and Declaration but also to God as efficient operator 3. God can work two ways by the Word which are within our reach besides others 1. As it is the act of the speaker by exciting and illuminating him 2. As it is the species as they call it received by the senses and imagination which God can by his power set home to the attainment of the due effect 4. And yet I know not any or many of your Adversaries that deny that besides this Divine operation by the VVord God hath another immediately on the soul exciting it to operate upon the VVord as the vis plastica vitalis materna operatur in semen jam receptum But I will here forbear to trouble you with the physical difficulties whether the VVord heard be only objectum intellectus or also causa efficiens as light is both to the eye And whether it be operative on the intellect or only terminative with other such like C. Well I must grant you that all Infused Faith as to the act is Acquired But all Acquired Faith not Infused but infusion is added to our own endeavours like the creation of the humane soul B. I am glad that we are got so far on towards peace But Quest. 4. What mean you by Infusion Is it not a Metaphor C. Yes and we mean that immediate perswasion of God which you even confess to be besides his operation by the Word and by our Cogitations Even a Creation of an act or habit B. Quest. 5. Is it the name Infusion or the thing that you plead for C. The name though I confess Metaphors must not be used unnecessarily in Disputes is yet convenient but that I leave indifferent B. Quest 6. Do you not think that the act of Faith is the act of mans own Intellect and Will or Soul and that immediately C. Yes that cannot be denied B. If so then when you say that our act is Infused I hope you will confess the term to be none of the plainest and you only mean that Gods Grace doth so operate on the faculty as to excite it so to act and consequently that the thing first and properly infused is not the act of Faith it self but the vis impressa facultatem before described by which the act is caused And so in a secondary sense the act may be called Infused but not most immediately C. I confess it is the habit which we commonly take to be Infused and therefore we use to distinguish habitus infusos ab habitibus acquisitis rather than actus infusos ab actibus acquisitis B. Is that Habit before the Act or after it C. You know that it is a Controversie among our selves Mr. Pemble saith it is before and the common opinion is that it is after the first special Act. B. 1. I once received that from Mr. Pemble ignorantly But that cometh to us by not distinguishing the vis impressa or first received influx of the spirit from a Habit when as Amesius well saith it is fitter called semen fidei vel dispositio quaedam than a Habit of Faith For 1. no man can prove such an antecedent habit and therefore none should assert it 2. The true nature of a Habit consisteth in a promptitude to perform that special act with facility But that we should have such a promptitude and facility not only while we are Infant Christians but no Christians as having not yet believed in Christ is not probable according to our
15. 58. And they work out their salvation with fear and trembling laying up a treasure in Heaven Matth. 6. 20. and laying up a good foundation for the time to come and pressing forward for the prize Phil. 3. 8 9. and laying hold upon eternal life Lib. All this leadeth us to our own works and sets up the Law and taketh down Christ and his righteousness and is meer Popery for humane Merits P. If this be Gods Word and Christs own Law and Doctrine then you inferr that Christ taketh down himself and his own righteousness and sets up man and humane merits But give me leave to tell you that if you deny the Reward of Evangelical duty and the Rewardableness or Worthiness or Merit of such duty as it is but our Merit or Worthiness of the free Gift of Christ and Life given by Paternal Love and Justice to believing Penitent accepters according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace 1. You do contradict so much of the most express Texts of Scripture as alloweth us to suspect that really you believe not the Scripture to be true or that it is not it but your own contradicting fancy that is the measure of your belief and you may on such terms hold the vilest absurdities even what you list as in despight of Scripture while you pretend that it is for you 2. You will deny the honour of Gods Image on man and the work of the Holy Ghost and the design of Christ who came to destroy the works of the Devil and save his people from their sins and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works 3. You will disgrace the Church of God which Christ washeth and sanctifieth and render it too like to the unsanctified world 4. You will leave man no ground for true assurance of Justification or Salvation while the difference between the worthy and unworthy is taken away 5. You will harden the wicked in their false presumptuous hopes and teach them to say We are but unworthy and so are all 6. You will destroy the comfort of well doing by denying the reward and making it seem to be in vain 7. Hereby you will take down all holy diligence in our Christian race and warfare while you deny the prize and recompence of reward Heb. 11. 26. We run for an incorruptible Crown 1 Cor. 9. 25. Phil. 3. 14. 8. You will strengthen all Temptations while you take down that which should be set against them See Luke 12. 4. Heb. 4. 1. 12. 28 29. Matth. 6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 19 20 c. Matth. 5. 10 11 12. 9. You will disgrace the Word and Ministry and all Means if after all we are never the more accepted 10. In a word you deny Gods Government in denying his Governing Justice and Judgements and that is to deny God to be our God Yea you deny all Religion all the Kingdom of Christ all Law all Judgement all Retribution Heaven and Hell all the true difference between Good and Evil Holiness and Sin all Praise and Dispraise while you deny the Reward and Rewardableness of holy obedience by the Paternal Government of the Law of Grace and that glory honour and peace is to every one that doth good both Jew and Gentile Rom. 2. 7 10. Lib. You would perswade us that holiness is good for nothing if it be not Rewardable as if you knew of no other use of it so ignorant are natural men of the things of God which are spiritually disâ—erned I will tell you that which your carnal mind cannot understand 1. Holiness Faith Love Obedience c. are Gods free Gifts excellent in themselves without a Reward 2. They are Fruits of the Spirit and marks and signs of our future felicity though they deserve it not 3. I told you that they are Rewards to Christ and Gifts to us P. 1. That they are Gods Gifts we doubt not But are not Faith Love and Obedience also the Acts of man by that Grace which is the gift of God Lib. Yes they are mans acts but it is God that worketh them in us P. And tell me if you can 1. Why God cannot Reward those acts which are done by his own Grace Cannot God make the Promise of a Reward to be a fit Moral Means for his Spirit to work by Nay doth not the scope of the Scripture tell you that he doth so 2. Is there ever the less worthiness in it because God causeth it Tell me without shifting Is an honest man no more worthy of a Princes favour than a Thief If you are no more worthy of liberty and protection and life than Atheists and Rebels why do you call men Persecutors for using you as if you were such Why call you men Malignants for hating deriding and opposing godly men if they deserve no better than the worst Lib. They deserve better from men but not from God P. Do you deny Rulers to be Gods Officers and that they are to make this difference by his appointment and therefore it is done by God 3. But without shifting tell me Doth not every good action or inclination deserve praise from God and man Doth it not deserve to be accounted and called just as it is Lib. All our Righteousnesses are as menstruous rags and what praise then do they deserve Can that deserve praise which deserveth Hell P. 1. Come on then let Conscience be a while unmuzzled Why do you so much praise those of your own Church or Opinion Why praise you so much the Ministers and people that are of your way Why do you make a difference between them and such as are against you 2. Why do you so aggravate the sin of those that vilifie deride and persecute you Why call you the Saints the precious ones on earth Gods treasure and peculiar people 3. Why were you lately so angry with the Ecclesiastical Politician the Debate-maker and other such Books which vilifie men whom you and I have better thoughts of if they deserve no more praise than the vilest men 4. Why were you so angry lately when you heard of one that reproached you and so pleased with one that proclaimed your wisdom and goodness and took your part 5. And if good actions deserve not praise from God himself why doth he praise them so greatly in his Word Why will he say before all the world Well done good and faithful servant c. 1. Dare you call God Ignorant Legalist or charge him with mistakes 2. Doth not every thing and person deserve to be thought and called just as it is Else lying or silence must be the virtue and Truth the Vice 3. Is there no more good in a Saint than in a Devil If there be doth it not deserve to be called just as it is 4. May not he who deserveth Hell by the Law of Works or Innocency be yet Morally fit for that is Worthy of Heaven according to the Law of Grace which pardoneth his sins