and freely giveth him Christ and Life 5. Doth not God praise his Servants more than the Devil or wicked men do And will you not please the Devil and Malignants to tell them the contrary And is it not the mark of a just man that a vile person is contemned in his eyes but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. Doth not God himself praise Abel Enoch Noah Abraham Moses Joshua David Job c. Wrangle not against the unresistible Light Our light must so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our heavenly Father Matth. 5. 16. Christ will come at last to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe because the Gospel was believed by them 2 Thess 1. 10 11. No man hath seen God at any time in his Essence but we see him here in a glass and that is in his Works and Image in which it is that his glory shineth And to say that Gods Works and holy Image are not worthy or Morally fit to be praised is to deny God his praise and glory on earth He that despiseth you despiseth me saith Christ and consequently him that sent me Luke 10. 10. Lib. Faith Love Holiness Obedience Patience are worthy that God should be praised for them but not Man for they are worthy as Gods works but not as ours P. 1. They are none of our works as the chief agents but only second causes under God And are not second causes to be praised in their places and degree Will you not praise Sun and Moon and Stars and all Gods works that he may be praised for them Do you not praise a good Servant a good Horse or Dog a good House or Land yea and your Friend or Teacher Do you not praise your own party when you say that they are wiser and better than others 2. Believe and regard the Word of God Do none of these Texts following speak of Praise as due to men in subordination to God Deut. 26. 18 19. The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people and to make thee high above all Nations in Praise and in Name and in Honour and that thou maist be an holy people to the Lord thy God Prov. 27. 21. As is the fining pot for Silver and the furnace for Gold so is a man to his praise Isa 62. 7. Give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth Zeph. 3. 19 20. I will get them praise in every land c. I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth Rom. 2. 29. Whose praise is not of men but of God John 12. 43. They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God 1 Cor. 4. 5. Then shall every man have praise of God 2 Cor. 8. 18. The brother whose praise is in the Gospel c. Phil. 4. 8. If there be any praise think of these things 1 Pet. 2. 14. Governours are sent by him for the praise of them that do well See Prov. 27. 2. 28. 4. 31. 30 31. 1 Cor. 11. 2. Prov. 29. 23. Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit 21. 21. He findeth life righteousness and honour Psal 149. 4. This honour have all his Saints Prov. 3. 16. 4. 8. 8. 18. 15. 33. 20. 3. 22. 4. Eccles 10. 1. John 5. 44. Rom. 2. 7 10. They that by well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life Glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good 9. 21. 12. 10. 13. 7. 1 Tim. 5. 17. The Elders that rule well are accounted worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 6. 1. 1 Sam. 2. 30. Them that honour me I will honour Psal 91. 15. John 12. 26. If any man serve me him will my Father honour 1 Pet. 2. 17. Prov. 13. 18. Do you believe and regard no one of all these words of God Lib. I grant that God will praise the good but not because we are worthy of it P. 1. Have I told you that he himself calleth his servants worthy and will you contradict Gods Word 2. Dare you yet deny any thing to be worthy to be called what it indeed is Is not a Christian worthy to be called a Christian and a sober man to be called a sober man and an honest man to be called an honest man Must humility make us lyars Tell me Are you worthy your self to be accounted and called an Infidel a Heathen an Apostate a Heretick a wicked ungodly man that never repented nor did good Lib. That were to lye or slander to call one what he is not P. Are you not worthy then to be called contrarily that is what you are Lib. â—â—ought so to be called but not for my worthiness P. Must God and man account you such as you are not fit or worthy to be accounted And will you go on to accuse and contradict Gods Word Your fancy hath got some harsh conceit of the sense of the word Worthy and that cometh still into your mind as if it meant a worthiness which supposed not that all that we have is of mercy and grace when the Scripture meaneth no such worthiness but such as is that of a loving dutiful thankful Child of the inheritance A moral fitness Lib. Well suppose that our actions and we are worthy of Praise that is to be called as they are yet they are worthy also of dispraise that is to be accounted as menstruous rags defiled with sin and deserving Hell and is not this a pittiful praise P. Did you ever hear us deny any of this Why talk you of that which we are all agreed in But 1. It is not holiness but the faulty imperfections of it and the sin that is contrary to it which deserveth Hell 2. And the faults of sincere believers deserve not Hell according to the Law of Grace by which we are to be judged so as to be lyable to it but only so as to be accounted condemnable had we not been pardoned Lib. But if our faith and holiness deserve some praise what 's that to the deserving of salvation or being worthy of Heaven P. All these words your obstinacy hath put me to use to convince you that Faith and Holiness is worthy of any thing at all and that the word Worthy which God himself useth of them is not abused by God nor false But what it is that God will account the righteous worthy of the Scripture must determine where I have shewed you before that the words are plain They are counted worthy of God 1 Thess 2. 12. and of his Kingdom 2 Thess 1. 5. Worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection Luke 20. 35. They shall walk with Christ in white for they are worthy Lib. Still I grant it in the Scripture sense but not in yours P. To end this tedious talk with one that seemeth loth to understand say Yea
Gods will hath a final cause meaneth but a final object as he confesseth A Tree is a passive recipient cause of the Termination of the Suns calefacient act and of the â—ffect as received but not of the act ex parte solâ—â— 283. Even the Acts of Gods free-will or Decrees have no Cause even in God himself no more than those called Necessary For we must not say that any thing in God is an effect 284. Yet as Gods Acts are oft denominated by Connotation from the object which in man is a constitutive Cause of the Act loco materiae so extrinsick objects may be called The Causes but rather the Objects of God Will Love or Knowledge not as his Essence but only as so denominated by that Connotation of the object 285. These distributions of Gods Volitions in Number and by specifying objects and individuating objects which are called material constitutive causes of the act are all according to humane weakness in us who know God but enigmatically and in a glass But yet if any man use such words in a broader manner than we think fit before we censure and condemn him we must hear his sence explained For all that ever we can say of God is improper analogical yea metaphorical And it is but in degrees of impropriety that all words about Gods attributes and actions differ For as is oft said no man hath formal proper conceptions of any thing in God If God should not speak to us in this improper language of our own he must not speak intelligibly to us unless he create another understanding in us And he himself in Scripture using such language of himself alloweth us to use it while we profess to disclaim ascribing to God any of the imperfection which it seemeth to import 286. On these terms not only Various Volitions are ascribed to God in Scripture and exteriour causes of them as John 16. 27. the Father Loveth you because ye have loved me and believed c. * * * So Gen. 22. 16. 26. 5. Prov. 1. 24. Luke 11. 8. 19. 17. Gal. 4. 6. Eph. 5. 6. 1 Sam. 28. 18. 1 King 9. 9. 11. 34. 20. 42. 2 King 10. 30. 2 Chron. 34. 27. Psal 91. 14. But also Fear Affliction Grief Hatred Repenting Rejoycing c. Deut. 32. 27. Isa 63. 9. Gen. 6. 6. Psal 5. 5. Gen. 6. 7. 1 Sam. 15. 11. Joel 2. 13. Jer. 15. 6. Hos 11. 8. Zeph. 3. 17. Jer. 32. 41 c. and exteriour causes of them 287. That which is to be understood by all these is 1. That man is so far the Cause of the Effects of Divine Volitions as the Dispositio receptiva may be called a Cause And I before shewed in the instance of the effects of the Suns Influx how great a hand the various Dispositiones materiae receptivae have in the diversifications of effects 2. And that Gods Volitions themselves are hence relatively denominated 288. Therefore we must say that Gods electing Peter and his rejecting Judas his Love to Peter and his hatred of Judas are not in specie the same act of his will nor his Loving Peter and his Loving Paul the same Numerically As his knowing of Peter to be a Saint and his knowing Judas to be a Saint is not the same numerical act of knowledge Though as they are Gods Essence all are but one And we must say that he Loveth one because he is good and hateth another because he is evil and he justifieth men because they believe and condemneth men because they believe not that he forgiveth a sinner because he repenteth c. Though Gods Will have no efficient Cause 289. Those Volitions of God which are but Immanent as to Efficiency but Transient Objectively are some of them to be denominated as before the thing willed and some as after The Will of effecting is before the thing willed The Will ut finis or Complacency and Displicency as also Intuitive Knowledge of the thing as Existent estimation approbation reprobation of it the Will of Continuing modifying altering perfecting destroying suppose the existence of the thing willed in esse objectivo And so many Volitions may be denominated as beginning in time as connoting the objects †††Pennottus li. 4. c. 24. p. 235. confidently argueth that because God can Love him that he hated or Loved not he can therefore Predestinate him whom he reprobated or change his decrees without any change in himself I answer 1. I grant that God can Love a Saint whom he hated as a sinner before and cease hating him without any change save relative and by extrinsecal denomination 2. But his inference seemeth to me false and dangerous unless he had meant it of executive Election and Reprobation which he doth not For 1. Proper Love and Hatred connote an Object as existent and by such connotation are named And his fourth supposition is false that Love is nothing but Gods Will to give a man life Eternal For the formal Act of Love is Complacency And the Velle Bonum is another thing as I think an effect of Love or at the most another act of Love And we deny that any absolute Velle bonum alicui is ever changed though displicence be changed Because it is the same with Decree 2. And the reason why the said Decree or Volition if absolute and proper may not be denominated changed is because it maketh its own object and so supposeth it not pre-existent and dependeth not on it denominatively And therefore it would inferr God to be mutable to change it But it is not so in the other which as to the Relation and Name followeth the Mutable creature as doth Gods Knowledge of present existents and preteritions as to denomination and connotation And it is no more wrong to Gods Immutability so to name them than to his simplicity to name them many and divers 290. And in this sense it is no more wrong to Gods Immutability to speak of Him as being before in Potentia only as to such Relative denominations As the Rock in the Sea hath not yet that proximity to the Wave which a twelvemonth hence will touch it and yet is not therefore mutable Or as you are yet but in potentia to the termination of his Relations who will pass about you before and behind on the right hand and on the left So God was but Potentially the Creator and Redeemer of the World from Eternity Though as to any real passion God hath no passive power 291. In this sense of relation to the objects and effects it is that we conceive of Gods acts of Knowledge and Volition in a certain order of nature as one being before and one after another Though not as they are Gods Essence 292. Yet because the use and truth of words or names is their signification of Things as indeed they are and we should put no name on any creature but what is adapted to notifie it aright
justifie us but condemn us nor Moses's neither nor any but the Law of Grace Your foundation is unsound 2. The imputing of Christ's Suffering is not Gods Language but your own and may be well or ill understood 3. If the Law have nothing against us it hath no Sin of Omission against us Therefore not our omission of Love and Obedience And then we are reputed such as had perfect Love and Obedience 4. But indeed it is not so By the deeds of the Law no Flesh can be justified The Law still hath this against us that we have sinned which he that denieth is called a Lyar 1 Joh. 1. The Reatus Culpae in se or the Reality of this that we have sinned is impossible to be done away But the Reatus poenae culpae ut ad poenam is done away But not by the Law but by the Redeemer and new Covenant The Law doth not say We are sinless or deservers of life But the Gospel saith We are pardoned and adopted and sanctified through Christ's perfect meritorious Righteousness § 31. M. S. Else Sin and Punishment should be the cause of life for Sin is the cause of Suffering and that of Pardon An. This is the grossest passage in this Book A palpable fallacy You may as well say that Lazarus's dying and being buried were the causes of his reviving because antecedent evils from which he was revived Or that the Jews killing Christ were the causes of his Resurrection Or that Peter's cutting off Malchus Ear was the cause that Christ cured him Or that Peter's denying Christ was the cause that Christ pardoned him Sin deserveth Punishment but Punishment as such deserveth not Pardon or Life They in Hell deserve not Heaven If God had threatened but a temporal Punishment As a years sickness c. this had not deserved the following impunity or peace but only interrupted peace the Sin deserving this and no more A Malefactor's scourging deserveth not his after peace And Christ's Suffering merited not our Pardon as reputed our suffering nor meerly as suffering For had we suffered we had not been pardoned But the voluntary Suffering of so glorious and innocent a Person to demonstrate Justice deserved our impunity and more because God would have it so and it was a means most apt for this excellent end to save lost man and to vindicate and glorifie the Wisdom Truth and Justice of the Universal King and to demonstrate the Goodness and Love of our great Benefactor But sufferings as such do merâ—â— nothing even Christs own Sufferings merit but as they are the fruits of Obedience and voluntary consent on the foresaid accounts much less do the sufferings of the Sinner merit For he is supposed involuntary in them and it is God the Judge that is the Author of them as such § 32. M. S. Else the Law should be laid by and life given without it An. The root of all your Error is That God giveth us life by the Law of Innocency or Works and that we are justified by that Lawâ— which is not true God laid none of it by but man by sin made the promissory part which gave life on condition of perfect Obedience and Innocency to be impossible or null It ceased cessante capacitate subditorum by mans mutation and not by Gods But the preceptive part remaineth still as far as it reacheth materially the state of Sinners But man having made it impossible to be justified by the deeds of the Law God made us a new Law or Covenant according to which he judgeth Sinners and by which he first giveth Righteousness and then according to it sentenceth men as Righteous § 33. M. S. Justification of the Posterity of Adam should have been the same for substance as of Believers by Christ Adam's one Act should have confirmed all his Posterity in him as a publick Person The Covenant of Works and of Grace agree in justifying by imputed Righteousness but out of a Head by Generation the other by a divine Person An. This is presumptuous adding to Gods Word in the very substance of the Covenants yea and a flat contradiction of it 1. What Scripture telleth us That all Adam's Posterity should have been confirmed in immutable Holiness if he had obeyed 2. What Scripture saith That one Act should have done this 3. What Scripture saith That his Righteousness should have been imputed to all his Posterity and they all accounted to have fulfilled the Law in him The Scripture tells us nothing of Gods purpose to make so suddain a change of his Law as if he made it but for one man yea for oâ—â— Act and then would make another to Rule the World by ever after The Law said in sense Obey perfectly and live Sin and die Now if the Condition had been performed by one Act or one man for all the World that ever should come of him to the last and they all be born in the fixed possession of the Reward then the Law which giveth that Reward still but conditionally hath no more place As in Hell God doth not say to the damned Obey and live so neither doth he say to them in immutable Glory I give you immutable Glory if you will obey The means cease so far as the end is either attained or desperately lost He that saith Run well and you shall have the prize Fight well and you shall be crowned Overcome and I will give you a Kingdom will not say the same to them when after running fighting overcoming they have received the Prize the Crown the Kingdom though possibly they may have the continuance on condition still if that continuance was not also promised on the first condition alone So that you feign Gods Law to be incredibly mutable if God said by it to Adam Obey in one Act oâ— obey thy self and thou and all thy Posterity for that shall have the Reward For then he can never be supposed to say the same again to Adam or to any man And yet you think you stand so much for the â—mmutability of that Law as that we must all be justified by it to the â—nd Nay it seemeth that after one Act of Obedience all the World should have been under no Covenant any more or no promissory conditional Law but only fixed by necessitating Light and Love as those in Glory â—re For when this Condition was fully performed this Law or Covenant as conditional must needs cease And you imagine not I suppose at least mention not any other conditional Covenant that should â—ucceed it And necessitation is not a Moral Law suited to such as you call cause consilio in this life You would make all the World after one â—ct to be if not lawless yet Comprehensors and not Viators Professors of life eternal and not seekers in a life of trial But I find not but that all Adam's Posterity should have been born and â—ived under the same Law that he was made under And all of them â—hould
or after the performance a proper Cause of Gods Will which pardoned us For Gods Will in it self can have no cause But they were Causes 1. Of the Thing willed and 2. Also of the extrinsecal denomination of Gods Will from the object and effect of which anon 41. Christ did not take upon him strictly and properly the Natural or Civil person of any Sinner much less of all the Elect or all Sinners But the person of a Mediator between God and Sinners Of which more afterwards 42. Christ was not our Delegate Deputy Minister or Instrument to do what he did in our names by representing our persons as a man's Servant payeth his Masters debt by his command or doth some work which he was to do by himself or by another Nor did God or his own consent put him into any such Instrumental Relation in our Civil persons 43. Yet did he in the person of a Mediator not only merit and suffer â—ro nobis nostro bono but also voluntarily as part of his Mediatoâ—ial work suffer the penalty nostro loco in our stead Not by a full â—epresentation of our persons nor as if we could hence truly say that we â—id in sensu Legis vel Civili Suffer in Christ or satisfie Gods Justice our selves by Christ nor that God or the Redeemer do reckon it to us or ever will to be a thing done by us in our own Civil person though â—y Christs Natural person nor will ever give us all the fruits of it on that reason and account as supposing us so by Christ to have satisfyed for or Redeemed our selves But he suffered in the stead and place of Sinners to satisfie Gods Wisdom Truth and Justice and to procure pardon and life for Sinners to be given out by himself on his terms and in his way 44. Much less did Christ in our persons and we in and by him in a civil sence become habitually holy and perfectly fulfill all righteousness Nor doth God ever repute us to have our selves in our own civil persons thus fulfilled the Law and been holy in and by Christ or will justifie us on such a supposition 45. Christ is said to be made sin for us in that he was made a Sacrifice for sin But never was a Sinner indeed or in Gods esteem For God judgeth not falsly Nor did he ever take to himself the Guilt of fact or fault in it self but the punishment and the guilt only in relation to punishment the Reatum poenae non culpae qua talis But if any will call the Reatum poenae by the name of Reatum eulpae quoad poenam tantum because of the relation and connotation I strive not against the Name so we agree of the thing But safest words are best especially seeing that obligatio ad poenam is it that is most usually and eminently called guilt But Christ never undertook to be reputed of God one that was truly and formally wicked or a sinner but only one that was a sponsor who consented to suffer for Sinners that they might be delivered And they are ill words of them that say Christ was by imputation the most wicked man the greatest Thief Adulterer Murderer or Sinner in the world Though such men may mean well it were better speak in the Scripture phrase and not so far overgoe it Had God imputed our sins so to him as to have esteemed him a Sinner or guilty of our habitual and actual sin as sin even our hatred of God and all our wickedness God must necessarily from the perfection of his Nature have hated him as a wicked enemy yea more than he hated any other man as being guilty of a world of wickedness Whereas God was still well pleased with him and never hated him 46. The satisfaction which Christ made to the justice of God was full and perfect and so was his merit by his perfect Righteousness 47. The perfection of Christ's satisfaction consisteth not in its being in stead of All the sufferings due to all for whom be dyed so that none should therefore be ever due to the persons themselves For death afflictions and the want of Grace and withholding of the Spirits further help c. must be suffered even by the Elect But it consisteth in its full sufficiency to those Ends for which it was designed by the Father and the Son 48. The very Nature and Reason of the satisfactoriness of Christ's â—â—â—ferings was not in Being the very same either in Kind or in Degree which were due to all for whom he suffered For they were not such Of which more afterwards 49. They could not be the same which was due by the Law For the Law made it due to the Sinner himself And anothers suffering for him fulfilleth not the Law which never said Either thou or another for the shalt dye But only satisfied the Law-giver as he is above his own Law and could dispense with it his Justice being satisfied and saved Dâ—â—alius solvit aliud solvitur 2. And sin it self though not as sin as â—â— before opened was the greatest part of the Sinners punishment To â—â— alienated from God and not to love him and delight in him but to be corrupted and deluded and tormented by concupiscence 3. And the immediate unavoidable consequents resulting from sin it self weâ—â— punishments which Christ did never undergo As to be Hateful or â—â— pleasing to God as contrary to his Holy nature to be related as Criminal to lose all Right to Gods favour and Kingdom c. 4. And noâ—â— of the further punishments which supposed real faultiness could fall â—â— Christ as the torment of an accusing Conscience for rejecting and offending God for casting away our own felicity and running into hell c. the sense of Gods hatred of us as real Sinners 5. Much less the deâ—â—tions of the Spirit of Holiness to be left without goodness in a state of sin and to hate God for his justice and holiness which will be the damneds case The blind zeal of them that think they wrong the sufferings of Christ if they make them not thus of the sâ—me kiâ—â— with all that we deserved doth lead them to the intollerable Blasphâ—ming of our Saviour which if understood they would themselves abhor 50. Nor could Christ's sufferings be equal in Degree intensively and extensively to all that was deserved by the world As is easily disâ—â—â—nible by perusing what is now said seeing our deserved suffering lay iâ— things of such a Nature as to be left in sin it self destitute of Godâ— Image and Love and Communion under his hatred tormented in Câ—â—science besides the everlasting torments of hell which are more thâ—â— these upon all the millions of Sinners which were redeemed 51. Yet did Christ suffer more in Soul than in Body being at the present deprived of that kind of sense of Gods Love and Joy therein which was no part of his holiness or perfection but no other and having oâ—
whether he be a true Christian and must judge of his sincerity and right to Christ Justification and Salvation as he is or is not a sincere consenter to it truly understood in the essential parts SECT V. Of the Gift and Works of the Holy Ghost 72. There are three sorts of Operations of the Holy Ghost one common and two proper to them that shall have or already have Justification 1. The first is preparing common Grace which maketh men fitter for special Grace which yet they may have that perish 2. The second is that Grace of the Spirit by which we perform the The Thomists make the act of contrition and chariâ—y to be the ultiâ—ate disposition to Justification which is with them the habit And yet they say that it floweth from that habit And if the distinction of Alvaâ—ez Disp de Aux 59. p. 264. possim be not contradiction I understand it not Eadem contritio quae est ultima dispositio ad gratiam in genere causae materialis antecedit illam in genere tamen causae formalis efficientis est effectus ejusdem gratiae Though that which is the effect of one act of Gods Love be the Object of another act first Act of special Faith and Repentance called commonly by Divineâ— Vocation which goeth before any special habit but not before any holy seed Because the very influx of the Spirit on the Soul is as a seed which exciteth the first act before a habit though not ordinarily before some preparations This Faith is commanded us as our duty first and made necessary to us as the Condition of the Covenant And when we know it to be thus required of us and hear in the Gospel the Reasons which should perfwade us then the Holy Spirit moveth us by his Influx to believe and consent where God and man are conjunct Agents but man subordinate to God 3. The third sort is the Spirits Operation of the habit of Divine Love and all other Graces in the Soul which is called his In-dwelling and Sanctification This is that Gift of the Spirit besides Miracles of old which is promised to Believers To this Faith is the Condition To this upon believing it is that we have Right given us by Gods Covenant and thus it is that by Baptism our right to the Spirit as an in-dwelling Sanctifier and Comforter is given us 73. This third Gift or Work of the Spirit eminently so called is in the same instant of time given us as the second but not of nature or at least immediately thereupon when we believe But yet they are not to be confounded on many accounts 74. But yet though some degree of the Spirit be presently given to every Believer it is usually but a spark at first And there are further means and conditions appointed us for the increase and actual helps from day to day And he that will not wait on the Spirit in the use of those means doth forfeit his help according to his neglect 75. Hence it is that most if not all Christians have lower measures of the Spirit than otherwise they might have and that judicially as a punishment for Sin However God is free herein and if he please may give more even to them that forfeit it 76. This Covenant of Grace being a conditional pardon of all the world The extent of the New Covenant is universal in the tenor or sense of it It is of all Mankind without exception that Christ saith If thou confess with thy mouth and believe iâ— thy heart thou shalt be saved No person antecedently is excluded in the world 77. And as to the promulgation of it Christ hath commissioned his Ministers to preach this Gospel to all the world and to every Creature So Matth. 28. 19 20. Mark 16. 15 16. that to the utmost of their power they are to offer and publish it to the whole world And Princes and people are all bound in their several places to assist them and to help to propagate the Gospel throughout all the Earth So that the restraint of it is not by the tenor of the Law 78. Those Nations which despise and refuse the Gospel are justly deprived of it penally for that rejection 79. Those Nations that live inhumaâ—ely and wickedly against the means and mercies which they have do forfeit their hopes of more 80. As God in all Ages hath visited the sins of the Fathers on the Children as the instances of Cain Cham Nimrod and others commonly shew and hath proclaimed it as his Name Exod. 34. and put it in Tables of Stone in the Second Commandment and not only of Adam's sin so may he justly deal by the Posterity of the Despisers of the Gosâ—el in denying it them Though he may freely give it the unworthy when he pleaseth 81. All the rest of the world who have not the Gospel and the Covenant The state of those that have not the Gospel of Grace in the last Edition are left by Christ in as good a state â—at least if not better than he found them at his Incarnation He took â—way no mercy from them which they had 82. Therefore as it is before proved that before Christ's time none Of Zuingliu's Opinion of the Salvation of Heathens by name Hercules Theseus Socrates Aristides Antigonus Numa Camilli Catonâ—s Scipiones c. Vid. Montaâ—ut exercit Eccles 1. Sect. 4. Twissum contra Corvinum pag. 371. col 1. Omnium temporum una est fides Deum esse eundemque Justum Bonum Remuneratorem sperantium in se omnium plene meritis respondentem ante legem sub lege sub gratia Nemini rectum sapienti venit istud in dubium sine ista nemo unquam ingressus est ad salutem Rob. Sarisberiens Polycrat de nugis curial Pol. Peucer Hist Carcerum against the Lutherans Concord saith p. 715. Etsi nec ad Ethnicos ante natum Christum nec ad Judaeos post natum Christum misit singulares ministros sonuit tamen vâ—x doctrinae de Deo patefactae utroque tempore Hoc modo adhuc sonat ut exaudiatur nunc etiam a Turcis Judaeis Nec fuerunt unquam exclusi prorsus a gratia miserecordia Dei ante Christum Ethnici E quibus innumeri ex omnibus gentibus fuerunt ad Deum conversi Post Christum natum Judaei Panciores ex his tamen of the world were left desperate under the meer violated Covenant of â—nnocency but that the tenor of that New Covenant as made to Adam â—nd Noah extended to them all so are they still under all the Grace of â—hat Edition of the Covenant further than they are penally deprived of â—â— for violating it The Law of Grace in that first Edition is still in force â—nd the Law by which the world shall be governed and judged They â—re all Possessors of Mercy which leadeth to Repentance and bound to use â—he means afforded them in order
justified by Faith it connoteth and includeth that we are justified by Christ and his Sacrifice Merits and Covenant respectively believed in But yet it is not Christ nor his Sacrifice or Merits or Promise that is meant by the word Faith It was a gross abuse of the Text so to expound it Faith connoteth the Object but it is not Christ that is called Faith 140. But the meaning is that man having forfeited Life Christ's Righteousness habitual active and passive hath merited that it shall be given us as a free Gift but yet regularly under a Law But the Law maketh nothing but believing acceptance the condition of our Right and he that doth that much shall without perfection be esteemed and used as righteous for the sake of the said Righteousness of Christ So that in point of Merit as to the value of the thing Christ's Righteousnesâ— is instead of our Innocency But as to the order of collation something being still to be required of us as a condition of Right so our Faith now is instead of our Innocency as being all that is laid on us instead of â—â— that we may have right to Justification And to assign this condition oâ— our part Paul saith That Faith is imputed to us for righteousness To deny this sense is to use violence with the Text. 141. Christ's Righteousness is made ours as our Sins were made his which is not in themselves as is aforesaid God forbid we should think that Christ was ever reputed by God to be a Sinner a Blasphemer a Murderer an Enemy to God and Goodness one that had Satan's Image and was his Servant a Persecutor of himself c. But only our sin was imputed to him as to the punishment deserved that is he assumed the Reatum poenae the punishment and a dueness occasioned by our sin but made his own by his voluntary sponsion But never had he the reaâ—um culpae in its self but meerly as aforesaid respectively to the punishment Even so we have the Righteousness of Christ not in its self as Proprietors of it but in relation to the effects that is we have the effects even our Justification and other benefits as purchased by it and for its sake And as our guilt or obligation to punishment was not Christ's till his voluntary sponsion or consent did make it so Even so his Righteousness is not ours in the effects till our voluntary consent accept it Because iâ— is not a natural but a contracted Relation that is between Christ and us And as it is not a strict propriety in Christ's Righteousness that we have so it is much less a plenary and absolute propriety nor have we it in the Relation of a meritorious cause to all uses as if it had been fully our own but only limitedly to those uses which God accepted it for and hath assigned to it in the Gospel that is it is but a certain sort and measure of mercies that are given us from it in Gods time and way 142. To the asserting of the rigid sense of Imputation they are necessitated to say that which supposeth Gods repute of the matter to be false that is that he reputeth us to have done that in and by Christ which we never did by him But God judgeth nothing to be otherwise than it is that he judgeth Christ to have been the Sponsor and Mediator and in that person to have done and suffered as he did is because it is true But he judgeth him not to have been the legal Person of the Sinner and as many persons as there be redeemed Sinners in the world because that is not true 143. They say that what the Surety doth the Debtor doth in law-Law-sense and to judge so is not to err But there are several sorts of Sureties much more of Instruments in paying a Debt 1. There be free Sureties who are not obliged to the Debtor as his Dependents and these either by counter-security or by right of the thing may recover all of the Debtor again And therefore the Law supposeth not the Debtor to have payed the Debt by them but that the Creditor made them both Joynt-Debtors for his own security 2. There are Sureties antecedently and Sureties consequently One that before the Debt doth conditionally make himself a Joynt-Debtor in case the Principal pay it not And there is a Surety more properly called an undertaking-Friend who after payeth the Debt being disobliged before Christ was not a Surety of the first sort in Law-sense And if you call Gods Decrees which are his Essence Suretiship your liberty of words changeth not the case 3. There is a Surety who payeth the Debt in the name and person of the principal Debtor And he is not properly called a Surety but an Agent or Substitute And Christ was none such nor is any proper Surety such And there is a Surety which by the Creditors consent doth pay the Debt in his own name agreeing that the chief Debtor shall have no benefit by it but from him as he shall give it on certain terms And this was Christ's case 4. There is a Surety that payeth the same debt that was due from the Principal And there is a Surety or Friend that undertaketh only to make the Creditor satisfaction because the Debtor cannot pay And this is the case 5. Lastly There is a pay-master that is the Debtors Instrument whether Servant Delegate or whoever at his command or request doth pay it in his name and person And this is not the case And there is a proper Surety who is a third person and no Instrument and payeth it in his own name though for another This as I said is the case and therefore it is not we that paid it Therefore to the Objection I say that to judge Christ such an Instrument or Delegate of ours or Surety that did all in our legal person is to misjudge and err as is proved which God cannot do 144. Christ did and suffered in the common nature of man though not in the person of each Sinner And mans nature is so far redeemed by him that for the meer Original Sin of nature alone no man shall perish unless he add the rejection of Grace of which somewhat is said before But yet as Nature existeth only in persons so it is all persons who have this much benefit and more But that he merited and satisfied in our Nature is a proper speech and truer than that he did it in our persons 145. But all this similitude of a Creditor and Debtor is to be limited in the application according to the great difference of Sin and Debt which will infer a great diversity in the consequents which may easily be collected by the Reader 146. As to the great and weighty question whether Christ died for How far Christ died for sins against the Law of Grace sins against the New Covenant or only for those against the old I answer Distinction is here notoriously
and the Righteousness which is not in us but in him is â—urs so far as to be for our Good as far as his Office and Covenant do obâ—ige him So that a Righteous Christ and therefore the Righteousness of Christ are ours Relatively themselves quoad jus beneficis so as â—hat we have right to these Benefits by them which we shall possess â—nd for the merits of his Righteousness we are conditionally justified and saved before we believe and actually after But are not accounted to be Christ nor the Legal Actors of what he did nor Christ â—ccounted to be each of us SECT V. Merit 192. The great Controversie about humane Merits which hath made â—o great a noise in the world is of so easie solution that I can scarce Confes August Art 6. Semper sentiendum est nos consequt remissionem peccatorum personam pranâ—nciari Iustam id est acceptari gratis propter Christum per fidem postea vero placere etiam obedientiam erga legem reputari quandam Justiciam mereri praemia Et Art de Bon. operib Quanquam hac nova obedientia procul abest a perfectione legis tamen est â—usâ—iâ—ia meretur praemia ideo quia personae reconciliatae sâ—nt It a dâ— operibus judicandum est quae amplissâ—â—iâ— laâ—dibuâ— orâ—anda sunt quod sint necessariá quod sint cultus Dei Sacrificia spiriâ—â—alia mereantur praemia Ib. Exâ—recitatio nostra conservat ea meretur incrementum uxta illud Habenti dabitur Augustinus praeclare dixit Dilectio â—erâ—ur incrementum dilectionis cum viz exercetur Habent enim bonâ— apera Praemia cum in hac vita tum post hanc vitam in vita aternaâ— â—hink but almost all sober understanding Christians in the world are â—greed in sence while they abhor each others opinions as ill expressed or misunderstood Distinguish but 1. Of Commutative Justice and Distributive Governing Justice 2. And of Governing Justice according â—o Gods several Laws of Innocency Mosaical Works and of Grace â— And of Justifying and Meriting simply and comparatively And the case is so plain that few things are more plain to us that Christians conâ—rovert Viz. 1. To dream of meriting from God by any Creature Man or Angel in point of Commutative Justice is blasphemy and madness that is That we can give him any thing that shall profit him or which is not absolutely his own as a compensation for what he giveth us He maketh himself a God that asserteth this of himself 2. To say that any since Adâ—â— save Christ doth merit of God in point of Governing Justice according to the Law of Innocency is a falshood And he that saith He bâ—â—â— no sin is a lyar 3. To say that we can merit pardon or Justification oâ— Salvation meerly by observing Moses Law was the Jews pernicious erroâ— 4. To say that our faith and performance of the conditions of the new Covenant doth merit by the retributive Sentence of the old Covenanâ— or that it is in whole or part any meritorious Cause that God gave the world a Saviour or that Christ freely pardoneth and justifieth us all conditionally by the new Covenant or that it supposeth not Christ's Righâ—â—ousness to be the total sole meritorious Cause of that pardoning Covenant and all the benefits as thereby conditionally given All this is gross contradiction 5. To deny subordinate Comparative Merit or Rewardablâ—ness as from Gods Governing distributive paternal Justice according to the Covenant of Grace consisting in the performance of the condition of that Covenant and presupposing Christs total merits as aforesaid iâ— to subvert all Religion and true Morality and to deny the scope of all the Scriptures and the express assertion of an Evangelical worthiness which is all that this Merit signifyeth To say nothing of contradicting Catholick antiquity and hardening the Papists against the truth 193. This Comparative Merit is but such as a thankful Child hath towards his Father who giveth him a purse of Gold on condition thâ—â— he put off his hat and say I thank you who deserveth it in Comparison of his Brother who disdainfully or neglectfully refuseth it This last being absolutely said to Deserve to be without it but the former only comparatively said to deserve to have it as a free gift 194. And those that reject the saying of some Papists who in thiâ— sence say that Christ merited that we might merit placing our Evangelical merit in a meer subordination to Christs do but shew what prejudice and partiality can do and harden those who perceive their errors 195. Some man may think that the high things required in the Gospel self-denyal forsaking all running striving working loving overcoming Whether faith be not the meer Acceptance of a free gift according to its Nature Against Merit read of Papists Waldens de Sacram. tit 1. Gregor Armin. 1. d. 17. q. 1. a. 2. Durand 1. d. 27. q. 2. Marsil 2. d. 27. Brugers in Psal 35. Eckins in Centur. de Praedest Et inquit Fr. a Sancta Clara Deus Nat. Grat. p. 138. tribuitur etiam Cusano nec longe differt Stapletonus nostras Leg. Suarez in 3. p. Tho. Disp 10. Sect. 7. q. 3. See the Thomists sence of Merit in Lud. Carbo Tho. Compend 1. 2. q. 23. art 4. p. 240. c. are more than the meer Receiving of a free Gift But 1. If it were so yet our first faith would be no more by which we are Justified from all the sins of our unregeneracy 2. But upon consideration it will all appear to be no more materially For 1. When we say that it is the Receiving of the free Gift we must mean According to the Nature and to the use of that Gift As if you be required to take food the meaning is to Eat it and not to throw it away If you be required to take such a man to be your King your Master your Tutor your Husband your Physician c. the meaning is As such to the use of his proper office And so Accept of God as God that is our Absolute Owner Ruler and End and Christ as our Saviour Prophet Priest and King and the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifyer to Illuminate quicken and renew us is the suâ— of all the Positives of the Gospel 2. For this very Acceptance of them in this Nature and to this Use includeth the using of them after accordingly And if we do not so use them we thereby reject them and lose our own benefit of them as he that eateth not his meat refuseth and loseth it and he that weareth not his Cloaths and he that learneth not of his Teacher 3. And then Self-denyal and forsaking contraries and resisting impediments is but the same motus ut a termino a quo And he that refuseth to come out of his Prison and Chains refuseth his Liberty and he refuseth the Gold that will not cast away his handful of dirt to take it So that
I believe I grant it if 1. This be in it self as evident 2. And as certain to me as Gods Word is otherwise I deny it 236. Obj. A man cannot believe and not know that he believeth Ans But a man may sincerely believe and yet through ignorance either of the Scripture or himself be uncertain that indeed his Faith is sincere and not such as is common to the justified 237. Some Protestants by erring in this point and saying that justifying Faith is a certain perswasion or belief that we are justified and that it is Gods own Word that I or you are actually justified or are sincere Believers and that the believing it is properly fides Divina have greatly scandalized and hardened the Papists to our disgrace 238. And so have those that say that in the Creed the meaning of I believe the Remission of Sin is I believe that my sins are remitted actually And that all must thus believe 239. Some say that the Spirit within them saith that they are sincere Believers and the Word of the Spirit is the Word of God and to believâ— it is to believe God Ans This is the Enthâ—sâ—asts conceit which if true all such have prophetical Inspiration For the Spirit to bring any new word from God is one thing and to give us the Understanding Love and Obedience to such a Word is another thing The Spirit doth indeed assure us of our sincerity but not by a new Word from God to tell us so but 1. By giving us that sincere Faith it self 2. By acting it and increasing it 3. By helping us to know it 4. By giving us the love of God and other Graces 5. By giving us the comfort of all But the reception and perception of these internal Operations is not properly called a Belief of the Word of God Else when we make Gods Word the adequate Object of Faith we shall be still at an uncertainty what that Word is 240. Yet this perswasion that we are sincere and justified is divine where the Spirit causeth it but not a divine Faith Yea it is participatively of divine Faith because Gods Word is one of the premises though the weaker must denominate the conclusion * * * Of this see Albertinus's Disp at large 241. Obj. A Reprobate or Devil may believe all the Articles of Faith without application but justifying Faith applieth Christ and his benefits to our selves Ans It 's true But this application is not a certainty nor a perswasion nor a believing that I am justified no more than that I am glorified no nor that I shall be so neither But it is an accepting of Christ offered that I may be justified and saved So that here are all these applying acts in it 1. I believe that Christ as the Saviour of the World is my Saviour as he is all other mens and is not the Devils that is that he hath done that for me which he hath done for all mankind 2. I believe that he is offered to me personally in the Promise or Covenant of Grace on condition of believing-acceptance and that with and for all his purchased benefits and so for my Justification 3. I believe that if I so accept him I shall be justified 4. By true consent I do accordingly accept him to justifie sanctifie and save me But when all this is done 1. I do not believe that God hath said in his word that I am justified nor that my Faith is sincere 2. And my Faith is so weak that I may long doubt of that sincerity which I have and so of my Justification 3. And when I come to be certain of my Faith it is not by believing God as saying that I do certainly believe but by experience of its sincerity upon just trial by the Spirits help 242. No man can be sure that his Faith is sincere and saving who is not assured that it will help him to love God as God above all yea already doth so and that it mortifieth selfishness and will prevail with him to deny even life it self and all the world for Christ and Salvation So far as a man doubteth of any of this he must needs doubt of his own sincerity 243. So weak is Faith in most that are sincere and so little kept in exercise and so strong is sense and self and flesh and worldly bâ—its and interest and Satan's temptations that in my experience who have conversed with as many that are careful of their Souls as most have done I think it is a very small number that I could ever hear say I am certain of my Justification and Salvation But a great number who have lived in holy confidence hope and peace and some in great joy but most in tollerable fears and doubting and some few oppressed by those doubts So that certainty of Salvation is very rare 244. When Bellarmine saith that our assurance more belongeth to Hope than Faith and that it is but moral certainty by signs that we have of our Justification Sincerity and Salvation he so little differeth from the sense of almost all godly Protestants that were it not through other distances and partiality we had never read in Luther's days that for this one point alone we have cause enough of our alienation from the Romanists 245. They err on one extream who say that all are commanded to believe that they are justified or any as if it were Gods Word And they err on the other hand who command doubting or commend it as if it were a duty or a benefit And they speak the truth who say that our doubting of our own Sincerity and Justification if we are sincere is a sin of Infirmity and a Calamity proceeding from weakness of Faith Hope Love and Self-acquaintance which we should use all possible diligence to overcome But they that are not sincere are bound to know it And first to seek and get sincerity and then discern it 246. It is by the Spirit that all Christians must come to their assurance But not by the Spirit as speaking this in us as a word from God Thou art justified or shalt be saved or art sincere But by the aforesaid Acts The Spirit in us is first Christ's Agent Advocate and Witness to assure us that he is the Saviour of the World And next he is our Witness to assure us that we are Gods adopted Children which he doth by being in us Gods Mark and the Pledge First-Fruits and earnest of our heavenly Inheritance by effectual habituating our Souls to the predominant love of God and Holiness and Heaven Where-ever this Sanctification is there is the Evidence and Witness of our Adoption He that findeth by the Fruits that he hath the Spirit findeth the certain proof of his Justification and earnest of Glory SECT XVII Of Love as the end of Faith 247. This predominant Love of God and Holiness is so proper a Cui non unus idemque vitâ— scopus est hic
Conditional Covenant of Grace for I talk of no other extendeth not universally to all men but that any men are yet lest under no other Law or conditional-promise or Covenant than that of Innocency For if that were true 1. Then God should be supposed to make men a promise of Life on a condition of present natural impossibility And to say to sinners If you be not sinners you shall live 2. And to oblige men to the same Impossibilities as the means of their salvation saying still to sinners I require you sinners that you be no sinners that you may be saved 3. Which is indeed to say that the case of all that are under the first Law of Innocency only is desperate and they have no more hope or remedy than the Devils 4. And then Christ had mistaken the matter himself when he commanded his Ministers to Preach this Gospel or Covenant to all the world and every humane Creature and tell them that If they believe they shall be saved and to offer them Baptism if they consent 5. And either Preachers must preach an untruth to many or else not know what man to preach to 6. But the actu-al force and obligation of the Covenant puts all out of doubt that the world is under a Law of Grace For what man that by siding hath not his understanding utterly distorted to look only on one side can say that none but the Elect are bound to Believe in Christ or to Repent of sin or to turn to God and this as a means of their salvation What man dare say that any Heathens in the World are under no obligation to use any means at all for the pardon of their sins or the recovery and saving of their souls What man dare say that it is no sin in them not to use any such means And what duty or sin can there be without a Law And what Law can bind men to accept of Grace and to seek it and use means for pardon renovation and salvation but the new Covenant or Law of Grace Sure the Law of Innocency hath no such obligation 7. Lastly And Gods usage of all the world puts the case past Controversie For he useth no man according to the meer Law of Innocency All the world have a great proportion of the Mercies of the New Covenant and therefore are not under the Covenant of Innocency alone Yet we maintain that the preceptive part of the Law of Innocency as to the future is still in force to all men Obey perfectly And that the penal part is so far in force as to make death in the first instant due for every sin But we add 1. That the Remedying pardoning Law being in force with it doth immediately dissolve that obligation and make it uneffectual to the punishment of believers 2. And that the Promising part of the Covenant of Innocency is utterly ceased by the cessation of mans capacity And therefore that the Preceptive part for perfection is now no Condition of Life to any man Two things I was wont in my Ignorance to say against the universal tenour of the new Covenant 1. That God distinguished and excluded some at the first making of it under the name of the Seed of the Serpent But 1. No Scripture giveth us the least ground to think that men equally guilty are some called the Seed of the Serpent and some of the Woman meerly as denominated from or distinguished by Gods own will or decree without any real difference in the persons 2. And if the Image of Satan in Original sin were it that denominated the Seed of the Serpent then all the world should be excluded because all are such before they are regenerate 3. Therefore it is plain that it is not meer Original sin that denominateth any one the Serpents Seed in the sence of that Text but a consequent rejection and opposition of the Mediator or Grace of the new Covenant 2. I was wont in my great Ignorance in my youth to think that All men were meerly under the first Covenant till Conversion and then they came under the second only But this was but Confusion To be under a Law or offered Covenant as the terms of life or death is one thing And so all are under a Law or Covenant of Grace and no man under the meer Law of Innocency obliged to perfection as the sole condition of life And to be obedient to this Law and a Consenter to this Covenant and so to be in the Covenant as Mutual is another thing And this is the case of Consenters only So that I may take it for granted that we are agreed that as to the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam and Noe it extendeth or is in force to all the world at least till by enmity against Grace they have made themselves desperate as the Serpents seed Yea then the Law of Grace is in force to them though they reject the Grace of it 2. And as to the last Edition of the Covenant of Grace by Christ 1. The tenour of it extendeth to all as is visible Matth. 28. 19. Mark 16. 16. Joh. 3. 16. 2. And Christ hath made it the office of his Ministers by his commission to promulgate and offer it to all 3. And whereas providence concurreth not to the universal execution we must all confess that Christ came not to put the world into a worse condition than he found them in If he did any no good by his Incarnation he would do them no harm Therefore they that never hear the Gospel are still under the first Edition of the Covenant made with Adam and Noah so far as it is unaltered I add that word because that so far as the Promise was to give salvation by the Messiah hereafter to be incarnate none is now bound to expect his future Incarnation because it is past But the same benefits that were due to believers before Christs incarnation are due since upon the true performance of so much of the condition as is still in force and not repealed 3. And we must needs agree that the Ignorance of the Apostles before Christs sufferings of his death sacrifice and resurrection doth shew that the faith of the Godly Jews then was far more general and less particular than the faith now required of Christians 4. And also that more was required then to be known particularly by the Jews that had the Scripture and Tradition to acquaint them with the Messiah to come than of the rest of the world that had not those distinct discoveries nor Abraham's promises made known unto them And how much Gen. 3. 15. might cause them to understand we may conjecture by the words At least this much was required of all that they believe that their sin deserveth punishment and misery and yet that God of his abundant mercy by his Wisdom securing his Truth and Justice will pardon sin and grant salvation to all that truly Believe and Trust in
saith is not willed by the sinner himself § 33. So far as God Causeth not sin he willeth it not and they that say that he Loveth and Willeth the existence of it as a means to his glory abuse Gods Moliness and are confuted before Par. 1. § 34. How God overruleth sinners and the effects of sin and procureth his own ends not by the Means or Causality but Occasion of it I have so largely there opened that I must refer the Reader thither SECT XX. How far God and how far Man himself is the Cause of Hell and other punishments THough somewhat be said of this in the Conclusion of the second Jo. Major in 4. sent d. 50. fol. 289. q. 1. inquit concl 3. Sive actus damnatorum dicantur mali culpâ— vel peccata non patientur aliquam poenam inflictam ratione illorum actuum Quia non sunt in statu merendi demerendi sed addit Signanter de poena inflicta loquor quae à culpa distinguitur ejus est reordinativa per cruciatum De poena enim acta non est possibile dare culpam quin suam poenam habeat annexam eo modo quo idem potest habere se Ipsa scilicet peccandi continuatio est poenae miseriae continuatio Nec mihi probabile videtur quod Demerendi ratio cessat apud inferos Praemium quidem mereri non possunt At quare non Poenam commereri sunt putandi Nonne adhuc sunt subditi etiam ipsi daemones sub quadam Lege ideâ—que peccandi adhuc capaces nonne omne peccatum suâ naturâ meretur poenam Ipsius scilicet Joh. Majoris ibid. Conclus 1. Est Damnati habent multos malos actus in inferno libere An opâ—abilius sit damnà tum esse an non esse vide quae ibidem sequuntur ubi concludit Itaque tenco si daretur viro optio vel non esse vel esse in perpetua flamma quod licitè posset vel alterutrum eligendum est non esse Nam minus malum habet rationem boni See Aureolus in 2. d. 31. a. 2. pag. 301. shewing ten wayes how one sin causeth another and so multiplyeth and continueth it self in the wicked Part I think meet to say more here because I find that the not understanding it doth tempt many to unbelief and others to hard repining disaffected atheistical thoughts of God § 1. Again here consider that God made man such as he is in Nature before either Laws or sins or punishments had any being so that if you can but forgive God for making you men that is Rational Free-Agents you can have no fair pretence of quarrel with him As will appear by these considerations following § 2. Mans Body and sensitive soul are of such a nature as that things inconvenient will be his pain He that will take poison shall be griped and tormented by it and he that will eat unwholsome meat or will surfeit shall be sick and he that will cherish diseases by sloth or excesses or abuses of nature will have the pain of them And he that will wound himself or break his bones will be his own afflicter And he that cuts his throat or hangeth himself must dye And all this without any doing of God besides the making him a man and continuing such a nature under his Government in and with the world § 3. Not only positive hurting but omissions will bring mens bodies unto pain and death As not eating not exercising not keeping warm c. And consequently such a life of prodigality or sloth as tendeth to such wants § 4. The inward senses Imagination and Passions are so constituted as that their inconveniences will be a pain and torment as well as the inconveniences of the outward senses 1. Cares and Melancholy thoughts are distracting 2. Desires breed such care and are themselves like a thirst or hunger to the soul 3. Fears are tormenting 4. Sorrows if deep and long are as a living death 5. Anger is a vexatious feaver of the mind And revengeful malice and envy do prolong it 6. Despair anticipateth eternity of misery c. 7. And Love it self how pleasing soever at first is the strength of them all § 5. The superiour faculties as they are more noble are capable of greater misery and their corruption and disorder is the worst To have an ignorant erring mind that taketh evil for good and good for evil To have a carnal malignant wicked obstinate froward Will and sinful Affections and by these to have mens actions misguided and so the sensitive soul it self brought into the foresaid misery through bad government is a misery to man in the Nature and immediate effects of the thing § 6. Man liveth among multitudes of fellow Creatures in the world which will all be tormentors of him if he will make them such As a post will hurt him if he knock his head to it The fire will burn him if he touch his flesh with it The water will drown him if he will leap into it over-head The Sun will scorch him the frost will pain him if he expose himself to them A Lyon or Mastiff will tear him if he avoid them not His neighbours will hurt him likely if he hurt them and cross their interest Men in power will hurt him if he offend them And all things will be to him as he behaveth himself to them § 7. All this being Natural let us now consider what sin doth to the sinner here and you will find that almost all his calamity consisteth in his very sin it self and the natural effects of it But yet it is sin as mans and it is punishment as from God when yet God is no Cause of the sin § 8. This is plain if you consider that Gods Act by which he maketh sin a Punishment was Before the sin though the Relation of a Punishment come after the relation of sin Here are two Agents 1. God making Nature and a Law therein 2. Man disordering his actions by transgressing 3. Hence Immediately followeth Guilt or the form of sin 4. And with it even in the change or after it the natural pain of loss or hurt 5. And this is Related to man as a punishment for the sin in the last place For instance God made man and God made meat wine and poyson God telleth Man in Nature I have made thee such a Creature as that excess of Meat will make thee sick excess of Wine will make thee mad and Poyson will torment and kill thee I have given thee self-love and command thee that thou avoid all these and I will not deny thee necessary help But if thou wilt not it will be thy pain which I will that thou suffer for and by thy sin I need not further apply it here the application is obvious § 9. All this I speak only of natural punishments which by the Law of nature follow sin what is supernatural is after to be considered §
of all true profit to us no more true natural entity in my choosing the forbidden one than in my choosing the commanded one To hate God and love sin hath no more natural entity than to love God and hate sin To speak an Oath or Lye than to speak Truth and Holily To will a forbidden Act than to Nill it and to will a good one So that it is no deifying man to make him a first cause of that which hath no natural entity that is of an Act not as an Act but comparatively as rather this way than that way exercised And Dr. Twisse hence saith That moral specification of Acts is no true specification of them And it 's true that it is not a Physical specification 2. If you say that we have a Liberty ad exercitium as well as of specification or of Contradiction as well as of Contrariety Even to will or not will do or not do And in this case to do or will when forbidden is more than not to do or will I answer 1. The Soul is naturally an active vital power and it is as natural to it to be in act as to a stone to lie still And the Cartesians will tell you that Action needeth no more cause than Rest But I rather say that God never forbiddeth Action in general to the Soul but only this or that Action upon this or that Object at an undue time So that no man ever sinned by meer Action as such whether Vital Intellectual or Volitive The Action which God commandeth he willeth The Action which he forbiddeth is but this or that upon an undue Object Adam had this liberty of contradiction to will or not to will this particular Act of eating the forbidden fruit but not to will or not will simply Now for Adam to will to eat that fruit instead both of nilling it and of willing to please God by nilling or refusing it had no more natural entity in it than if he had not willed it but willed somewhat else at the same time 3. An Action it self is not properly Res but modus Rei and if any should say that God is not able to make a Creature that supposing God the cause of its Power continued shall be the first cause of its own Act or exercise of that Power he saith that which no mortal man can prove The Glory of Gods Works is their likeness to Himself And as Intellection and Free-will are parts of this likeness we know not just how far God can go in such Communications I see no contradiction in it to say that a faculty maintained by God in its natural force with necessary though not determining concurse can determine it self without any more causation And if it be not a Contradiction God can do it 4. But this is all prevented by considering that mans Soul is never out of Act. It s active force is never idle though it act not always the same way nor with the same extension or intension so that to reduce it into act is not to reduce it from a meer potentia in actum but from a power acting one way or slowly to act another way or more intensly 5. Yea this is all answered by considering that as I said while God continueth the Soul in its nature it continueth a naturally active force or power inclined essentially to activity So that though I say that Action needeth more cause than non-action that is here done in God still causeth the active disposition But supposing that upheld I say that there is oft more need of other causality or strength to keep it from Action than to cause it to act Whatever the world talketh against Durandus they are never well able to answer à Dola though in sense they that factiously oppose him mean the same as he And if a Rock hanged in the Air by something that might be cut off or removed as a threed supposing God to continue the nature of it and all things else there is more strength and causality needful to hold it from falling than to make it fall when the threed is cut It was a work of Gods Power to keep the fire from burning the three Confessors Dan. 3. and the Lions from devouring Daniel Dan. 6. and the Sea from flowing on the Israelites and the Sun from moving in Joshuah's fight 6. And yet consider that it is not so much as an Action which is but modus rei that is in question but only the comparative circumstantiating of that action so that it is but modus modi rei 7. And lastly The denial of the matter of our power and liberty in this I have else-where proved overthroweth the certainties and fundamentals of all our Religion Now whether any man should deny all our Religion and certain necessary Truths for such a metaphysical uncertain notion as this that God is not able to make a Creature that can cause a modus modi in determining its active nature to this Object rather than to that without Divine predetermination let sobriety be judge C. But thus you make man the specifier of his good acts without Gods determination as well as of the evil B. Jansenius is in the right in this we have more need of Divine help to the willing and doing of good than of evil We cannot do evil without his natural support and concurse But we cannot do good especially spiritual saving good unless we have moreover his medicinal special Grace To the specifying of good actions there must ever concur Gods natural help Gods gracious help and mans free-will or self-determination It is not two or three determinations of the Will which are made by these several Causes but one determination So that under God man is the specifying determiner of his Will to good or else he were not a Believer nor rewardable or punishable And that he cannot determine his Will to good as well as to evil proceedeth not from the Original nature of the Will for with that such a determination was consistent but from its Pravity or Corruption But how Grace and Free-will concur is after to be handled C. Dr. Twisse Vindic. Grat. lib. 2. p. 190. Vol. minoris hath a full digression 4 to prove that God willeth that sin shall come to pass he permitting it and saith Nostri Theologi affirmanâ— Arminiani â—ontificii negant * This Digression of Dr. Twisse is answered in the first Book His Friend Alvarez de Aux li. 11. disp 110. p. 442 c. discusseth the Qu. An detur ex parte nostra causa reprobationis and concludeth that Reprobatio qua Deus statuit non dare aliquibus vitam aeternam et permittere peccatum eorum non est conditionata sed absoluta nec praesupponit in Deo praescientiam demeritorum ipsius reprobi 2. In Angelis qui ceciderunt nuâ—la datur causa reprobationis ex parte ipsorum quantum ad integrum effectum c. 3. Et ita de reprobatione parvulorum
when Custom comprizeth both in one name dull wits are easily here deceived As the words Murder Theft Adultery Drunkenness c. do signifie both the Volition and Act of the Agent and the Reception or Effect Now God can many ways make the sinful Volition and Act of every such Sinner to produce that effect which the word Murder Theft Adultery Drunkenness c. connoteth or includeth without causing the Volition or Act forbidden determiningly C. I pray you shew me how B. 1. He can by Providence order or set the Object in their way 2. He can fit the Receptive disposition of the Patient to the effect Most of the wonderful Varieties in the World are à diversa recipientium dispositione That Act will produce an Effect on a disposed matter which will not on another 3. He can rule the Sinners Instruments of Action 4. He can remove other Objects out of the way 5. He can remove Impediments 6. He can put in some good thought or desire into the Sinners mind which shall determine the Effect 7. He can suspend some concurse of his own which will tend to this effect rather than another C. Give me some Instances to make it plain B. You need no other than the instance of the Murder of Christ 1. When his time was come he that before oft retired into the Wilderness and lived in Galilee came up to Jerusalem in their way 2. He was willing himself to die for man and so did not avoid it And he went into the place where Judas could find him And he spake the words which he knew that they would call Blasphemy c. 3. God directed the Souldiers Spear to the Region of Christs heart which their intent or aim alone else had not done And he provided a Cross and a Simon to bear it c. 4. God did not open to them effectually those Reasons which should have moved them more to desire the death of Barrabbas 5. Abundance of Impediments God could have set in their way as the peoples tumult Pilate's resistance c. which yet he did not 6. God put into their minds by moral means at least the true apprehension of the probability that the Romans hearing of a King of the Jews would turn their jealousie and fury against them and take away their place and Nation 7 He suspended that preserving operation by which he could have kept Christ alive on the Cross and healed his Wounds and caused him to come down from the Cross when they promised him then to believe in him and he restrained the Souldiers from breaking his bones c. And in all this there is no Decree Volition or Causation of their sinful Wills or Deeds So in the case of Absalom's Incest or any sinful Generation 1. God order'd it so that his Fathers Concubins were just in his way 2. They had an inviting pulchritude and an impotency of resisting 3. The state of his affairs was such as that the action had an appearance of tendency to his ends by making him seem unreconcileable to his Father 4. And for Achitophel and Absalom to know the truth of this was no sin 5. Other diverting Objects and occasions are kept out of the way c. Yet in all this God neither willeth nor causeth that Will and Act of Absalom in specie but the effect C. But by all this you do describe God as plotting and doing the same thing that they do And but for different words this cometh all to one B. 1. If you think this enough why doth it not satifie you while it is granted by them that you oppugn 2. It is not the same thing Is it the same thing for Christ to be killed and for the Jews to will and perform his Murder Is mans Will and Act and Christs Death the same thing 3. God did fore-know their sinful Will and Action and permit it only but did not cause it but was a concause of the Effect So God may to a Drunkard 1. Cause strong Drink or Wine to be in his way 2. And remove some smaller Drink that would have satisfied him 3. And remove Disswaders and many impediments 4. And give him money and facility of obtaining it 5. And cause him truly to know that the Drink is pleasant to the tast exhilerating spiritful 6. And cause it when he hath drunk it to make him drunken And none of this is quid prohibitum or sin in man But his sinful Will and Act which are forbidden are presupposed or fore-seen C I cannot see but that it cometh all to one for God to permit that which he fore-seeth and could easily hinder if he would B. 1. Your conceits that it cometh all to one must not over-rule our certain knowledge of Gods Holiness and his true and holy Word and all the certainty of Religion in the World 2. We are sure that God is Holy a hater of all sin and a righteous Judge c. And are you as sure that it cometh all to one And must all men else say that they are sure of it too or else be back-bitten and called Arminians Jesuites c. 3. Do you consider what Gods permission is It is far from a full permission He doth all that belongeth to a Rector to hinder it He strictly forbiddeth it by Laws He openeth the malignity of it He threatneth misery here and everlasting damnation hereafter to them that will not forbear it or forsake it He promiseth all blessings in this life and endless Glory in Heaven hereafter to them that will He sendeth his Ministers first with Miracles after with sealed Doctrine and Gifts to proclaim all this to the World and to perswade them He gave his own Son to condemn sin in the Flesh on the Cross and by his holy Life and Doctrine and Suffering to declare the malignity and hatefulness and hurtfulness of it to the World He sets up all his Ordinances Magistracy Ministry Sacraments Worship and Discipline to this end He warneth the World by many Judgments and especially by the Messengers of each mans death and the constant Afflictions which are the fruits of Sin He obligeth them to Obedience by multitudes of Mercies He sets Heaven and Hell before them daily and is this permitting it He doth indeed in this sense permit it in that he doth not all that he can against it or doth no more than as aforesaid 4. If this permitting be all one as loving or causing it then when God made man a free Agent and resolved to rule him by moral means and leave Adam to his own Will it was a loving and a causing sin And is every King or Parent a lover of Vice who doth not all that he could do to restrain it C. We do not hold that God loveth sin though he will the event and cause the act circumstantiated B. I know you say that neither God nor man loveth sin as sin But whether Dr. Twisse Rutherford say not in equipollent terms that God
and Arminians have run out into the contrary extream and so the difference hath been made and maintained So that with most Christians the controversie is not whether Christ be the Saviour of the World or died for all men but how far and in what sense he did so that this Article may agree with the rest of our Theology A. The sense is all If we agree not in sense we agree in nothing B. The few extream Contenders agree not in sense But the generality of Christians much more may I say Protestants do in all that is necessary to our common concord If really you differ tell me your self What do you hold that Christ purchased for all men more than the Synodists do Name me one benefit if you can A. You would perswade me that we differ not indeed 1. We hold that Christ procured and made the first Covenant of Grace with all Mankind in Adam and Noah and so do not the Synodists B. I think you can name few Protestants that deny it Beza himself in that Edit of his Annot. in Eph. 2. 12. which H. Stephanus printed 1588. saith This Covenant was made in the beginning Gen. 3. 15. with Adam and all that should be born of him and afterwards Gen. 9. 10. with Noah the other Parent of Mankind as we have else-where noted plainly they say that it is made to all men as a Law then promulgate to Adam and Noah even a Law of Grace which Mankind was put under And as an offered Covenant and conditional Promise But as 1. A mutual Covenant 2. And as giving right to Life it is made only with Consenters Tell me whether you differ from this sense A. No this sense is according to the Scriptures But moreover 2. We hold that the second Edition of the Covenant also is made to all B. It 's granted you that it 's made to all that hear it as far as aforesaid and that Ministers should do their best to preach it to all And do you hold any more A. No But 3. We hold that this Covenant pardoneth all mens sins on condition of Faith and Repentance and not only the Elect. B. So do they unanimously I told you Twisse twenty times over saith the same No man can deny that which is the very plain scope of the Covenant it self to pardon all if they will repent and believe A. 4. But We hold also that Christ purchased for all men sufficient Grace to enable them to repent and believe B. I told you that is the Controversie of the third and fourth Articles what Grace Christ giveth all he procured for all which is not here to be anticipated but opened in due place And if I then manifest that in that point also you differ not I shall prove that you differ not at all in these Points of Christ's Death and Universal Grace A. But they say That Christ died only for the Elect effectually and with a purpose to save them and purposed to save no other B. You carry back the Controversie to Gods Decrees which we dispacht before Tell me 1. Do you hold that all are saved by Christ A. No that 's none of the Controversie B. Why then quarrel you with them that say He died but for the Elect effectually when they mean but that he saveth no other A. But his death effected something for them viz. the new Covenant and common Grace though it effect not their Salvation B. Who denieth any of this not the Synod of Dort But 2. Do you hold that God absolutely purposed to save any by Christ that never are saved A. No but conditionally he purposed it B. Have we not before proved that your quarrel about conditional Decrees is but a strife about words in the dark A. But they say Christ died not equally for all B. Do you or dare you say otherwise your selves 1. You confess that his Death doth not equally save all 2. You confess that from eternity God fore-knew who would believe and be saved and who not Now the question is of equality of benefit before denied and equality of Intention And can you think that Christ as God at the time of his Death or before did equally intend or decree to save those that he fore-knew would neither believe nor be saved and those that he knew would believe and be saved You cannot you do not imagine this A. We do not But we say that as to Gods antecedent Will he both elected and redeemed all alike and the inequality is only in his consequent Will But the Synodists say otherwise B. 1. If you understand the distinction aright they say the same as you that is If you thus distinguish only of the Will of God as Rector or his governing Will and by the Antecedent Will mean only the Legislative which making our Duty goeth before our doing or not-doing it and by the consequent Will mean only the judicial which followeth Duty and Sin God dealeth equally by all men in the first as to the tenour of his Law though the different promulgation make a difference of Obligations but unequally in the second 2. And if you distinguish thus of his eternal Decrees either they respect Damnation or Salvation And by his Antecedent Will you mean that which goeth before the fore-sight of mans Will and by the consequent that which followeth this fore-sight Now 1. Have I not said enough to convince you that as it is Actus Agentis in God we cannot prove any diversity or priority But only ex connotatione objecti 2. And as to Damnation I have proved that they commonly agree with you that God decreeth not Sin but fore-seeth it and decreeth Damnation only as for fore-seen Sin What-ever Piscator and a few more say this is the common Doctrine of Protestants and Fathers 3. But as to Election dare you say your self that God decreeth to change no mans Will but upon fore-sight that the person himself will first change it * Vasqu and many Jesuits profess that Gods first Grace is given without any cause condition or occasion in man And saith Malderus in 12. Tho. q. 110. a. 1. pag. 469. Deus non praesupponit in creatura bonum quo ad ipsius dilectionem moveatur sicut voluntas hominis benefactoris sed bonum creaturae provenit ex voluntate Dei qui vocat ea quae non sunt tanquam ea quae sunt That is Gods efficient Will of Beneficence is first and then his final Will of complacence first God maketh us good and then loveth us as good If man change it first God need not to come after to change it If God change it first then he decreed first to change it and did not first fore-see it changed A. Neither But he fore-seeth mans concurrence or not-concurrence with his changing Act of Grace B. But can you think that he equally operateth on all and that all the inequality is in their concurrence Doth he do as much on every Persecutor
Deum quoque Affectus nostros partem illam sensitivam corrigere bonis desideriis quorum objecta monstrat intellectuo actus vero imperat voluntas afficere Quibus affectibus magis magisque correctis castigatis in ordinem redactis promptior facilior ac minus impedita postmodum redditur voluntas ad exerâ—endos pietatis actus non usque adeo ut ante reluctantibus affectibus lege illa in membris belligerante Qui asserunt eum quem Deus movet ad actum bunc necessario aut illum necessario agere Alij vero pertendunt nulla proprie dicta necessitate illum ad agendum impelli Verbis quidem discrepant idem autem reipsa seâ—tiunt Blank de Libertat Absol Thes 22. See his proof following They deny the Unregenerate to have any power to believe repent or to do any good And so they feign God to command men things impossible and to condemn men for that as Sin which they could not possibly avoid and for not doing that which they could no more do than make a World and so to put men under a necessity of sinning and being damned B. This is in sense the same with that about Liberty fore-going though under the other notion of Power But the truth is it is the very core and true sum of all our Controversies and if I prove this to be nothing but words I shall prove them all so about the four first Articles I will here take it for granted that you speak not of any meer Passive or Obediential Power as it 's called but of a proper active Power and that truly so called and not only hypothetically on supposition of things to make it up which are not existent nor to be supposed I know of nothing in the Soul of man for our enquiry but 1. The natural-faculties or virtues inclined naturally to their necessary Objects 2. The right disposition or adventitious inclination or habits of these faculties 3. And the Acts. Tell me first Do you know of any more A. Not that I can remember B. It is therefore the Faculties or Dispositions that we differ about or nothing For it is not the Acts Tell me then Quest. 1. Do you â—now of any that deny all mens Souls to have the three faculties of Active Power or Life Intellection and Volition which the Thomists say are Accidents immediately and inseparably emaning from the Essence and the Scotists better say are the very formal Essence of the Soul it self without one of which a man is no man A. No none doubt of this in sense though some number them as three and some but as two B. Do we differ about the second Do you believe that a Drunkard hath the habit of Sobriety or a Fornicator of Chastity or at least that an ungodly man hath a holy habit or disposition to love God and trust him above all and to believe in Christ and repent of Sin and live in Holiness A. No no man saith that he hath such a habit But he hath a power to do them though not a habit B. Is it any thing that you call a power besides the natural faculties and their habits or dispositions A. No but the natural faculty is still a power to believe love God live holily c. without a habit B. Do you not believe that an ungodly man is disposed yea habituated to the contrary viz. To a fleshly and worldly mind and life and against a life of Faith and holy Love A. Yes at least some are And I will not deny Original Sin and therefore grant such a dispositive pravity in all though not so much as in some is superadded But yet these ill dispositions and habits are not so strong but that the Sinner can for all that believe and repent c. B. No doubt but if he believe not it is not for want of natural faculties He hath an Intellect a Will and a vital and executive power And these all have that force or strength of natural activity which is necessary to Faith Love and every holy Duty For these are the unalterable Essence or Properties of man as man And if Sin deprived us of them it should change our Species And if Grace gave them it should restore our Species and we should be men by Grace only and not by Nature But you confess that these powers want their right disposition to act A. But yet I say that this undisposed ill-disposed Soul is able to act contrary to its accidental disposition B. I tell you once for all that the shaming and ending of all the Controversies between the Synodists and moderate Arminians or Jesuites lieth in the true opening of the ambiguity of this one syllable Can And unhappy is the Church when its Pastors have neither skill nor love enough to forbear torturing and distracting it by one poor ambiguous syllable not understood by the Contenders But to compel you to conviction Quest. 1. Do you mean by Can or Able or Power any thing besides the natural faculty and the disposition A. No I mean the natural faculty as related to this Act or Object now in question e. g. believing and loving God B. Quest 2. Is not natural strength or power a thing belonging to man as man which Sin destroyeth not and Grace restoreth not And have not all the Churches disowned Illyricus * Beâ—a angrily calleth him Turpis iste Illyricus and Peucer and Strigelius and other Disciples of Melanchthon have defended the moral causation of Grace against him and such Lutherans who went too much the other way though a very learned laborious godly Divine for making Original Sin the substance of the Soul it self A. All this is granted you B. Quest 3. Therefore if Adam had natural power to love God and if the sanctified have it yet doth it not follow that all men have it Because it belongeth to man as man and is not changed by Sin and Grace except in its Dispositions and Acts A. Thus you make all the wicked able to love God B. Yes As to that sort of Ability which is but the natural faculty they are all able but there is somewhat else they want A. But the Name Power you confess your self is Relative to something that is to be done or to an Act with its Object And when the natural faculty is not changed but is the same in all men yet the Relation of Power in it may be changed as by a change of the Object * Casp Peucer Histor Carcerum against the Lutherans physical motion asserteth pag. 720. That Concurrentibus in conversione his tribus causis verbo spiritu S. volantate hominis agentibus suo loeo ordine viribus in homint quamqam ex se natura sua prorsus invalidis ad spiritualia rationalibus tamen inter se differentibus eoque ordine quo conditae sunâ— a sp sancto per media verbi sacramentorum in ordinato Legitimo singulorum
other and giveth real Grace to both But because the intellect is in the natural order the first in acting and the will but second and because the act is commonly and reasonably supposed to go before the Habit though not before all Divine Influx ad actum therefore men are uncertain whether God who first acteth the Intellect do not by its act first operate on the will But this dependeth much on the Physical Controversie whether the Intellect determine the will ad speciem actus or at least really and efficiently move it or rather only present the object to it and so work but in subserviency to the material cause which is constitutive indeed of the act in specie but not efficient and the perception of it goeth to the conditio objectiva without which it is no object to the will This I incline to with Scotus and suppose that the Intellect moveth not the will per modum naturae by necessitation But while we know not the order and nature of the operations of our own souls how shall we know the unsearchable way of the operations of the Holy Ghost The seventh Crimination C. They make Gods Grace a resistible thing which man can frustrate and so God worketh at uncertainties * Mans ignorance of the way of Gods operation on second causes told us by Christ himself Job 3. should end such quarrels and teach us all with judicious Davenant to prosess uncertainty and with judicious Jos Placeus de lib. arb p. 174. speaking of the dependance of the second cause on the first and the Papists digladiations about concurse and predetermination to say Nos quidem qua reverentia erga infinitam Dei majestatem ducimur non audemus definire quanta sit dependentia causae secundae a prima Nobis sufficit modo ne Deo ullam peccatorum nostrorum vel minimam labem aspergat non posse nimiam statâ—i To which also the very judicious Lt Blank subscribeth Thes 51. de concursu c. The Remonstrants Syn. ar 3 4. p. 15. c. do profess that Gods operation of the Intellect Affection and Will do thus differ that the converting work on the will is more resistible than the other And to the question An conversâ—o contingens sit et in certa an vero necessitate causae aut eventus insallibiliter sequatur in â—o qui convertitur Respondent conversionem esse contingentem quia Libera est nec tameâ— Dâ—o incertam quia praecognita est nec sequi necessitate causae sive consequentis quia resistere poterat homo sed necessitate consequentiae c. Et pag. 17. Declarat Quare dicimus hominis voluntatem ad volendum bonum non necessitari sed hominem posse resistere hoc est non-velle et saepe actu non-velle et resistere gratiâ— sufficientis operationibus B. I have said so much of this before that I need not tire you with much more Quest 1. Do you know of no way for God to work with certainty of success if Grace be resistible C. I will not say so I know what you have said to this before B. Why then do you speak that which is not valid in your own judgment Quest. 2. Dare you undertake to justifie all the world against the accusation of having resisted the Grace of God C. No I dispute not on such hard terms B. Quest. 3. Did you never repent your self for resisting Grace C. Yes in some sense but not as I now mean it B. How is that C. To resist the Gospel and Ministry is a resisting of Grace and the Holy Ghost Acts 7. and so I have done But I speak of immediate resisting God B. 1. Remember that here you confess that the Gospel is Grace even to them that resist it 2. God himself cannot be resisted immediately where he worketh not immediately 3. But where he doth so he is said to be resisted 1. Not by any repelling of his strength 2. Much less by opposing a greater strength 3. Nor by acting by any strength but what he giveth 4. Not by causing any difficulty to him 5. Not by frustrating any absolute will of his But 1. Passively by being ill disposed to the reception of that Grace which he offereth and that operation which else might effect it 2. And actively by doing that which rendereth us yet more ill-disposed both naturally and morally by commerit 3. As also in that we do that which is contrary to Gods actions in their tendency to the effect When he moveth us to hear read meditate pray love trust c. and we do the contrary this may be called a resistance C. If God intend the effect it will be done but if he intend it not how is he resisted in that which he never intended to do B. You know the Scripture speaketh not at these rates but when men will set their silly wits against Gods Word thus they will seem subtiler than he But it 's but a dream 1. God may be resisted when he intendeth not the effect in that his Law is resisted and with it that necessary measure of Grace by which the effect might have been wrought Though his Decree be not resisted yet his Law and his Grace and help which had a tendency to the effect and a sufficiency on its part may be resisted 2. And he is ordinarily resisted in that which he doth both intend and do For he seldom doth us any good without resistance though he overcome But he that overcometh resistance is resisted C. But I mean by Resisting Overcoming B. Why then did you not speak as you meant None dreameth that Omnipotence is overcome by a greater strength much less by the derived power of us worms But the Case is weighty which you and others perilously overlook C. Let me hear your explication of it B. God doth not work like necessary agents to the utmost that he is able His Wisdome hath diversified Creatures and his Wisdome hath appointed even in the works of Grace a stablished order of second causes and means which he will use for the effect And his Wisdome and Free will hath fixed a certain degree or proportion of his concourse suitable 1. To the nature of man 2. And to the nature and use of all those means 3. And to the effect as it is to be ordinarily accomplished Even as in nature he concurreth with all causes agreeably to their stablished nature and use Now though Omnipotency cannot be overcome yet the same creature that hath a certain stated proportion of natural activity and Gods suitable concourse e. g. to a healthful body which hath strong appetites and also a congruous proportion of Gracious means and concurse and helps of Grace by which he can rule the foresaid appetite may yet by neglect of that help and by wilful indulging of that appetite make the appetite stronger than his ordinary degree of help and so overcome the Grace of God though he overcome not Gods Omnipotence or Decrees
a long answer B. Not as Paul meant it but as our troublesome Contenders use it in Even those that found the infallibility on scientia media make congrous Grace ex proposito convertendi to be the cause of the difference So Malderus 1 2. q. 111. a. 3. p. 517. Quod hic credat prae alio indubie venit de misericordia Dei ipsum siâ— vocantis ut accomodet assensum misericordia inquam qua nos in Câ—risto elegit Totum est miserentis Dei ipse vocat ipse facit â—t vocatus veniat ipse â—t currat ipse nolentem praevenit ut velit volentem subsequitur nâ— frâ—fira velit vi sua Gratia it a sibi aptat liberum arbitrium ut a nâ—llo dâ—ro corde respâ—â—tâ—r quod diciâ—â—s provenire ex â—o quod meris inâ—â—â—abilibus occultis modis noverit Deus ita hominis â—over sensum ut accomodet assensum Fatemur Dei omnipotentiam Dominium quod habet in voluntates hominum manifestari in gratiae effâ—catia Et consensus homiâ—is est donâ—m Dei descendens a Patre luminum â—llumque consensum Deâ—â— vult â—acit quia facit â—ominem viribâ—â— gratiâ—â—acerâ— Yeâ— he yieldeth to â—radwardines Doctrine supposing him only to intend necessitatem quandam consequentiae necessarium esse hominem libere velle illâ—d ipsum quod Deuâ— cujuâ— omnipotentia quaecunque voluit facit praevoluit ipsum ville libere Item gratiam efficacem derâ— intuitâ— meritorum Christi non tantum quatenuâ— est sufficiensâ—sed etiam quatenus est eâ—â—iâ—ax dum seeundum propositum â—â—â—â— â—â—â—m cura Dâ—â— non est aqualis do omnibus another sense the answer must be suited to the question And here note that really it is the state of both parties compared and not of one of them that constituteth the dissimilitude as is said And the efficient causes of both states are the causes of the difference And so truly the cause of Nero's unbelief and the causes of Paul's Faith which are many as aforesaid all set together are the causes of the differences or rather all make up one cause of it This no Logician can deny But yet in vulgar speech we use to say that that person or thing is the cause of the difference 1. Which is the cause of the singularity 2. Or which causeth the state of the second person compared supposing the state of the first person to be already existent And so you will find yet several senses of the question C. Explain it by some instances B. 1. As to the cause of singularity If one man be born an Ideot or a Monster when we ask what made him differ from other men though really the causes of the dissimilitude be to be assigned on both parts yet we mean only on his part why is he not like others So if one Child be unlike to all his brethren or one Scholar in the School be much better or much worse than all the rest or if one in a Family be sick he that asketh what maketh him differ doth mean what made him sick c. 2. And so as to Posteriority of State if you suppose one of the dissimiliar parts pre-existent and ask what maketh the other to differ from it as if you ask why the Scholar writeth not like his Copy why the Son is so unlike to the Father why this age is so unlike the last c. We mean only what causeth the difference ex parte subsequente C. Apply it to the case in hand B. If you ask what made the difference between the Devils and the persevering Angels In the full and proper answer you must assign the reason on both parts But according to the usual sense of the question you must say The wilful sin of the Devils made the difference For the equal state of uprightness went before the difference So if you ask what made the difference between the world after the fall and before it vulgarly we must say sin because that came last So if you ask what made the difference between Noah and the world between Lot and Sodom Ans Indeed that which made one part sinful and the other righteous But according to the vulgar sense of the question it was the Righteousness of Noah and Lot and the causes of that righteousness So what made the difference between Judas and the eleven Apostles Ans Judas his wilful sin and Wickedness though indeed the cause is on both sides So what maketh the difference between Believers and the Unbelieving world Really the unbelief of the world and the Faith of Christians with their causes But it 's like the speaker meaneth only ex parte credentium And then the cause of their Believing is the cause of their differing But now if it hold true that God giveth a sufficiency of Grace ut causa universalis ex parte donantis antecedently to mens accepting or rejecting equally then if one ask what maketh the difference you would understand him why have not unbelievers Faith as well as others And then the answer would be wilful resisting or refusing Grace or the moral special indisposition of the Recipients makes the difference or else all would be alike believers But note that we ask not What maketh the difference between Believers and unbelievers but do particularize the subject and ask what maketh the Believer differ from the Unbeliever or what maketh the unbeliever differ from the believer It is then supposed that we mean only ex parte nominata And thus in the vulgar sense the questions what maketh the believer differ from the Infidel and what maketh the Infidel differ from the believer must have various answers C. I understand you thus in brief 1. You say that constitutively it is Faith that is the difference on Paul 's part and unbelief on Nero ' s. 2. The causes of the said Faith and unbelief are the causes of the difference As the causes of the whiteness of one wall and of the blackness of the other cause their difference 3. That to ask why the Believer differeth from the Unbeliever is but to ask why he is a Believer when the other is not 4. Here you say the two Relations of dissimilitude in two ubbjects make the questions two in one viz. 1. Why or whence is Paul a Believer 2. Whence is it that Nero is an Unbeliever 5. You say that Nero is an Unbeliever through his own wilfulness and illdisposition resisting Grace Satans temptations concurring And that Paul is a Believer from many conjunct causes 1. Gods Grace by his Spirit 2. Christs Merits 3. Christs donation of that Spirit 4. The means by which he worketh 5. The concurse of Pauls will To which efficients you add in most a competent Receptive disposition in genere causâ— materialis both passive and active 6. You say that in all this Gods Grace is incomparably the greater cause than man's will 7. But yet not the sole cause and that some free-not-necessitated concurse of mans
and not have spoken evil of what you understand not But it 's better now than not at all Our judgement is as followeth I. That God hath three Essential Attributes which he expresseth and glorifieth in his works His Vital Power or Activity his Wisdom and his Will or Love That all these are and operate conunctly but yet each appeareth in eminency in its special effects That Gods Power eminently appeareth in the Being and Motion of things and his Wisdom eminently in the ORDER of things and his LOVE in the Goodness and Perfection of things That accordingly he is 1. The first Efficient 2. The chief Dirigent 3. The ultimate Final Cause of all II. That as to man he is Related to us 1. As our Creator the Cause of our Being Nature and natural Motion as the Fountain of Nature where Power is most Eminent 2. As our Governour and the God of ORDER and the Dirigent Cause where all Attributes concurr but Wisdom is most Eminent 3. As our most Bounteous Benefactor and most Amiable Good and End where Goodness or Love is most eminent III. That accordingly God is the Author of Nature Grace and Glory and since the fall of Natura Medela Sanitas of our Nature our ORDER and Gracious Government and of our Holiness and Happiness and so is our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier IV. That neither Man Angel or any Creature can possibly have any good but by Gods gift any more than they can make themselves or a World And this Gift must needs be free seeing the Creature hath nothing that is good but what it hath of God and nothing to give him that can add to him or but what is absolutely his own V. God is to us 1. Our OWNER 2. Our RULER 3. Our BENEFACTOR antecedently And no man can Merit of God as he is an Owner or a meer Benefactor for so he freely disposeth as he pleaseth of his own But only of God as a Ruler as is after opened VI. Therefore it is blasphemy to hold that man or Angel can Merit of God in point of proper Commutative Justice which giveth in exchange one thing for another to the benefit of the receiver For as is said God cannot Receive any addition to his perfection nor have we any thing but his own to give him Luke 17. 10. we are thus unprofitable servants as to a Proprietor in point of Commutation though the unprofitable servant be daâ—â—ned Matâ—h 25. 30. in another sense that is who improveth not his Masters stock to the benefit of himself and others and the pleasing of his Ruler VII Mans Duty therefore meriteth only in point of Governing distributive Justice And not every way neither in respect of that For Governing Justice is distinguished according to the Law that governeth us which is either 1. The Law of Innocency or 2. The Law of Grace And no man since the fall can Merit of God according to the Justice of the Law of Innocency which exacteth personal perfection VIII The Law of Grace is in its first notion a free gift of Christ Pardon and Right to Life Eternal by Adoption to all that will Accept it believingly as it is offered that is according to the nature of the Gift And this Gift or Conditional promise and pardon no man can merit For Christs perfect Righteousness and Sacrifice hath already merited it for us and so hath left us no such work to do Nor is there the least place for any humane Merit or Rewardableness from God but on supposition of 1. Christs Merits and Meritorious Righteousness 2. And of this free gift or Act of Oblivion and Life already made to us without our desert IX But yet this is not a meer Gift but also a true Law God is still our God and Governour and Christ is Lord of all Rom. 14. 9. He that is a King and Ruler hath his Laws and Judgement That which is a Gift in the first respect hath 1. It s condition 2. Many commanded duties and so is a Law of Grace in other respects And it is only in respect to this Law of Grace that man is Rewardable or can Merit X. The Gift is from God as Benefactor considered as Good and in it self But it is from God as Sapiential Rector quoad ordinâ—m conferendi as to the Order and Reason why one man rather than another receiveth it So that we Merit not of God as Benefactor nor as Rector by the Law of Innocency or Works nor yet as to the Value or Goodness of the Benefit which is a free Gift But only of God as Rector by the Law of Grace which regulateth the Reception of his free gifts merited by the perfect Righteousness of Christ and so only as to the Order and Reason why one more than another receiveth that free gift As if a Father hath many Sons One living obediently Others playing the prodigals and upon his freely-offered pardon and grace one receiveth it thankfully and the other refuseth it scornfully Here both the obedient and the penitent son have all upon free gift as to Commutative Justice but on various terms And yet both merit in point of paternal Governing Justice but very differently One meriteth of strict Fatherly Justice The other only of a forgiving Father quite on other terms And it is a Comparative Merit by which he is fitter for pardon than the Sons that despise it and spit in the Fathers face XI God as a Benefactor and a Governour giveth some benefits Antecedently to any duty of man And these are never a Reward to us but of Christ perhaps in some instances As Legislation so the benefits of it and that attend it are before Reward and Judgement But other benefits are given by God both as Benefactor and Legislator upon condition of some duty of ours in the Antecedent gift and so in the Judicial sentence and execution that duty is rendered as the reason of our actual Right to them And these are a Reward XII Our first Grace is no Reward nor merited because it antecedeth all conditional duty of ours XIII Our first Reception of Right to Christ Pardon and Life being given on the condition of penitent Acceptance in faith may be called a Reward because they are consequent gifts on condition But because the condition is so slender a thing as the thankful Acceptance of a free gift Divines agree not of the fitness of the name Reward and Merit while they wholly agree about the thing But our after-mercies and final Glory being promised on the condition of such a faith as worketh by Love obedience and improvement of Gods mercies in good works and patience perseverance and conquest of the Flesh the World and the Devil therefore they have more unanimously agreed not only de re but that the names of Reward and Rewardableness or Merit and Worthiness are here fit but used only in the fore explained sense XIV And though the Scripture oftest use the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
as those as that Accusations against adversaries are to be believed without proof on one side and not on the other Gods Rule against receiving evil reports will be cast out and Charity and Justice will be cast away and meer siding and saction will possess the place And then all the question will be Who are those Accusers that are to be believed And if you think that it is your Teachers the Papists that have many more will think that they have more reason to believe them And â—â— the Anabaptists will believe theirs and the Separatists theirs and the Quakers theirs and what falshood and evil will not then be believed against all parties and how odious will they appear to one another and consequently all Christians to Infidels and Heathens L. A man that is set upon a sodering design may palliate any Heresie in the world and put a fair sense on the foulest words but God hateth such cloaking of sin and complyance with it R. May not Papists Familists Seekers Quakers and all Sects say the same against Concord and Complyance with you I pray you tell me what you think of these following words before you know who wrote them and take heed what you say of them lest you strike you know not whom Quest How is Justification free seeing faith and repentance are required to it Answ There are two answers given One is from Augustines doctrine Epist 105. the summ is As Justification is taken inclusively taking in Faith and Repentance as its beginning it is free because faith is free But as it is taken narrowly for Justification following faith that is for Remission of sin and Reconciliation with God it is merited by faith But the other solution I more approve and it seemeth more agreeable to Scripture to wit that even Remission of sin it self and Reconciliation with God are given freely no Merit of ours going before and that neither by faith nor repentance we do merit the gift of this grace For understanding of which Note that Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to Remit or Reconcile but all the Vertue proceedeth from the object it self that is Christ whoâ—e Vertue and Merit God hath determined to apply to a sinner for his justification by faith in him And what I say of Faith I say of Repentance and other dispositions as in the example of them that looked to the Brazen Serpent who were healed by looking not that looking as it was an act of the eye had such a healing force but the efficaâ—y was from the Serpent which God had appointed for the Ioure So we say of Faith which hath not in its nature and from its entity any power to Remit and Reconcile but as the Vertue of Christ doth this in believers And so I answer that If Faith justified as an act and of it self Justification were not free But so it doth not but is a Mediâ—m by Gods good pleasure by which the Vertue of Christ Justifieth believers therefore faith or repentance make it not lâ—ss free â— g. I give a Beggar a gift He puts forth his hand and taketh it If one tell me Thou gavest it not freely because he took it or else had not had it it were a ridiculous objection For putting forth the hand doth not of it self bring him a gift else every time that he puts forth his hand it would bring in a gift But it is from the vertue and bounty of the giver So is it as to faith and the dispositions by which the vertue of Christ and the free mercy of God do give Remission and Reconciliation to believers and disposed persons so that it taketh not away Christs Merit nor maketh Grace less free that faith or these dispositions are asserted L. I know not how much men may mean worse than they speak but these words are such as the best Protestants use R. They are the words translated of the aforesaid Fr. Tolet a Jesuit and Cardinal on Rom. 3. pag. 157 158 159. But still remember that by Justification they mean the holy effect of the Spirit on the soul and indeed by Remission of sin they most commonly mean the destroying or mortifying sin within us and ceasing to commit the act And they are dark and confused in these matters L. But do not Papists hold forgiveness of deserved punishment R. Yes but they bring it in disorderly and on other occasions But if they did not how could they hold that any sin past from our childhood till Conversion is Remitted or pardoned For the Act is past as soon as done factum infectum fieri non potest and so such past sins can have no remission but forgiving the penalty and healing the effects And wrangling Papists consider not that this is the Remission that Protestants mean who call their kind of Remission by the name of mortification And so we endlesly quarrel about words through our unhappy imperfection in the art of speaking and words being arbitrary signs the world is come to no agreement of their sense L. You confess then their confused Doctrine and you cannot excuse many of their Doctors from gross error herein R. No nor many honest pious persons that go for Protestants What Papists have more plainly subverted the Gospel by their Doctrine on these subjects than many of those called Antinomians have done by the contrary extream And who can justifie all the sentences and phrases of many eminent Divines among us yea or of many of the most wise and accurate For when all are much ignorant who can say I do not err L. But undoubtedly you will be as bitterly censured for these your favourable interpretations of the Papists in the point of Merit as if you were half a Papist your self and were but such a Mongrel as Erasmus Wicelius Cassander or Grotius or as if your Conciliatory designs would carry you as far at last as Grotius Mileterius Baldwin or at least as Mountague Guil. Forbes and such others went And others will then say that you are justly served for writing so much against Grotius and his followers on this account as you have done of which Bishop Bramhall and his Epistoler have already told you R. Truth honesty and Gods approbation change not as mens interests minds or tongues do Time will come that Truth will be more regarded when Love and Peace are to be revived unless God will forsake this contentious and unrighteous World And I am so near so very near that World where there is nothing but Truth Love and Righteousness and where God is All and the Fulness and felicitating object of holy souls and where the censures of men are of no signification that I am utterly unexcusable if I should betray the Cause of Truth Love and Concord to avoid the obloquy of men who speak evil of the things which they never understood The Thirteenth Dayes CONFERENCE Of the great errours sin and danger which many Ignorant Professours fall
his followers judge that they are from eternity fore-known in their proper existence by reason that all times and things are present in Eternity Now to know a Possibility of a thing is not to know the Thing But to know the Power For Possibile is nihil And as Ockam proveth that Universale is qualitas mentis and is nothing else nor any where else existent so we may much more clearly say de Possibili that besides Potentia it is nothing but the Conceptus mentis what that Power can do 504. And if an Artificer get the Idea of a fabrick or frame which never was in the World and Resolve to make such a real thing that which is in his mind is but his own Thought or Imagination and nothing else And to call it Domus vel Navis Possibilis signifieth nothing else or it is delusory 505. Holkot Quodlib li. 2. qu. 2. lit C. D. E. ad primum dicit Dico plane quod aliae res à Deo nullum esse habuerunt ab aeterno distinctum à Deo Neque esse quidditativum neque esse Potentiale neque esse repraesentativum secundum quod diversi antiquit us opinati sunt Quod probat Ad art secundum he saith that the Creatures had no being in God from eternity but improperly good men have so spoken because he knoweth them and can produce them And ad art 3. q. Whether it be true that Rosa e. g. non existens concipitur aut intelligitur he reciteth twelve arguments for the affirmative and then reciteth the negative as the opinion of others And though he say not which side he taketh yet he confuteth the arguments for the affirmative and bringeth nine arguments for the negative which he saith nothing against Thomas's opinion of the question you may see in his Interpreters in 1. d. 36. 1. q. 14. ar 9. Ruiz de Scient d. 17. Valent. 1. q. 14. punct 7. Tanner 1. d. 2. qu. 8. dub 8. Gran. 1. p. Cont. 2. d. 5. Aluiz tr 2. d. 9. 506. Yet let it be still remembred that all this Controversie is not properly de re but de modo loquendi or of the extrinsick denomination of Gods Will and not of his Will as in it self which is his Essence and but One But yet here denominations must be carefully used 507. And by the way that you may understand what I mean by denominations from connotation and relation to the terminating object note what Ockam saith in Quodlib 5. q. 25. that Conceptus est vel 1. Absolutus e. g. hominis 2. Connotativus e. g. albi 3. Relativus ut patris differunt in hoc 1. Conceptus absolutus omnia sua significata significat aeque primo uno modo in recto 2. Nomen Connotativum proprie significat primo unum aliud secundario unum in recto aliud in obliquo 3. Conceptus relativus maxime concretus habet omnes praedictas conditiones quas habet connotativus sed differunt in hoc quod quandocunque conceptus connotativus vere praedicatur de aliquo convenienter potest sibi addi suum absolutum in aliquo solum quia nihil est album nisi sit album albedine sed Relativo potest addi casus obliquus qui non est ejus absolutum ut servi dominus Omnis Conceptus Relativus est Connotativus at non è Converso 508. If any shall think that he hath any advantage against what I have said by Scotus his opinion that Voluntatis objectum non est Bonum tantum sed Eâ—s Voluntas potest Velle Malum qua Malum and that the Will hath other objects praeter finem media viz. Entia absoluta not so related in the apprehension and consequently that there may be a Nolition of Non Entiâ— and not only as Mala And the like of Ockam in 3. d. 13. qu. 13. ad dub 3. Gabr. Gregor c. Let him remember that the greater part of the Schoolmen are against this opinion And that the owners of it assert not this consequence of Divine Nolitions commonly but say as Guil. Camerar ibid. p. 1. q. 2. pag. 158. that between Volitions Leg. Guil. Camerar disp moral li. 1. q. 2. 3. pag. 156. c. Phil. Fab. 1. d. 3. qu. 3. cap. 2. q. 4. c. 7. Scot. 1. d. q. 4. ad 4. q. 1. a. 2. 2. d. 3. qu. 10. d. 6. q. 1. de Anima q. 19 20 21. and Nolitions there is this order that Volitions go first and we nill things only because they consist not with what we first Willed And Gods will need not to rise up with an actual opposition especially against its own acts or suspensions where a non-agency will do the same thing An Additional Explication of Divine Nolitions LEst all this seem not clear enough in so mysterious a business and because I have oft insisted on it I will yet add this further explication of my thoughts in these following Theses 1. Understanding and Will in God being not the same thing as in man we must not think that we have any other conceptions or expressions of them than Metaphorical or Analogical 2. Therefore we must not say Thus and Thus God understandeth and willeth but After the manner of men we must thus conceive of it 3. But there are several degrees of impropriety of speech and in a greater degree repentings wrath hating grief c. are in Scripture spoken of God but in strict disputes the lesser degree must be chosen that is such conceptions as have least of imperfection 4. In man the Will is an Appetite and essentially connoteth the want of what we have an appetite to or a self-insufficiency but so it doth not in God 5. And Nolitions in man yet signifie greater imperfection viz. that there is some evil or hurtful thing which is at enmity to him or against his good and which he would be delivered from or overcome and it is in the will the beginning of a war or resistance But it is not so in God 6. That which is Good we Will and that which is Evil we Nill and that which is neither we neither Will nor Nill Accordingly we must after the manner of men ascribe to God 1. Volitions of Good 2. Nolitions of Evil 3. A Non-velle and Non-nolle of that which is neither 7. Nothing is Good but 1. God himself simply and primitively and 2. The works of God secondarily and derivatively as the glory or splendour of his perfections is found in them and as they are the products of his will 3. And the Acts or Works of his creatures in a third degree 8. The Goodness of the creature being essentially relative to Gods will that is Its conformity to it as its product the creature is eo nomine Good because it is that which God willeth 9. Hence the grand difficulty is resolved Whether God could have made the World Better No not in the first and
properest sense of created Goodness because he cannot make it any other than what he willeth it to be But he might make it otherwise and might diversifie it and make particular creatures Better to themselves and one another which is a lower sense of Goodness But in all diversifications they would be still perfectly Agreeable to his Will and so be still equally Good or Best 10. The Goodness of the third rank of beings The Acts of Free-Agents is their Conformity to his Law or Governing Regulating Will. 11. God hath as Creator and Motor become the Voluntary Root or Spring of Nature and natural motion and accordingly stablished all second causes as natural agents under him and doth by them operate in a natural necessitating and constant way And this is antecedent to his Laws to free agents And this natural course of agency we must not expect that he should alter but rarely by miracles 12. Nothing is at enmity and Actively opponent to Gods natural agency or motion for else there should be something besides God and his works which he must overcome Though some natural motions may oppose each other yet all concurr to one end 13. Non-entity or Nothingness is not contrary to God as an opponent 14. Therefore seeing * * * * * * Saith Alliac Camerac 1. q. 12. a. 1. B. Reprobatio secundum aliquos est non-propositum dandi vitam aeternam Et ille dicitur Reprobatus secundum aliquos cui Deus non proposuit dare vitam aeternam Et postea Certum est de multis quod Deus non vult quod in bonis meritoriis perseverent Et non vult quod conditio impleatur Quia si vellet utique impleretur But he saith not Vult non impleri c. Gregorius non debuit inferre quod non misereri est effectus Reprobationis cum sit ipsa Reprobatio Id ibid. Nolle is not a meer Non velle but a Velle-non which is the war of the will against an opponent and the root of opposition ad extra it is an unmeet phrase to say that God doth Nil any Non-entity or any meer Natural opposition to him or that he Willeth any natural entity or motion which he effecteth not 15. But God being secondarily the Rector of free-agents and making them Laws to Rule their own Volitions and actions he doth by those Laws oblige their reason and will to restrain and resist some natural or sensitive appetites and inclinations and so to resist some natural motions of God in nature in which he is pleased to operate by second causes but in tantum and resistibly as a stronger natural motion may resist a weaker 16. And God doth by his grace and help internal and external assist them in that resisting agency which he obligeth them to 17. Therefore God may two wayes be said to resist his own natural motion by his Laws and by his assisting grace But his Laws contradict not one another 18. To God as meer Rector therefore two things may be said to be opponent 1. Such sensitive and natural inclinations and actions as are by Grace to be resisted 2. And all moral evil 19. And therefore as God may be said to Resist these so also first to Nill them And so to have Decrees against them 20. Gods Volitions and Nolitions here are his essential will denominated from the effects and objects And that effect of God from which he is said to Nill both these is as is said 1. His Laws 2. His grace or help And in this we are agreed 1. That he forbiddeth sin and commandeth us the restraint of appetites and senses c. 2. And that he helpeth us so to do Therefore the rest of the School-Controversies here that trouble the world are but logomachies about the Names of Nolitions and Nolitive Decrees 21. The thing properly willed by God in a Law is but the debitum the duty of the subject to do what is commanded and not to do what is forbidden 22. It is not a meer non-agency that is meant by a prohibition but a positive nolition of the subject restraining him from the forbidden act And all proper moral obedience or disobedience Good or Evil is primarily in the will and no further secondarily in the exteriour act or restraint than as they are Voluntary and in non-agency but in a third sense or instance as the consequent of nolition and the refraining act 23. If any therefore will say in this sense that God doth positively Nil the forbidden Act and so will a non-entity sub ratione mali moralis in this remote sence we will not contradict him but say as he 24. And accordingly we may say that God hath a positive Decree of non-entities or against moral evil where non-agency is loco materiae that is in tantum so far as to do all that he doth against it but not absolutè ne eveniat ubi evenit 25. But we may not therefore speak so unaptly as to say that he willeth positively all or any non-entity or non-futurity of meer naturals that are non-futura 26. Therefore we may much less say it of his own Natural Impeditions that he positively willeth non-impedire ubi non impedit For he is not to be thought of as a restrainer of himself by Law or self-opposition It is enough to say that non-vult impedire 27. Much less may we say that positively vult non velle-impedire lest we make another Velle necessary to that Velle and so in infinitum â—annes in 1. q. 23. a. 3. p. 2â—â— confeâ—â—eth that the sense of all this question is but which way God who is one pure act unvaried about all varieties is most conveniently to be mentioned by us and that Deus respectâ— culpae quae futura â—â—at in reprobiâ— non habuit aâ—â—um voluntatis affirmatiâ—um quo voluerit esse pecâ—ata aâ—â— illos pâ—ccaturos Whence it followeth that All futures or existents are not positively willed Even the formale pâ—â—cati is quid â—uturum But he thinks it most fit to say that God positively willeth the permission of sin 1. Because it is Good Ansâ—r Nothing is â—â—â—ther Good nor bad 2. Bâ—â— ause else the difference between the predestinate and reprobate would not fall under providence Answ As if giving that grace to onâ— which is not given to another made no diffeâ—â—â—â—e 3. Because else â—n would come by chaâ—â—â—e as to Gods foreknowledge Answ As if nothing would not be nothing without a positive dâ—â—râ—e that it shall be nothing or God could not know a nothing or a crime as such so far as it is quid intellectâ—i perfeâ—â—â—â—imâ— intelligibile without positive willing it How then knoweth he the foâ—male peccati 28. It is proper to say that Deus non vult permittere peccatum ubi id non permittit and that vult permittere aliquid indifferens quod per legem positive permissum est quia permissio ista est quid positivum 29. After the manner of men
equally prepared as he did on Saul Doth he call all to follow him as effectually ex parte sui as he did Peter Andrew c. who presently left all and followed him Did Christ himself preach to all Nations or only to the Circumcision Were not the sins of the Jews as much aggravated as those of Tyre and Sidon Sodom and Gomorrah or the Indians why else should it go worse with them in the day of Judgment and why else would Tyre and Sidon have repented if they had but had their means were they not then as much prepard for mercy Doth God equally send the Gospel to all Nations and Persons equally unworthy Can you confute St. Paul Rom. 9. Or can you give any reason why God must shew equal mercy unto all A. Yes because else he is a respecter of persons * Ruiz a Jesuite confesseth de Vol. Dei disp 20. sect 6. p. 226. That according to Augustine Christ so died for all as that he had a special intent of saving his Elect for whose sake as being among the rest it is that he died and prayed for all in common Aug. in Tract 31. in Joan. c. 7. Non debebant desperare pro quibus Dominus in cruce pendens dignatus est or are videbat quosdam suos inter multos alienos Illis jam petebat veniam a quibus adhuc accipiebat injuriam Non enim attendebat quod ab ipsis moriebatur sed quia pro ipsis moriebatur He that would know Augustines mind herein may find it fully in Jansenius or in the Trias Patrum de gratia c. B. I fully confuted this before 1. Respecting persons is the fault of a Rector as such especially as Judge And so God dealeth equally his Law being Norma officii judicii as to all But no man ever yet took either 1. A Proprietor Dominus absolutus 2. Or a Benefactor to be obliged to equality to all Must you needs use all your Grounds Trees Goods Cattel c. equally Must you needs make all men equally your bosom-Friends your Heirs your Beneficiaries who are equally worthy in themselves Must you needs give equally to all the poor that are of equal need and merit All this is contrary to the common sense and usage of Mankind 2. And in a Judge respecting persons is the vice of them that deal unequally with men for some by-respect unworthy of such a difference As for Birth Beauty Wealth Power Eloquence Parts Wit Kindred or any selfish interest to pervert Justice or deal partially But God maketh no difference on such accounts Yea a Judge himself or a King when he acteth not as a Judge but as a King above Laws or as a Benefactor may reprieve or pardon one Thief rather than an other yea and choose that which is the most learned strong wise and capable of future Service to the Common-wealth A. This seemeth a wrong to the rest that are not so used B. Would it do the Thief that is hanged any good to have the other unpardoned Would it ease their pains in Hell to have the company of all those that be in Heaven If it be no wrong to them to suffer themselves nothing but envy can call it a wrong to them to have others escape Had they love to others as themselves it would be some comfort to them to think that others are in Joy and Glory A. At least this is a real difference between the Parties B. 1. The School-men and many learned Jesuites as I have proved Lib. 1. make it not a difference And will you called Arminians or Lutherans go further from your Protestant Brethren than the learned Papists and Jesuites themselves go Are you not ashamed of this 2. The Papists can bear with one another in these Points and live in communion in one Church though the Jansenists Case hath had more than ordinary heats and stirs And yet the Dominicans go higher and further in the Controversie of Predetermination from the Jesuites than the Synodists do And are you more fierce or unpeaceable than they 3. But remember here once for all that you were not able to name any one benefit which Christ's death procured for all other than the Synodists hold as well as you But only you charge them as asserting more to the Elect. They give more you say to some but not less to all 4. And all this lieth in the point of Intention and Divine Decrees which was sufficiently reconciled before But you have by all this entised me to mingle various Controversies and to anticipate that of Grace and Free-will which is to be handled by it self in due place But I have a word more to give you by way of caution if you will think on it A. What 's that B. What will you say if Episcopius Arminius Corvinus are the men that deny most Universal Redemption while the Synod maintaineth it How can Christ die for the sins of any Infants in proper sense if they have no sin and deserve no punishment Or be a Saviour to save them from sin and punishment that have none The second Crimination A. By denying common Redemption they deny the express words of 1 Joh. 4. 14. 〈…〉 guish of the phrase of dying for us that we may not cheat our selves by confounding things that differ To die for us or for all is to die for our benefit or for the benefit of all Now these benefits are of a different nature whereof some are bestowed only conditionally though for Christs sake and they are the pardon of sin and Salvation These God doth confer only on the condition of Faith and Repentance Now I am ready to profess and that I suppose as out of the mouth of all our Divines that every one who heareth the Gospel without distinction between Elect and Reprobate is bound to believe that Christ died for him so far as to procure both the pardon of his sins and Salvation in case he believe and repent But there are other benefits that Christ merited for us viz. Faith and Repentance c. Twisse against Hord li. 1. p. 154. Scripture which saith That Christ tasted death for every man Heb. 2. 9. That he is the Saviour of the World Joh. 4. 12. That he is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World Joh. 1. 29. That he died for all that they which live should live to him that died for them 2 Cor. 5. 14 15. That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. That he is the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe 1 Tim. 4. 10. That the Grace of God which bringeth Salvation to all men hath appeared Tit. 2. 11 12. That he is the Propitiation for our Sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole World 1 Joh. 2. 2. with much more to the same purpose And do these men deal sincerely with God and the Scripture that can distort all
this to their own sense And do they not use such violence with Gods Word and their Consciences as that on these terms they may make their own Religion and believe what they list Do they not plainly shew that they take not their Faith from God but from their Teachers and believe as the Church believeth which they joyn with Had it been but one or two Texts or had they been obscurely uttered a good man might have thought that he must reduce their sense to the many and more plain But to oppugn the plain Gospel it self hath no exâ—use B. You are sharp against other mens Errors and other men against yours But I have proved to you that the Synod and the generality of the Protestant Churches in their Confessions deny not any thing which these Texts say They hold a common Redemption as well as you our very Children are taught in their Catechism distinctly to believe 1. In God the Father who made them and all the World 2. In God the Son who redeemed them and all Mankind 3. And in God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth them and all the Elect People of God This is the good old Doctrine plain and true and that which Austin taught A. I am sure many of their Writers expresly oppugn common Redemption and even Jasenius the Papist who joyneth with them denieth it and saith that Augustine denied it Therefore we stand not to his authority B. 1. As for Augustine and some Protestants they oft deny that Christ redeemeth any but the Faithful because the word Redemption is ambiguous and sometimes taken for the price or ransome paid and often for the very liberation of the captive Sinner And when ever Austin denieth common Redemption he taketh Redemption in this last sense for actual deliverance But he asserteth it in the first sense that Christ died for all Yea he thought his death is actually applied to the true Justification and Sanctification of some Reprobates that fall away and perish though the Elect only are so redeemed as to be saved Read your self Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius and you will see this with your own eyes 2. I have oft told you it is our Protestant Confessions and not some singular or private Writers that you must know their Doctrine by 3. Even those few Writers differ more from you in terms than in sense For 1. Many of them will confess all the same benefits by Christ to men in common which you assert Few of them will deny that Salvation is tendered to all mens acceptance and brought to the choosing or refusing of their own Wills And you seem to them to say no greater matters as for the Elect. But they say that Christ purchased Faith it self for the Elect only of which in due place 2. And so with them the Controversie is 1. About Gods Decree or Intent of saving men by Christ 2. And of giving them Faith Tell me one word that you except against in the Synod in this Article A. I except against sect 8. where they say that Fuit hoc Dei patris liberrimum consilium gratiosissima voluntas atque intentio ut mortis pretiosissimae filii sui vivifica salvifica efficacia sese exereret in omnibus electis ad eos solos fide justificante donandos per eam ad salutem infallibiliter perducendos hoc est voluit Deus ut Christus per sanguinem crucis quo novum foedus confirmavit ex omni populo gente tribu lingua eos omnes solos qui ab aeterno ad salutem electi a patre ipsi dati sunt efficaciter redimeret fide donaret ab omnibus peccatis sanguine suo mundaret ad finem usque fideliter custodiret tandem absque omni labe macula gloriosos coram se sisteret B. Very good This is all in the Canons that you can except against And 1. You see that this is only about Gods Intention or Decree And so you differ not at all by your own confession in the Article of Redemption as distinct from that of the Decrees 2. Is it the inclusion of the Elect in this Intention that you except against So will no sober Jesuite Do you think that Christ was resolved certainly to justifie and glorifie no man at all The Semipelagians will not say so You say not so your selves Only some of you say it is but upon fore-sight of Faith and by the consequent will of which I have said enough before But do you think that Christ when he was on the Cross had no full purpose to save those infallibly * Episcopius in Institut Theol. li. 4. cap. 5. pag. 410. confesseth that the opinion of Election may consist with that of universal Grace which he propugned who he fore-knew would believe yea and to cause some men to believe Those that come to him are drawn by the Father and Faith is the Gift of God Ephes 2. 8. Who giveth us all things pertaining to life and godliness 2 Pet. 1. 3. Even to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2. 13. To some it is given to believe Phil. 1. 29. But of this enough before 3. But I suppose it is only the word Solos in all the Canons that you except against And dare or will you say that God did absolutely intend and decree to sanctifie and glorifie all men by Christ or any one that is not glorified A. But their meaning is that all the rest which are most of the World are left out of Gods Election even unto sin and damnation meerly because God would so have it and not from any ill desert of theirs any more than was in the Elect which appeareth in that as Episcopius noteth †Instit Theol. l. 4. cap. 5. sect 5. p. 410. They that say the Fall or Sin is quid praevisum fore-seen in Reprobation yet deny that it is any * The Jesuites themselves as Vasquâ—z and many others ordinarily say that nothing in man can be any cause of Gods Decrees cause of Reprobation And then all cometh to one whether God reprobate a Sinner or an innocent person as to the cause B. You have nothing about Redemption I perceive still to controvert but about Gods Decrees If we must go back to them review your words and see how you cheat your selves into distast of you know not what by meer confusion for want of accurate Scholastick Heads I except not Episcopius himself notwithstanding men of his own measure think otherwise 1. Whereas you talk of leaving out either you mean non-Election or positive exclusion If the last it 's false not only the Scotists but some Protestants as Ferrius in Scholast Orthodox and others assert but a negation here And Davenant and the Synod assert but a negative Decree quoad objectum which is but as much as Arminius propugneth who while he maintaineth that God decreeth not sin but only his own permission of sin which is the Synods sense
of Christ And that his common Redemption is presupposed to our Faith and special Grace * See my Direction to sound Conversion Dir. 6. And now if this be all you have to say review it and tell me what disagreement you have found out about the commonness of Redemption THE Fourth Days Conference WITH a CALVINIST Of Common and Special REDEMPTION B. We are now to try what difference you can find between the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches or the Synodists and the moderate Arminians in the Article of Redemption by the death of Christ Name all that you have against them in this Point alone The first Crimination C. * These Objections are answered by Dallâ—us Amyrald Camero and Davenant Dissert de Morte Christi at large And I have a full disputation on this Subject by it self Lege Ephrem Syri Sermon de Passione Salvatoris Ambros in Psal 118. Serm. 8. Sol justitiae omnibus ortus est omnibus venit omnibus passus est omnibus resurrexit si quis autem non credit in Christum generali beneficio ipse se fraâ—dat Ut si quis clausis fenestris radios solis excludat Prosper de Vocat Gent. l. 2. c. 16. Nulla ratio dubitandi est Jesum Christum pro impiis mortuum â— quorum numero si aliquis liber inventus est non est pro omnibus mortuus Christus sed prorsus pro omnibus mortuus est Christus They make Christ to have shed his Blood in vain even for them that he knew were to perish for ever B. How prove you it to be in vain and that God can have no end in it but actual Salvation de eventu to each person for whom Christ died 1. When the Scripture most clearly telleth us de facto That Christ died for all even for them that perish and that he bought them that denied him be afraid of blaspheming God by telling him If Christ died for any that perish he died in vain I accuse you not but ex natura rei warn you I durst not tell God so 2. God made man in Adam capable of Salvation as the very perfection and end of his faculties and nature and put him under a conditional Covenant accordingly And will you say that God made Adam in vain in this capacity and made the first Promise of Life and the Tree of Life also in vain because Adam and all of us in him did sin and come short of the Glory of God Nay God made not the Devils in vain in a state of blessedness or the way thereto though he knew that they would forsake that state and perish It is dangerous reproaching the Counsels and unsearchable Works of God 3. By your own reckoning it is not in vain For you say that Gods Justice is glorified on Unbelievers and that this is his end And what is that Justice but the punishing of men for rejecting a Christ that died for them and Grace that was procured and tendered to them 4. But if you add all the other benefits and ends you will see that it was not in vain God demonstrated and so glorified his Love and Mercy to lost Mankind in the very greatness of the Gift of Christ Pardon and Glory which the Impenitent do refuse And Mercy is glorified notwithstanding the refusal God giveth the Covenant aforesaid or the conditional Grant of Pardon and Life to the World He reprieved them and gave them time of Repentance and exercised Patience toward them to that end Rom. 2. 3 4 5 6. Act. 17. Rom. 1. 19 20 21 c. Joh. 3. 16 18 19. He governeth the World on terms of Grace He giveth all men abundance of Mercies and Means of recovery and life He keepeth the World in order hereby and maketh the wicked serviceable to the Salvation of Believers In a word he will lose nothing by any mans sin against Nature or Grace Where then is the vanity of the Death of Christ if in a common degree it be for all The second Crimination C. They make Christ an imperfect Saviour by pretending that he died Cyril Hierosol Catech. 18. Multas aeternae vitae januas aperuit ut omâ—es quantum in ipso est absque impedimento illo potiri possent for some to some lower ends whom yet he saveth not B. This needeth no other answer than the last Is God an imperfect God to Adam because he saved him not by the way of Innocency at first made by God the way of Life Or was he an imperfect God and Salvation to the Angels because they kept not their first Estate Or is the Holy Ghost an imperfect Sanctifier because he giveth some but such common and temporary Grace and Faith as is mentioned in Heb. 6. 5 6. Matth. 13 c. Or dare you say that no man that perisheth had any Grace or Gifts of the Holy Ghost when some prophesied and cast out Devils in Christ's Name Must Christ do all that our muddy brains will dictate to him or else be reproached as an imperfect Saviour O take heed The third Crimination C. They cast that absurdity on Christ as to die for those that were in August de Symbol ad Catech l. 2. c. 8. saith Perhaps Christ keepeth his wounds to shew the wicked at the day of Judgment and say Videtis vulnera quae infixistis agnoscitis latus quod pupugistis quoniam per vos propter vos apertum est neque tamen intrare voluistis Hell when he was dying for them and to make a Medicine for the dead and desperate B. 1. As you would state the Supposition it would be as liable to your charge of absurdity to say That he died for them that were long ago pardoned and saved and to purchase Heaven for them that had possession of it long before 2. But when we speak of Christ's Death as a Sacrifice for the Sins of all the World we mean no more but that in esse cognito volito the undertaking was so far for all as that all should have the conditional Promise or Gift of Life by the Merits of it And so as all that were saved before Christ's Death had actual Salvation by it before-hand as undertaken so all that perished had a Gift of conditional Pardon and Salvation and perished for refusing it But at the time when Christ was dying we say that he was not then intending to offer the second Edition of his Covenant either to those in Hell or in Heaven But only that he purposed to do what he from the beginning undertook for the undertaken ends The fourth Crimination C. They make Christ to die for those that he would not pray for Joh. 17. I pray not for the world but for those that thou hast given me out of the world B. He maketh himself to die for them It is ofter and plainer said that he died for all than it is that he prayed not for all And many plain Texts yea the
scope of the Gospel must not be reduced to your feigned sense of one obscurer Text. 2. But doth the Text tell us that he died not for the world as it tells us that he prayed not for them Or doth it tell us that he died for no more than he then prayed for Or rather are not these your own Inventions 3. But where doth the Text say that Christ never prayed for any but the Elect yea or that he prayed not at all for the world though he put not up that particular prayer for the world Look on the Text and you will see that he speaketh there only of the Disciples that followed him on Earth And that he prayed not in that Petition for all his Elect only And therefore he after addeth vers 20. Neither pray 1 for these alone but for them also which shall believe in me through their word And what was the prayer That they may be one and kept from the evil of the world which is a blessing peculiar to his Disciples But it is manifest that Christ had other prayers for the world even for many ungodly men yea for Reprobates For 1. On the Cross he prayeth for his Persecutors Father forgive them And it is mens own invention to say that he meaneth none but the Elect We must not unnecessarily limit where the Word limiteth not And Stephen made Christ his Pattern And it is gross fiction to say that Stephen prayed for none but the Elect. C. Doth not Christ say That his Father heard him always and can you imagine that he prayed for that which God denied him B. 2. My next Answer should have prevented that Objection which is that what God giveth to the World for Christ's sake that Christ may well be said to pray for For it is the fruit of his Mediation But God giveth much Pardon and many Mercies to the World for Christ's sake 1. He giveth them an Act of Oblivion of conditional pardon of the eternal punishment which Christ purchased and therefore prayed for * Ambros de Paradis c. 8. Venerat Dominus Jesus omnes salvos sacere peccatores etiam circa impios ostendere suam debuit voluntatem ideo nec proditurum debuit praeterire ut adverterent omnes quod in electione etiam proditoris suâ— servandorum omnium insigne praetendit Quod in Deo fuit ostendit omnibus quod omnes voluit liberare Nec tamen dico quia praevaricationem nesciebat futuram immo quia sciebat assero Sed non ideo pertuntis proditoris invidiam in se debuit derivare ut ascriberetur Deo quod uterque sit lapsus Chrysost Tom. 3. hom 9. de land Pauli Ipse quidem vult omnes salves sieri at non omnium voluntas ejus voluntati obsequitur neque ab to aliquis cogitur unde ad Jerusalem c. Deus paratus est ad salvandum hominem non involuntarium neque non volentem 2. He giveth them much Actual pardon of temporal punishments for Christ's sake All the Life Health Time Gospel Means and Mercies which ever he giveth them are such as deserved full punishment would have deprived them of And therefore they are all acts of executive pardon of that punishment 3. And this very Chapter containeth a prayer for the World viz. vers 21 23. That the World may believe and know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them If you say that by the World here is meant only the Elect I answer 1. Your word is no Proof 2. That they are prayed for to believe and know c. is no proof For many did believe that God sent Christ that yet were not saved This soundeth but as a common Act of Faith 3. And note that here the world is contradistinguished not only from Apostles but those after-mentioned that should believe by their word and it is prayed That the world may know that God loveth those that believe in him which may extend both to the Conversion of such as then are unconverted and to the conviction of others such as are the common members of the visible Church at least As the Spirit is sent to convince the world of Sin and Righteousness and Judgment 4. And it is not to be granted you without proof that by the World is meant all Reprobates as such For Judas is before distinguished from the World as one given to Christ when yet he was a Reprobate But either it may be the World of present Unbelievers whom Christ prayeth for else-where though not there Or the World of final professed Infidels and Enemies of the Church as distinct from both Elect and Reprobate in the Church And several expressions of Christ's before of the Worlds hating and persecuting his Apostles seem not applicable to every Hypocrite who prophesieth and casteth out Devils in his Name and perhaps suffereth for his Truth and excellently defendeth it and hath some love to Believers The fifth Crimination C. They make Christ to merit only Pardon and Salvation to Believers but not to have purchased Faith it self for any man And by that way no one that he died for would be saved For Faith is the necessary Gift of God And if Christ purchased not that all the rest would be in vain B. 1. Let us not here confound the Controversie de nomine de re That Christ died to purchase the Act of Faith for us is no Scripture-phrase so far as I know If therefore it be only the phrase which they refuse you may well bear with them But as to the matter they do not deny any of these things 1. That Christ is the Author and Perfecter of our Faith as Faith signifieth the Christian Religion or the Objects and Doctrine of Faith 2. That our own actual and habitual Faith is the Gift of God Though the controversies about the manner of giving it are to be afterward decided 3. That all that Christ giveth his Sacrifice procured and therefore it procured Faith All this is commonly granted by most School-men Papists Lutherans and moderate Arminians But 2. It must be considered that Christ did not die to purchase Faith as immediately and on the same account as to satisfie for Sin and purchase us impunity or Redemption The proper direct reason of his Sufferings was to demonstrate the Justice of God against Sin instead of mans own suffering for it and thereby to procure Pardon We may well conceive Christ promising to the Father as it were I will suffer for Sinners that they may not suffer But you will hardly describe his Undertaking thus I will die if thou will give men Faith or I will give thee so much of my Blood for so much Faith But because he knew that without Grace no man would believe and accept his Gift therefore he whose Sufferings were primarily satisfaction for Sin were secondarily meritorious of the means to bring men to the intended â—nd that is of the Word and Spirit by which Christ causeth Sinners to
or Nay to these two questions 1. Do you allow of the use of the word Worthy Lib. Yes because it is in Scripture P. 2. Do you deny it to be true in the sense I have opened that is that we have that worthiness which is nothing but a Moral aptitude for that promised Reward which as to the worth of it is but Gods free gift merited for us by Christ and is only a Fathers Reward as to the ordering of it as our Governour even a Reward of grateful Children Lib. No I cannot deny this sense to be sound P. Then you grant both Name and Thing And are not you ashamed then to have so long traduced and reviled such as hold and say but that which you are forced to justifie and to make poor souls believe that works are cryed up and Christ is injured and mens salvation hazarded by it when yet you confess that all is true in word and sense Lib. But when the Papists abuse such phrases to error though the Scripture use them we must do it sparingly and with caution P. 1. But is that a good reason for you to revile those that use them in the Scripture sense 2. And if you will forsake Scripture words as oft as men misuse them it will be in the power of any Hereticks to drive you from all Scripture phrase by abusing all 3. And how can you more effectually promote Popery than by forsaking Scripture language and leaving it to their possession and use Will not men think then that the Scripture sense is liker to be with them than with you Were it not better for you to hold to the Word of God and only detect and disclaim mens ill expositions of it CHAP. III. Whether our own Righteousness be any way necessary and conducible to our Justification before God Or Whether we are any way justified by it and how far Lib. BUt if I grant you that salvation is the Reward of our own faith and holiness I shall never grant you that we are Righteous by it before God or that it is any part of that Righteousness by which we are justified for that is only the Righteousness of Christ P. I hope you are not willing to wrangle about words not understood Quest 1. Do you think that the words Righteous Righteousness and Justification have but one sense in Scriptures and in our common use Lib. No you proved more before P. Quest 2. If the Devil or Men or a mistaking Conscience should say that you or any Saint is an Infidel or hath no faith how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and by maintaining that I do believe P. Very good Then faith it self as faith doth so far justifie you And Quest 3. If you be charged to be Impenitent and never to have truly Repented how must you be justified against that charge Lib. By denying it and averring that I did Repent P. So then your Repentance it self must so far justifie you And Quest 4. If you are charged to have been an ungodly person to the last or not to have loved God or your neighbour not to have called on God nor confessed Christ before men nor to have fed clothed and visited him as you could in his members or not to have mortified your fleshly lusts but to have lived after the flesh in murder theft whoredom drunkenness c. What is your righteousness against this accusation Lib. I must defend my self against a lye by denying it to be true I must be so far justified that is vindicated against Calumny by my innocency in those points P. Very good so far then you must be justified by your godliness love obedience mortification innocency and works And what if you be charged as an Hypocrite to have done all that you did in meer dissimulation how must you be therein justified Lib. By denying the charge and appeal to God that I was sincere P. So then your sincerity is so far your justifying righteousness And what if you are charged with Apostasie that you fell from Grace must you not be justified by pleading your Perseverance Lib. These are none of the Justification which the Scripture speaketh of which is only against true accusations and not against false ones P. Say you so What if one be truly accused that he hath no part in Christ and that his sin is unpardoned or that he is under the guilt of damnation by the obligation both of the Old Covenant and the New or that he never truly repented or believed or that he is unsanctified and never sincerely obeyed Christ c. Is this man justifiable Lib. No I say not that all men are justifyable But who ever is Justified in Scripture sense is justified only from a true Accusation P. What is that true Accusation Lib. That he is a sinner and deserveth damnation according to the Law and that he hath no righteousness of his own P. Must he not confess all this to be True if it be True And is not confessing the Guilt which he is accused of contrary to justifying him Do you not see here what Confusion you cast your self into for want of noting the various senses of Justification If by Justifying we mean Making an unjust man just then it is true that he is justified from his Guilt that is he is pardoned and he is justified from the Laws condemnation that is a man condemned by the Law is pardoned and he is justified from his reigning sin that is he is sanctified But this Justification is not opposite to Accusation but to Being unjust But if you speak of Justification by Plea or Sentence it is contrary to Accusation of Guilt And so no man is justified that is not Just or Guiltless in the point of which he is accused God will by no means clear the guilty or justifie the unjust Exod. 34. 7 8. nor say of the wicked Thou art Righteous Prov. 24. 24. 1 Pet. 1. 17. 2. 23. Jer. 11. 20. Rom. 1. 32. 2. 2. But that you are quite mistaken in saying that Scripture never mentioneth Justifying man from a false accusation these and many such Texts shew Rom. 8. 33. Isa 50. 8. Prov. 17. 15. 1 Kings 8. 32. James 2. 21 24 25. Rom. 2. 13. Luke 7. 29. Matth. 11. 19. 12. 37. Isa 43. 9. 26. Luke 10. 29. 16. 15. Deut. 25. 1. Exod. 23. 7 c. And how widely differ you from most Protestant Divines who say that Justification is a Judicial Sentence of God as Judge Though indeed it is of divers sorts Lib. But it is not Scripture Justification unless it be perfect And all that we do is Imperfect To justifie him in some one thing is not Justification by faith but another thing P. 1. No doubt but Scripture mentioneth both particular Justification as to some particular causes and a more large Justification from all things that would damn him in Hell And this latter is the Great Justification by