of any Against this Scripture therefore fights this absolute reprobation and hatred of men TWISSE Consideration BE it the whole lump of man-kind if that Lettice like his lipps I should think by World is meant homines in mundo degentes men at any time living in the World without any restraint But herehence it followeth not that God doth not absolutely hate the greatest part of man-kind which this Author should have proved but he doth not therefore I will not only deny it but disprove it First therefore consider this love is only secundum Quid in reference to mens persons namely so farre forth as in case they believe they shall obtain everlasting life through the Sonne of God But if there were no farther love of God towards man they might be damned yea every Mothers sonne for all this Secondly if faith it selfe be a gift of God and God gives it not to all but to some only and those but a few for even of them that are called few are chosen and withall if God hath absolutely decreed to bestow this grace only on a few and deny it to the greatest part of the World will it not manifestly follow herehence that if absolutely to decree the denyall of faith be to hate then surely God absolutely hates the greatest part of men notwithstanding this love here mentioned albeit we extend it to all and every one Therefore it became this Author to prove that God is indifferent to give Faith to one as well as to another and that either absolutely whence it would follow that all and every one should both believe and be saved or conditionally and therewithall represent unto us what that condition is whereupon God bestowes faith on one and for the want thereof he refuseth to bestow faith on another This is the very criticall poynt about the controversies of Gods decrees Here therefore he should have shewed his strength For as for Gods purpose to damne we willingly professe that as God damnes no man but for sinne so he purposeth to damne no man but for sinne But as for his purpose to give or deny the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance we as readily professe that not the purpose only but the very giving of faith and repentance for the curing of infidelity and hardnesse of heart in some and the denying of it unto others so to leave their naturall infidelity and hardnesse of heart uncured proceeds meerely according to the good pleasure of his will according to that of the Apostle He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And by a cloud of testimonies out of Austin we can prove that in this very sense he understood the Apostle in that place And indeed no other interpretation of that place can with any modesty be devised or obtruded upon us As for the redeeming of all and every one by Christ distinguisheth that which the haters of Gods truth doe delight to confound There is a redemption from the guilt of sinne and a redemption from the power of sinne For we are redeemed from our vaine conversation Christ came into the World to dissolve the works of the Devill No greater works of Satan then blindnesse of heart 2 Cor. 4. 3. and hardnesse of heart Ephes 2. 2. and 2 Tim. 2. last The pardon of sinne and salvation God bestowes only on believers and upon condition of faith Now like as God is ready to bestow these benefits on all and every one and that for Christs sake in case they believe so Christ hath merited pardon of sinne and salvation for all and every one in case they believe Such is the sufficiency of Christs merit that if every one of Adams race should believe every one should be saved and this present Text proceeds upon this namely upon the sufficiency of Christs merits But enquire farther whether Christ did not merit for us the grace of faith and if he did whether absolutely of conditionally if absolutely then all must believe de facto and be saved if conditionally then faith is a grace which God bestowes on man conditionally Now let this Author shew us what that condition is upon performance whereof by man God will give him faith and let him try whether he can carry himselfe so warily herein as not to plunge himselfe into plain Pelagianisme This poynt is a break-neck or Crevecoeur unto all Arminians they generally avoyd the delivering of their minds clearly hereupon as a man would avoyd a precipice It is true some Divines doe interpret the word World here of the Elect as Piscator Rolloc doth not making no mention of the Elect hereupon And Piscators meaning is no more then this viz. that this love of God in respect of every gracious effect I mean in the way of sanctifying grace determins only upon the Elect for in all likelihood he followed Calvin in this Universalem notam apposuit saith Calvin tum ut promiscuè omnes ad vitae participationem invitet tum ut praecidat excusationem incredulis To the same purpose saith he pertaines nomen mundi quo prius usus est And again se toti mundo propitium ostendit quum sine exceptione omnes ad fidem vocat But here he subjoynes a caution thus Caeterum meminerimus ita communiter promitti omnibus vitam si in Christo crediderint ut tamen minime communis omnium sit fides Patet enim omnibus Christus expositus est solis tamen Electis oculos Deus aperit fide ipsum quaerant So that this gracious promise is generall to all and every one whosoever believes shall be saved But yet notwithstanding if it shall appeare that God gives the grace of faith to none but to a certain number which are his Elect it followes that the effect of this love of God to wit Salvation shall in the issue redound to none but Gods Elect. 1. As for the designing a place where the World is taken for the Elect we need no such place as I have shewed yet Piscator conceives that so it is taken Iohn 3. 17. That the World might be saved by him But what think you of Rom. 11. 15. Where the casting away of the Jewes is said to be the reconciliation of the World And that 2 Cor. 5. 19. God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himselfe I say the reconciled World is only Gods Elect for the reconciled are all saved as I prove by the Apostles argument Rom. 5. If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Sonne how much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life Ioh. 1. 29. The Lamb of God that taketh away the sinnes of the World Are their sinnes taken away that are damned for them And Ioh. 6. 33. He gives life to the World Is life given to any but to the Elect 2. The second reasons why in this place it cannot be so taken are in effect but one and that a
was about the working of his will to will and doe that which is good as appeares by Austin in his booke De gratia Christi contra Pelag Caelesti cap. 6. And repeated againe towards the end coming to an issue of the businesse after he had discovered much concerning Ambrose his opinieon thereabouts But whatsoever his premises be in his conclusion he commonly speakes it home as herein saying It is cleare that the absolute decree takes away the cheifest inducements to holinesse and determents from wickednesse to wit because it takes away hope and feare whence it followeth that seeing Christ had hope of heaven he was not absolutely destinated unto glory And seeing the Devills are said to believe and tremble therefore certainly their damnation is yet preventable although there is yet this maine difference between reprobate men on earth and Devills that though the Devills are assured of their reprobation yet no man either is or can by any ordinary way be assured of his reprobation I conclude thus This his Discourse tends mainly against all certainty of Salvation whence it followes that either he had no certainty of his salvation while he was with us or if he had it stands him upon now to professe that he hath utterly lost it DISCOURSE SECT II. 2. THe injuriousnesse of this Doctrine to Godly life may farther appeare by these considerations that follow one depending upon another 1. Absolute and peremptory decrees are inevitable whatsoever the things be about which they are exercised and mens everlasting states if they be absolutely determined are altogether undeclinable Stat sali lex indeclinabilis the law of destiny is undeclinable And the reason is because it hath an inevitable cause the adamantine decrees of Allmighty God which are indeclinable two wayes 1. Irreversible lyable to no repeale as the Statutes are which are made in our Parliaments but sarre more unalterable then the Lawes of the Medes and Persians As I have spoken so will I bring it to passe I have purposed and I will doe it Esay 46. 11. Men doe many times bite in their words againe because they doe utter things rashly and doe repeale their Statutes and Ordinances because they see some inconveniences in them which they could not foresee but God never alters or calls in his absolute decrees because they are all made with great wisdome and foresight 2. Irresistible It lies not in the power of any creature to disanull them Who hath resisted his will Rom. 9. 19. Our God is in Heaven he doth whatsoever he will Psal 115. 3. Whatsoever is once determined by his absolute will is no wayes alterable by the will of man It is more possible for a man to hinder the rising of the Sunne or to stay his course in the Heaven to stop the revolutions of the yeare and overturne the whole course of nature then to make the least alternation in any of Gods absolute decrees 2. Mens actions about ends and things determined by an absolute decree are vaine and fruitlesse and the reason is because they cannot make them otherwise then they were determined to be and therefore in vaine doe men labour to obtaine Everlasting Life and avoid Eternall Death if there be noe liberty and power in their hands to choose Life or Death but must of necessity take that which is assigned them be it Life or Death for by their labour they effect just nothing for if they be absolutely appointed to distruction their hearing reading praying almes-giving and mourning for their sinnes cannot possibly procure their Salvation damned they must be And if they be absolutely ordayned to Savation their neglect of holy dutyes their ignorance their love of pleasures and continuance in a course of ungodlinesse cannot bring them unto damnation they must be Saved If somany Soules in a Parish be in this manner decreed to Heaven or Hell the Minister Preacheth in vaine and the people heare in vaine For there cannot one Soule be Saved for all their paines which is ordained to Hell nor one Soule be cast away by their negligence which is appoynted for Heaven It is in vaine for thee saith Christ to Saul to kicke against the pricks i. to endeavour by thy persecutions and slaughters to root out my Church in the world because the preservation of it is absolutely decreed in Heaven Teaching us by that speech that a mans labour in any thing whatsoever is never profitable except it be exercised about an end attainable thereby and without it not possible 3 Men are not willing to be employed in fruitlesse actions if they knowe it I so runne saith the Apostle not as uncertainely so fight I not as on that beates the Ayre but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection least that by any meanes when I have Preached unto others I my selfe should be a cast-away The meaning is I endeavour to keepe Gods commandements I fight with the tentations of the Divill the allurements of the world and mine owne corruptions I keep my body low by watchings and fastings and other severe acts of holy discipline But Cui bono doe I all this at randome Uncertaine whether I shall get any good or prevent any mischiefe hereby No but I doe this as one that is sure that by so doing I shall obtaine Eternal Life and otherwise I cannot escape Eternall Death intimating in these words the common disposition of men which is to labour where some proportionable good is to be gotten or evill prevented otherwise to spare their heads and their hands too TWISSE Consideration TO talke of the decrees divine as things evitable or inevitable is very absurd for things denominated evitable or inevitable are only things to come not yet existent but such are not decrees divine they are as everlasting as God himselfe without any begining of duration As for the things decreed by God they are of a double nature For God hath decreed some things to come to passe necessarily other things to come to passe contingently Now those things that come to passe contingently do so come to passe and that by the decree of God as joyned with a possibility not to come to passe and consequently to come to passe so as ioyned with a possibility to be avoyded Such are Salvation and damnation in as much as God hath annexed these as rewards unto finall perseverance in faith and repentance the one unto finall perseverance in sinne unrepented of the other This is the undeclinable law of Gods decree that whosoever believes shall be Saved and whosoever believes not shall be damned But we doe not say that this is the whole decree of predestination and Reprobation with the Remonstrants and with this Author But that there is another decree of God the effect whereof is as undeniable as the effect of the former which this Author dissembleth throughout and the effect of this decree is not conditionall like unto the effects of the former decree but absolute And
denies it Yet he goes on most ridiculously in the same tenour saying If they be absolutely appoynted to destruction their hearing reading praying almesgiving and mourning for their sinnes cannot possibly procure their salvation damned they must be But we still deny that men are absolutely appoynted to destructiō we willingly grant the elect are absolutely appointed unto grace namely to have regeneration faith and repentance to be conferred upon them and that absolutely not upon any foregoing condition performed by them but according to the meere pleasure of God but as for salvation that is appointed to be bestowed upon them only by way of reward of foregoing faith repentance and good workes observe by the way how he considers not the contradictious nature of that which he imputes unto us As first that we deny man to have any liberty or power to choose life and death And secondly that we maintain That their hearing reading praying almesgiving and mourning for their sinnes cannot possibly procure their salvation which is to imply that they have power to heare read pray give almes and mourne for their sinnes and consequently that they have power to choose life or death For to choose life or death is no other then to embrace such courses as by the ordinance of God lead to life or death Now such are hearing reading praying giving asmes and mourning for sinnes for these courses are the way to everlasting life Yet as touching the latter well we may say that Reprobates can neither heare nor read nor pray nor give almes as they ought nor mourne for their sins yet surely we are so farre from saying that these courses cannot possibly procure salvation that on the contrary rather we are ready to professe that these courses rightly used shall infallibly procure salvation for there is none more pretious mourning then to mourne for sinne and our Saviour hath pronounced them blessed adding that they shall be comforted Was it ever heard amongst us that men should be damned for reading hearing praying and mourning for their sinnes Yet the word of God teacheth us that men may houle yet be farre enough off from mourning for their sinnes as Hos 7. 14. They cryed not unto me when they houled upon their beds they assembled themselves for corne and wine they rebelled against me And if men be damned notwithstanding such mourning I should think it is nothing strange Of the same tenour is that which followeth If they be absolutely ordained to salvation their neglect of holy duties their ignorance their love of pleasure and continuance in a course of ungodlinesse cannot bring them to damnation as if this were our doctrine whereas to the contrary we maintain that from election flowes holinesse Eph. 1. 4. Who hath elected us in Christ that we should be holy And faith Acts 13. 48. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life And 2 Thes 2. 13. God hath elected you unto salvation by sanctification of the spirit and faith of the truth And indeed our profession is That Gods purpose is to bestow salvation by way of reward of faith repentance and good workes And accordingly there is no other assurance of election then by faith and holinesse 1 Thes 1. 3 4. Remembring the work of your faith the labour of your love and the patience of your hope knowing beloved brethren that ye are elect of God And therefore Saint Peter exhorts Christians To make their election and vocation sure by joyning vertue with their faith and with vertue knowledge and with knowledge temperance and with temperance patience and with patience Godlinesse and with Godlinesse Brotherly kindnesse and with Brotherly kindnesse Love 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7. 10. But it were pitty this Author should have liberty denyed him servire scaenae and to execute his Historicall part in conforming our Doctrine to the Heresy of the Predestinatians so called as it is recorded by Sigebert And indeed the very Doctrine of Austin was charged with the same crimination For albeit Sigebert professeth that this Heresy arose ex Augustini libris male intellectis out of Austins Book not rightly understood yet the learned Arch-Bishop of Armach had made it manifest that this very crimination was charged upon Austins doctrine Histor Gottesc pag. 22. And that out of the beginning of the 6. book Hypomnestican or Hypognosticon The words are these and I pray mark it well whether it be not punctually the very objection which this Author makes in this place Credere nos vel praedicare sugillatis quia cum lege Dei Prophetis cum Evangelio Christi ejusque Apostolis Praedestinationem dicimus quod Deus quosdam hominum sic praedestinet ad vitam regni caelorum ut si nolent orare aut jejunare aut in omni operé divino vigiles esse eos omnino perire non posse nec prorsus sui debere esse sollicitos quos Deus quia voluit semel jam eligendo praedestinavit ad vitam Quisdam vero sic praedestinavit in Gehennae paenam ut etiam si credere velint si jejuniis orationibus omnique se voluntati divinae subjecerint in his Deum non delectari vitam illis aeternam in toto dari non posse sic electione praedestinatos esse ut pereant Judge I pray whether this be not the very objection charged upon the doctrine of Austin which this Author chargeth upon our doctrine And indeed that most learned Bishop sheweth how that albeit the Predestinatian heresy is pretended by Sigebert to have risen out of Austins bookes not rightly understood as also by Tyro Prosper Auncient to Sigebert as he is set forth in Print yet Tyro himselfe plainly professeth that the Heresy mentioned orta est ab Augustino rose from Augustine himselfe as appears by the Manuscripts of that Author which that learned Bishop had searched one found in Bennet Colledge in Cambridge and another in the Kings Library whereby it is apparent that this pretended Heresy of the Predestinatians no Author thereof being ever known to the world was a meere nick-name devised by the Remnants of the Pelagians and reproachfully cast upon the doctrine of Austin as now a daies it is upon our doctrine which is the same with Austins As for the Ministers Preaching in vaine in some sense and in some cases this is nothing strange to them that have their eyes fixed on Gods oracles and not on the oracles of their own braines For the Prophet Esaiah thus complaines and that as some conceive in the person of Christ Then I said I have laboured in vaine I have spent my strength for nought and in vaine yet surely my judgement is with the Lord and my worke with my God And Jerem. 8. 8. How dare ye say we are wise and the love of the Lord is with us Loe certainly in vaine made he it the penne of the scribe is in vaine And Ierem. 6. 29. The bellowes are burnt the lead is consumed of the fire the
a true crimination but by flying to Gods absolute proceedings in giving or denying grace And albeit in this poynt wholly consists the Crisis of this Controversy yet this Author utterly declines the sifting thereof as some precipice and breake-neck unto his cause to wit Whether God gives and denyes grace according to the meere pleasure of his will or according to mens workes albeit the issue of all his comforts comes to this namely that either God is not the Author of our faith which now adaies the Remonstrants with open mouth professe that Christ merited for none or if to juggle with the World they pretend an acknowledgement that God is the Author of it yet they plainly professe that he dispenseth it to some and denyes it to others according to some good condition or disposition he findes in the one and which he findes not in another But let us take into consideration what these solid grounds of comfort are whereof a Minister is bereaved by our Doctrine Three I find here mentioned A treble Universality 1. of Gods love 2. Of Christs death 3. Of the Covenant of grace As if universality now adayes were a better Character of the Arminian faith then of the Roman Religion I may take liberty to equivocate a little when this Authour equivocates throughout and that in a case wherein iâ— is most intollerable in a case of consolation to be ministred to conscientia timorata as Nider calls it a poore afflicted soule as this Authour expresseth it To the discovery whereof I will now proceed having signified in the first place that all these consolations are no other but such as every Reprobate is capable of as well as the Children of God which is so apparent as needs no proofe only in the issue of their Tenet the faith of them freeth a man from the conceit of being an absolute Reprobate So that in effect it comes to this Thou poore afflicted soul be of good comfort for if thou wilt hearken unto me and imbrace those solid grounds of comfort which I will reveale unto thee assure thy selfe they shall be as the Balme of Gilead unto thy soule whereby thou maist be confident that albeit it may be thou art a Reprobate and that God from everlasting hath ordained thee unto damnation that yet certainly thou art no absolute Reprobate no more then Cain or Esau Saul or Judas or the Devills were For these my principles will assure thee that there never was nor is nor shall be any absolute Reprobate throughout the world 2. I come to the examining of them particularly to shew that every one of them is as it were against the haire So evident are the testimonies of Scripture against them all and they are obtruded upon a superficiary and most most unsound interpretation of Scripture in some places For 1. as touching the first the universality of Gods love For hereby Gods love is made indifferent unto all and consequently towards Esau as well as to Jacob whereas the Scripture professeth that God loved Jocob and hated Esau and this the Apostle makes equivalent to the Oracle dilivered to Rebekah concerning them before they were borne 2. He might as well have proposed it of the universallity of Gods mercy whereas the Scripture expressely distinguisheth between vessels of mercy vessells of wrath 3. This love is explicated by them to consist in a will to save all Now election is but Gods will to save and the Scripture plainly teacheth and it is confessed by all that I know excepting Coelius Secundus to whom this Authour it seemes is most beholding for his story of Spira that though Many are called yet but few are chosen And whereas it is confessed that the most part of men are Reprobates that is from everlasting willed unto condemnation yet never the lesse they beare us in hand that all men even Cain and Judas yea and as I think the Devills and all were willed by God unto Salvation And that there is no contradiction in all this And every poore afflicted soule must believe hand over head that all this is true what species of contradiction soever be found therein which this Authour from the begining of his discourse to the end hath taken no paines to cleare least otherwise he forfaits all hopes of comfort upon such soveraine grounds as are here proposed by faith wherein aman may be as well assured of his Salvation and freedome from damnation as any Reprobate in the World For albeit he be a Reprobate and God should reveale this unto him yet upon these grounds he may be confident that he is no absolute Reprobate 2. I come to the Second comfortable supposition and that is the universality of Christs death namely that he died for all Now this is opposite to Scripture evidence as the former yea and to Christian reason if not more For albeit God so loved the World even the whole World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have Life Everlasting which gives a fair light of exposition to those places where Christ is said to have dyed for the sins of the World yea of the whole world to wit in this manner that whosoever believes in him shal not perish but have everlasting life yet the Scripture speaks as often of Christs death in a restrained sense as where it is said Christ gave himselfe a ransome for many And that his bloud was shed for his Apostles and for many for the remission of their sinnes And that Christ should save Gods people from their sinnes And that God hath purchased his Church with his bloud And Christ gave himselfe for his Church And that he is saviour of his body And that he dyed for the elect And in the 17 of John our Saviour would not pray for the World but only for those whom God had at that time given unto him and who afterward should believe in him through their word And look for whom he prayed with exclusion of the rest for their sakes he sanctified himself Now that this is spoken in reference to the offering of himselfe up unto God upon the crosse it was the joynt interpretation of all the Fathers whom Maldonate had read as he professeth on that place and there reckons up a multitude of them Then againe Christs death and passion we know was of a satisfactory nature and therefore if he dyed for all he satisfied for all the sinnes of all men why then are not all saved Why is any damned Is it just with God to torment with everlasting fire for those sinnes for which he hath received satisfaction and that a more ample one then mans satisfaction can be by suffering the torments of Hell fire For therefore it shall never end because it shall never satisfie Againe how many millions were at that time dead and in hell fire and did Christ satisfy for their sinnes by his death upon the Crosse and they continue still to
be tormented Againe the obedience of Christ in generall is of a meritorious nature even meritorious of everlasting life Now if Christ hath merited everlasting life for all and every one how comes it that all and every one doe not enjoy Everlasting Life Shall not God the Father deale with his owne Sonne according to the exigency of his merits whether it be that they are so meritorious in their owne nature or by the constitution of God either meerely or joyntly with the dignity of their nature in reference to the dignity of the person who performed them as being not only man but God even the eternall Son of God one the same God with his Father Blessed for ever Now it can be made good that all sins of all men are fully satisfied for by the death of Christ that Christ hath merited in better manner Everlasting Life for all every one then they could have done for themselves although they had passed the whole course of their lives as free from sinne as the very elect Angells this I confesse is a comfortable doctrine with a witnesse though God leave men to themselves and to the power of their owne free wills to doe what they list And I see noe reason but that in the midst of all Ryot and excesse they may be as confident of their Salvation as if they had all faith as of certaine Lutherans it is written as I saw in a letter of an English Divine writen from Rome I make no question but their answer will be that albeit Christ hath thus satisfied for all sinnes of all and every one and merited Eternall Life for all and every one yet the benefit of his merits and satisfaction by Gods Ordinance shall redound to none but such as believe and repent and persevere therein unto death And what comfort can herehence arise to an afflicted soule unlesse she doe believe and repent If she doe believe and repent our Doctrine gives assurance to such of their election the Arminian doth not Here I presume they will say that every one may believe if he will repent if he will and may they not as well say that every soule afflicted with despaire may leave of to despaire if they will and consequently leave of to be afflicted if they will And I confesse this way of consolation hath a very short cut if the afflicted soul would harken unto them Especially considering that I doe not find that in these their discourses they take any notice of any sinne to hinder this no not so much as of the sinne against the Holy Ghost or of that sinne which S t John calleth a sinne unto death But I doe much doubt whether this were the manner of comfort which the Prophet Esay thought himselfe enabled for by Gods grace when he sayd The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the Learned that I should know how to speake a word in season to him that is weary he wakeneth Morning by Morning he wakeneth mine eare to heare as the learned Wherefore let me make bold in behalfe of the Patient to move unto you a question Doth not the Scripture teach us that faith is the gift of God that repentance is the gift of God Act 11. 18. 2 Tim 2. 25 How then is it possible for me to believe and repent unlesse God give me the grace of faith and repentance I presume you will answer that God gives faith and repentance first in as much as he gives all men power to believe and repent And secondly in as much as he concurres with them to the act of faith and repentance in case they will But I pray thee tell me is not the will to repent also the gift of God And if I have not as yet the will to repent how is it possible I should repent Can any man repent without a will to repent Is not repentance chiefly the charge of the will But you will say I suppose that even this will to repent God is ready to worke in me if I will repent But in case a man will repent what need hath he of any Divine assistance to cause in him this will to repent seeing he hath it already Lastly doth not God give a man a power to refuse to believe to refuse to repent if he will And is he not as ready to concurre with him to any sinfull act if he will and to worke the very will also of doing it in case he will And are not these then the gifts of God as well as others To conclude what think you of the gift of faith hath Christ merited it for us or no It seemes by your Doctrine he hath not as when you teach that albeit Christ hath satisfied for all merited Everlasting life for all yet the benefit of Christ obedience and death is by the ordinance of God applyable to none but such as have faith wherby it appears that you do not make faith to be any of those benefits which redound unto us by the obedience of Christ For though it be decent to say that salvation as a benefit procured by Christs obedience can redound to none but to such as believe yet it is very indecent to say that faith it selfe as a benefit of Christs death shall by the ordinance of God redound to none but to such as believe And indeed the Remonstrants now adaies doe openly professe that Christ merited faith for none And they are to be commended for dealing ingenuously and confessing that whereunto the Genius of their Tenet doth carry them Our Arminians deale not so plainly but as they pretend that faith and repentance are the gifts of God so they pretend that Christ merited them for us to wit he merited universall grace for all and every one whereby every man may believe if he will and repent if he will And how comfortable this particular is I have already shewed for it is as much as to say you may cease to despaire if you will you may cease to be afflicted if you will Secondly Christ merited that God should concurre to the working of faith and repentance in them provided that they would worke it in them selves Yea the very will to believe and repent God will worke in them modo velint So that still the resolution of all comfort is into a mans owne free-will For God gives not faith and repentance to whom he will or according to the meere pleasure of his will but rather according to mens workes And this direct Pelagianisme condemned so many hundred years agoe is that most comfortable doctrine of Christianity which our Arminians doe afford And this discourse as touching the universality of Christs death may be applyed also to the universality of Gods love which ends in this that all men shall be saved if they doe believe and that every man may believe if he will and that God is ready to worke faith and repentance in them provided that they will
admonition doe otherwise Among creatures indued with reason and liberty lawes are given to none but such as can use their principles of reason and freedome Fooles mad-men and children are subject to no law because they have no liberty To men that can use their liberty lawes are not given neither but in those actions which are voluntary No man is forbidden to be hungry thirsty weary sleepy to weepe tolaugh to love or to hate because these actions and affections are naturall and necessary the will may governe them but it cannot suppresse them And so if to deale justly to exercise charity c. with their contraries be absolutely and antecedently necessary too whether this necessity flow from a principall within or a mover without we are as lawlesse in these and in the other Now if necessity hath no lawâ— then actions in themselves evill if under the dominion of absolute necessity are transgressions of no law and consequently no sins For sin is a transgression of the law This that I say hath been said long agoe For Justin Martyr speaking against destiny hath these words If it be by destiny that is by absolute necessity For that the Fathers doe generally call by the name of destiny that men are good or bad they are indeed neither good nor bad A speech like to this he hath a little after It would seem if this be so that vertue and vice are nothing but things are judged to be good or bad by opinion only which as good reason teacheth is very great injustice and impiety And surely well might he say so For to what purpose was the Son of God made man and being man made a sacrifice for sinne Why was the ministry of the word and Sacraments ordained To what end are heaven and hell propounded Why are exhortations disswasions or any other meanes to hinder men from sin applied if sin be nothing but a mere opinion Christ the Christian faith the word and Sacraments and whatsoever according to the Scriptures hath been done for the applying of the pardon of sinne are all but mere fables nay very impostures if sinne be nothing And by consequence it is no matter at all whether men be Christians Jewes Turkes or Pagans of what religion or whether of any religion at all Now whether tendeth this but to the ovethrow of religion 2. Because it taketh away the conscience of sinne Why should men be afraid of any sinne that pleaseth or may profit them if they must needs sinne Or what reason have they to weep and mourne when they have sinned seeing they have not sinned truly because they sinned necessarily The Tragedian saith when a man sinneth his destiny must beare the blame Necessity freeth him from all iniquity Sins are either the faults of that irresistible decree that causeth them or no faults at all If either then sorrow feare or any other act of repentance whatsoever may as well be spared as spent This conceit being once drunke in religion cannot long continue For the affections have been the strongest planters and are the surest upholders of it in the world Primus in orbe Deos fecit timot. I come to the consideration of the second inconvenience wherewith our doctrine is charged And that is nothing inferiour to the former to wit The overthrow of true religion and good goverment among'st men With what judgment these are termed inconvenices I am to seeke and I wonder what mischeifes are greater then these inconveniences But I come to consider how well he makes good his charge 1. If sinne be no sinne certainely the opinion must be erroneous that conceives it to be sin I had thought there had been no predication more true then that which is Identicall We are taught that sinne is a trangression of God's law That the wages of it in the just judgment and decree of God is no lesse then death even everlasting death both of body and soule That God sent his own Son and made his soule an offering for sinne that so he might set him forth a propitiation for our sins through faith in his blood But let us see this Authour's reason to prove his crimimination He begins with an axiome that Necessity hath no law and hereupon he doth expatiate with his instances too too impertinently a course which Bellarmine takes not whom yet I have answered on this very argument in my Vindiciae least of all doth he offer to make any reply upon any parcell of my answer unto Bellarmine Now this axiome is not applied to Agents unreasonable but only reasonable by them who treat thereof As in case a man be driven to steale to relieve naturall necessity yet all confesse that a man is not only unexecusable but also not to be pitied if he hath brought this necessity upon him And never any sober man that I know denied stealth to be a free action for all this It is true Lyons are not forbidden to prey nor fishes to swimne nor bruit creatures to doe according to their kind For they are unreasonable and consequently not capable of command otherwise then by spurre or goad or the like nor capable of admonition in like sort children afore they come to the use of reason are not capable of admonition As neither mad men are nor fooles such as we call naturall But this Authour is none such For then his wit would not serve him for opposition as it doth It is true likewise that as man is made after the Image of God not as touching his part vegetative nor as touching his part sensitive but only as touching his part reasonable consisting of an understanding whereby he is enabled to know his superiours and their commands and admonitions and of a will whereby he is able to performe obedience both inward and outward it having command over all parts of the body to set them in motion whereupon if their Lord command them to come they come if to goe they goe if to doe this they doe it As the Centurion signified to our Saviour the readinesse of his servants to doe their Masters commands At length he comes to conclude that if to deale justly to exercise charitie c. with their contraries be absolutely antecedently necessary too whether this necessity flow from a principle within or a mover without we are as lawlesse in these as in the other by these he meanes acts of the soule rationall by the other he meanes acts of the soule vegetative or sensitive Now we utterly deny that any of these are absolutely necessary Nay we deny that any thing is of absolute necessity but the being of the Divine nature and the internall emanations thereof which constitute the distinction of persons in the Trinity For albeit some Agents created are Agents necessary working necessarily yet the works which they bring forth are not of absolute necessity because they may be hindred in their operations either by Angells as some of them or
way which I expresse in the very words of Mr. Doctor Abbats Bishop of Sarisbury ere he died and I conceived that indeed this motive prevailed with most and therefore I thought good so much the more throughly to discusse that But doe I say they tooke this course to free God from the imputation of sinne Nothing lesse my words are these in the Digression cap. 2. Quod plurimos movet illud est nimirum quod in sententia illâ de massâ nondum conditâ omnia sint ut aiunt intricata perplexa infinitis difficultatibus involuta in hac verò de massâ corruptà predestinationi hominum praestruendâ contra clara sint omnia cum Scripturarum autoritate judicioque antiquitatis planissimè consentientia where I mention two reasons that moved them to take this way 1. This in that opinion concerning the Masse of mankind not yet created all passages are intricate perplext and intangled with infinite difficulties but in the opinion concerning the Masse corrupt all things are cleare 2. This that in this other opinion all things are most plainly found to agree both with the authority of Scriptures and with the judgment of antiquity Now after I had endeavoured to discover the insufficiency of this plea in the second and third chapter of that fourth Digression in the matter of predestination In the fourth chapter I propose mine own judgment concerning the true benefit of this way in making the corrupt masse of mankind the object of election and reprobation not the judgment of others as this Authour carrieth the matter but mine own judgment For thus I beginne Ad extremum vis liberè pronuntiem quid unicè proficiatur ex hac nostrá praedestinationis Objecti sententiae temperatione Dicà m igitur quid sentiam Hinc nimirum efficitur ut à lapsu primorum parentum decreto praedestinationis subjiciendo subordinando liberemur huic unicè provisum esse ab istius quasi mediae temperatioris opinionis assertioribus mihi plusquam probabile aut verisimile videtur ne scililicet alias peccatum fieri statueretur decernente Deo tanquam medium ad fines à Deo in praedestinatione sibi praestitutos accommodatum unde etiam quà m author peccati constituendus sit nullâ solidâ ratione explicari posse videtur In the last place will you give me leave freely to professe what we profic by thus tempering our opinion touching the object of predestination I will therefore deliver what I thinke So that herein I purpose mine own opinion only not the opinion of others Herehence thus we gaine that we are freed from subjecting and subordinating man's fall unto God's decree of predestination It seemes to me more then probable or likely that the maintainers of this middle and temperate openion doe provide only against this inconvenience that is their way doth indeed provide against this and against no other inconvenience in my opinion to wit least otherwise the sinne of Adam should be said to come to passe God willing it as a meanes conducing to those ends which God intended in predestination from whence it followes as it seemes that it cannot be explicated by any solid reason that God is not made the Authour of sinne All which is delivered by me as my opinion conceiving that others thinke so too namely not that God is hereby made the Authour and principall cause of sinne but that the contrary cannot be explicated by any solid reason Now Cajetan confesseth as much namely that in these mysteries all the distinctions that are used doe not quietare intellectum satisfie the understanding and therefore he doth captivate his owne into the obedience of faith And Alvarez justifies him in this professing herein that he speakes doctissimè piissimè most learned and holyly And in a peculiar disputation he maintaines that the mistery of Gods providence and predestination standing with the liberty of our wills is incomprehensible by us in this world Lastly consider this is delivered only of the first sinne of our first parents which this authour perverts most shamefully when he avoucheth that I should acknowledge our Divines many of them to embrace this way to avoyd the imputation of making God the principall cause not of Adams sinne alone but of sinne in the greatest number of men And to confesse a truth if sinne be made the meanes for the procuring of the ends which God intends in predestination undoubtedly God himselfe should be the authour of sinne For whosoever intends any end he and none but he must be authour in working the meanes which tend to this end Therefore I said only that in this case It seemes that the sinne of Adam was intended by God as the meanes Whereas in truth and upon due consideration it appeares that not the creatures sinne but Gods permission of the creatures sinne is the meanes whereby God brings to passe his glorious ends Yet not the permission of sinne alone but joyned together with the pardoning of it and saving his elect in despight of it is the compleat meanes together with the procuring of Christs merits for the manifestation of Gods glory in the way of mercy And in like manner not the permitting of sinne alone but joyned with the punishment of it is the compleat meanes for the manifestation of Gods glory in the way of justice vindicative which in Scripture phrase is called the declaration of his wrath And whereas I said that hereby it seemed that it could not by any sound reason be manifested that God was not the Authour of sinne by the first way this Authour avoucheth of the defenders of the lower way which seemes most temperate that from their conclusions it followeth evidently that of all the sinnes of Reprobates which are the greatest number by many degrees God is the true and principall Authour Observe this he sayth followeth evidently from their conclusions and forthwith he tells us that he thinks so or to his thinking it doth so And why is he not the Authour of all the sinnes of the elect also whereas originall sinne continues in them also they carry about them a body of death and have cause to complaine of a law in their numbers that rebelleth against the law of their mind and leadeth them captive to the law of sinne Only there is a principle of spirituall life in them that renewes their repentance dayly as their sinnes are renewed but they looke not to be freed from sinne as long as they live in this world But let us examine how well he makes good that which he affirmes of the sinnes of the Reprobate that God is made the Authour of them by our doctrine of Reprobation I find that Cornelius a Lapide a Iesuite shapes Calvines doctrine of election and Reprobation this lower way and imputes unto him that from Reprobation according to his doctrine in Reprobis manat certus necessarius lapsus in peccata quaelibet A certaine and necessary falling into
lamentable ends to which he had from eternity appointed them and so by good consequence it makes the pure and holy God to be unholy and ascribes unto him farre greater cruelty then can be found in the most bloudy and barbarous Tyrant in the World Suetonius in the life of Tiberius one of the veryest Butchers of all the Roman Emperours reports of him that having a mind to put the two sonnes of Germanicus Diusus and Nero to death Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur He used cunning contrivances to draw them to reproach him that so he might cover his cruelty in their death under a pretext of justice And a little after he saith of the same Emperour that because it was not lawfull among the Romans to strangle Virgins he caused certain little maides to be deflowred by the Hangman that so they might afterwards be strangled This cruelty of Tiberius exceeded the bounds of humanity and yet it comes as short of that which this way laies to the charge of God as a temporall death comes short of an eternall and the power of man in drawing men to offend comes short of that irresistable power which the Almighty is able to use in the producing of sin Besides it takes from men all conscience of sin and makes sin to be no sin We use to say Necessitas non habet legem Necessity hath no law Actions in themselves evill if an absolute necessity bear sway in them are transgressions of no law and consequently are no sin for sin is a transgression of the law and men when they doe them they have no reason to be forry for them The Tragoedian could see this where he saith Fati ista culpa est Nemo fit fato nocens when one evill action is done the doer is not in fault but the decree that necessitates him to doe it It takes away likewise from good and evill actions that defect which they naturally carry with them of Rewards and Punishments as Saint Hierome tells us Liberi arbitrii nos condidit Deus nec ad virtutes nec ad vitia necessitate tranimur alioqui ubi necessit as est nec damnatio nec corona est Where necessity domineers there is no place for retribution and therefore none are drawn by the adamantine chains of necessity to virtues or vices but left free to the choyce of their own wills When Zeno his servant was punished by him for a fault that he had done he told his Master out of his own grounds that he was unjustly beaten because he was Fato coactus peccare constrained so to doe by his undeclinable destiny and certainly if malefactors could not chuse but play their rude prankes they could not be justly punished for them For all just punishments suppose a possibility of avoyding those offences of which they are the punishments TWISSE Consideration THis Authors pretence being only to oppose that Tenent which maintaines that the decree of denying grace and glory and of inflicting damnation doth not presuppose the foresight of final perseverance in sin you may well marvaile to what purpose this comes in about the different condition of man considered by God either as before the Fall or after the Fall in Adam it being a question of another nature and meerly Logicall to wit about the ordering of Gods decrees of Creation Permission of the fall of Adam giving or denying Grace Salvation or Damnation The resolution whereof depends upon the right distinction of these decrees in reference to the end and to the means tending to that end For this being Resolved according to the rules of Divinity the order between them must consequently be determined according to the rules generally received in the Schooles namely thus The intention of the end is first then the intention of the means so that if Salvation be the end and Creation and Permission of Adams Fall and Raising therehence by Faith and Repentance to be the means it must be confessed that the decree of Salvation must be first then the decree of Creation permission of sin and of raising out of sin So if the damnation of any be the end that God intends and creation and permission of sin and of finall perseverance therein be the means it must be acknowledged that the decree of damnation was before the decree of creation c. But if salvation and damnation be no ends intended by God but means rather as well as creation and permission of all to sin in Adam together with the raising of some therehence and leaving some therein tending to some farther end namely the Manifestation of Gods glory in a certain kind as the Scripture together with manifest reason doth justify For God being the supreame efficient must necessarily be the last end And even there where the word of God doth testify that God created the wicked against the day of evill it doth therewithall give to understand that what is signified by To the day of evill doth not denote the end of Gods actions that before being expressed to be God himselfe God made all things for himselfe not for acquiring ought unto himselfe for he is so perfect that nothing can be added unto him but for the manifesting of his own most glorious nature so that if God be pleased to manifest his glorious beneficence on man in the highest degree and that in the way of mercy mixt with justice this end requires and bespeaks both creation no glory at all being manifestable without this and permission of sin otherwise it could not be manifested in the way of mercy and satisfaction for sin otherwise this mercy could not be mixed with justice exactly and faith and repentance otherwise the good which God intends could not be bestowed by way of reward and last of all Salvation under which we comprehend the highest and most blessed condition that the nature of man continuing a meere man is capable of And herehence we conclude that in case the end is such as hath been specified and all these actions following congruous means tending to that end therefore the decree of manifesting Gods glory as above specified is first with God and secondly the decree of the means which means although they are many materially yet they come all under one formall notion of means tending to a certain end which according to the severall parts thereof bespeaks them all and consequently they are all to be considered as making up the object of one formall decree called the decree of the means and the intention of none of them is before another but all intended at once as means tending to that end which is first intended In like manner if God shall be pleased to intend the manifestation of his glory in Man or Angell in the way of justice vindicative the means necessarily required hereunto are Creation Permission of sin and Damnation unto punishment and all three makes up the object of one formall
decree which is to be called the decree of the means So that like as God doth not intend the creatures creation before he intends his damnation in the same respect he cannot be said to intend his damnation before he intends his creation or the permission of his sinne And this rightly considered sets an end unto all quarrell about the different consideration of Man in election and reprobation which yet is about a Schoole point only touching the right stateing of the end and the means and the right ordering of Gods decrees concerning them And doth it not set an end also to all aspersions of cruelty cast upon the holy providence of God from the guilt of which kind of blasphemies nothing can free them but confidence in their own way as if it were the way of truth and that by convincing evidence of holy Scripture Whereas it appears how little direction they take from the Word of God throughout for the shaping of their Tenent in this Yet neither is any such confidence able to free them from the guilt of such blasphemies which they utter well it may free them from the conscience of it yet if it doe that is more than I know And only to these two ends doth this aliene discourse of our different opinions thereabouts tend as I conceive namely to shew the difference of our Divines and to give vent to those aspersions of blasphemy on the first way as also to make way for a third in part which comes to be considered in the next Section in the manner how they fall upon the relation of the second way Yet Arminius in his Conference with Junius might have informed him of three opinions concerning the object of Predestination dividing the fruit of these into two The condition of man before the Fall being considerable two waies either as before the Fall but after Creation which they call the Masse created but not yet corrupted or as not before the Fall only but before the creation also which we commonly call the Masse not yet created or Mankind not yet created As touching the most harsh way of these three upon examination of Arminius his twenty arguments against it I find nothing worth the speaking of but meere suggestion of flesh and bloud which yet being duely pondered doe discover most shamefull nakednes His arguments against the making of Mankind not yet created the object of predestination I have proposed and answered in my Vindiciae gratiae Dei lib. 1. De Praedestin digress 5. if this Author hath any mind to be doing with them I shall be ready to consider what he saith as God shall give opportunity And in Junius you shall finde how he laboureth to reconcile them but very obscurely Piscator also sets hand to the same work and carryeth himselfe therein as his manner is very clearely by distinguishing three acts in Predestination The first whereof he will have to presuppose Mankind not created for it is the decree of creating man to different ends The second he will have to presuppose Mankind created but not corrupted for it is the decree of permitting Adam to fall and all Mankind in him The third and last he will have to presuppose Mankind both created and corrupted for it is the decree of raising some out of sin wherein they are conceived and borne and leaving some therein As for the Angells it is without question that election and reprobation divine had course concerning them as well as concerning mankind and as certain it is that no corrupt Masse could be the object of divine Predestination in their election and reprobation As for Arminius his ordering of Gods decrees in opposition to these waies taken by our Divines that he hath communicated unto us in the Declaration of his opinion before the States pag 47. where leaving out the decree of creating mankind in Adam and the decree of permitting all mankind to fall in Adam he takes into consideration only the divine decrees of saving sinfull man 1. The first whereof is Whereby he decreed to make his Sonne Christ a Mediator Redeemer Saviour Priest and King by his death to abolish sin by his obedience to obtain Salvation formerly lost and by his power to communicate it And this decree he saith is absolute 2. The second is Whereby he decreed to receive into grace such as believe and repent and those persevering unto the end to save in Christ for and by Christ but such as believe and repent not to leave under sin and wrath and to damne as aliene from Christ. Where observe 1. This decree of saving such as believe and repent he calleth a decree absolute yet this decree passeth upon no particular persons such a decree is reserved for the last place 2. God with him receives none into grace and favour unles they believe and repent Whereby it is manifest that with him faith and repentance are no fruits of Gods grace and favour for they must be performed before they are received into Gods grace and favour 3. The third is Where by he decreed sufficiently and efficaciously to administer the means which are necessary to faith and repentance This decree whether he conceives it to be absolute or no he doth not specify nor whether he decreed to administer them unto all nor by whom whether by men only or by men or Angells nor whether by means he understands the Gospel only and we have cause to doubt thereof And lastly which is most obscure he doth not explicate what he means by sufficient and efficacious administration Only he adds that in this administration he carries himselfe according 1. To his Wisdome which shewes what becomes his mercy andseverity and 2 ly to his Justice whereby he is ready to follow the prescript of his Wisdome 4. The fourth and last is Whereby he decreed to save and damne certain particular persons Now whereas our Divines generally what way soever they took had a care out of their Logick and Philosophy which they had by light of nature to order the decrees divine according to the common Rules of Art concerning intentions as they are found to be either of some end or of some means tending to an end this seems to have been no part of Arminius his care This order of his I have ransaked in my Vindiciae lib. 3. digress 2. And if this Author think good he may answer thereunto and doe his best to qualify the absurdities wherewith I charge that order of his But as touching the embracers of this first way whose names he expresseth he had need to prove it For divers think otherwise of Calvin and they represent their reasons for it out of his own words such as these De aeternâ Dei Praedestinatione pag. 970. speaking of Pighius Augustinum ridet saith he ejusque similes hoc est pios emnes qui deum imaginantur postquam universalem Generis humani Ruinam in personâ Adae praesciverit alios ad vitam alios ad interitum destinasse
And whereas it is farther urged that hereby God is made the author of the first sin and of all sins As I find by D r Whitakers discourse in his Cygnaea Concio that were he alive he would answer hereunto That this Author takes his aime much amisse considering that the effect of Reprobation is not sin but the permission of sin and Gods means to the end intended by him to witt the manifestation of his glory in the way of vindicative justice is not sin but the Permission of sin according to that of Aquinas alleadged by the foresaid Doctor thus Sicut Praedestinatio includit voluntatem conferendi gratiam gloriam ita Reprobatio includit voluntatem permittendi cadere in culpam inferendi damnationis poenam pro culpâ And as I discern no unholinesse in Gods permitting of sin so neither doe I discerne any cruelty therein But D r Whitaker well perceived that this course of Gods counsells would seem injurious and therefore after he had proposed his last argument drawn from that of the Apostle Rom. 11. ô altitudo thus Vltimò illa Apostoli exclamatio ô altitudo hanc sententiam confirmat Neque enim tantae altitudinis est ut penetrari nequeat Deum odisse homines propter peccatum etiam antequà m nati sunt immò rationi convenientissimum est ut Deus ferre nequeat quod est naturae suae contrarium But marke wherein the depth the Apostle speaks of consists in his judgement Ib i demùm infinitum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abyssus est divinae discretionis quando sine peccati ratione quidam reprobantur alii qui nihilo erant amore digniores ad vitam faelicitatem praedestinantur ut omnis ratio discretionis ad solam dei voluntatem referatur And because he knew full well that this mysterious depth of Gods counsell would seem very harsh to carnall affections as savouring of cruell and injurious proceedings therefore he takes expresse notice of it and that in Austins language saying Iniquum videtur Augustinus ait ut sine ullis bonorum malorumque operum meritis unum Deus diligat odiatque alterum whence he concludes according to Austin thus Deus igitur hunc diligit illumquè odit sine meritis ullis operum aut bonorum aut malorum Hoc videri possit alicui iniquum sed est aequissimum quia sic Deo visum est Neque Augustinus affirmare veritus est eos Apostoli verbum evacuare qui judicium divinae discretionis ad opera reducunt praevisa aut praeterita and so concludes the main point he insists on thus Non est igitur peccatum originale causa aeternae reprobationis nedum actuale So that both Austin and D r Whitaker and all our Divines knew full well in how harsh an accent this truth sounds in the eares of men yet because the word of God doth testify this truth unto us it becomes all Christian hearts to submit and to acknowledge the equity of it though we are not able to comprehend the reason of it Though I know full well some are so violently carried with the zeale of their own way that they spare not to professe that they will sooner deny that there is a God then yeeld to that which the Contra-Remonstrants teach which for ought I know is no other then this which D r Whitaker taught and Preached publiquely in the University of Cambridge being at that time Professor Regius And seeing we acknowledge the seeming harshnes of it as well as our Adversaries yet because we find it revealed in Gods word we hold it our duty to embrace it and therehence conclude that it is aequissimum Doth it become any one to take the course this Author takes and by a Parallel between this course of God and the courses of Tiberius as also by a saying of Zeno's servant to cry it down as iniquissimum and thence to conclude hand over head that the word of God doth not teach it Is this a Christian course is this Theologicall is this Scholasticall Yet in my judgement the harshnes lyeth not here to wit in the point of Gods purpose to inflict damnation considering that not one of our divines that I know doth maintaine that God did ever purpose to inflict damnation but for sin Or if there be any harshnes therein that is to be found in the kind and degree of punishment and everlastingnesse thereof God holding them everlastingly as it were upon the rack and in quick sence of torment And yet we maintaine without contradiction amongst Christians that it is just with God to doe so for one act of drunkennes or adultery or the like unrepented of which kind of punishment never any Tyrant in the world was known to take or could take But the harshnes in my opinion is most pregnant to bring forth distast on the other part of reprobation which is the purpose of God to deny grace this being denied to whom he will and that of meer pleasure for like as he shewes mercy on whom he will so the Scripture testifies that he hardens whom he will And not only Austin and D r Whitaker and our Divines generally doe take notice how unsavoury this doctrine is in the judgement of flesh and bloud especially in comparing it with Gods ordinary course of complaining of men for their disobedience even of those whom himselfe hath hardned but the holy Apostle also Rom. 9. 19. Thou wilt say then and is it so doth God harden whom he will Why then doth he yet complaine For who hath resisted his will Now in this case how doth the Apostle stop the mouthes of such but thus O man who art thou that disputest with God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour But let us come to the consideration of the Parallel here made between the counsells of Tiberius and the counsells of God This consists of two parts according to a double story of Tiberius taken out of Suetonius The first is his dealing with Drusus and Nero the two sonnes of Germanicus these varia fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur he used cunning contrivances to draw them to reproach him that so he might cover his cruelty in their death under a pretext of justice What these cunning contrivances are it is specified by Suetonius but I hope this Author will acknowledge that it stands him upon to represent what those cunning contrivances are which our doctrine imputes unto God to draw them to sinne against God Our Divines commonly teach that God as he is able to keep any man from sinne as he did the Angells that stood when their fellowes became Apostates the cause whereof Austin resolves into amplius Adjutorium given by God either in their creation or after De Civit. Dei lib. 12.
out of measure through the abundance of revelations Therefore saith he I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in anguishes for Christs sake for when I am weak then am I strong And had not Joseph as good cause to conceive that it was the will of God that he by the unchast motions of his wanton Mistris should be provoked unto unclean courses as David had to perswade himselfe that it was Gods will by the rayling of Shimei he should be provoked unto revenge that so by the power of his grace strengthning them against such provocations they might come forth of their severall temptations as gold out of fire more bright more resplendent then before Ioseph was a faire person and well favoured Genes 39. 6. Now this was a sore provocation to a lustfull eye Beauty is said to be of a dangerous nature as that which makes a man either Praedonem alienae castitatis or Praedam suae But Joseph had a gracious and a chast heart his beauty gave him no encouragement to prey upon others chastity but being a congruous baite to the lustfull appetite of his Mistris it was in danger to expose his own chastity to be preyed upon And as Austin said of Gods providence concerning Shimei ejus voluntatem proprio vitio suo malam in hoc peccatum judicio suo justo occulto inclinavit Who seeth not that the like may be said of Gods dealing with Ioseph's Mistris and that without all aspersion of unholinesse unto God For if he gives Men or Women over unto their lusts what will be the issue but uncleannesse Rom. 1. 24 26. When God gave them up to vile affections what followed but this even their Women did change their naturall use into that which was against nature vers 27. and likewise also the Men left their naturall use of the Women and burned in their lust one toward another and Man with Man wrought filthinesse and received in themselves such recompence of their errour as was meet Here we have a strange course of Gods providence in punishing sin with sin For these Gentiles in defiling themselves one with another in a most unnaturall and abominable manner are said to receive such recompence for their errour as was meet In few words what is meant by provocation unto any sin Is it to doe that whereupon man may take just cause or occasion to doe that which he doth without blame like as the Corinthians provoked Paul as a foole to loast himselfe as himselfe expresseth it for he adds ye have compelled me But this cannot be affirmed of Tiberius his ministers in provoking Drusus and Nero. For no provocation could be sufficient to make them unblameable in convitiating their Prince much lesse can it be said that God provokes any man in this manner neither doe I think that any of our adversaries as malevolent as they are dares impute any such crimination unto us as if wee attributed any such discourse unto providence divine What then is it to provoke unto sin Is it to doe somewhat upon the consideration whereof mens passions being moved they cannot but sin But this in like sort is equally as untrue as the former even of those provocations which were made upon Drusus and Nero by the practises of Tiberius Or is it the doing of somewhat whereupon occasion is taken to sinne to blaspheme this hath no colour of truth in it For even man without all transgression may doe many things whereupon occasion is taken of doing evill and therefore we distinguish of Scandalum datum Acceptum Nay though man knowes offence will be taken upon the doing of some things yet if the doing thereof be commanded by God he must doe them what occasion soever is thereby taken to offend Indeed if they are things indifferent I must abstaine from the doing of them in case I know offence will be taken thereat and that thereby I shall lay a stumbling block in the way of my Brother For Paul professeth that if meat would offend his Brother he would never eat meat rather then offend his Brother But no such obligation lies upon God For he knoweth full well how some will abuse his mercies others grow worse and worse by his judgements breaking forth into blasphemy thereupon yet no wise man will say that God is the more unholy in the shewing of mercy and in the execution of judgement He professeth in plain termes that to them who feare him he will be a sanctuary but as a stumbling block and as a rock to fall upon to both the houses of Israel and as a snare and as a net to both the Inhabitants of Ierusalem Isai 8. 14. As for the last clause of this odious Parallel concerning the end of Tiberius his course in this namely that so he might cover his cruelty in their death under pretext of justice Undoubtedly I should think the putting of them to death was just in case they did convitiate their Prince whatsoever their provocations were For hereby they deserved death yea everlasting death and damnation His sin was in causing them to be provoked hereunto and so also it might be in the manner of their execution For it is written of him that fame necavit he famished them I know Tiberius was cruell enough but by the story it seems that policy wicked policy moved him unto this first to intend their deaths because he saw the affections of the people towards them belike for Germanicus his sake a worthy man according to those times For when he found that in the beginning of the yeare vowes were made on their behalfe to wit for their preservation he dealt with the Senate that such rewards ought not to be tendred but towards such who were of experience and of ripenesse of age and that hereupon the inward character of his affection towards them being discovered he laid them open to every mans criminations variaque fraude inductos ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur accusavit per literas amarissimè congestis etiam probris judicatos hostes fame necavit And anon after the same Author discovers the reason of all this to wit that seeing Germanicus was but his adopted Sonne and one Drusus by name was his naturall sonne and his own sonne Drusus being dead leaving a sonne Tiberius behind him he desired to make him as his naturall sonne his successor in the Empire Aelium Sejanum ad summam potentiam non tà m benevolentia provexer at quà m ut esset cujus ministerio ac fraudibus liberos Germanici circumveniret Nepotemque suum ex Druso filium naturalem ad successionem Imperii confirmaret Sure we are God hath no need of any such politique courses neither hath he need of any pretext of justice to take a mans life from him It is confessed now of all hands that God can annihilate the holiest Angel by power absolute And if it be in the power of God to keep any man
that is pleasing in his sight Heb. 13. 20. to cause us to walk in his statutes and judgements and to doe them Ezech. 36. 28. yea to keep us from presumptious sins and that they get not the dominion over us Psal 19. 14. yea to deliver us from every evill work 2 Timoth. 4. 18. But perhaps some may say Our doctrine is that God willeth sin to be committed for which men may and shall be punished like as Tiberius would the Virgins should be defloured that they might be strangled And I answer that Arminius himselfe professeth that Deus voluit Achabum mensuram scelerum suorum implere God would have Ahab fill up the measure of his sinne that he might be condignely punished And why may we not say as well that God would have Tiberius to fill up the measure of his sinnes And yet like as Tiberius would have the Virgins to be defloured that they might be strangled so Ahab would have Naboth accused of blasphemy that he might be condemned for it and so put to death and stoned and all these things were done under colour of Religion Yet Arminius in reference to these very courses spares not to professe that God would have Ahab to fill up the measure of his sinnes yet doth not Bertius upbraid him for defaming God with imputing cruelty unto him Againe the same Arminius professeth that in their ignominious handling of Christ God would have the Jewes progredi quousque progressi sunt proceed so farre as they did proceed And was it not Gods will in like manner that the Gentiles should proceed as farre as they did in the same businesse Now we know full well by the story Evangelical how farre they went in their mischievous courses against the Son of God For Judas betrayed him and the high Priests both hired Judas hereunto and suborned false witnesses against him and both the Herodians and Souldiers mocked him and the people urged Pilate to crucify him and to dismisse 〈◊〉 and Pilate yeelded to the peoples desire took order to have him first scourged then crucified And if it may be truely and piously said that in these ignominious usages of the Son of God they went as farre as God would have them to goe why may it not with as great truth and piety be avouched that Tiberius also in these his barbarous courses went as farre as God would have him Neither doth Arminius give himselfe to qualify the harshnesse of these his affirmations We say that whatsoever comes to passe it is Gods will it should come to passe as Austin expresly professeth Enchir. cap. 95. Nec aliquid fit nisi Omnipotens fieri velit and the Articles of Ireland Artic. 11. professe the same But withall we explicate it as Austin dothin the words following by adding the different manner how they shall come to passe by the will of God according to the different condition of things that come to passe namely good or evill thus Vult fieri but how vel sinendo ut fiat to wit in case they are evill vel ipse faciendo to wit in case they are good So then good things God will have come to passe by his effection evill things only by his permission And Bellarmine opposing our Divines to the uttermost of his power in this particular being convicted in conscience by the evidence of truth is driven to confesse Bonum esse ut malum fiat Deo permittente It is good that evill should come to passe by Gods permission or Gods permitting it Tiberius willed that the Virgins should be defloured and impiously he willed it God willed that Davids Concubines should be defloured and holily he willed it neither is he delighted with impurity For the Scripture attributes this unto God I will give thy Wives unto thy Neighbour and he shall lye with them in the sight of all Israel and before the sunne And this constupration of Davids Concubines served for the chastising of David as Arminius professeth Inserviit castigando Davidi omnes paenae habent Deum authorem All punishments have God for their author they are the words of the same Arminius It was impiety and cruelty in Tiberius to cause the Virgins to be defloured and strangled But what Christian dares to impute impiety or cruelty unto God for causing the Children of the Sodomites some in their Mothers wombe some hanging upon their Mothers breasts to be consumed with fire and brimstone It was impiety and cruelty in Tiberius to will the deflouring of those Virgins that they might be strangled But Arminius thought it neither impiety nor cruelty for God to will that Ahab should fill up the measure of his sinne that so he might accumulate unto himselfe wrath in the day of wrath for if he had I presume he would not have ascribed any such will unto God as he doth in expresse termes Although he well knew the vast difference between the power of man and the power of God in executing vengeance the ones power extending only to the execution of vengeance temporall but Gods power extends to the execution of vengeance eternall Now I find a story immediatly following this very story alleadged by this Author out of Suetonius expressing the cruelty of Tiberius in a farther degree as not contented with the death of them whom he would destroy and therefore he would keep them alive to torment them Mori volentibus vis adhibita vivendi when they desired to dye he caused them to live by force Nam mortem adeò leve supplicium putabat ut cum audisset unum è reis anticipasse eam exclamaverit Carnutius me evasit For he accounted death so light a punishment that when he heard one of the condemned persons to have anticipated it he cryed out Carnutius hath escaped me for that was the condemned persons name And when he took notice of them that were inward when one desired to suffer betimes he answered him Nondum tecum in gratiam redii I doe not as yet beare these so much good will Now why may not some Atheisticall person track the steps of this Author and in this particular exaggerate the hainousnesse of Gods holy courses as savouring of cruelty beyond all example beyond the cruelty of Tiberius because he holds delinquent creatures upon the rack of eternall torment in hell fire For certain vindicative courses in Tiberius inferior unto these are accounted abominable cruell and impious how much more if this Authors argumentation be of force those courses which the word of God hath informed us to be the courses divine infinitely beyond the courses of Tiberius in the way of severity and rigour As for the power of God in producing sinne we acknowledge none Above 1200 years agoe it was delivered by Austin that sinne hath no efficient cause but deficient only But when the creature sinneth he sinneth in doing that he ought not to doe or in doing what he doth not in that manner he ought to doe or in not doing what he
from eternity of his meer will and pleasure without any consideration of actuall continuance in sinne and unbeliefe utterly to cast off from grace and glory Millions of men considered in the fall even those whom he calls to repentance and solvation by the Preaching of the Gospell for the manifestation of his severity and Justice That all mankind is involved in the first sinne and the fruits thereof which are corruption of nature and the guilt of eternall death I confidently believe But that God did absolutely intend to leave men in that woefull state for ever and upon this only sinne to build a peremptory decree of the unavoidable damnation of the farre greater part of mankind I cannot yet be perswaded Having thus plainly laid down the position which I deem to be false I come now in the next place to deliver my reasons against it which are of two sorts 1. Such as first made me to question the truth of it 2. Such as doe for the present convince me that it cannot be a truth TWISSE Consideration HEre breaks out the main reason that moved this Author to represent the different opinions of our Divines about the object of Predestination that so a way might be opened unto him at pleasure to charge the former opinion with what he thought good and as for the proofe of his criminations he might the better ease himselfe of the burthen thereof by shewing the dissent of other Devines of the same profession from the former in this particular making choyce rather to shape the object of Predestination and reprobation under the notion of mankind lying in the masse corrupt by the fall of Adam For surely it is to be presupposed that they did not dissent from their former friends without some reason and this Author makes bold to insinuate that these absurdities mentioned by him were the reasons As when he saith These absurdities following too evidently from the upper way Others of the same side willing to decline them as rocks and precipices doe leave that way But that these were the motives whereby they were induced to decline the former opinion and to embrace the latter he proves not nor so much as adventureth upon the proofe thereof but leaves unto his credulous reader to supply that by his forwardnesse to take it upon trust as if this discourser by his morall carriage might winne the opinion of so much worthinesse as to be a man with whom you may well play at Put-finger in the darke quicum in tenebris mices And yet Arminius might have taught him that there is a middle opinion between these namely of those who make the object of predestination the masse of mankind created but not yet corrupted And he puts this opinion upon Junius and appeals to his Theses as giving evident testimony thereunto Now there is no shew or colour of reason why to avoyd the absurdities premised by this Author any man should decline the first way and embrace the second which is the way of Junius And this I conceive to be the main reason why this second way is altogether dissembled by this Author or by the spirit that guided him For albeit it was for this advantage who hankes after every sorry consideration to serve his turne in the way of motive learning to represent the multiplicity of opinions hereabouts amongst our Divines yet it being a matter of greater moment to gain the justification of his absurdities charged upon the first way from the mouthes or practice of our Divines at least in appearance and some colour hereof he findes by declining the first way and falling upon the third but no colour at all by declining the first way and falling upon the second Therefore he thought it a part of his wisdome altogether to dissemble the second and to represent the opinion of those Divines who decline the first yea and second too and fall upon the third But suppose Iunius had preferred the third way and not the second Had he done it out of a desire to decline the absurdities here mentioned It is apparent by that his conference with Arminius which yet he set not forth but the Arminian party after his death that he maintaines all these considerations to have their place in Predestination and therefore makes Hominem communiter consideratum the object of predestination which as it is a notion abstract from all the three speciall notions of nondum conditum or conditum but nondum corruptum or denique corruptum so it is indifferently applyable unto them all And indeed Piscator resolves the question about the object of Predestination namely that as Predestination includes the decree of creating men unto different ends so the object must necessarily be mankind not yet created as it includes the decree of permitting all to fall in Adam so the object as he thinkes must be mankind created but not yet corrupted and lastly as it includes the decree of chusing some out of that corrupt masse and refusing others or leaving them in it so the object of his judgement must be mankind both created and corrupted And Arminius himselfe professeth that the twenty reasons wherewith he disputeth against the first way may also be accommodated against the other waies And albeit the followers of the second and third way doe think that they can better maintain their Tenent and free it from the absurdities wherewith the other waies are charged yet it followeth not herehence that therefore they did justify them the contrary whereunto appears in the particular of Iunius as before I mentioned Moulin indeed disputes against the first but doth he to decline that subsist in the third as touching the making of the corrupt Masse the object of reprobation it is apparent he doth not But as reprobation denotes Gods decree of damnation he premiseth thereunto the foresight of finall impenitency Of this opinion of his this Author takes no notice Yet is Moulin sound throughout in the doctrine of election wherein if this Author did concurre with him we should nothing trouble our selves to take him off from his concurrence with Moulin in that particular of reprobation And wee of the first way are willing to professe that God neither damnes nor decrees to damne any man but for sinne and finall perseverance therein nor so only but in plain termes to pronounce that in no moment of nature doth Gods intention of damnation precede the consideration of sinne and final impenitency though we doe not make the consideration of sinne to precede the intention of damnation as Moulin doth And to my understanding other reasons there are which cast Divines upon the third way then the declining of these absurdities mentioned by this Author as namely that the very notions of election and reprobation the one being conceived to be an act of mercy the other an act of justice doe presuppose sinne And whereas Arminius in his conference with Iunius produceth five reasons against the first way no lesse then foure
cause in man any way moving him either in its own nature or by divine constitution moving him to bestow this grace on any So the Apostle 2 Timoth. 1. 9. God hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our workes but according to his own purpose and grace And indeed we being all found dead in sinne what could be found in one to move God to bestow the life of faith and repentance upon him more then upon another And if any such thing were found in man moving God hereunto then should grace be bestowed according unto works that is in the Fathers phraise as Bellarmine acknowledgeth according unto merits which was condemned 1200 years agoe in the Synod of Palestine and Pelagius himselfe was driven to subscribe unto it otherwise they had condemned him also But as touching the conferring of glory God doth not bestow this on whom he will finding men equall without any moving cause thereunto even in man For though there be no moving cause hereunto in man of its own nature yet there is to be found a moving cause in man by constitution divine whereby God is as it were moved to bestow solvation on some and not on others For God hath made a gracious promise that whosoever beleeveth and repenteth and continueth in faith and repentance unto death shall be saved and whosoever beleeveth not and repenteth not shall be damned So then though men are equall in originall sinne and in naturall corruption and God bestowes faith and repentance on whom of them he will curing their corruption in whom he will yet when he comes to the conferring of glory men are not found equall in morall condition and accordingly God cannot be said on like manner to bestow glory solvation on whō he will For he hath tyed himselfe by his own constitution to bestow solvation on none but such as dye in thestate of grace Yet I confes some say that God bestows solvation on whom he will in as much as he is the author of their faith repentance bestows these graces on whō he will yet certainly there is a different manner in the use of this phraise of bestowing this or that on whom he will For when God bestowes faith and repentance he findes them on whom he will bestow it no better then others But when he comes to the bestowing of glory he findes them on whom he bestowes that farre better them others Now we come to the things decreed in reprobation and these are two 1. The denyall of the grace of regeneration that is of the grace of faith and repentance whereby mans naturall infidelity and impenitency is cured 2. The denyall of glory and the inflicting of damnation The first of these to wit the denyall of grace mentioned is made to whom he will And it must needs be so in ease God gives this grace to whom he will And the Apostle professeth that as God hath mercy on whom he will so he hardneth whom he will And as God denies this grace to whom he will so did he decree to deny it to whom he will Yet there is a difference considerable For albeit God hardneth whom he will by denying unto them the grace of faith and repentance yet notwithstanding like as it is just with God to inflict damnation upon them for that sinne whether originall or actuall wherein he findes them when the ministry of the word is afforded them so likewise it cannot be denied to be iust with God to leave their infidelity and impenitency wherein he finds them uncured But yet because God hath not made any such constitution namely that whosoever is found in infidelity and impenitency shall be so left and abandoned by him therefore he is properly said as to cure it in whom he will so to leave it uncured in whom he will finding them all equall in originall sinne and consequently lying equally in this their naturall infidelity and impenitencv So wee may iustly say there is no cause at all in man of this difference to wit why God cures infidelity impenitency in one and not in another but it is the meer pleasure of God that is the cause of this difference And if any list to contend hereabouts we shall be willing to entertaine him and conferre our strength of argumentation on this point 2. But as touching the denyall of glory and inflicting of damnation which is the second thing decreed in reprobation there is alwaies found a cause motive yea and meritorious hereof to wit both of the denyall of the one inflicting of the other And God doth not proceed herein according to the meer pleasure of his will that by reason of his own constitution having ordained that whosoever continueth finally in infidelity in profane courses and impenitency shall be damned And albeit on the other side it may be said in some sence as formerly I have shewed that God saves whom he will in as much as he is the author of faith which he bestowes on whom he will yet in no congruous sence can he be said to damne whom he will for as much as he is not the author of sinne as he is the author of faith For every good thing he workes but sinne and the evill thereof he only permits not causeth it And lastly as God doth not damne whom he will but those only whom he finds finally to have persevered in sinne without repentance so neither did he decree to damne or reprobate to damnation whom he will but only those who should be found finally to persevere in sinne without repentance Now let us apply this to the Article we have in hand which is this The moving cause of reprobation is the only will of God and not the sinne of man originall or actuall and for the explication hereof according to that which hath been formerly delivered We say that reprobation doth signify either a purpose of denying grace as above mentioned or a purpose of inflicting damnation And each may be considered either as touching the act of Gods decree or as touching the things decreed We shew how the Article holds or holds not being differently accommodated 1. As touching the things decreed 1. As touching the deniall of grace We say That God decreed of his meere good pleasure to deny unto some the grace of faith and repentance for the curing of that naturall infidelity and impenitency which is found in all without any motive cause hereunto found in one more then in another 2. As touching the inflicting of Damnation We say That God decreed to inflict damnation on some not of his meer pleasure but meerly for their finall perseverance in sinne without repentance 2. As touching the very act of Gods decree We say Nothing in man could be the cause hereof but the meer pleasure of God as Aquinas professeth it a mad thing to devise in man a cause of divine predestination as touching the act of God predestinating as I have
follow that because faith precedes salvation and sinne damnation therefore the foresight of faith is antecedanious to the decree of salvation and the foresight of sinne is antecedent to the decree of damnation For no Enthymeme of this nature is sound but so farre forth as it is reducible into a good Categorical Syllogisme whereof these Enthymems are uncapable For Enthymems reducible unto good Syllogismes must agree either in their Subjects or in their Predicates but these doe not Again all the termes in a good Enthymeme must be expressed in that Syllogisme whereunto it is reduced But each of these Enthymemes consisteth manifestly of four termes as in the first theâ—e Faith and the Foresight of faith Salvation and the Decree of salvation Of the second these Sinne and Foresight of sinne Damnation and the Decree of damnation and consequently that Syllogisme whereunto either of these quaternary of termes is clap'd cannot be good For no Categoricall Syllogisme is good that consisteth of foure termes As for the reducing of them into a Syllogisme Hypotheticall such Reductions were never heard of in the Schooles of the learned and that for just reason because that is no course to justify the soundnesse of the Enthymemes but a meer begging of that which is in question As in case a man should reduce it thus If faith be precedanious to salvation then the foresight of faith is precedanious to the decree of salvation But faith is precedanious to salvation Therefore it is precedanious to the decree of salvation In this Hypotheticall Syllogisme the consequence of the Major is the very Enthymeme which is in question for the substance of it and consequently no proving of it but a meere begging of it Yet notwithstanding we doe not deny but that God did decree that no man should be saved but such as being of ripe years should be found to persevere in faith unto death none should be damned but such as should be found finally to persevere in sinne The other execution of these decrees consists as I said in the bestowing of the grace of faith and repentance on some and denying it unto others Now the question is Whether God be indeed the author of faith and repentance yea or no and because the Arminians dare not professedly deny this though lately they are come so farre as professedly to deny that Christ merited it therefore let the question proceede about the manner how God bestowes it as namely whether he bestowes it of his meer pleasure on some denying it to others or Whether the reason why God bestowes it on some and not on others be because God findes some good work in one which he findes not in another This question being decided it will clearly appeare whether predestination proceeds upon the foresight of ought in man yea or no. For if God of his meer pleasure doth bestow faith on one and not on another it followes undeniably that God predestinated him hereunto absolutely and of his meer pleasure without consideration of any future work of man But if God bestowes faith on man upon consideration of some precedent work of his which was not the work of God then and not otherwise neither it will follow that upon the consideration of that future work of man God did elect him unto faith or predestinate faith unto him So that if we desire sincerely and ingeniously to inquire what was the opinion of the Ancients about the absolutenesse of predestination we should state the question as touching Predestination unto faith and not as touching Predestination unto salvation For we all confesse that God predestinated no man unto salvation but such as he foresaw coming unto ripe years would believe sooner or later And therefore the main question between the Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants was whether this decree were the whole decree of Predestination and whether there were not another decree of Predestination besides as namely whether God did not decree to bestow faith on some and deny it unto others And secondly to inquire Whether this decree of bestowing faith on some did not proceed according to Gods good pleasure without consideration of any different work in man And the most compendious resolution hereof is to inquire of the manner how God carrieth himselfe in the bestowing of faith and repentance on some and denying it unto others as namely Whether on his meer pleasure he hath not mercy on some giving them faith and repentance and of his meer pleasure denyes the gift of faith and repentance unto others Now let the Fathers whosoever thinks good be admitted to bring in their suffrages on this Article and remember what was decreed in the first Synode that was gathered to make peace in the Church after Pelagius had disturbed it namely Gratiam non dari secundum merita that is as Bellarmine acknowledgeth Gratiam non dari secundum opera Lastly all of us now a daies consent as touching Gods concourse to the substance of every act of the creature whether good or evill Now let this Author or any other represent unto us what footing he finds in Antiquity concerning this But I come to answer particularly according to this Authors text He cannot find absolute and inevitable reprobation to have any footing in Antiquity Belike he can find reprobation evitable a strange phraise either way These attributes applied to damnation doe carry a faire sense with them damnation being a work of God wrought in time and undoubtedly may be avoided may be incurred for the time to come But reprobation is eternall as God himselfe and how that should be fancied to be of an avoidable condition for the time to come I cannot comprehend unlesse this Author be of their opinion who desire to shape Gods decrees of a revocable nature as being both to impute unto him an impotent immutability as some are pleased to phraise it But leave we reprobation unavoidable take we the absolute nature of it into consideration this he cannot find in all Antiquity But consider I pray he pretends these motives as inducements to change his former opinion so then belike he stood sometimes for reprobation absolute but did he find any footing in Antiquity for it what time he embraced it if he did formerly embrace it notwithstanding he found no footing in Antiquity for it why should he now relinquish it for finding no footing in Antiquity for it Belike the older he waxeth the more he groweth in love with Antiquity Again when formerly he did embrace the doctrine of absolute reprobation upon what grounds did he embrace it was it because he was in hope he should hereafter find Antiquity for it or was it only for the authority of them who brought him up in this opinion What sorry grounds are these to build a mans faith upon Yet this is not our course to impose Articles of faith on any but rather to endoctrinate them out of the word of God If then a mans Christian faith be built upon the Word
Deum out of God Therefore if any cause hereof be to be found it must be within God otherwise it must be confessed that all things became future by absolute necessity of nature If to help this they will devise something within the nature of God to be the cause hereof let them tell us what that is Not the Science of God for all confesse that secluding the divine will Gods knowledge is the cause of nothing If they say the will of God they concurre with us in embracing the same Opinion which they so much abhorre Nothing remaines to fly unto but the Essence of God If they plead that I demand whether the Essence of God working freely be the cause of the futurition of all things or as working necessarily If as working freely that is as much as to confesse in expresse termes that Gods will is the cause thereof But if they say the divine Essence is the cause hereof as working necessarily hence it followes that all things good and evill come from God as working by necessity of nature See I pray and consider the abominable and Atheisticall opinions that these Arminians doe improvidently cast themselves upon when they stretch their witts to overthrow Gods providence as it is carryed in the 11 th Article of Ireland which is this God from all Eternity did by his unchangeable Counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures and neither the liberty nor contingency of second causes is taken away but established rather In the Conclusion that which he vaunts of as touching the Fathers is meer wind for he gives you nothing but his word for it which of what credit it deserves to be I leave to the indifferent to judge And as for the plucking up of the rootes of vertue which he fables of Consider I pray what Sect of Philosophers were ever known to be more vertuous then the Stoicks and how was Zeno himselfe honoured by the Athenians for his grave and vertuous conversation Hath not Erasmus delivered it as out of the mouth of Hierome that Secta Stoicorum was Secta simillima Christianae Yet I no where find that they brought in any necessity that was not subordinate to the Will of the supream God But these Arminians bring in a necessity of nature from without God to make him to doe this or that if he doth any thing or at least to make God himselfe a necessary Agent devoyd of all liberty and freedome contrary to that of Ambrose concerning the manner of Gods working namely that it is Nullo necessitatis obsequio but solo libertatis arbitrio But according to these Divines it must be quite contrary Nullo â—ibertatis arbitrio solo necessitatis obsequio And thus much as touching the first sort of this Authors Reasons which he accounts only Inducing I come to the other sort which he esteemes convincing THE SECOND PART OF THE FIRST BOOK Wherein are Examined those Arguments against the Absolutenesse of DIVINE REPROBATION WHICH M r HORD Took to be of a CONVINCING NATURE OXFORD Printed by Leonard Lichfield Printer to the Vniversity M. D. C. LIII The Second Part of this Discourse consisting of ARGUMENTS CONVINCING whereof there are Five sorts The First sort of Convincing Reasons Drawn from Scripture DISCOURSE SECT I. THOSE of the Second sort by which for the present I stand convinced that absolute reprobation is no part of Gods truth are drawn from these five following heads 1. Pregnant Testimonies of Scripture directly opposite unto it 2. Some principall attributes of God not compatible with it 3. The end of the Word and Sacraments with other excellent gifts of God to men quite thwarted by it 4. Holy and pious endeavours much hindered by it if not wholly subversed 5. The grounds of comfort whereby distressed consciences are to be relieved are all overthrown by it It it contrary to pregnant places of Scripture even in terminis as will appeare by these instances 1. Ezech. 33. 11. As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner but that the wicked turne from his waies and live And least men should say 't is true God wills not the death of a repenting sinner the Lord doth in another place of the same Prophet extend the proposition to them also that perish Ezech. 18. 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth In this Scripture we may note three things 1. Gods affection to men set forth 1. Negatively I have no pleasure in his death that dyeth 2. Affirmatively But that the wicked turne 2. The persons in whose destruction he delighteth not wicked men such as for the rejecting of grace dye and are damned If God have no pleasure in their death much lesse in the death of men either altogether innocent or tainted only with originall sinne 3. The truth of this affection as I live cupit sihi credi saith Tertullian Lib. de paenit cap. 4. God would faine have us to believe him when he saith I will not the death of him that dyeth and therefore he bindes his speech with an oath O beatos nos quorum causa Deus jurat O miserrimos si nec juranti Domino credimus Happy are we for whose sakes the Lord vouchsafeth to sweare but most unhappy if we believe him not when he swears Now if God delight not in the destruction of wicked men he did never out of his own pleasure take so many millions of men lying in the fall and seale them up by an absolute decree under invincible damnation for such a kind of decreeing men to everlasting death is quite opposite to a delight in mens eternall life TWISSE Consideration TO say that this or that opinion is untrue because it doth in terminis contradict places of Scripture is a very superficiary consideration yet it is not the first time that I have found it to drop from an Arminians penne But that it is a very superficiary consideration I prove thus For to deny God the Sonne to be equall to the Father is in terminis to contradict a pregnant place of Scripture Phil. 2. Where it is expressely said of God the Sonne that he thought it no robbery to be equall to the Father yet notwithstanding it is agreeable to that of our Saviour where he saith the Father is greater then I and so vice versâ In like manner to say that God cannot repent is in terminis to contradict pregnant places of Scripture again to say that God can repent is in terminis to contradict other as pregnant places of Scripture yet neither of these is unsound because each phrase is agreeable to Scripture in some place or other And the reason hereof is because in terminis only to contradict the Scripture is not to contradict the Scripture But when we contradict the meaning of Scripture then and not till then are we justly said to contradict
death upon a sinner of meere pleasure but being provoked thereunto and that according to the purport of the first place Ezech 18. by the sinner himselfe and also according to the purport of the second place only in case of impenitency And I concurre with him in this And so I conceive it to be delivered in the same sense with that Lament 3. 32 33. For though he cause griefe to wit by reason of mens sinnes v. 39. yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies to wit in case he repents Ier. 18. 7. Iudg. 10. 16. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Mark I pray not willingly to wit in as much as he is provoked thereunto by sinne and by refusall to repent And this is in the former Scripture phrases not to take pleasure in the afflicting and grieving of men For if any work be such as wherein pleasure is taken we need not enquire after a cause why it is done but though no pleasure be taken in it yet for some benefit redounding thereby a man may doe it yea though it be grievous and bitter unto him As a sick man is willing to take a bitter potion for the recovery of his health Now come we to the argument God takes no pleasure in the death of any therefore he doth not of pleasure inflict death We willingly grant it in as much as he never inflicts eternall death on any that doth not dye in sinne unrepented of And as he doth not inflict death on any of meere pleasure that is without just cause on the part of him that dyeth deserving it So we willingly confesse that God did never decree to inflict death on any without just cause on the Malefactors part deserving death And this is the uttermost whereunto this Authors argument can be extended And all our Divines unanimously confesse that God neither decreed to damne any man of his meer pleasure but for his sinne wherein he died without repentance 3. Observe the cunning of this Disputer to deceive himselfe first and then to abuse his readers For whereas he should have proceeded in his argument by degrees thus God hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner therefore he doth not of his own pleasure inflict death and thence proceed if he had thought good to conclude the like of Gods decree thus if God doth not of his ownpleasure inflict then neither doth he of his own pleasure decree to inflict death and damnation This author leaping over the inflicting of death as a block in his way for the last consequence would have betrayed its own nakednesse flyeth at first to the application of it to Gods decree Now I willingly grant that Gods having no pleasure in the death of a sinner doth signify that God inflicts death on no man without a cause for that were of meer pleasure to inflict But dares he herehence inferre therefore God doth not of meer pleasure decree to inflict death and damnation on man for sinne for to this alone comes all the force of this argument Now to shew the vanity of this consequence consider I pray 1. It is as if he should argue thus in plain termes sinne is alwaies the meritorious cause of damnation therefore sinne is the meritorious cause of Gods eternall decree of damnation Now this Enthymeme hath no force any farther then it may be reduced into a Categoricall Syllogisme and this Enthymeme is reducible into no other Syllogisme then this Damnation is the decree of Damnation sinne is the cause of Damnation therefore sinne is the cause of the decree of damnation But in this Syllogisme the proposition containes a notorious untruth Or thus Sinne is the cause of damnation therefore the foresight of sinne is the cause of the decree of damnation But this Enthymeme is not reducible unto any categoricall Syllogisme at all for as much as it consists of foure termes all which must be clapt into the Syllogisme whereunto it is reduced and consequently make that Syllogisme consist of foure termes which utterly overthrowes the illative forme thereof 2. We may as well dispute thus Good works as well as faith and repentance are the disposing cause unto salvation therefore good works as well as faith and repentance or the foresight of them are the disposing cause to Gods election or to the decree of salvation But shall I tell you the chiefe flourish whereupon this Author and usually the Arminians doth insist in this his loose argumentation I conceive it to be this they hope their credulous readers unexpert in distinguishing between Gods eternall decree and the temporall execution thereof will be apt hereupon to conceit that we maintain that God doth not only of meer pleasure decree whatsoever he decreeth but also that he doth decree of meer pleasure to damne men which yet is utterly contrary if I be not deceived to the tenet of all our Divines all concurring in this that God in the execution of the decree of damnation proceeds according to a Law and not in the execution of reprobation only but also in the execution of election And the law is this Whosoever believes shall be saved whosoever believes not shall be damned And like as he inflicteth not damnation but by way of punishment so he conferres not salvation but by way of reward But in the execution of his decrees of election unto grace and reprobation from grace we willingly professe that God proceeds according to no law given unto men to prepare themselves hereunto but meerly according to his good pleasure having mercy on whom he will and hardning whom he will And this indeed is the criticall poynt of this controversy But neither this Author nor his complices some of them of my knowledge have any heart to deale on this I come to his Second pregnant place as he calleth it DISCOURSE SECT II. GOD hath shut up all in unbeliefe that he might have mercy on all Rom. 11. 32. in these words of the Apostle are two all 's of equall extent the one standing just against the other an all of unbelievers and an all of objects of mercy look how many unbelievers there be on so many hath God a will of shewing mercy And therefore if all men of all sorts and conditions and every man in every sort be an unbeliever then is every man of every condition under mercy And if every man be under mercy then there is no antecedent precise will in God of shutting up some and those the most from all possibility of obtaining mercy for these two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they cannot stand together TWISSE Consideration I Willingly grant the word all in each place is of equall extent but how in the Apostles meaning in this place that is look in what sense the Apostle takes the word all when he saith God hath concluded all under unbeliefe in the same sense he takes the word all when he sayeth that he might have mercy
such another speech in another place and concludes it with these Words Quare ergo Dominus nisi propter hoc Gallina esse voluit in sanctâ Scripturâ dicens O Jerusalem Jerusalem quoties volui te congregare ut gallina c. Our Lord and Saviour did therefore compare himselfe to a Hen rather then any other creature because of her singular expressions of love to her young ones even when they are out of her sight By these things we see how highly the Scriptures speak of Gods mercy especially in the expressions of it to Mankind To which testimonies let me adde these few more Psal 8. 4. Lord what is man that thou art mindfull of him c. Prov. 8. 31. In the children of men did the wisdome of God delight himselfe when the foundations of the earth were appoynted He took not the nature of Angells but the seed of Abraham Heb. 2. 16. When the bountifulnesse and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared Tit. 3. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the originall word is where doe we read of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 More mercifull is God to man then to all other creatures With such a mercy cannot stand such a decree absolute Reprobation being once granted we may me thinks more properly call God a Father of cruelties then of mercies and hatred then of love and the Devills names Satan and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an adversary a destroyer may be fitter for him then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Saviour which I tremble to think Doth mercy please him when he of his own will only hath made such a decree as shewes farre more severity towards poore men then mercy Is he slow to anger when he hath taken such a small and speedy occasion to punish the greater part of men in Hell torments for ever and for one sinne once committed hath shut up the greater part of men under invincible unbelief and damnation Is his mercy abundant doth it extend it selfe farther then justice when it is tackt up so short limited to a few chosen ones when 100 for one at least take in all parts of the World are unavoidably cast away out of his only will and pleasure Or doth his love passe knowledge when we see daily greater love then this in men and other creatures What Father and Mother that have not only cast off Fatherhood and Motherhood but humanity too so the Authors Copy hath it would determine their children to certain death or to cruell torments worse then death for one only offence and that committed too not by them in their own persons but by some other and only imputed unto them How much lesse would they give themselves to beget Children and bring them forth that they might bring them to the rack fire gallowes and such like tortures and deaths But to deliver things a little more closely Foure things in my conceit being well and distinctly considered doe make it apparent that this decree is incompatible with Gods mercy 1. That Adams sinne was the sinne of mans nature only and no mans personall transgression but Adams it was neither committed nor consented to by any of his posterity in their own persons 2. That it was the sinne of our nature not by generation for then the sinnes of our Grand-fathers and Fathers would be our sinnes also because we come from them and they would be our sinnes so much the more by how much nearer we are to the stock from which we doe immediatly spring then to the first root and common Father of Mankind It is the sinne of our nature by imputation only it was Gods will that he should stand up for a publique person and that in him all men should stand or fall This is generally granted by Divines and particularly by that excellent servant of God M. Calvin Neque enim factum est saith he ut a salute exciderant ommes unius parentis culpâ And a little after he saith Hoc cum naturae nequeat ascribi ab admirabili Dei consilio profectum esse minimè obscurum est And a little after thus unde factum est ut tot gentes uuà cum earum liberis infantibus aeterna morte involveret lapsus Adae absque remedio nisi quia Deo it à visum est 3. That God did pardon it in Adam who did actually and voluntarily commit it in his own person 4. That Christ came into the World to take away peccatum mundi the sinne of the World Ioh. 1. 29. That God either did or might have satisfied his wronged justice in the blood of the Covenant for all man kind and without any impeachment to justice might have opened a way of Salvation to all and every man These things being well considered will make no man I think to conclude in his thoughts that if there be any such decree God is not mercifull to man at all much lesse is he more mercifull supposing this decree to men then he is to other creatures but more sharpe and severe then he is to other creatures to the Devills themselves 1. To other creatures because the most of men are determined by his omnipotent decree to such a being as is a thousand times worse then no being at all whereas other creatures even the basest of them though they perhaps have but a contemptible being yet they have such a beeing as is much better then no being at all it is farre better not to be at all then to be eternally miserable without any possibility of the contrary for so saith our Saviour speaking of Judas It had been good for that man if he never had been borne Men would not have accepted of life and being when first they entred upon possession of it if they had known upon what hard conditions it was to be tendred and that it was to be charged with such an interest as can no waies be recompensed by the benefits of life or did men firmely believe this decree they would at adventure with Job curse their birth-day be willingly released from the right of creatures and desire that their immortall soules might vanish into nothing What Minutius saith of Pagans might be truly affirmed of men in generall Malunt extingui penitus quam ad supplicia reparari Nay Parents out of pitty to their Children would wish that they might be borne Snakes and Toads rather then men and creatures whose being shall at last be resolved into nothing rather then immortall Spirits 2. Then to the very Devills also who are set forth in Scripture to be the greatest spectacles of Gods wrath and irefull severity In one thing this decree makes most men and Devills equall Utrisque desperata salus they are both sure to be damned but in three things men are in a farre worse condition by it 1. In their appoyntment to Hell not for their own proper personall sinnes for which the Devills suffer but for the sinnes of
professeth that like as God hath mercy on whom he will so also he hardneth whom he will Yet hereis much matter made of the Hen like as D. Jackson hath done it before him but he betrayes no such authority for it out of Austin as this Author doth to whom he is beholding for it himselfe best knoweth If the pedegree be enquired into their conceits may be found to be of kinne yet give me leave to say somewhat of this similitude also And first this Author commits a very great Anomaly in entring upon it with such state as proves nothing answerable to his own profession anon after almost in the same breath Marke the state I pray of his entrance hereupon thus And as if these comparisons were too small too expresse Gods affection to his creatures he proceeds farther now the comparisons preceding were taken from reasonable creatures as namely from Fatherly and Motherly affections amongst men towards their children and these comparisons he signifies to have been to small to expresse Gods affections to his creatures and that therefore the Lord proceeds farther and compares himselfe to a Hen which he saith is one of the most affectionate females among unreasonable creatures not daring to say t is more affectionate then creatures reasonable yet most improvidently carried away with affectation of a Rhetoricall flourish he faignes a gradation from creatures lesse affectionate to creatures more affectionate and presently himselfe beats out the braines of his invention before he is aware as soon as it is borne As for Austins amplification of the affectionate nature of an Hen above other creatures we may consider that Austins Tractates on John are of the nature of Sermons and therein the ancients doe accommodate themselves to popular amplifications It is true we doe not know Sparrowes Swallowes Storkes Doves to be Mothers but when we see them in their nests but what is the true reason hereof Is it not because their young ones are wild and as soon as they are apt to fly one flies one way and another flies another way they come together no more it is not so with chickens which are tame creatures and we see the carriage of the Hen towards them we doe not see the carriage of other fowles towards their young ones Yet we read not the like of a Hen as of a Storke that when her nest was on fire out of a desire to save them with her wings from the fire hath not forsaken her young ones till shee was burnt her selfe And we have seen also how a Hen hath sometimes peckt her young ones and driven them from her when they would have roosted under her And in my judgement our Saviour doth not represent his tender affection to the Jewes by the generall affection of an Hen to hers but to that particular carriage of hers in desiring to gather her chickens under her wings Neither doe I think that he who invited those mighty men but unto what unto a Hen was to expresse his singularity of affection towards them be it that God is more mercifull to man then to all other creatures whence I pray proceeds this is it not meerly from the good pleasure of his own will and if so why may he not out of the meere pleasure of his own will restraine his saving mercy to some few who are accordingly called in Scripture expressely vessells of mercy distinguished from all the rest who are called vessells of wrath Whereas he saith that with such a mercy cannot stand such a Decree as absolute reprobation We answer neither doe we say any such decree doth stand with such a mercy it is rather absolute election stands with such a mercy then any reprobation The Scripture plainly giving us to understand that they on whom reprobation passeth are not vessells of mercy but vessells of wrath But like as God though he spared not Angells when they fell nor left any way open unto them for repentance whereby to returne to his grace and favour yet he spared man and left a way open unto him to returne to his grace and favour by faith in Christ In like sort though God were pleased absolutely to elect some amongst men yet this nothing precludes him from dealing as absolutely in reprobating others that is in purposing to deny them the spirit of faith and repentance whereby they might rise after they were fallen which grace most freely and absolutely he decreed to bestow and as freely and absolutely he doth bestow on others according to that of the Apostle Rom. 9. 18. he hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth By this I pray judge of the insipid nature of this discourse yet see the foulenesse of his mouth unlesse God be indifferent unto all and make all vessells of mercy he is a Father of Cruelty and more properly so to be called then a Father of mercies and the very name of the Devill for so he takes upon him to interpret that name in the Revelation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Destroyer is good enough for him And the conscience of his own piety no doubt expert in Paraphrasing and shaping some Rhetoricall flourishes and passionate expressions bears him out with such confidence as to feare no Blasphemy It is very likely he hath a high conceit of these performances that he is so bold as to professe in effect that if the contrary be true then will he be guilty of as great Blasphemy as to have called God Satan yet see the absurdity that throughout he may be like himselfe of his discourse whatsoever God be accounted by him in respect of reprobates doth this any way hinder him from being the Father of mercies towards his elect who alone in Scripture phrase are called vessells of mercy His hatred of Esau doth it any way hinder his love to Jacob If to damne be to destroy and no creature hath power to damne but God only can any be a destroyer in this kind but God as the efficient cause of Damnation and destruction But in case our Doctrine holds doth he damne any but for sinne and shall he in this case be stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense it is delivered in the Revelation What thinks he If many thousands even all the Infants of Turkes and Sarazens dying in originall sinne are tormented by him in Hell fire is he to be accounted the father of cruelties for this And I professe I cannot devise a greater shew and appearance of cruelty then in this Now I beseech you consider the spirit that breatheth in this man dares he censure God as a Father of cruelties for executing eternall death upon them that are guilty of it Now hath not he himselfe professed that all borne in originall sinne are borne guilty of eternall death his words are these Fol. 2. p. 2. That all mankind is involved in the first sinne and the fruits thereof which are corruption of nature and the guilt of eternall death And
this he confidently believes Now I should think that there is no shew of cruelty in executing eternall death on them that are guilty of it For if God were cruell herein then also he were cruell in damning each one whom he doth damne both Men and Angells Now I pray let every sober reader judge which is the greater cruelty of the two to execute eternall death on him that is guilty of it or to make him by meere imputation guilty of eternall death who otherwise is not guilty of it Is not this latter farre greater cruelty then the former Or indeed the only cruelty there being no cruelty in the other at all like as Cicero said for a Mule to bring forth having conceived is no strange thing but for a Mule to conceive that indeed is prodigious Now this latter is this Authors doctrine expressely professing in the next page to that where now we are that the sinne of Adam the fruit whereof he makes to be the guilt of eternall death is the sinne of our nature by imputation only whence it followeth that God makes all men guilty of eternall death by imputation only Now judge I pray which of us makes God the Father of cruelties he or wee This is the fruit of opposition to Gods grace for how can they tast of that grace of God which they impugne and in impugning it how can it be but that they should be given over to the curse of Gods wrath to fill up the measure of their sinne as it is said of the Jewes to fulfill their sinne alway for the wrath of God is come upon them to the uttermost yea and to be stricken with the spirit of giddinesse also and become like a drunken man that erreth in his vomit the issue whereof is to defile himselfe and those that are nearest to him Yet he trembles to think of these blasphemies for in all this you must think his zeale is very warme and his piety reakes So Saul persecuted the Saints of God as blaspheamers but when God did strike him downe with a light from Heaven that he found that himselfe only was the blaspheamer 1 Tim. 1. Well I am contented to consider his reaking fit Doth his mercy please him when he hath made such a decree as shewes farre more severity towards men then mercy Why holy Sir Gods severity towards some who in Scripture are called vessells of wrath what doth it hinder Gods mercy towards his elect Gods severity towards the Jewes did it any whit qualify Gods bountifulnesse towards the Gentiles I marvaile not he holds up his discourse of Gods mercy in generall that so it might be appliable to all this was a pretty dogge-trick of his But if Gods mercy hath his course towards his children only as himselfe makes the accommodation if God be severe towards those who are none of his shall this any way prejudice his mercy towards them or if he take liberty to account all Gods creatures his children by reason of creation why doth he not extend the mercy of God to Devills also and for shame leave off his former distinction of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and confesse ingeniously that t is not worth a rush But whether he will acknowledge it or no the Apostle plainly speaks of vessells of mercy in distinction from vessels of wrath and surely the course of his wrath on them doth nothing impaire the free course of his mercy toward others But give we him leave to breath on Is he slow to anger when he hath taken such a small and speedy occasion to punish the greater part of men in Hell torments for ever and for one sinne once committed hath shut up the greater part of men under invincible unbeliefe and damnation Now I pray apply this his devout interrogation unto the Angells that fell who upon the first sinne committed by them have ever since been shut up under invincible hardnesse of heart and damnation Yet what doth this hinder his slownesse of anger which is to be understood of the execution of his wrath not of his decree For all the decrees of God are everlasting nor can be otherwise And as for the execution of wrath the Devills themselves feele it not yet they are reserved to the judgement of the great day they believe and tremble they cryed out to our Saviour art thou come to torment us before our time Nay suppose all were to be damned to eternall death as soon as they were borne what injustice were there in this if so be all be found guilty of eternall death which this Author denies not Nay farther he saith it is God that hath made them guilty of it by meere imputation yet as for the corruption of nature which he makes to be the other fruit of Adams sinne I doe not find that he ascribes that to divine imputation Now what is the nature of this corruption is it invincible unbeliefe or no if it be then he disputes against himselfe as well as against us if it be not what unbeliefe doth he call it or is it no unbeliefe at all So I demand whether it be invincible hardnesse of heart or no if not whether at all it is to be called hardnesse of heart if notwithstanding this corruption a man hath power to believe to obay power to yeeld to any spirituall good whereto he shall be excited why doth he call it naturall corruption The Apostle plainly professeth of them that are in the flesh that they cannot please God that the naturall man perceiveth not the things of God and that he cannot know them of some that they could not believe of others that they cannot repent But be all this granted he is never a whit the lesse slow to anger that is to punish the Devills themselves as yet doe rather feare then feele his wrath Lastly touching punishing in hell it is either spoken of Infants or Men of ripe years if of Infants departing in infancy if guilty of eternall death t is no injustice to inflict it and though he be slow to anger towards some yet it is not necessary he should be so to others The Scriptures witnesse the contrary in the flood where Infants perished as well as others and in the destruction of Sodome by fire where none were spared save Lot and his two Daughters As for men of ripe years their damnation is not for originall sinne only but for actuall sinnes unrepented of The Angells fell irrecoverably upon one actuall sinne I know not the like condition of any besides And as for the smallnesse of Adams sinne which this Author is pleased to extenuate by calling it a small occasion as if he were of his spirit that said If God turned Adam out of Paradise for eating an Apple shall not I turne thee out of my service for purloyning a fat Capon Why doth he not charge God rather for making all men hereupon guilty of eternall death by meere imputation as himselfe
saith then for inflicting eternall death only on them that are guilty of it as we say But let we him finish the Declamation he hath begunne Is his mercy abundant doth it extend it selfe farther then justice when it is tackt up so short limited to a very few chosen ones when a hundred for one at least are unavoidably cast away out of his only will and pleasure As touching this I have already shewed how much he is out in his Algebra but let that passe unlesse this Divine take upon him to deliver truer Oracles then Saint Paul we are bound to believe that the elect only are vessells of mercy distinguished from reprobates as vessells of wrath Rom. 9. 22 23. and toward these alone it is that his mercy is abundant in the way of bestowing saving and spirituall graces It is untrue that he hath proved any such thing as he pretends namely that Gods mercy is extended to more persons then his justice And applied aright namely as touching mercy seen in pardoning sinnes in changing the heart and saving soules which are peculiar to Gods elect the most brazen faced opposite to Gods holy truth that liveth cannot deny but that they to whom these are granted are farre fewer then they to whom they are denied And if within the Church only for there only are found such as feare God his mercy extends to thousands of them that feare him when but to the third and fourth generation he punisheth the sinnes of the Father upon the Children which is all the proofe this Author brings to this purpose it followeth not herehence that his mercy extendeth any whit to more then doth his justice considering the small proportion of those within the Church and therein of them that feare him in comparison to those without the Church And like as visiting the sinne of Fathers which is commonly understood of temporall punishments so in proportion the mercy is to be understood of temporall mercy And we well know that it is nothing necessary that a man that fears God should have children And like as God doth not alwaies thus visit the sinnes of Fathers upon the Children in like sort it is not alwaies necessary that God should shew mercy to thousands of every one of them that feare him He dealt so with Abraham Isaack and Iacob they to whom the Law was delivered knew this full well then again must not they who look to have an interest in this gracious promise look unto it that they walk in the steps of their Forefathers that feared God By all which may appeare the superficiary nature of this Disputants argumentation even then when the zeale of his cause makes him as most confident so also most luxuriant Lastly doe we say that God damnes any man out of his only will and pleasure Doe we not professe that he damnes no man but for sinne And as he damnes no man but for sinne so likewise that he decreed to damne no man but for sinne though there could be no cause of this his decree but of his meere will and pleasure he made this decree namely to damne many thousands for their sinnes But let him come to an end of this his roaving discourse when he thinks good and not before Or doth his love passe knowledge when we see daily greater love then this in men and other creatures What Father or Mother would determine their children to certain death or to cruell torments worse then death for one only offence and that committed too not by them in their own persons but by some other and only imputed unto them How much lesse would they give themselves to beget Children and bring them forth that they might bring them to the rack fire gallowes and such like tortures and deaths What doe I heare Doth man or any creature shew more love to their Children then God doth towards his Elect Did they ever provide such a sacrifice to make satisfaction for their Childrens sinnes as God did provide for his Yea but reprobates also are Gods Children this must needs be his meaning though in plain termes he spared to expresse so much How unnaturall then was Christ who would not pray for the World if they were all his children And what meant he to professe that he sanctified himselfe only for them for whom he prayed Which sanctification of himselfe was in respect of the offering up of himselfe upon the crosse as Maldonate confesseth was the interpretation of all the Fathers whom he had read And in that prayer professeth of them saying they are thine and thou gavest them unto me as much as to say the World was not his And farther consider Is it safe to measure out Gods proceedings by the proceedings of men What Father or Mother would be content to execute a Child of theirs upon the Gallowes when by some capitall crime he hath deserved it How much lesse hold them upon the rack of continuall tortures what then must not God be allowed to inflict eternall death upon his creatures And what hath an earthly Father or Mother to doe either to determine or execute death on any This belongs to God not to man unlesse he make choyce of them as of his Ministers for the execution of vengeance But this Author is nothing yet awaked out of his dreames or his Arminian Lethargy Yet I hope he will grant that God did foresee all this even the sinnes of Judas in betraying and of the Jewes in crucifying the Sonne of God yet neverthelesse he was content to bring forth both him and them into the World Now what earthly Father and Mother would not make choyce rather to be Childlesse then to bring forth such children as should deale with them as Nero dealt with his Mother Proceed then and as from the affections of earthly Fathers and Mothers he disputes against the absolutenesse of Gods decrees so also in the next place let him conclude the like to the utter overthrowing of Gods foreknowledge Yet who of our Divine saith that God for one offence hath determined death and tortures to any reprobate of ripe years Doe they not all professe that as many as dye in actuall sinnes unrepented of God determined to damne them for those actuall sinnes unrepented of I doe not think he can alleadge any that denies this Againe what one of our Divines maintaines that Infants perishing in originall sinne are damned for that sinne which is made theirs only by imputation What a shamelesse habit hath he gotten to himselfe to deliver untruths yet will he not I warrant you be accounted a Pelagian neither will he plainly deny originall sinne as Grevincovius is said to have done and that testibus convinci potuit Their Tenets are nothing lesse shamefull then Pelagius his Tenets were only they have not that ingenuity which Pelagius had in professing plainly that there was no originall sinne conveyed unto us by propagation Now he comes more closely unto the matter yet but a little neither a
loose and dissolute discourse is most suitable with his Genius 1. Adams sinne was no mans personall sinne but Adams true for there was no man then but Adam but all men being the posterity of Adam were then in Adam in that one person of Adam and in him all have sinned saith the Apostle Rom. 5. and without consent to sinne they could not sinne 2. When he saith this sinne of Adam was not the sinne of our nature by generation it is so wild an expression that I professe I cannot devise any tolerable sense of it That we were in Adam when he sinned it was fully sufficient to bring upon us that corruption that depth of corruption wherein we are all conceived and borne and not by imputation What Divine amongst Papists or Protestants is he that maintains that Adams sinne was the sinne of our nature by imputation This is undoubtedly one of Arminius his flowers which this Author takes up among the rest to make himselfe a nosegay to smell unto It was Gods will that all should stand or fall in him For if it had pleased him he could have destroyed Adam for his transgression and made a new stock from whom to derive the World of Mankind But resolving all should descend from him he must withall resolve that upon the sinne of Adam and of them all in him they must take from him such natures as Adams nature and therein all our natures were made corrupt by sinne excepting Gods grace to provide better both for Adam and his posterity as he thought good So that look in what sort Adams nature was corrupted by sinne in such sort must we receive corrupt natures from him Here Calvin is brought in with a robe of commendation as an excellent servant of God But God knowes his heart and the hearts of all that oppose Gods truth in these poynts T is true that Calvin saith both in respect of Gods power to have propagated Mankind from another originall then from Adam as also in respect of his power to reforme corrupt nature in whomsoever it pleased him But did Calvin think it possible for corrupt nature to propagate any other nature then it selfe is God made man after his Image and likenesse but afterwards we read that Adam brought forth a sonne after his Image and likenesse who can bring a clean thing out of that which is uncleane saith the book of Job And that which is borne of flesh is flesh saith our Saviour But doth it herehence follow or doth Calvin or any Calvinist or Lutheran or Papist say that Adams sinne is made ours only by imputation The case is not alike of other parents For Adam was created in grace and endued with the spirit of God this holy condition was lost by the sinne of Adam and we receiving our natures from him in the state of his corruption must therewithall receive natures bereaved of grace and of the spirit of God No such detriment to our pure nature was wrought or could be wrought by the transgression of any other progenitor no nor by any other sinne of Adam besides the first 3. God did pardon it in Adam upon his repentance so is he ready to pardon it and all actuall sinnes also of all men upon their repentance And God renewed Adam too of his free grace after he was corrupt and regenerated him by shewing mercy upon him But this work proceeds according to the meer pleasure of Gods will as the Apostle witnesseth saying He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth 4. Christ came into the World to take away the sinnes of the World that is by satisfaction for sinne to merit the pardon of it nor pardon of sinne only but salvation of soule also but for whom surely for none but such as should sooner or latter believe in him for God hath ordained that these benefits of Christs death and obedience should not be distributed absolutely but conditionally to wit upon the condition of faith But as for the benefits of faith and repentance these are not benefits communicable upon a condition for what condition can precede them but a worke of man and it was condemned 1200 years agoe to say grace is given according unto merits that Bellarmine interprets simply of works though Papists are apt enough to stand for merits and the Apostle saith in plain tearmes that God doth not call us according unto works these therefore are communicated according to the meere pleasure of Gods will He might have given faith to all but he would not I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion Exod. 33. These things he saith being well considered will make any man as he thinks to conclude in his thoughts that if there be any such decree God is not mercifull to men at all A most unshamefac't pretence and savouring of a spirit that hath expectorated all naturall ingenuity doth not every one perceive that all this nothing at all hinders the incomprehensible nature of Gods mercy towards his Elect Dares he himselfe in plain termes deny this namely that it nothing prejudiceth the course of Gods mercy towards his Elect For what if by the sinne wherein they are borne they be made guilty of eternall death yet if God be pleased to pardon this sinne nor this only but all actuall transgressions of theirs yea and break the yoake of their corruption and as he seeth their wayes so to heale them yea to heale their rebellions and backslidings to subdue their iniquities to rule them with a mighty hand to make them passe under the rod and bring them unto the bond of the covenant and when he hath brought them thither to hold them there to perfect the good work he hath begun in them As he hath laid the foundation of his temple in their hearts so to finish it to be the Author and finisher of their faith and as of their faith so of their repentance to hold them in his hands so that none shall take them therehence to keep them by the power of God through faith unto salvation to build them upon a rock that the gates of hell shall not prevaile against them either to deliver them from the howre of temptation or to deliver them out of it or so to order it that it shall not be above their strength to be with them when they goe through the water and through the fire that the floods shall not overwhelme them the fire shall not burne them but as he leads them into it so he will support them in it and lead them through it as he led the Children of Israel into the red sea and in the red sea as an horse in the Wildernesse that they should not stumble and out of the red sea into the Wildernesse and in the Wildernesse and out of the Wildernesse In a word to fulfill the good pleasure of his goodnesse towards them his grace in them
pleasing to them At saith he ut innotescat quod latebat suave fiat quod non delectabat Dei gratia est quae humanas adjuvat voluntates We doe not smother this truth of God that we may delude men we rather represent how all flesh are obnoxious and endangered unto God that all are borne in sinne and therewithall children of wrath and such as deserve to be made the generation of Gods curse and that it is at his pleasure to shew mercy on any only the word of God hath power to raise us from the dead his voyce pierceth the graves and makes dead Lazarus heare it and it is his course to call some at the first some at the last hower of the day Thus we desire to bring them acquainted first with the spirit of bondage to make them feare that so they may be prepared for the spirit of Adoption whereby they shall cry Abba father neither doe we despaire of any that are humbled with feare we count rather their case most desperate who are nothing moved hereby or that perswade themselves they have power to believe when they will and repent when they will we account no greater illusions of Satan then these yet these abominable opinions may be fostered by some and masked with a pretence of great piety forsooth and a shew of holinesse and a zeale of defending Gods glory and salving the honour of his mercy justice and truth 3. The third is in their obligation to believe and the aggravation of their punishment by not believing The Divells because they must be damned are not commanded to believe in Christ yet poore men must be tied to believe in Christ and their torments must be encreased if they believe not I make no doubt but this Author is as confident of his learned and judicious carriage in shaping this comparison as that the fruit of Adams sinne is the guilt of eternall death in all mankind But none so bold we commonly say as blind Bayard and it seems either he knowes not or considers not that the first sinne of Angells was unto them as death unto man that sinne placed them extra viam and in termino incur abilis miseriae as death only placeth wicked men in the like case Now we doe not say that God commands man after he is dead to believe in Christ any more then he commands obedience unto Angells since their case is become desperate The Divells are not commanded to believe or repent because God doth not nor never did purpose to damne any of them for want of faith or of repentance but for their first Apostacy from God But it is otherwise with man for God doth not purpose to damne any of them but for sinne unrepented of And therefore as good reason there is why their damnation should be encreased for want of repentance and acknowledging of Gods truth as why the Devills should be damned for their first Apostacy If perhaps as it is likely enough this Author to hold up his comparison shall fly to God decree of reprobation upon supposition whereof it was impossible that men should either believe or repent I answere first that in like sort upon supposition of Gods foreknowledge that they would neither believe nor repent it followeth as necessarily as it is necessary that Gods knowledge should be infallible that it was impossible they should believe and repent and the like followeth as necessarily of the Apostacy of Angells as of the infidelity and impenitency of man And as men are pretended to harden themselves in vitious courses upon supposition of the unalterable nature of Gods decree So Austin gives instance in like manner of one that hardened himselfe upon pretence of Gods infallible knowledge De bono persever cap. 15. Fuit quidem in nostro Monasterio qui corripientibus fratribus our quaedam nonfacienda faceret facienda non faceret respondebat qualiâ—cunque nunc sim talis ero qualem me Deus esse futurum praescivit Qui profecto verum dicâ—hat hoc vero non proficiebat in â—onum sed vsque adeo profecit in malum ut deserta Monasterii societâ—te fieret canis reversus ad â—uum vonutum tamen adbuc qualis sit futurus incertum est Secondly I answer that the like may be said of Angells upon presupposition of Gods decree to deny the grace of standing unto them which Austin professeth expressely namely that either in their creation minorem acceperunt amoris divini grattam or that afterwards the reason why the one sort stood when the other fell was this to wit because they were amplius adjuti then their fellowes and consequently the other minus adjuti And as God gave grace to the elect Angells which he denyed to others So it cannot be denied but that from everlasting he decreed both to bestow it upon the one and deny it unto the other Now howsoever I know the Arminian party cannot swallow this morsell yet by this it appears how supersiciary is that augmentation of the difference between Men and Angells wherewith this Author contents himselfe yet notwithstanding it is not want of faith alone that condemneth any man by want of Faith man is lest to the covenant of works to stand or fall according to his own righteousnesse or unrighteousnesse whereof if he faile and withall despiseth the counsell or God offered him in his Gospell is there noe good reason his condemnation should be the greater For certainly it is in the power of a naturall man to afford as much faith to this as to many a vile and fabulous relation which is farre lesse credible by judgement naturall we see both prophane persons and hypocrites so farre to believe the Gospell as to embrace a formall profession thereof and sometimes proceed so farre therein as that 't is a hard matter to distinguish them from sincere professors yet we say a true faith is only such as is infused into the heart of man by the spirit of God in regeneration Now what one of our Divines can be represented that ever was known to affirme that the damnation of any man shall be encreased because God did not regenerate him and in regeneration inspire a Divine faith into him As for our answer in generall to this argument considered in briefe and this Authors reply my refutation thereof I dispatcht in the first place Although he carrieth himselfe not fairely in relating the answer on our part in as much as therein he mixeth the consideration of justice divine which is aliene from the present purpose with the consideration of mercy divine which alone is congruous that so while he puts off the plenary justification of his reply to that which is aliene he may seem to undertake a full justification of his reply to the whole But I hope we shall be as able by Gods assistance to manifest his sinister carriage in the interpretation of Gods justice as we have done already as touching his accommodation of
repentance on whom he will because he finds all equall in naturall corruption and no difference in any whereby to move God to bestow grace on him rather then on another The case is not alike when God comes to bestow salvation and inflict damnation for some he finds dying in sinnes others dying in the Lord yet we deny not but by power absolute and secluding the determination of his own will he could annihilate the righteous as well as the wicked In like sort the whole course of nature depends meerely upon the pleasure of God yet we say it is naturall for a Leprous person to beget a Leprous person and so as naturall it is for that which is borne of the flesh to be flesh though each depends upon the constitution of God For albeit Adam lost the spirit of God by his transgression and all supernaturall graces wherewith he was endued yet like as God by regeneration of his meere pleasure restored them afterwards to Adam and in due time doth restore them to every one of his Elect so in their very conception if it pleased God he could for Christs sake infuse them notwithstanding the sinne of Adam and consequently it is the free act of God in refusing after this manner to deale with them Yet this nothing hinders but that the propagation of spirituall corruption unto all Adams posterity may be as naturall as the propagation of any hereditary disease from the Father to the child and over and above that it is not in the way of meer pleasure but in the way of justice for the sinne of Adam which was the sinne of our nature bereaving him of that originall righteousnesse wherein he was â—reated and causing all mankind to be 1. Derived from him whereas he could have otherwise provided 2. And that from Adam after his nature was corrupt with sinne whereas he could have derived posterity from him before his fall had it pleased him And therefore I approve the second Canon of the Synod of Dort whereunto our English Divines with many others subscribed where they professe that the corruption derived from Adam to his posterity was per vitiosae naturae propagationem justo Dei iudicio derivata This I take to be much different from saying Adams sinne is made ours by meer pleasure or by imputation only So the fifteenth Article in the confession Ecclesiarum Belgicarum runs thus Credimus Adami in obedientiâ peccatum originis in totum genus humanum diffusum esse quod est totius naturae corruptio vitium haereditarium quo ipsi infantes in matris suae utero polluti sunt quodque veluti radix omne peccatorum genus in homine producit ideoque ita foedum execrabile est coram Deo ut ad generis humani condemnationem sufficiat Our Brittain Divines in their second Thesis upon the third and fourth Articles explicate themselves concerning the condition of originall sinne in this manner Lapsae voluntati inest non tantum peccandi possibilitas sed etiam praeceps ad peccandum inclinatio Nec aliter se potest res habere in homine corrupto nondum per divinam justitiam restaurato cùm ea sit natura voluntatis ut nuda manere nequeat sed ab uno cui adhaeserat objecto excidens aliud quaerat quod cupidè amplectatur ideo per spontaneam defectionem habitualiter adversa a Deo creatore in creaturam effraeni impetu fertur ac cum ea libidinose ac turpiter fornicatur semper avida fruendi utendis ac vetita moliendi ac patrandi Quid mirum ergo si talis voluntas sit Diaboli maneipium I find indeed in Corvinus such a profession of his namely that ex puro Dei arbitrio qui Adami peccatum nobis imputare voluit etiam in nos reatus derivatus est And Walaeus in answer unto him writes thus Nec quinto illo ad Rom. Capite ad quod nos hic Corvinus remittit quicquam tale dicitur aut innuitur nempe quod ex mero Dei arbittio pendeat haec primi peccati imputatio 2. The Second thing he puts upon our Divines is That God hath determined for that sinne to cast away the farre greater part of mankind for ever and so they make God to doe that by two acts the one accompanying the other which the other say he did by one To which I answer First that if they say that God doth no more by two acts then the other say God did by one seeing I have proved that the other doe no way maintain that God doth punish the righteous with the wicked which is his immodest and unshamefac't crimination no nor doe they maintain that God determined to damne any but for sinne and which is more then that supposing humanum genus nondum conditum to be the object of reprobation yet doth it not follow that in any moment of nature the decree of damnation is before the consideration of sinne surely neither will it follow by the Sublapsarian Doctrine that God doth not decree to punish any man with damnation but for those sinnes wherein he dyeth unrepented of much lesse that God doth punish the righteous with the wicked which is the crimination of this Author proposed I doubt against his own conscience T is true some perish only in originall sinne and that justly for if they be borne children of wrath is it strange if they dye children of wrath And is it not just with God to inflict eternall death on them whom this Author professeth to be guilty of eternall death only he saith that God of his meer pleasure makes them guilty of eternall death That is his saying not ours For though we say originall sinne makes a man guilty of eternall death by the free constitution of God yet we say not that this free constitution of God was made of his meer pleasure but justo Dei judicio like as whosoever believes not shall be damned here damnation is by the free constitution of God made the portion of unbelievers but dares this Author inferre herehence that it is not made so justo Dei judicio indeed God gives grace according to the meere pleasure of his will but no wise man will say that he damnes men according to the meere pleasure of his will for this phrase implies that there is no cause thereof on mans part And indeed there is no cause on mans part why God should give him grace but there is cause enough on mans part why God should inflict damnation on him and yet this work of God though just is never a whit the lesse free So in damning for originall sinne only though Gods constitution hereof be just yet is it never a whit the lesse free and though it be free yet it is never a whit the lesse just And like as damnation is inflicted on finall impenitents sola Dei constitutione only by vertue of this constitution Divine whosoever repents not of his sinne shall be
damned for it is apparent God might have annihilated them had it so pleased him yet is it never a whit the lesse just In like sort it is by the sole constitution of God that originall sinne is propagated to all men Christ excepted for God could have derived mankind from another stock after Adams fall and as he doth regenerate men usually by his word so he might if it pleased him in their very conception give them his spirit and those supernaturall graces whereof Adam was deprived by sinne yet the propagation of sinne from Adam to posterity is never a whit the lesse just no nor any whit the lesse naturall like as the whole course of nature depends upon the alone constitution of God But when I say that God can without respect of sinne inflict any torment upon his creature this is delivered of power absolute This power the Lord did execute upon his own sonne for what was his sinne Was he not the spotlesse lamb of God Yet what agonies did he suffer in the garden what torments and terrours upon the crosse when hee cryed out My God my God Why hast thou forsaken mee But the like power he doth not execute on us only he gives us authority to exercise the like power over other creatures if the powder of an Hare burnt alive in an Oven be found to be wholsome for us he gives us leave thus to deale with him and the like yet have not these creatures sinned either against God or against us Of this absolute power of God I have discoursed more sparingly in the place cited by him Lib. 1. p. 2. De Electione digres 3. If this Author hath any mind to except against it either in whole or in part he might have tried his strength and not contented himselfe with shewing his teeth only Yet by his leave whether those he speaks of will concurre with me in this it is more then I know but to serve his turne at this present against those whom he hath tyed himselfe to oppose as he professeth he cares little what he avoucheth to save himselfe of farther pains By the way let me take notice of one argument more then I dreamt of for the maintenance of Gods absolute power to inflict any pain upon a creature and that of his meer pleasure which this Author ere he is aware suggests unto me And accordingly thus I dispute If God can out of his meer pleasure make a man guilty of eternall death surely it seems that of his meer pleasure he may inflict eternall death on any But God can of his meer pleasure make a man guilty of eternall death as I prove out of this Author who professeth that God out of his meer pleasure made all mankind guilty of eternall death Now we commonly say that ab actu ad potentiam valet argumentum And see farther how miserably he overlasheth The highest degree whereunto he can improve the harshnesse of our Doctrine is this that we should teach that God doth decree the misery of an innocent man Now I pray consider is it not as harsh that God should decree the death the agonics the sorrowes and tortures of an innocent man And is it not apparent that God decreed the death and those unspeakable sorrowes of his innocent sonne Yet we say not that God decreed any other mans death or damnation but only for sinne But it is all one in his opinion to say God decrees the misery of an innocent man and to purpose that he shall be involved in a sinne that so he may be brought to misery First I say his opinion is no Oracle if it were the world would soon grow wild Secondly this sufficeth not to prove his crimination which was this that by our Doctrine we make God to punish the righteous with the wicked not that we make God to doe that which is all one in substance Thirdly his best arguments are his phrases whereby he hopes to season others affections as well as his own as in saying God purposed man shall be involved in sinne For if he speake of mankind made guilty of the sinne of Adam he forgets his own Tenet that God of his meer pleasure makes Adams sinne the sinne of his posterity and thereby of his meer pleasure makes them guilty of eternall death And as touching our Tenet herein is there any such harshnesse in saying that God causeth a leprous child to be borne of Leprous parents But if he speak it in generall of any sinne for which any man is damned our Doctrine is that the sinnes which come to passe must needs be permitted by God and for God to permit any sinne is to will that such a sinne shall come to passe by Gods permission Arminius himselfe professing that if God permit a man to will that which is evill Necesse est ut nullo argumentorum genere persuadeatur ad nolendum And the Scripture is expresse as touching the foulest actions that ever were committed by man to wit in the most contumelious usages of the sonne of God namely that both Herod and Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered together to doe what Gods hand and Gods Counsell had predetermined to be done And when Fulgentius saith that God had been unjust if he had predestinated stantem ad ruinam ad ruinam here is ad peccatum and Predestination in the Fathers sense is only eorum quae Deus ipse facturus erat which God himselfe meant to effect not what he meant to suffer That they took predestination in this sense it appears by Austin lib. 2. de bono persever c. 17. his words are these In sua quae falli mutarique non potest praescientia opera sua futura disponere illud omnino nec aliud quicquam est praedestinare Marke it well opera sua his works now sinne is no work of God but a work of the creature only I come to his second reason DISCOURSE SUBSECT II. IT is against Gods Justice because it makes him to require faith in Christ of those to whom he hath in his absolute purpose denied both ability to believe and a Christ to believe in That Reprobates are bound to believe as well as others it is the constant Doctrine of Divines amongst whom Zanchius delivers it for a Thesis Quisque saith he mandato Dei tenctur credere se ad salutem aeternam in Christo fuisse electum maxime is qui fidem in Christum profitetur And in his explication of this Thesis he saith Cum dicimus unumquemque teneri hoc credtre neminem ne reproios quidem qui neque unquam credent nec credere in Christum possunt excipimus nisi credant gravissime ommum peccant Every man especially he that professeth Christ is bound to believe that he is chosen in Christ to salvation every man without exception even the Reprobate himselfe and if he believe it not he commits a most grievous sinne above all others This
is ingaged to give ability of believing unto men he may as well inferre that he is engaged to give ability unto men to the keeping of his law and what need was there of Christs coming into the world Seeing by his coming into the world we have gained no better condition by the Arminian Tenet than to be saved if we will and if men have ability to to keepe the law even by the law they may be saved if they will and it will follow as well that God without giving this ability to keepe the law cannot justly punish the transgressours of it as that God without giving men ability to believe cannot punish men for not believing no more than a Magistrate having put out a mans eyes for an offence can command this man with justice to read a booke and because he reads not put him to death But this is a very vile simile and stands in no tolerable proportion to that whereunto it is resembled For the man thus bereaved of his eyes hath a will to read and consequently it is no fault for not reading for all sinne is in the will But it is not so in not obeying either Law or Gospell If a man had a will to obey and believe but he could not in such a case it were unreasonable he should be punished But in the case of disobedience unto God we speake of all the fault is in the will voluntarily and wilfully they neither will obey the one nor the other like as they that have accustomed themselves to doe evill can not doe good as a blackemoore cannot change his skinne Yet with this difference that man is never a whit the more excusable or lesse punishable for not doing that which is good not so the blackemore for not changing his skinne But such is the shamefull issue of them that confound impotency Morall with impotency naturall as if there were no difference As wild is the comparison following of the Masters exacting from his Servant a just employment of that stock which he hath taken from him An evill servant may have a will to play the good husband in imploying his Masters stock where he pleased to intrust him with it But though he hath a will to be faithful and thrifty yet without matter to worke upon he cannot exercise this fidelity of his to his Masters behoofe Shew the like will in a carnall man to believe if he could and if God bereave him of power in such a case then conclude the unreasonablenesse of Gods courses herein But if the Master gave him a stock to employ upon a resonable rent to be payd him yearly for certaine yeares if so be the servant wast the stock Shall it not be lawfull for the Master neverthelesse to require his debt And bid him pay that he owes him This is the case we speake of In Adam we all have sinned saith the Apostle and thereby have wasted that stock of grace which God had given us and so disabled our selves to performe that duty we owe to God What therefore Shall not God call upon us to pay our debts because we are become bankrupts Especially considering the naturall man is proud enough of his abilities to performe any thing that is good And as for ability to believe is there not a kind of faith performed by prophane persons by Hypocrites who concurre with the best in the profession of the Gospell Nay Is there not a secret kind of hypocrisie as when a man thinks his heart is upright towards God when indeed it is not Otherwise what should move Saint Paul to call upon the Corinthians to examine themselves whether they were in the faith saying Know you not your selves how that Christ is in you except ye be reprobates 2 Car. 13. 5. It is true there is a faith infused by the spirit of God in regeneration but who ever said that any man was damned because he doth not believe with such a faith As much as to say that non-regeneration is the meritorious cause of damnation Now how well he hath proved that our Doctrine in the poynt of absolute reprobation is repugnant to Gods justice let the indifferent judge DISCOURSE SECT IV. Which I divide into Three Subsections SUBSECT I. THe Third Attribute which it oppugneth is the truth of God God is a God of truth Deut. 32. 4. Truth it selfe Ioh. 14. 6. So called because he is the fountain of truth and the perfection of truth without the least mixture of false-hood the strength of Israell cannot lye 1 Sam. 15. 29. Never could any man justly charge him with dissembling Let God be true and every man a lyar saith the Apostle that he might be justified in his sayings and overcome when he is judged Rom. 3. 4. That is men may lye for all men are lyars but God cannot lye for God is true if any man should goe about to challenge him of untruth his challenge would easily appeare to be a calumny The truth of God like a glorious Sunne will break through all those clouds of accusations which seek to obscure and hide it Simile gaudet Simili God loves such as are of a true heart Psal 51 6. And hath an hypocrite in utter detestation and therefore he must needs be true himselfe No man for ought I know doubts of it But by this decree is God made untrue and hypocriticall in his dealing with all men and in all matters that concerne their eternall estate particularly in his commands in his offers of grace and glory in his threats in his passionate wishes and desires of mens chiefest good and in his expostulations and commiserations also 1. In his commands for by this doctrine God commands those men to repent and believe whom he secretly purposeth shall never believe Now whom God commands to believe and repent those he outwardly willes should believe and repent For by his commandements he signifies his will and pleasure and he must inwardly and heartily will it too or else he dissembles For words if they be true are an interpretation of the mind when they are not are meere impostures and simulations 2. In his offers of grace and glory these offers he makes to such as refuse them and perish for refusing them as well as unto those who doe accept them to their salvation This is evident Math. 22. where those were invited to the wedding that came not And Acts 3. 26. Where t is said To you hath God sent his Sonne Jesus to blesse you in turning every one of you from your iniquities Math. 23. 37. How oft would I have gathered of you saith Christ speaking of such as neglect the day of their visitation and so lost their salvation This is evident also by reason for as many as are under the commandement are under the promise too as we may see Acts 2. 38 39. Repent and be Baptized every one of you and you shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost for to you and to your Children
decree of predestination besides this namely that God over and above hath determined to bestow faith on some So on the other side none of our Divines were ever known to deny that God hath decreed that whosoever believes not shall be damned but further they professe that this is not the whole decree of reprobation but that there is another decree concerning reprobation besides this namely that God hath over and above decreed to deny some the grace of faith and that absolutely Now whereas he saith we maintain that God hath irrevocably decreed not to save some whom he promiseth that he will save if they believe Is he well in his witts for charging us with that by way of crimination which no understanding Divine among the Arminians themselves dare deny I mean as touching the poynt of Gods irrevocable decree For what Arminian hath dared in plain tearmes to professe that Gods decrees are of a revocable nature Whereas the meere prescience of God is sufficient to make them irrevocable How much more if Gods prescience be grounded upon his decree as indeed there is no other ground imaginable without falling upon manifest Atheisme But whereas he fashioneth our Doctrine so as if we said that God hath decreed at no hand to save them to whom he promiseth salvation upon condition of faith this is a notorious untruth and such as implyeth manifest contradiction For to say he hath resolved at no hand to save them is as much as to say that he hath resolved to save them on no condition But if he hath promised to save them in case they believe undoubtedly he hath resolved to save them upon condition of faith Only Gods resolution to save them is not held in suspence considering that from everlasting he well knew who would believe and who would not and therefore he knew this because he purposed to grant faith unto the one and deny it unto the other So that in all this cry we have little wooll no substance of any sound proofe but meere clamours and miserable confusion as God sees how well it becomes him to smite them with the spirit of confusion that build Babell of their own invention and oppose the truth the precious truth of his soveraignty over his creatures and of the prerogative of his free grace to have mercy on whom he will like as he shewes his power in hardening whom he will and in smiting with giddinesse whom he will 3. In the next place we are to heare how God by our Doctrine in his threats and comminations is hollow and unsincere I willingly grant these are alwaies denounced against actuall sinnes as also that the sinnes for which men goe to hell are actuall sinnes if they live to be conscious of actuall transgressions But if God have decreed men to hell for originall sinne then God saith he is not true and so not sincere This is utterly unconsequent For God can manifest his pleasure otherwise than by his threatnings Of the Sodomites it is said they suffer the vengeance of eternall fire and Infants perished therein as well as men of ripe years And the Apostle plainly saith that we have all sinned in Adam and that the wages of sinne is death without distinction and that all are borne children of wrath and therefore as many as dye in that condition dye children of wrath And whence hath this Author learned that the sinne of Adam hath brought upon us the guilt of eternall death as formerly he hath professed but if I be not deceived this extends farther than to Infants and in as much as some of our Divines conceive the corrupt masse to be the object of reprobation hereupon he conceits they make God to damne all Reprobates for originall sinne whereas their doctrine is no other than this that God determines to damne every man for no other sinnes but such wherein they dye unrepented of whether they be originall or actuall Threatnings are denounced unto all to this end that men may know that by continuing in sinne without repentance there is no hope of mercy and therefore as they desire to be saved it is there duty to breake them off by repentance And in particular unto some that by this consideration God may bring them unto repentance But these are only Gods elect but as for others God never brings unto them true repentance according to that of S. Austin Istorum neminem adducit Deus ad salubrem spiriitalemque poenitentiam qua homo reconciliatur Deo in Christo sive illis ampliorum patientiam sive non imparem praebeat Yet God ordaines no man of ripe yeares unto destruction but for sinne finally continued in without repentance and the threatning of damnation signifyes no other thing but this that if they repent not they shall be damned which is most true to whomsoever it is pronounced and this dealing of God is plain enough But these Divines would not have faith and repentance to be the gifts of God but the workes of mens free-wills that so they might be their own crafts-men of their salvation DISCOURSE SUBSECT II. 4. GOd is also full of guile in the other things before named by this opinion viz. in his passionate wishes that even those men might repent that repent not and might be Saved that through their impenitency are not Saved Of these we read Deuter. 5. 29. Oh that there were such a heart in them to feare me that it might goe well with them And in Psal 18. 13. O that my people had harkened unto mee and Israell had walked in my wayes And Isaiah 48 18. Oh that thou hadst hearkened unto my commandements c. 2. In his expostulations Isai 5. 3. judge I pray you between me and my vineyard what could I have done more for my vineyard Ier. 2. throughout Especially v. 5. and 31. Have I been a wildernesse unto Israell or a land of darknesse And â— 32. Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire yet my people have forgotten mee dayes without number Ezek. 33. 11. Turne yee turne yee O yee house of Israell why will ye dye 3. In his commiserations also of the woefull condition of foolish men that would not be reclaymed Hos 11. 8. How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israell My repentings are kindled together my heart is turned within me and Math. 23. 37. O Jerusalem Jerusalem which killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee In all these there is but little sincerity if there be a setled resolution that the most of those towards whom those wishes chidings and melting considerations are used shall be unavoydable damned Gods fairest offers his sweetest invitations his greatest sympathies and amplest curtesies if this doctrine be true come very little short I think of Absolons feast Ioabs congie the kisse of Iudas and the Hyaenaes teares for in all these aliud animo vult aliud verbis significat he sayeth one thing
consolation which hath his course not only with the Devills but even with them that are already under the torments of Hell fire But let not the authority of the booke of Wisdome with thee weigh up and elevate the authority of Scriptures nor Philo the Jew be preferred before S t Paul or the Prophet Malachy by whom wee are taught that as God loved Jacob before he was borne so he hated Esau and before they were borne what difference was there betweene them Yet this passage out of the booke of Wisdome is in a Collect of the Papists Liturgy I conceive a good sence may be made thereof without any prejudice to absolute reprobation for of Papists we ate sayd to have learnt it and are reproached for it And what is that good sense they make of it Take it if thou wilt from Aquinas 1. q 23. art 3 ad 1. Dicendum quod Deus omnes homines diligit etiam omnes creaturas in quantum omnibus vult aliquod bonum non tamen quodcunque bonum vult omnibus In quantum igitur quibusdam non vult hoc bonum quod est vita aeterna dicitur eos habere odio vel reprobare Now if we take this Colect from them let us take also their good meaning with it and if we can let us make it better and not worse We commonly say that passions are attributed to God not quoad affectum but quoad effectum Now the effect of hatred is either the denyall of grace or the denyall of glory or the inflicting of damnation The two latter are executed only according to mens sinnes but the first to wit the denyall of grace proceeds meerely according to the good pleasure of Gods will like as the giving of grace as the Apostle not Philo signifies that God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Now to shew mercy is to bring a man to faith Rom. 11. 30. And if grace be not given according to the meere pleasure of Gods will it must be given according unto workes which is as much as to say in the phrase of the ancients according unto merits which all along hath been condemned in the Church of God as meere Pelagianisme Yet hitherto tends all the consolation that Arminianisme can reach forth unto thee which is to afford thee no better consolation then can be afforded to a Reprobate 2. As for Adams transgression let not that affright thee who art borne within the pale of the Church and of Christian parents for the children of such are holy 1 Cor. 7. when all others are uncleane Yet why should any man find it strange that some of them who are guilty of eternall death should suffer eternall death And this Author hath formerly confessed that Adams sinne hath made all his posterity guilty of eternall death Now albeit God hates many whether as involved in Adams transgression or no what matters that to thy discomfort if he hate not thee And what ground hast thou to conceive that thou art in the number of them whom he hates rather then of those whom he loves He is no good Physitian that lookes not into the cause of the desease to remoove that nor he any good comforter that lookes not into the cause of thy discomfort to remoove them It is to be thought that such an one desires rather to feed thy discomfort then to cure it Such is the practice of this comforter otherwise he should not apply his arguments of comfort which he magnifies as the strongest with as much art and cunning as can be But understand him aright this art and cunning tends not to the furtherance of thy consolation but to the advantage of his owne Arminian cause and to this end I confesse he doth apply them with as much art and cunning as he can 2. And God hath a two-fold love a generall love which puts forth it selfe in outward and temporall blessings only and with this he loves all men And a speciall by which he provides everlasting life for men and with this only he loves a very few which out of his alone will and pleasure he singled from the rest Under this generall love am I not the speciall CONSIDERATION 1. As touching the distinction hold thee to it least otherwise thou never proove capable of more comfort then a Reprobate is capable of No Arminian hath the face to deny that God saves but a very few And the reason is because very few doe believe and repent in this we all agree Againe no Arminian denies that very few doe believe and repent and finally persevere therein Againe no Arminian denies faith and repentance to be the gift of God and that hereby alone men are singled out from the rest Now the question is Whether God singleth out some men from the rest by giving them faith and repentance according to the meere pleasure of his will or according to their workes We say according to the meere pleasure of Gods will for he hath mercy on whom he will Rom 9. 18. Arminians say according to mens workes and hereupon in the issue comes all their consolations to be grounded that is upon a notorious Heresy condemned above 1200 yeare agoe 2. But as touching the accommodation of this distinction unto thy selfe saing thou art under Gods generall love not under his speciall I pray the tell me what ground thou hast for that what one of Gods elect while they were in the state of nature had not as greate cause to be as uncomfortable as thy selfe and why maist not thou be in Gods good time in as comfortable a condition as any of them and to say as John doth see what love the father hath shewed us that we should be called the sonnes of God dost thou mourne for thy sinne or no if thou dost not Why shouldest thou looke to be partaker of those comforts which are peculiar to them that mourne If thou dost thy Saviour hath said Blessed are they that mourne for they shall be comforted Dost thou hunger and thirst after the favour of God and to be made partaker of the righteousnesse of Christ which alone can give thee assurance of thine election If thou doest not hunger and thirst after this why shouldest thou be cast downe because thou hast not this assurance If thou doest desire this assurance and to that purpose hast an hungry appetite after the righteousnesse of Christ thy Saviour saith Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousnesse for they shall be filled Or hast thou a desire to have thy sinnes pardoned and thy soule saved but not any desire that thy soule may be sanctified what comfort shouldest thou or any such expect at the hands of God Thou wouldest serve the Devill but thou wouldest not goe to hell with the Devill But I tell thee God hath decreed the contrary namely that all such shall have this doome Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angells Yet
manner to command Abraham to sacrifice his sonne but it was not Gods determination that Isaack should be sacrificed In like sort he commanded Pharaoh to let Israel goe but withall he told Moses he would harden Pharaohs heart that he should not let them goe for a long time 2. But in the accommodation of these distinctions unto thy selfe What ground hast thou to affirme that God willeth not thy salvation in particular If thou believest Gods word assureth thee thou shalt be saved if thou believest not yet thou maist believe and Gods word hath power to bring thee unto faith as formerly I have discoursed And as for the best of Gods Children who doe believe to the great comfort of their soules rejoycing with joy unspeakable and glorious 1 Pet. 1. They were sometimes in as uncomfortable a condition as thou now art And the rather I put thee upon this because I see he that takes upon him to comfort thee doth take a course rather to feed thy humour then to remove it in as much as he never enquires into the cause thereof For albeit he gave to understand he would apply his argument with as much art and cunning as could be yet it may be that was rather with respect to the advantage of his own cause then to thy consolation But let us see whether he mends it in the next Minister Christ came into the World to seeke and to save what was lost and is a propitiation not for our sinnes only i. e. the sinnes of a few particular men or the sinnes of all sorts of men but for the sinnes of the whole World therefore he came to save thee for thou wast lost and to be a propitiation for thy sinnes for thou art part of the whole World CONSIDERATION Still he continues to afford thee as much comfort as any Reprobate in the world and if thou desirest no more thou maist rest satisfied with this but withall I confesse he affords thee as much comfort as he can afford any of Gods elect for he maketh elect and Reprobate all alike in receiving comfort from Gods Word Christ came into the world to save that which was lost but unlesse he came to save all that is lost it will not follow that he came to save thee We know that pardon of sinne and salvation is procured by Christ for none but such as believe and therefore be not deceived without faith looke for neither by faith be assured of both and that thou art one of Gods elect and no Reprobate And observe well he tells thee nothing of Christ meriting faith and repentance this now a dayes is plainly denyed by the Remonstrants and this Authour is content to say nothing of it when he is put to it we know what must be the issue of it if he sayeth Christ hath merited faith and repentance for thee the meaning is but this Christ hath merited that if thou wilt believe thou shalt believe if thou wilt repent thou shalt repent And that Christ hath merited that God should bestow faith and repentance not on whom he will according to the meere pleasure of his will but according to mens workes The comfort that our doctrine ministers unto thee is this If thou dost believe in Christ thou maist be assured thou art an elect of God if thou dost not believe there is no cause why thou shouldest thinke thy selfe a Cast-away for albeit thou hast not faith to day yet thou maist have faith to morrow Give thy selfe to Gods Word and waite upon him in his ordinances thou maist be so wrought upon as that unbeliever was 1 Cor 14. Who is there represented falling downe on his face and confessing that God was in the Preacher of a truth And though at first thou attendest to it but in a carnall manner yet God may open thy heart as he opened the heart of Lidia and make thee attend unto it in a gracious manner Tempted The World as I have heard is taken two waies in Scripture Largely for all mankind and strictly for the elect or believers In this latter sense Christ dyed for the World Or if for all yet it was only dignitate pretii not voluntate propositi thus only for a few selected ones with whom it is not my lot to be numbred CONSIDERATION Suffer not thy selfe to be abused by them who pretending thy comfort yet seeke nothing lesse but only the promoting of their owne cause And observe how he takes notice of no other benefits of Christs death then such as belong unto men upon the condition of faith to wit pardon of sinne and Salvation in which case the mention of Gods elect comes in very unseasonably And thus is the love of God set forth unto us so God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And if it be not thy lot to be numbred amongst believers then we can give thee by Gods Word no assurance of thy Salvation But if thou art not a believer yet thou maist be in good time as formerly I have spoken more at large and therefore no reason to think thou art a Reprobate And if once thou dost believe in Christ our doctrine gives thee assurance of Justification Salvation and Election the Arminan doctrine doth not As for faith and repentance we say Christ hath merited them also but to be bestowed how According to mens workes say our Arminians though forraine Arminians professe plainly that Christ merited not faith and regeneration for any And if thou relishest this comfort be satisfied with it we say faith and repentance are bestowed absolutely according to the meere pleasure of Gods will and accordingly Christ merited them but not for all for then all should believe and repent and be saved but only for some and who can these be but Gods elect whence it followeth clearly that whosoever believes may by our doctrine be assured of his election not so by the doctrine of Arminians but if thou believest not thou art in no worse case then the best of Gods childern have been for there was a time when they believed not therefore thou hast no more cause to think thy selfe a cast-away then they had Minister God hath founded an universall Covenant with men upon the bloud of Christ and therefore he intended it should be shed for all men universally he hath made a promise of salvation to every one that will believe and excludes none that will not believe CONSIDERATION This I confesse is to administer as much comfort as is administred to any Reprobate but how can this qualify thy discomfort and discontent which riseth from this conceit that thou art a Reprobate And the truth is that by our Doctrine wee were all in a miserable case if Gods Covenant of grace extended no farther then this But hath not God promised to be our Lord and our God that sanctifyeth us to circumcise our hearts and the hearts
most comfortable course and sets forth the danger of the other in farre more emphaticall manner then Melancthon doth and therewithall discovereth the true Balme of Gilead wherein it consists in the same manner that Melancthon doth and more fully but it served not this Authors turne to represent Calvin thus discoursing though he could not be ignorant there of if himselfe read the place which he alleadgeth out of Calvin and tooke it not upon trust at anothers hand By the way I observe he makes the universality of the promise mentioned by Melancthon all one with the universality of the Covenant of grace mentioned by him As if the Covenant of grace consisted only in this Whosoever believes shall be saved and accordingly you may guesse of his meaning as touching the universality of Christs death namely that the benefit thereof shall redound to all that believe as good as in plaine termes to professe that Christ dyed not to procure and merit faith for us which the Remonstrants doe now adaies openly professe but I doe not find that our Arminians hitherto dare to concurre with them therein And in like manner the universality of Gods love is to be understood namely of willing salvation to as many as believe not of willing grace unto them at least not of any meaning to bestow faith and repentance upon them Yet not any will yet shew themselves so ingenuous as to confesse in plain termes that God gives not faith and repentance to any man but leaves that to be wrought by the power of their wills pretending that God hath enabled all men with a power to believe And indeed if faith and repentance be a gift and speciall gift of God it is strange that God should bestow them upon us extra Christum not for Christ sake And whence it followeth that those gratious promises of circumcising our hearts of sanctifying us of writing his law in our mind and inward parts and his feare in our hearts never to depart from him of healing our wayes our backslidings our rebellions of taking away the stony heart out of our bowels and giving us a heart of flesh and causing us to walke in his statutes and keepe his judgements and doe them are nothing belonging to the Covenant of grace in this Authors judicious consideration And to conclude if all men be under the Covenant of grace what force or substance at all is there in that promise which God makes unto his people of Israell namely that he will cause them to passe under the rodde and bring them unto the bond of the Covenant As also in that Ezek. 16. 60. I will remember my Covenant made with thee in the dayes of thy youth and I will confirme unto thee an everlasting Covenant 61. Then shalt thou remember thy wayes and be ashamed when thou shalt receive thy sisters both thy elder and thy younger and I will give them unto thee for Daughters but not by thy Covenant 62. And I will establish my Covenant with thee and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. I come to the consideration of the reasons why these grounds are pretended to be able to healpe in such a case 1. Because they are directly contradictory to the temptation a will to save all a givinig of Christ to death for all and an offer of grace to all cannot possibly stand with an absolute anticedent will and intent of casting a way the greatest part of mankind or indeed any one man in the world To this I answer 1. Though they be contradictory to the temptation yet if they carry manifest evidence of notorious untruths in their foreheads delivered as they are without explication what true comfort shall an afflicted soule receive therehence when by embracing them he shall but hould a lye in his right hand For doe not these comforters themselves acknowledge that God hath from everlasting decreed the damnation of the greatest part of men Yet they would have a poore afflicted soule believe that notwithstanding this he wills the salvation of all even of them whom he hath appointed unto wrath it is the Apostles phrase 1 Thess 5. 9. To endeavour to perswade them of this what is it but to make a sickly creature to feed on fire or digest Iron as if that could ever turne into good nourishment In like sort to perswade him that Christ hath made satisfaction for all the sins of al mē merited salvatiō for all every one when notwithstanding Christs merits of their salvation the greatest part of the world shall not be saved And notwithstanding Christs satisfaction for their sinne they must be put to satisfy for them that by suffering the torments of hell fire that for ever 2. Let these points be explicated then no comfort at all will appeare therehence to an afflicted soule in some case As for example when they shall understand that Gods love tends only to the saving of them in case they believe repent mortify the deeds of the flesh persevere in such like gracious courses unto death alas what comfort is this to a sick soule when he feeles in himselfe no power to believe no power to repent no power to any spirituall good contrary wise prone to evill either not taking delight in Gods Word or nothing profiting by it Will it suffice to out face them herein tell thē they have power to believe if they will to repent if they will to mortify the deeds of the flesh if they will to crucify the affections lusts if they will yea to have victory over the world if they will and to quench all the fiery darts of the Devill if they will And withall that their wills are enlivened to will any of all these yea to will all these and any other spirituall good whereunto they shall be excited Whereas the Scripture teacheth us that men are dead in sinne before the time of their effectuall calling and that such was the condition of the Ephesians before the Gospell was Preached to them and they converted by it and that till they embrace the Gospell all men are led captive by the Divell to doe his will 3. What poore comfort is this to perswade a man that he is no absolute Reprobate when upon the same grounds namely that the number of Reprobates is farre greater even an hundred for one then the number of Gods elect he may still be perplexed with doubts and feares yea and with as strong an apprehension that he is a Reprobate And amongst all the examples that I have lighted upon of desperation upon this ground they have not proceeded according to this distinction of reprobats absolute or not absolute but simply upon an apprehension that they were Reprobates that not upon the consideration of the small number of Gods elect and the vast number of Reprobates but upon the conscience of some sinne or other which they conceived to be unpardonable a sinne unto death a sinne against
issues doe justly befall them because they abhorre to professe that God causeth us to walke in his statutes and to keepe his judgements and doe them The course that Junius took to quiet her conscience who thought she was damned for neglecting to goe to Masse by proving unto her that the Masse was a meere wil-worship was faire and reasonable but the course this Author takes to comfort an afflicted soule I have shewed to be most unreasonable Absolute reprobate hath a different sense according as it is differently applyed If applyed unto damnation or the denyall of glory we utterly deny that either the one is inflicted or glory is denyed absolutely but meerely upon supposition of sinne But applyed to grace we willingly confesse that God doth absolutely give the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance to whom he will according to that of Saint Paul He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth Rom. 9. 18. compared with Rom. 11. 30. Where to shew mercy is apparently to bring men unto faith neither can it have any other sense Rom. 9. 18. being set in opposition to hardening and in reference to the objection rising therehence in the words following Thou wilt say then why doth he yet complaine for who hath resisted his will v. 19. And while this Author denies that faith and repentance are given according to the good pleasure of Gods will which is to give them absolutely he must be driven to confesse that they are given conditionally and if a man will take any comfort therehence he must be acquainted with the condition which yet this Author undertaking the office of consolation upon this ground doth from the first to the last conceale as if he feared to discover the shamefull nakednesse of his cause which I have adventured to display and whereof I desire the indifferent reader would judge So that indeed this discourse is a new snare rather to entangle a poore soule in sadnesse and heavinesse inextricable fowler-like then any true office of consolation where she may escape as a bird out of the first snare of the Fowler by breaking it and delivering her Indeed these grounds of hope and comfort a Minister cannot make use of that holds absolute Reprobation What sober man would expect he should but such a one is never a whit the worse comforter for that For as for these grounds I have already discovered them to be voyd of all truth of all sobriety For if men be not absolutely Reprobated from the grace of faith and of repentance but conditionally For as for the denying of glory or inflicting damnation we utterly deny that God hath decreed that they shall have their course absolutely according to the meere pleasure of his will having made a Law according whereunto he purposeth to proceed therein it became this Author performing the part of a Comforter on this ground to make knowne the condition which he utterly declineth And with all I have shewed the reasons of his carriage thus in Hugger Mugger to wit that their shamefull Tenets might not breake forth and be brought to light We abhorre to say that God gives the grace of faith and repentance according to mens workes Wee abhorre to say that God workes in men the act of believing and repenting provided they will believe and repent or that he workes in them the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle of every good worke modovelint But our comsolations proceed as I have shewed in this manner If any man man doth believe and repent we can assure such a one by our doctrine that he is an elect of God this Arminians by their doctrine cannot as who maintaine that a true believer may fall a way from grace and be damned which is to hold the soules of the best children of God upon the rack of feares and terrours and tortures continually and make them walke as it were upon pinacles of the Temple for they have no assurance of stedfastnesse but in their owne wills to keepe them from dropping into Hell fire which burneth under them If men doe not believe and repent we will enquire into the cause of their feares grounds of their apprehentions that they are Reprobates and shew that they have no just cause for such apprehensions whether it be the conscience of their sinne or want of faith that doth affright them For as much as the holiest meÌ„ living before their calling had as great cause to be affrighted as they yet had they thereupon conceived themselves to be Reprobates this had been but an erronious conceit If perhaps it be not the conscience of sinne in generall that affrights them but rather the conscience of some sinne in speciall which they conceive to be a sinne unto death or a sinne against the Holy Ghost which they conceive to be unpardonable we will conferre with them thereabouts and try whether they understand aright the nature of that sinne and endeavour to scatter those mists of illusions in this particular which Satan hath raised desiring to swallow them up in desperation if it doe not prove to be a sinne against the Holy Ghost we will set them in a course to get the spirit of faith and of repentance For albeit God alone can give them yet seeing his Word is a Word of power even a voyce that pearceth the graves we willperswade them to give themselves to be wrought upon by Gods Word and we will pray for them who yet want spirit to pray for themselves And albeit they cannot prepare themselves in a gratious manner to the hearing of Gods Word yet let them come and when they are come let his Word worke yet if forthwith we have not that comfortable experience of Gods goodnesse towards us let us not give over to wait at the lords gates and to give attendance at the posts of his doore Give him leave to be the Master of his own times let us not prescribe unto him We know his course is to call some at one houre of the day some at an other and at the very last hour he calleth some This is the way of consolation that we take We doe not take any such course as this Author at his pleasure obtrudes upon us that God would have all to be saved and that Christ died for all I have allready set forth this Authors collusions in his triple universality of Gods love Christs death and and of the Covenant of grace We rather will exhort him to believe and herein we will take such course as God in his Word hath directed us unto and we will pray unto God that his Word may be as the raine that cometh downe and the snow from Heaven returneth not thither but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth buâ—d hat it may give seed to the sower and bread to him that eateth So his Word may be that goeth out of his mouth it may not returne unto him voyd but accomplish that
them to be a good man or to have the grace of faith repentance or any other truly planted in his heart Which being so I say that the Minister cannot by the eternall acts and fruits of faith and repentance which he seeth come from him make it evident to the tempted for the silencing of all replies that he is without doubt a true believer and a true repentant and consequently no reprobate For still the tempted may say You may be deceived in me for you can see not a whit more in me then hath been seen in many a Reprobate If this be all you can say to prove me to be none I am not satisfied I may be a Reprobate nay I am a Reprobate and you are but a miserable comforter a Physitian of no value This that I say Piseator doth ingeniously confesse where he saith that no comfort can possibly be instilled into the soules of Reprobates afflicted with this temptation Whence it followes that the greatest part of men must beare their burthen if they fall into this trouble as wel as they can the Gospell cannot afford them any sound comfort 2. That the elect in this case may be comforted but it must be this way viz. by their feeling of the burthen of sinne and their desire to be freed from it by Christ which proofs as I have said are but only probable not infallible arguments of a mans election and therefore unsufficient comforts And in the end of the same Thesis where he saith That a man should reason thus with himselfe Grace is offered to some with a mind of communicating it to them therefore it may be that I am in that number he implyes that the doctrine of absolute Reprobation which teacheth this communication of grace to some few only affords but a fieri potest a peradventure I am elected for a poore soule to comfort himselfe withall TWISSE Consideration IN the last place we are to consider how truly he affirmeth that our doctrine leaveth a Minister none but weake grounds and those insufficient to quiet the tempted And whereas he saith We cannot conceive and make it evident to the understanding of the tempted that he is not that which he feares a Reprobate we willingly acknowledge it For not to be a reprobate is to be an elect Now how can any Arminian convince and make it evident to the understanding I doe not say of the tempted but of one that is a believer and walkes on comfortablely in the wayes of Godlinesse is he I say able to convince such a one and make it evident unto him that he is one of Gods elect I doe not think they dare professe that they presume they can or make it evident to their owne understanding that themselves are of the number of Gods elect How unreasonable then is this course to require of us to convince a man that acknowledgeth neither faith nor repentance in him for this is the condition of a man tempted as himselfe fashioneth it and to make it evident to his understanding that he is an elect and no reprobate when himselfe cannot convict him that believeth of this no nor their owne consciences neither notwithstanding all their confidence that they alone are in the right way of salvation Was there ever heard a more unreasonable course then this Againe to feare to be a reprobate or least he be a Reprobate is one thing to perswade himselfe that he is a Reprobate and to despaire thereupon is another thing We say and that according to our Doctrine that there is no cause why any man who hath not sinned the sinne unto death the sinne against the Holy Ghost should perswade himselfe that he is a Reprobate and despaire thereupon we doe not say there is no cause of feare In as much as he hath no evidence of his election there is just cause to feare but then againe seeing he neither hath nor can have any evidence of his reprobation excepting the guilt of the sinne against the Holy Ghost he hath every way as good cause to hope And for the comforting of such a one I would make bold to tell him that there is more hope of such a one as himselfe then of those who goe on in the wayes of their owne heart and in the light of their owne eyes without all remorse and check of conscience without feare or wit not considering that for all these things God will bring them to judgment And towards such I would think it fit to use all meanes and motives to make them feare The Apostle seemes to me to take the like course with better men then such even with such as went on in a faire and comfortable profession of Gospell namely to make them feare and suspect themselves as when he saith Prove youre selves whether you are in the faith examine your selves Know ye not that Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates 2 Cor. 13. 5. And for good reason for as Paul was jealous over the Corinthians with a Godly jealousy for feare least as the Serpent beguilde Eve through his subtilty so their minds should be corrupt from that simplicity which is in Christ 2 Cor. 11. 2 3. And in like manner entertained feare least when he came he should not find them such as he would and that he should be found unto them such as they would not c. 2 Cor. 12. In like manner I should think it is good for a man to be jealous over himselfe with a godly jealousy least their minds should be corrupt their wayes corrupt more then they are a ware of and there upon give themselves to the examining of themselves and to the searching and trying of their wayes whereunto the Holy Ghost exhorts us Lament 3. 40. And there is good comfort to be taken in such a jealousy such a feare such a course For we find that the spirit of bondage making us to feare is the forerunner of the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8. 15. Certainely they are in better case and nearer to the Kingdome of God then such as feare not yet is their no cause of despaire for as much as the elect of God had no evidence of their election before their calling Nay after their calling they may be much afflicted with the feares and terrours of God thinking themselves to be in worse case then indeed they are David found cause to pray that God would restore him to the joy of his Salvation yet Bertius would not say that David was fallen from grace and that propter graves causas yet who hath written more eagarly to maintaine that Saints may fall away from grace then Bertius But this Author beares before him such a spirit of confidence as if he would have all men ordered by his rules When Manoahs Wife Judg. 13. 22 23. discourseth thus If the Lord would kill us he would not have received a burnt offering at our hands nor shewed us these things He
doth obtrude upon us that Manoahs Wife had no faith but only a probability of this that is his glosse yet this acceptation of a burnt offering at their hands was manifested by no lesse then a miracle and the difference between Abels offering and Caines offering is laid downe to be this that The Lord had respect to Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and to his offering he had no regard Gen. 4. 4 5. And Davids prayer for acceptation and finding favour at the hands of God is set downe in this manner amongst other particulars Let him remember all thine offerings and turne thy burnt offerings into ashes Psal 20. 3. Yet why should he conceive that Manoah and his Wife were not in temptation and that a very sore one strēgthened with the expres word of God namely that No man can see God live which in these days was generally received amongst thē applyed by thē in this particular For Manoah said unto his Wife we shall surely dye because we have seen God could a probability to the contrary put by such a temptation as this How was the great Prophet Esay exercised with this when he cryed out Woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of polluted lipps and dwell in the midst of a people of polluted lipps for mine eyes have seen the King and Lord of Hosts What temptation hath he that thinkes himselfe a reprobate like unto this excepting still the guilte of that sinne which is unto death What ground of Scripture can they represent to prove that they are reprobates as those Ancients had ground for this that they must dye who had seen God It is one thing to be in temptation it is an other thing to yeeld to the temptation and to be overcome with it and that upon no ground which yet this Author confounds as a course very propitious for his turne and suitable with the part that he acteth As for Jacob the cause was this he that now enjoyed as it were the death of Joseph for many yeares his sonnes pretending they knew not what became of him yet brought his Coat imbrued with bloud unto their old Father who there upon conceived some evill beast had devoured him and who could expect that at the first hearing he should believe now the report of the same sonnes to the contrary especially considering how those brethren of Ioseph were astonished when Joseph himselfe told them saying I am Joseph doth my father yet live for the text saith his brethren could not answer him for they were astonished at his presence And though Iacob at the first believed not the report they made to be true yet neither is it said or likely that he believed it to be false But the Text saith his heart failed him denoting a condition betweene hope and feare as the Geneva noteth in the Margent As for Thomas his incredulity which he ascribeth unto a temptation he may as well ascribe the infidelity of Turkes Jewes unto a temptation The person tempted here represented doth not say I hope as Thomas did Except I see in his hands the print of the nailes and put my finger into the print of the nayles and put my hand into his side I will not believe it And what power doe Arminians attribute unto temptation doe they ascribe more unto it then to the operation of God which with them extends no farther then this as touching grace then to excite them to believe which yet they may resist if they will And may they not also resist the Divells temptations if they will Especially considering that in perswading them that they are Reprobates the Divell proceeds upon no ground which is not common to every one of Gods elect when he saith They will not believe any thing that is said for their comfort till it be made so apparent that they have nothing to say to the contrary It seemes this Author hath had some extraordinary experience of the condition of persons tempted I had thought the condition of persons not tempted only but giving way to the temptation had been for the most part unreasonable untill it pleaseth God to bring them to their right wits and like as feares property is to betray the succours that reason offereth so is the Devills practice to take them off from attending that to they cannot answer and holding them to their uncomfortable conclusions in despight of the weaknesse of their own premises and strength of contrary principles Excepting the case of finning against the Holy Ghost which was the case of Francis Sptra and accordingly his conclusions were most true as his premises strong and his comforters had little or nothing to say to the contrary And in such a case the only course to quench the fiery darts of desperation is to enquire diligently about the matter of fact whether he hath committed any such sinne as he layeth to his charge and thereupon to discourse of the nature of that sinne which is commonly called a sinne unto death and not only so but a sinne against the Holy Ghost which our Saviour pronounceth to be unpardonable and the Apostle signifieth as much when he saith that in such a case there is no more sacrifice for sinne but a fearfull expectation of fire And it may be this Authors discourse runneth with reference to such examples as this of Spira but fashioned at pleasure to serve his turne as formerly he did set down the story out of Coelius Secundus Calvin as he said but without any quotation of the place where But to enter upon a comparison between their doctrine and ours and that upon supposition of this rule delivered by him I say first that by our doctrine we can make it so evidently appeare that the tempted hath no ground at all to conceive himselfe to be a reprobate whatsoever his condition be except guiltinesse of the sinne against the Holy Ghost I say we can make it so evident that neither he nor any Arminian can say any reasonable thing to the contrary not denying but that they may say enough to the contrary in an unreasonable manner And my reason is because whatsoever his condition be it is no other then is incident to one of Gods elect Secondly I say as touching the Arminian doctrine two things The first is this There is no condition of man so holy in this life as whereby any man can have any assurance by Arminian doctrine that he is an elect of God and consequently no reprobate much lesse can they give any assurance to any man in the time of temptation as this Author speakes of it that he is no reprobate The Second is this Arminians can give assurance to no man that he is no reprobate for as much as all their grounds of comfort are common to the reprobate as well as to the elect wherehence it manifestly followeth that their doctrine can afford no better comfort then a reprobate
no supernaturall act is or can be sinfull every sinfull act must needs be an act naturall and power either to doe or to abstaine from any naturall Act is not to be denied to any naturall man But it is impossible that any naturall man should abstaine from any sinne or doe any naturall good act so commonly accounted in a gratious manner untill grace comes so to season the heart of man as to love God even to the contempt of himselfe and out of his love to doe that good which he doth and to abstaine from that evill from which he abstaineth 2. But if the question be of the manner how this necessitie of sinning is brought upon the nature of man we say it is not by the pleasure of God But by the sinne of Adam according to that of the Apostle Rom 5. By one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne for man by reason of sinne was justly bereaved of the Spirit of God and begetting children in this Condition he begets them after his owne Image and likenesse that is bereaved of the Spirit of God And we hold it impossible for a man bereaved of God's Spirit either to doe that which is good or abstaine from doing that which is evill in a gratious manner 2. Secondly I come to the Synod of Valense when they say the wicked not perish because they could not doe good but because they would not These words may seeme to imply that even the wicked could doe good if they would and truely I see noe cause to deny this But that we may safely say with Austine that omnes possunt Deo credere ab amore rerum temporalium ad divina praecepta servanda se convertere si velint Believe God if they will and from the love of all things temporall convert themselves to the keeping of God's Commandements if they will for if a man would goe to Church but cannot because he is lame would read in God's word but cannot because he is blind These impotencies are naturall not morall but the impotency brought upon mankind by the sinne of Adam is morall not naturall Now morall impotency is found noe where but in the will or at least is chiefly there and secondly in the understanding also as touching knowledge practicall and accordingly when Scriptures testifie that they who are in the flesh cannot please God Rom 8 cannot repent Rom 24 connot believe Ioh 12. This impotency consist's cheifly in the corruption of their wills noted by the hardnesse of heart Rom 2. 4. Eph 4. 18. Againe I have already shewed out of Remigius that a wicked man can doe that which is good but by what meanes to wit by grace not otherwise The words are these Si dixisset generaliter nemo hominum sine Dei gratia libero bene uti potest arbitrio esset Catholicus had he said generaly not any man can use his free will without grace he were Catholique And pag. 36 the same Remigius hath these words In infidelibus ipsum liberum arbitrium ita per Adam damnatum perditum in operibus mortuis liberum esse potest in vivis non potest free will so damned and lost in Adam may be free in dead workes in living workes it cannot Yet pag. 174 thus he distinguisheth answerably to the passage alleaged by this Authour De reprobis nullum salvari ullatenus existimamus non quia non possunt homines de malo ad bonum commutari ac de malis ac pravis boni ac recti fieri sed quia in melius mutari noluerunt in pessimis operibus usque ad finem perseverare voluerunt And pag. 143. Florus of the Church of Lyons where Remigius was Byshop sets downe the same truth more at large thus Habet homo post illam damnationem liberum arbitrium quo voluntate propria inclinari potest inclinatur ad malum habet liberum arbitrium quo potest assurgere ad bonum ut autem assurgat ad bonum non est propriae virtutis sed gratiae Dei miserantis Nam qui mortuus est potest dici posse vivere non tamen sua virtute sed Dei Ita liberum arbitrium hominis semel sauciatum semel mortuum potest sanari non tamen sua virtute sed gratia miserantis Dei ideo omnes homines admonentur omnibus verbum praedicatur quia habent posse credere posse converti ad Deum ut verbo extrinsecus admonente intus Deo suscitante qui audiunt reviviscant Man hath after that damnation to wit such as followed after Adam's fall free will so that of his owne will he can be inclined and is inclined to evill he hath free will whereby he may rise unto a good condition but that he doth arise to that good condition is not in his owne power but of the grace of God compassionating him for of him also who is dead it may be said that he may live yet not by his owne power but by the power of God Soe man's free will also being once wounded once dead may be restored not by his owne power but by God's grace pitying him and therefore al men are admonished to all the word is preached because they have this that they may believe they may be converted unto God that by the word outwardly admonishing God inwardly raising they which heare may revive As touching the last condemning those who say that any should be so predestinated to evill by God that they cannot be otherwise this Authour would faine insinuate into his Reader an opinion That wicked men may change from evill to good of themselves But neither doth the Councill of Valens or Remigius a chiefe man therein intimate any such thing But only that it is in God's power by his grace to change them and so hath changed and will change the hearts of many namely of all his Elect but not of one other That the Remonstrants did not at that time desire that it should be talked of among the common people who might have stumbled at it but disputed of among'st the Judicious and Learned who as the threshing Oxen who are to beate the corne out of the Huske are to bolt out those truthes which are couched and hidden in the letter of the Scriptures That the doctrine which is loath to abide the triall even of learned men carrieth with it a shrewd suspicion of falshood the heathen Oratour shall witnesse for me who to Epicurus seeing that he would not publish his opinion to the simple people who might happily take offence at that answereth thus Declare thy opinion in the place of Judgment or if thou art affraid of the assembly there declare that in the Senate amongst those grave and judicious Persons Thou wilt never doe it and why but because it is a fowle and dishonest opinion True religion as Vives saith is not a thing guilded over but gold it selfe the more it is scraped and
be such a God A Morall efficient is twofold being only of a moveing nature to move others to doe somewhat as namely either by perswading or by meriting or deserving He that perswades moves an other to doe some what he that meriteth thereby moves another either to reward him or punish him Now to walke in the light of this distinction and not to please our selves by walking in darknesse though God be the prime principall and invincible cause of man's damnation in the kind of a cause efficient physicall which should not seeme strange to an ordinary Christian who knowes full well that vengeance is God's peculiar worke as the Iudge of all the world and that he delights in the execution thereof yet this hinders not but that man may be the cause of his own damnation in the way of a meritorious cause justly deserving it Omnis poena Deum habet Authorem All punishment hath God for the Authour of it This is a principle acknowledged both by the Arminians and Vasquez the Jesuite but never is punishment inflicted on any by the hands of God save on those who formerly have deserved it Consider we farther as touching the severall kinds of causes formerly mentioned if the question be which is the principall Aristotle answereth that this is not confined to any one kind of them somtimes the materiall cause somtimes the formall cause somtimes the efficient somtimes the finall cause is the demonstrative cause the cause propter quam the cause by vertue where of the effect hath its existence but this peculiar and speciall cause is described thus It is that whereby satisfactory answer is made to the question demanding why such a thing is Now in execution of punishment or condigne vengeance this satisfactory answer is made by representing the meritorious cause never by representing the efficient cause as for example if it be demanded why such a malefactor is executed upon the gallowes no sober man will answer because the Sheriffe cōmanded it to be so or because the Judge would have it so but because he robd upon the high way or committed some criminall fact or other which is capitall by the lawes of our land and to be punished with hanging upon the gallowes In like sort if question be made why devills or wicked men are damned is it our doctrine to referre the cause hereof to the mere pleasure of God Doe not all confesse that God inflicts damnation upon thē merely for their sinnes and transgressions wherein they have continued unto death without repentance Yet we acknowledge that God could have taken them off from their sinnes while they lived if he would by giving them repentance as he hath dealt with us and that merely of his free grace For we willingly confes that our sinnes are our owne but our faith is not our repentance is not When I say our owne I meane in respect that they are of our selves otherwise we acknowledge both faith and repentance to be our owne accipiendo in asmuch as we receive them but they are God's gifts and so they are his dando in asmuch as he gives them as Remigius speaketh Now what is become of this Authours pompous discourse Is it not the like the cracking of thornes in the fire making a great noise but the light of distinction like fire sets an end unto it and makes it appeare in its owne likenesse and proves nothing but a squib For albeit God in his decree makes the damnation of reprobates to be necessary and unavoidable yet seeing he makes it not to fall on any but for their sinnes what colour of dishonour unto God in ordaining that Iudas shall necessarily and unavoidably be damned for betraying the Sonne of God and afterwards most desperatly murthering himselfe If hereupon he could no more avoid his damnation then Astionax could the breaking of his neck when the Grecians tumbled him downe from the tower of Troy will any man that is not bereaved of common sense make strange of this It is true God did appoint both Iudas and all other wicked persons that never break off their sinnes by repentance unto destructiō of his own voluntary disposition For God workes all things according to the counsaile of his will and if it pleased him he could annihilate them upon the fresh foot of any sin or after they have suffered the vengeance of hell fire as many yeares in hell as they lived here in sinne yea and the devills in hell as Origen was of opinion and the Jewes at this day are of the same by Sir Edwin Sandes his relation whether this Author be of the same or not I know not And lastly we willingly confesse that the decree of God was antecedent to the deserts of men for reprobation is as antient as election and election was made before the foundation of the world if we believe Saint Paul rather then any other who either by word or deed doth manifest himselfe to be of a contrary opinion Still damnation is inflicted by God only for sinne and in degree answerable unto their sinnes and only because of their sinnes as a meritorious cause thereof though God makes use of it to his owne ends and the manifestation of his owne glory as Solomon professeth namely that God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill And Saint Paul tells that as the Lord suffereth with long patience the vessells of wrath prepared to destruction that he might shew his wrath and make his power known So likewise another reason hereof he specifies to be this That he might declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of mercy which he hath prepared unto glory For when we shall behold the unspeakable misery brought upon others by reason of their sinnes how rich will God's glory appeare unto us when we consider that had it not been for his free grace delivering us from sinne we had been swallowed up of the same sorrowes And thus Alvarez writeth disput III. The glory of God's mercy in his elect and in like manner the manifestation of divine justice on Reprobates is truely and properly the finall cause why God did permit sinnes both in Reprobates and Angells And he proves it out of this passage of Saint Paul So Aquin 1 p. pag. 23. art 5. This is the reason saith he why God hath chosen some and Reprobated others that representation might be made of Gods goodnesse towards the Elect in the way of mercy pardoning them and on the Reprobates in the way of justice punishing them And Alphonsus Mendoza a Scotist concurres with them in this and we see they make Saint Pauls doctrine their foundation And indeed albeit at the day of judgment there will be found a vast difference between the Elect and Reprobates the one having departed this life in the state of faith repentance the other in infidelitie and impenitency in such sort as God will bestow on his elect
preserve all from sinne to bring all to faith and to repentance and so to save all For how could his justice be wronged in this 4. When he saith tha God of himselfe cannot without any motive in the reasonable creature provide for it from everlasting the greatest of all miseries observe what an hungry proposition this is for will he say tht God can provide for any creature the greatest misery save one though not the greatest of all without any motive in the creature But if he can so provide the greatest save one why not the greatest of all What colour of reason to put any difference in this And if the greatest save two why not the greatest save one And so we may goe on till we come to the least misery thereby to convince the unreasonablenesse of this assertion For in cleare evidence of truth reason cannot discover where to make a stand 5. And what is the motive he meanes but the motive of sinne And what sinne did God the Father see in Christ the Sonne that moved him to ordaine his deare Sonne to the suffering of hell paines 6. And as he alledgeth Austine to little purpose so to the contrary what he writes de predestinatione gratia is well known Si humanum genus quod creatum primitùs constat ex nihilo sine debito mortis nasceretur tamen ex iis Creator Omnipotens in aeternum nonnullos damnare vellet interitum quis Omnipotenti Creatori diceret quare fecisti sic If mankind which is well known at first to be made of nothing were born without the debt of death and sinne Yet if the Almighty Creatour would damne some of them to eternall destruction who would say to the Almighty Creatour why hast thou done so And observe his reason Qui enim cum non essent esse donaverat quo fine essent habuit potestatem For he that gave them being when formerly they had no being had power to dispose to what end they should be There is nothing more evident by the light of nature then this I willingly confesse that that this book though it goe under Austin's name yet it is thought to be none of Austin's and that amongst other considerations by reason of this very sentence in particular which seemes unto me very harsh and contrary to Austin's doctrine in other places But Raynaudus hath discovered at large the vanity of this reason and shewes by variety of testimonies the concurrence of Antiquitie in bearing witnesse to the same truth And albeit he confesseth the book not to be Austin's yet he proves that Fulgentius was the Authour of it alwaies accounted to be an Orthodox Father and well known to be a follower of Austin's Sect 3. Containing a Reply to the second Objection and Answere thereunto It is further objected that we doe and may slaughter our beasts for our dayly use without any cruelty and iniquity And therefore God may as well and much more appoynt as many of us as he pleaseth to the torment of hell for his glory and yet be just and good to notwithstanding For there is a greater disproportion between God and us then there is between us and beasts 1 For answering hereunto we are first to premise thus much namely that our slaughtering of Beasts for our dayly use is by Gods ordinance and appoyntment We had not the authority of our selves but God of his bounty towards us gave it us as we may see Gen 9. 2 3. Where we may observe 1 That God delivereth up all creatures Beasts Birds and Fishes into the hands of men 2 That the end why he doth so is that they might be meat for men and consequently they might be slaine Which being so our slaughtering of Oxen Sheep and other creatures for our dayly use is to be accounted Gods doing rather then ours And therefore the objection should be made this God may without any breach of goodnesse or justice appoint bruite creatures to be slaine for mans use therefore he may ordaine men to be cast into hell torments for his owne use that is for the declaration of his soveraingty 2 This being premised I answer further that this comparison holds not For there is little proportion between the Objects compared and lesse between the acts 1 There is but small proportion between the Objects Beasts and Men creatures of a different nature and made for a different end Beasts are voyd of reason and liberty in their actions creatures whose being svanish with their breath made only for the use and service of men upon earth But men are reasonable and understanding creatures able through the Creators bounty to discerne between good and evill they are the very Image of Gods purity and eternity and were made for the service of God alone upon earth and his blessed and everlasting society in heaven So that albeit there be a very great distance between God and man yet nothing so great as between God and Beasts It followeth not therefore that if God may appoynt beasts to be killed of his owne free pleasure for mans use he may with like equity and reason appoynt men of his owne will to destruction for his owne use We read that God required of his people many thousand beasts for sacrifice but not one man The first borne of other creatures he chalenged for burnt offerings except they were uncleane beasts but the first borne of men were to be redeemed Which sheweth that he put a wide difference between the blood of men and beast Besides in the 9 of Genesis he gives men power to kill and feed uppon all living creatures but he straightly forbids them to shed mans blood and gives this reason of the prohibition Man is the Image of God so that we may well conclude that there is but small proportion betweene the Obâ—ects compared-men and Beasts in respect of this Act of killing and slaughrering 2 There is farr lesse or rather no proportion at all between the Acts compared Killing and eternall tormenting A man may kill but he cannot without barbarous injustice and cruelty torment his beast and prolong the life of it that he may dayly vexe and torture it to shew what power and soverainty he hath over it so I doubt not though there be some that will not grant it but charge the Arminians with contumely against God for affirming it I doubt not I say but God may kill a man of his owne free pleasure yea and resolve him into nothing without any cruelty and injustice because in so doing he doth but take away what he hath given him But he cannot without both these antecedently decree to keepe him alive for ever in Hell that he may there torment him without end to shew his soveraingty For this is to inflict an infinite evill upon a guiltlesse creature to whom he had given but a finite good And so is the comparison most unequall too in the acts compared and therefore proveth
first trangression so that if divine judgment be the will of God it is apparent Prosper is so farre from denying that slavery to have come upon all men by the just will of God as that he expresly acknowledgeth it It is true as Fulgentius saith that God is not the Authour of sinne but the revenger of it And it is as true that it is as just with God to punish sinne with sinne as Scripture justifies as St. Austine observes and improveth at large divers Scriptures to this purpose in his fifth Book against Iulian the Pelagian and third chap. Tertullian in saying he is not to be accounted the Authour of sin who is the forbidder yea the condemner of it falls directly upon the same ground that Dominicus Soto with the Divines of Salamancha and Vasquez the Jesuites in explicating what that is which makes me to be the Authour of a morall action as namely by commanding by counselling it and perswading it and indeed condemnation is but consequent to a law forbidding this or that Now it is apparent that God in this respect ought to be accounted the Authour of every good action but of none that is evill For he commands only that wich is good and counselleth and perswadeth thereunto but forbiddeth and disswadeth every thing that is evill Of this no notice at all is taken by this Authour neither taketh he any care to shew what that is that maketh any agent justly to be accounted the Authour of sinne 3 His third reason is all one with the former as drawne from God's justice and holinesse and his being Judge of the world For it is the property of the Judge to condemne transgressours whereupon his former Argument insisted and that allso was drawne from God's justice But I remember well what the Poet coupleth together when he saith Accessit fervor capiti numerusque lucernis Honesty retaines the Creature from being the Authour of sinne not his nature he being peccabilis by nature but so is not God It is impossible absolutely for him to be found defective any way in a culpable manner He may withhold Grace from any man I speak of Grace preservative from sinne Neither is he unjust herein for he is bound to none At length he comes to prove the crimination laid upon his adversaries as followeth Sect 2. But this opinion doth so For albeit the writers that have defended it Piscator and a few more of the blunter sort excepted have never said directly and in terminis that God is the cause of sinne yet have they delilivered these things from which it must needs follow by necessary consequence that he is so For they say 1. That as the decree of Reprobation is absolute so it is inevitable Those poore soules which lye under it must necessarily be damned It is saith Marlorate a firme and stable truth that the man whom God in his eternall counsell hath rejected though he doe all the works of the Saints cannot possibly be saved 2. That without sinne this decree of Reprobation cannot be justly executed God saith Piscator did create men for this very purpose that they might indeed fall for otherwise he could not have attained those his principall ends He meanes the manifestation of his justice in the condemnation of Reprobates and of his mercy in the salvation of the Elect. Maccovius allso saith the same If sinne had not been the manifestation of justice and mercy which is as much as to say as the damnation of Reprobates had never been 3. That God decreed that Reprobates must unavoidably sinne and sinne unto death that his eternall ordinance might be executed and they damned We grant saith Zanchy that Reprobates are held so fast under God's almighty decree that they cannot but sinne and perish and a little after he saith We doubt not therefore to confesse that there lieth upon Reprobates by the power of their unchangable reprobation a necessity of sinning yea of sinning to death without repentance and consequently of perishing everlastingly Calvin also saith that Reprobates obey not the word of God partly through the wickednesse of their own hearts and partly because they are raised up by the unsearchable judgment of God to illustrate his glory by their damnation I will end this with that speech of Piscator Reprobates are precisely appointed to this evill to be punished everlastingly and to sinne And therefore to sinne that they might be justly punished 4. That as he hath immutably decreed that Reprobates shall live and dye in sinne So he procures their sinnes in due time by his Almighty hand partly by withdrawing from them grace necessary for the avoiding of sinne and partly by moving and inclining them by his irresistable and secret working on their hearts to sinfull actions Calvin saith that men and Devills and Reprobate-men are not only held fast in God's fetters so as they cannot doe what they would but are also urged and forced by God's bridle ad obsequia praestanda to doe as he would have thē in the next chapter these are the words that men have nothing in agitation that they bring nothing to action but what God by his secret direction hath ordered is apparent by many cleare testimonies In that Section following he saith And surely unlesse God did worke inwardly in the minds of men it would not be rightly said that he takes away wisdome from the wise In these two chapters that which he mainly driveth at is to shew that God doth not only behave himselfe privatively in procuring the sinnes of men but doth allso put forth powerfull and positive acts in the bringing of thē to passe And in the second book and fourth chapter after he had said that God may be said to harden men by forsaking them he putteth in another way by which God hardneth them that he saith commeth a great deale nearer to the propriety of Scripture phrases namely by stirring up their wills God doth not only hardē men by levaing them unto themselves but by appointing their counsells ordering their deliberations stirring up their wills confirming their purposes by the Minister of his anger Satan And this he proveth by the worke of God on Sihon King of the Amorites and then insinuateth the end too why God thus hardens men in their wicked courses which is that he might destroy them Quia perditum Deus volebat obstinatio cordis divina fuit ad ruinam preparatio Because God intends his ruine he prepared him for sin by his induration The summe of all these propositions is this God who from all eternity appointed many miserable men to endlesse and unavoidable torments decreed for the bringing about of their intended ruine that they should without remedy live and dye in a state of sinne and what he thus decreed from everlasting he doth powerfully effect in time so governing over-ruling working upon the wills of those Reprobates that they have no liberty
for hereby many times men are drawen full sore against their wills to doe that which they would not It is true God's power cannot be resisted but neither hath any man any will to resist that motion of God whereby he workes agreable to their natures then indeed there were place for resisting If the Lord carrieth on a covetous person such as Achan to covet a wedge of gold and a Babylonish garment and coveting it move him accordingly to take it and convey it away secretly and hide it in his tent what resistance doth he make in all this Or what is done in all this lesse agreably to his covetous disposition then to the disposition of Toades and Addars when he moves them according to their nature to sting and poyson So he moved the Babylonians compared to Serpents and Cockatrices to sting a wicked people Doe not the Scriptures plainly professe that God did send them Is not Assur in this respect called the Rod of God's wrath and the staffe in his hand Was it not called the Lords indignation Is he not compared to an axe and a sawe shall the axe boast it selfe against him that heweth therewith Or shall the saw extoll it selfe against him that moveth it Still he confounds the act with the sinfulnesse thereof speaking of God's producing sinnes whereas sinne is never produced it being only an obliquity consequent unto the act of such a worker as is subject to a law And our Adversaries confesse that God is the cause of the act as well as we Yet will they not hereby be driven to professe that in producing the act he produceth the sin As for that which he speaks of Inforcing we may well pitty him that when he wants strength of reason he supplies that by phrases We deny that God inforceth any man's will Nay it is the generall rule of Schooles that voluntas non potest cogi the will cannot be forced We maintaine that every act of the will especially in naturall things such as a sinfull act must needs be for only gracious acts are supernaturall is not only voluntary which is sufficient to preserve it from being forced but free also by as much libertie as the creature is capable of only we deny that the will of man is primum liberum a first free agent that is the prerogative of God alone the first mover of all and the supreme Agent thus I have dispatched my answer to his first reason consisting of three parts I come unto the second Sect 4. If we could find out a King that should so carry himselfe in procuring the ruine and the offences of any Subjects as by this opinion God doth in the affecting of the damnation and transgressions of Reprobates we would all charge him with the ruine and sinnes of those his Subjects Who would not abhorre saith Moulin a King speaking thus I will have this man hangâ—d and that I may hang him justly I will have him murder or steale This King saith he should not only make an innocent man miserable sed sceleratum but wicked too and should punish him for that offence cujus ipse causa esset of which himselfe was the cause It is a cleare case Tiberius as Suetonius reports having a purpose to put some Virgins to death because it was not lawfull among the Romans to strangle Virgins caused them all to be deflouered by the hang-man that so they might be strangled Who will not say that Tiberius was the principall Authour of the deflouring of those Maides In like manner say the Supralapsarians God hath a purpose of putting great store of men to the second death but because it is not lawfull for him by reason of his justice to put to death men innocent and without blame he hath decreed that the Devill shall defloure them that afterwards he may damne them It followeth therefore that God is the maine cause of those their sinnes If a King should carry himselfe as God did in hardning Pharaoh's heart that he should not let Israel goe and when he had let Israel goe to harden his heart that he should follow after them we would acknowledge such a one not to be man but God And then surely whatsoever our Arminians would thinke of such a one we would thinke noe otherwise then Solomon did of him of whom he professed that he made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill If God doth but permit a man to will this or that necesse est saith Arminius it must needs be ut nullo argumentorum genere persuadeatur ad nolendum that noe kind of argument shall perswade such one to abstaine from willing it And I hope Arminius hath as great auhority with this Authour as Mr. Moulin deserves to have with us Noe King hath power to dispense any such providence as this St. Paul tells us plainly that God hath ordained some unto wrath and as he hath made of the same lumpe some vessells unto honour so hath he made other vessells unto dishonour The Lord professeth that he kept Abimelech from sinning against him Thus the Lord could deale with all if it pleased him Why doth he not is it not for the manifestation of his own glory For to this purpose he hath made all things And that he suffers with long patience vessells of wrath prepared to destruction And what to doe doth he suffer them But to continue and persevere in their sinfull courses without repentance the Apostle plainly tells us that it is to declare his wrath and make his power known This is not the voice of any Doctor of ours now a dayes but of St. Paul And shall Mr. Moulin be brought in to affront St. Paul For recompence let the Jesuits be heard to whom the nation of the Arminians are beholden for their principall grounds Wherefore doth God give effectuall grace unto one and not unto another but because he hath elected the one and rejected the other And I appeale to every sober Christian whether the absolutenesse of reprobation doth not as invincibly follow herehence as the absolutenesse of Election But touching Mr. Moulin I have heard that Doctor Ames somtimes wished that he had never medled in this argument I am not of Doctor Ames his mind in this though it were I thinke most fit every one should exercise himselfe in those questions wherein by the course of his studies he hath been most conversant so should the Church of God enjoy plus dapis rixae multo minus invidiaeque I doe admire Mr. Moulin in his conference with Cayer as also upon the Eucharist and on Purgatory he hath my heart when I read his consolalations to his Breathren of the Church of France as also intreating of the love of God I would willingly learne French to understand him only and have along time desired still to get any thing that he hath written I highly esteem him in his Anatomie though I doe not
like all and every passage yet but few are the passages wherein I differ from his opinion I have been very sory to observe how by his doctrine in the point of reprobation he overthrowes his own Orthodox Doctrine in the point of Election I would he would answer Sylvester who hath replied to his admirable letters written to Monsieur Balzak I could be well content were I once free to supply what is wanting to Waleus his Apologie for him against Corvinus But to the point the passage here proposed by him is I willingly confesse somewhat harsh I will have this man hang'd and that I may hang him justly I will have him murther or steale But compare it with that of St. Paul formerly mentioned God suffers the vessells of wrath prepared to destruction that he may declare his wrath and make his power known And that of Eli's children They obeyed not the voice of their Father because the Lord would slay them And that Amaziah would not heare For it was of the Lord that he might deliver them into his hands because they sought the Gods of Edom. And that of Ieremiah Doubtlesse because the wrath of the Lord was against Ierusalem and Iuda till he had cast them out of his presence therefore Zedekiah rebelled against the King of Babel And observe how neare Mr. Moulin is to expose these holy passages of Scripture and the doctrine contained in them in like manner unto scorne ere he is aware And let him soberly consider and without any humour of complying with our Adversaries out of a desire to charme them who will not be charmed to what end God doth finally permit some to persevere in sinne and can he find any other but this for the manifestation of the glory of his vindicative justice in their condemnation And without any desire to charme I have shewed plainly that God doth not permit any man to sinne and finally to persevere in sin to the end that he may damnethem But that he both permits them finally in sin and damnes them for their sinne for the declaration of his wrath and power on them and also that he may declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of his mercy whom he hath prepared unto glory If he put a difference between permission of sinne and a will that they shall sinne I would entreate him not to stumble at this For what difference between God's will to permit man to sinne and to will that man shall sin by his permission And the tragicall acts committed on the holy Son of God by Herod and Pilate the Gentiles and people of Israel the Apostles say not they were permitted by God but that they were predetermined by the hand and counsell of God Mr. Moulin's care is to avoid harsh expressions it is a commendable care For why should we causlesly expose the truth of God to be the worse thought of and provoke men to stumble at it by unnecessary harshnesse Yet I find the Scripture it selfe delivered by the holy Prophets and Apostles is nothing so scrupulous Malim dicere saith Mr. Moulin I had rather say Deum non decrevisse dare alicui gratiam quâ convertatur credat that God hath decreed not to give some one grace whereby to be converted and believe quâm dicere eum decrevisse ut homo sit incredulus impoenitens then to say God hath decreed that man should be incredulous and impenitent And he gives his reason thus Vox enim decernendi aptior est ad ea designanda quae Deus statuit facere quà m ea quibus statuit non mederi For to decree is fitter to denote such things as God hath purposed to doe then such things as he hath purposed not to cure And indeed the Ancients in this sense take the word predestination to be only of such things as God himselfe purposed to worke as Grace and Glory and the damnation of impenitent sinners But if God decrees not to cure impenitency and infidelity in some judge whether upon this ground it may not well be said that God decrees that the impenitency and infidelitie of some shall continue uncured And Mr. Monlin confesseth that God decreed that the Jewes should put Christ to death His words are these Deus vetuit homicidium idem tamen decrevitut Iudaei Christum morte afficerent God forbad murther yet he decreed that the Iewes should kill Christ Yet by the way consider God hath no need of the sinne of man that he may put him to death justly For undoubtedly God could annihilate any creature that he hath made the most holy Angells without any blemish to his justice Yea by power absolute he could cast the most innocent creature into hell fire and continue yet just still as formerly hath been shewed and Raynaudus justifies and represents variety of testimonies for this not only of School-divines one of whom professeth that it is concors omnium Theologorum sententia the common opinion of Divines but of the Ancient Fathers also And therefore though to strangle Virgins was not lawfull for Tiberius yet a greater more severe worke then this is lawfull for God Neither doth God cōmand any impure course to any but under pain of eternall damnatiō forbids it But as he hardened Pharaoh's heart that he should not let I srael goe so can he harden any man's heart to doe as foule a work as this And St. Paul testifies that he gave up the heathens to their hearts lusts unto uncleanes to defile their own bodies between themselves which turned the truth of God into a lie worshipped served the creature forsaking the Creatour who is blessed for ever amen For this cause God gave them up to vile affections for even the women did change the naturall use into that which is against nature And likewise the men left the naturall use of the women and burned in their lusts one toward another and man with man wrought filthinesse And this is noted by the Apostle to have been a work of judgment For it followes they received in themselves such recompence of their errours as was meet I grant Tiberius was the principall Authour of deflowring those Maides For he commanded it and that as I have shewed makes a man the Authour of a crime both out of School-divines and out of Oratours but God gave no such cōmand to these heathens thus to defile themselves And this Authour doubts not but God cooperates to the substance of every act notwithstanding the absoute dominion of the will over her actions for which he pleades And it cannot be denied unlesse the word of God be therewithall denied that in him we move as well as in him we live and have our being And though God gave not commandement to Absalom to defile his Fathers Concubines yet he tells David saying I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them to thy neigbour and he shall lie with thy wives in the
sight of this Sun For thou did'st it secretly but I will doe this thing before all Israel and before the Sun It is utterly untrue which this Authour obtrudes upon us as if we thought it unlawfull for God by reason of his justice to put to death men innocent and without blame Was any more innocent then the Son of God yet he gave him to suffer somewhat more then the death for the sins of men Neither must we be gull'd with his phrases of the Devills deflouring of men when by him they are carried away into abominable courses so as to oppose Scripture blaspheme God the language of the holy Ghost being this that all the outrages committed upon the holy Son of God by Herod and Pontius Pilate the Gentiles and people of Israel were such as God's hand and counsell had before determined to be done And the like cruelties or worse were executed upon the Saints of God by their Kings who imploied their soveraigne power in executiō of the beast's behests yet this is called the will of God God hath put into their hearts to fullfill his will and to agree to give their kingdomes to the beast untill the word of God be fulfilled And the truth is if God permit such abominable courses and hardens men's hearts occasion being offered they will commit them according to the common proverbe He must needs goe whom the Devill drives And the very definition of the permission of sinne given by Arminius doth convince this though he carrieth himselfe very superficiarily explicating God's providence in this and the nature of obduration which I have prosecuted at large in my Vindiciae in answer to Bellarmine especially where I treat of the abduration of Pharaoh chap 11. Neither doe we make damnation the end whereunto God permits sinne but both permisson for sinne and damnation for sinne we make the meanes tending to another end namely the manifestation of God's glory in the way of justice vindicative which in Scripture phrase is called the declaration of his wrath And to make God the Authour of sinne by these courses is clearely to charge the holy Ghost with blasphemie seing the holy Ghost gives cleare testimony to all this in the word of God Sect. 5. That God is the Authour of men's salvation and conversion all sides grant and yet he doth noe more in the procuring them then these men report him to doe in the Reprobates impenitency and damnation The salvation and conversion of the Elect say they he hath absolutely and antecedently without the foresight of any deserving of theirs reselved upon and by irresistable meanes in their severall generations draweth them to believe repent and indure to the end that so they might be saved and his absolute decree accomplished On the other side the damnation the sinnes and the finall impenitency of Reprobates he hath of his alone will and pleasure peremptorily decreed this his decree he executeth in time drawing them on by his unconquerable power and providence from sinne to sin till they have made up their measure and in the end have inflicted on them that eternall vengeance which he had provided for them What difference is here in the course which God taketh for the conversion and salvation of the Elect and the obduration and damnation of the Reprobates And therefore what hindereth but that God by their grounds may as truely be stiled the prime cause and Authour of the sinnes of the one as of the conversion of the other The Fathers thought it a plaine case and therefore they did make sinne an Object of prescience and not predestination and bent the most of those arguments by wich they refuted this foule assertion against an absolute irresistable and necessitating decree as I could easily shew but that I feare to be over long Only I will cite some few of those Authour's words whom the learned reverend Bishop hath alleadged in favour and for the defence of the Predestinarians and the maintainers of Gotteschalk's opinion The Church of Lyous in their answer to the positions of Johannes Scotus which he framed against Gotteschalke hath these words Whosoever saith tthat God hath laid a constraint or necessity of sinning upon any man he doth manifestly and fearefully blaspheme God in as much as he maketh him by affirming that of him to be the very Authour of sinne Remigius Arch. Bishop of that Church explaining the Churches opinion in that point of prescience and predestination in seven severall rules in the fift of those rules he hath these words to the same purpose God saith he by his prescience and predestination hath laid a necessitie of being wicked upon noe man For if he had done this he had been the Authour of sinnes And thus in my iudgment doth it plainly appeare that by absolute Reprobation as it is taught the upper way God is made to be the true cause of men's sinnes Observe the false carriage of this Authour That God is the Authour of men's salvation and conversion he saith all sides grant as if there were noe difference between Arminians and the Orthodox between him and us in this We say God workes faith and regeneration in us and that for Christ's sake The Remonstrants in their Censura censurae in expresse termes deny that Christ merited faith and regeneration for us and judge by this indifferently whether they make faith and regeneration to be the guift of God Or when they doe in termes professe this as Epicurus verbis Deos posuit re sustulit whether they doe not equivocate Aske this Authour in what sense he makes God to be the Authour of man's conversiō whether any otherwise thē 1. In giving men power to believe if they will to repent if they will 2. In perswading unto faith repentance 3. In concurring with man to the act of faith repentance Now as touching the first that mere nature not grace Deo credere ab amore rerum temporalium ad divina praecepta servanda se convertere omnes possint si velint saith Austin All men can if they will believe God and from the love of temporall things convert themselves to the keeping of God's commandements Now this is noe more then posse fidem habere posse charitatem habere to be capable of faith of charity and this is naturae hominum of the nature of man As Austin testifies in another place where he saith posse fidem habere posse charitatem habere naturae est hominum fidem habere charitatem habere gratiae est fidelium To be capable of faith and charity is the nature of man but to have faith and to have charity is the grace of the faithfull Consider in reason supernaturall grace is not in reason to be accounted inferiour to a morall vertue but so it will prove if it be but a power to be good if we will For morall vertue doth not give a man a power only to doe
That which necessitateth the will to sinne is as truly the cause of sinne as that which forceth it because it maketh the sinne to be inevitably committed which otherwise might be avoided and therefore if the Divine decree necessitate man's will to sinne it is as truly the cause of sinne as if it did inforce it 3. That which necessitates the will to sinne is more truly the cause of the sinne then the will is because it overruleth the will and beareth all the stroke taketh from it ' its true liberty by which it should be Lord of it selfe and disporser of ' its own acts and in respect of which it hath been usually called by Philosophers and Fathers too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power which is under the insuperable check and controule of no Lord but it selfe It overruleth I say maketh it become but a servile instrument irresistably subject to superiour command and determination And therefore is a truer cause of all such acts and sins as proceed from the will so determined then the will is For when two Causes concurre to the producing of an effect the one a principle overruling cause the other but instrumentall and wholly at the Devotion of the principall then is the effect in all reason to be imputed to the principall which by the force of ' its influxe and impression produceth it rather then to the subordinate and instrumentall which is but a mere servant in the production of it We shall find it ordinary in Scripture to ascribe the effect to the principall Agent It is not ye that speak saith Christ but the Spirit of my Father that speaketh in you I laboured more abundantly then they all yet not I but the grace of God which was in me And I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me saith St. Paul Gal 2. 20. In these and many other places the effect or work spoken of is taken from the instrument and given to the principall agent Which being so though man's will worke with God's decree in the commission of sinne and willeth the sin which it doth yet seing what the will doth it doth by the commanding power of God's Allmighty decree and so it doth that otherwise it cannot doe the sin committed cannot so rightly be ascribed to man's will the inferiour as to God's necessitating decree the superiour cause 4. That which makes a man sinne by way of necessitie that is with and not against his will is the cause of sin in a worse manner then that which constraineth him to sinne against his will As he which by powerfull perswasions drawes a man to stab to hang to poison himselfe is in a grosser manner the cause of that evill and unnaturall action then he that by force compells him because he maketh him to consent to his own death And so if Gods decree doe not only make men sin but sin willingly too not only cause that they shall malè agere doe evill but malè velle will evill it hath the deeper hand in the sinne God determines the will to sinne by necessitie though not by compulsion this he obtrudes upon our Devines as their opinion but quotes none is it likely that he who quotes Beza to shew that in his opinion God doth not only permit sinne but will sinne And Calvin to shew that a man's mind is blinded volente jubente Deo would not quote some or other of our Divines to prove that which he obtrudes upon them If his common place booke could afford him any such quotation out of any one of them to shew who they be and where they say that God determines the will to sinne by necessity though not by compulsion Was there ever the like crimination made against any without naming them that say so and the place where and their own words Or hath this man or any of his spirit deserved any credit to be trusted this way The very phrase of determining in Latine is no word of course with our Divines in this argument It is the phrase of the Dominicans But doe they say that God determines the will to sinne I doe not thinke he can produce one of them that expresseth himselfe so unscholastically so absurdly Alvarez saith that God by his effectuall decree predetermineth second causes to worke He saith that God doth predetermine the will to the act of sinne as it is an act That the first root of contingency is the will of God Then to what doth God determine the will in their opinion Is it to the act only and not to the manner of its production Namely to produce it voluntarily and freely Nothing lesse though this Authour counts it his wisdome to conceale this God by his omnipotency doth cause that man whose heart he moves to will and will freely Againe God's generall concourse is a divine immediate influence into second causes whereby they are foremoved applyed and determined to worke every one according to the condition of its nature The naturall cause naturally the free cause freely as I have professedly delivered Disput 18. 23. And that in such sort freely as they can choose to doe otherwise if they will and that in the very instant wherin they doe what they doe But come we to consider his answer 1. Touching that which he saith of the Ancients he gives us his bare word for it as touching the confounding of necessitie and compulsion yet Bernard I confesse willingly in talking of liberty from necessity understands by necessity coaction He saith farther that those Ancients did deny that God did necessitate men to sinne least they should grant thereby that God is the Authour of sinne But I doe not thinke he can shew this phrase of necessitating the will any way to be found among the Ancients what he hath touched before I have considered what he shall intimate hereafter I hope I shall not let it passe unsaluted And the truth is to necessitate hath such an Emphasis with it as to perswade that whatsoever a man is necessitated to do that he doth by constraint against his will And it is a rule commonly received that Voluntas non potest cogi The will cannot be forced which is most true as touching Actus eliciti the acts of the will inward and immediate and not so of actus imperati acts outward and commanded But Bradwardine who alone useth this phrase among'st School-Divines takes it in no such sense but only for an effectuall operation of God upon the will moving it to worke this or that not necessarily but freely which this Authour most judiciously dissembleth all along for desparing to prevaile by true and substantiall information of the understanding perturbundis affectibus suffuratur by a corrupt proposition of his Adversaries tenet hopes to worke distast upon the Readers affections Bradwardines position is this God can after a sort necessitate every created will to ' its free act and to a free cessation vacation from act and
declaring God's justice in mens punishments God doth not predestiminate men to sinne as it is sinne but as a meanes of their punishment He is not therefore say they the Authour of sinne 1. A good end cannot moralize a bad action it remaineth evill though the end be never so good Bonum oritur ex integris â—end manner yea matter too must be good or else the action is naught He that shall steale that he may give an almes or commit adultery that he may beget Children for the Church Or oppresse the poore to teach them patience Or kill a wicked man that he may doe no more hurt with his example or doe any forbidden thing though his end be never so good he sinneth notwithstanding And the reason is because the evill of sinne is greater then any good that can come by sinne forasmuch as it is laesio divinae majestatis a wronging of God's majesty and to Divino bono opposita directly prejudiciall to the good of Almighty God as much as any thing can be This Saint Paul knew very well and therefore he tells us plainely that we must not doe evill that good may come thereof Whosoever therefore willeth sin though for never so good an end he willeth that which is truly and formally a sinne and consequently God though he will sinne for never so good ends yet willing it with such a powerfull and effectuall will as giveth a necessary being to it he becommeth Authour of that which is formally sinne 2. The members of this distinction are not opposite for sinne as sinne and in no other consideration is meanes of punishment If God therefore willeth it as a meanes of punishment he willeth it as a sinne his decree it determinated at the the very formality of it 3 This distinction fastneth upon God a further aspersion and loadeth him with three speciall indignities more 1. Want of wisedome and providence His counsells must needs be weak if he can find out no meanes to glorifie justice but by the bringing in of sinne which his soule hateth into the world and appointing men to commit it that so he may maaifest justice in the punishment of it 2. Want of sincerity and plaine dealing with men Tiberius as Suetonius reports having a purpose to put the two sonnes of Germanicus Drusius and Nero to death used sundry cunning contrivances to draw them to revile him that reviling him they might be put to death and herein is justly censured for great hypocrisie And so if God having appointed men by his absolute will to inevitable perdition doe decree that they shall sinne that so they may be damned for those sins which he decreeth and draweth them into he dissembleth because he slaughtereth them under pretext of justice for sinne but yet for such sins only as he hath by his eternall counsell appointed as the meanes of their ruine 3. Want of mercy in an high degree as if he did so delight in bloud that rather then he will not destroy mens soules he will have them live and dye in sinne that he may destroy them like to those Pagan Princes of whom Justin Martyr Apol 2 two or three leaves from the beginning saith They are afraid that all should be just least they should have none to punish But this is the disposition of Hang-men rather then of Good Princes And therefore farre be those foule enormities and in particular this latter from the God of truth and Father of mercies And thus notwithstanding these distinctions it is in my conceit most evident that the rigid and upper way makes God the Authour of mens sins as well as punishment And so much for the first generall inconvenience which ariseth from this opinion namely the dishonour of God I willingly professe I am to seeke what that Divine of ours is that saith God doth predestinate men to sinne as a meanes of their punishment Here this Authour is silent names no man quotes no place Like as in the former he carried himselfe in this manner The Ancients generally take predestination in no other notion then to be of such things which God himselfe did purpose to bring to passe by his own operation not of such things as come to passe by God's permission Neither can I call to remembrance any Divine of ours that talkes of God's predestinating men unto sinne But the Scripture affords plentifull testimony of God's will ordination and determination that the sins of men come to passe by God's permission Was it not God's will that Pharaoh's heart should be hardened so as not to let Israel goe for a while when he told Moses that he would harden Pharaoh's heart that he should not let Israel goe Was it not God's appointment that Absolom should lye with his fathers Concubines when he denounced this judgment against him that he would give his wives unto his neighbour who should lye with them before the sun Was it not his will that the ten tribes should revolt from Rehoboam when he protested of that businesse that it was from him Was it not God's will that the Jews and Gentiles should concurre in crucifying Christ when the Apostles professe that both Herod Pontius-Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israel were gathered together to doe what God's hand and counsell had before determined to be done Doth not Saint Peter professe of some that stuÌ„bled at the word being disobedient that hereunto they were ordained And that the ten Kings in giving their Kingdomes to the beast did fullfill the will of God as touching this particular But that God should will or ordaine it as a meanes of punishment as if the end which God aimed at were the punishment is so absurd and contradictious unto Scripture that in my opinion it cannot well enter into any judicious Divines heart so to conceive And marke how this Authour shuffles herein for first he saith that sin may be considered either as sinne or as a meanes of declaring God's justice in punishing it And why doth he not keep himselfe unto this especially considering that not permission of sin only but the punishment of sin also are jointly the meanes of declaring God's justice And where King Solomon professeth that God made the very wicked against the day of evill in the same place he manifesteth what is the end of this namely in saying that he made all things for himselfe that is for the manifestation of his own glory And this glory is not only in the way of justice but in the way of mercy also which this Authour as his manner is very judiciously conceales this attribute of mercy lying not so open to this Authours evasion as that of justice And is it possible God's mercy and the demonstration thereof should have place where there is no sin considering that no other evill or misery had entred into the world had it not been for sin according to that of the Apostle By one man sin entred into the world death by
secundum quam dicimus necesse esse ut aliquid ita sit vel ita fiat nescio cur eam timeamus ne nobis liv◠〈◊〉 voluntatis auferat If that is to be accounted our necessity which is net in our power but whether we will or no worketh as it can such as is the necessity of death It is apparent that our wills whereby we live well or ill are not under the the necessity of fate For we doe many things which if we would not we should not doe them But if necessity be defined to be such a thing as when we say it must needs be that a thing be thus or thus come to passe I know not why we should feare least such a necessity should bereave us of free will And this Austin delivers to meet with the vaine feares of those who placed our wills among'st those things which are not subject to necessity least so they should loose their liberty Observe this well and compare it with the present discourse of this positive Theologue who thinks to outface Austin with the authority of his bare word In the words following he manifests that he speakes all this while of necessity in respect of God's decree not simply but considered as irresistable by the way making no bones of avouching some decrees of God to be resistable notwithstanding the Psalmist's protestation Whatsoever the Lord willeth that hath he done both in heaven and earth And St. Paul's emphaticall expression of the same truth saying Who hath repsted his will But this Divine is a brave fellow and thinks to carry all with his breath For where hath he given us any reason to prove that any decrees of God are of any resistable condition But let his decrees be never so irresistable and let that be true which Austin saith that Non aliquid fit nisi omnipotens fieri velit Not any thing comes to passe unlesse God will have it come to passe And after Austin the Church of Ireland in their Articles of religion Yet if God will have every thing come to passe agreeably to the nature condition thereof thus necessary things necessarily contingent things contingently as Aquinas hath not only said but proved hereby is no impeachment to the liberty of the creature but an establishment thereof rather as the Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy of Ireland have professed in the foresaid Article that I may shew some authority for my sayings as this Authour represents none for his but carrieth himselfe like a Master of Sentences as if he were in his own sufficiency of more authority and credit to be believed then the Pope in a generall Councell And albeit my selfe after many others and some formerly mentioned have shewed in a large digression to this purpose that necessity upon supposition may well stand with contingency and liberty simply so called And in the first place have instanced in necessity of infallibility consequent to God's prescience which though Cicero thought could not consist with man's liberty yet Christians have alwaies been of a contrary opinion untill the Sect of the Socinians arose and Arminians are very apt to shew them so much courtesy as to beare their bookes after them Secondly I have proved a necessity upon supposition of God's decree to permit sinne For the Lord takes upon him to be the keeper of us from sinne as Gen 20. 6. He professeth as much to Abimilech that he kept him from sinning against God In case God will not keep a man from sinne what can be expected but that he will undoubtedly sinne without any prejudice to the liberty of his will considering that of Austin Libertas sine gratia non est libertas sed contumacia Liberty without grace is not liberty but wilfulnesse Thirdly and lastly upon supposition of God's will And this I prove evidently to passe on every thing which God foreseeth as future considering that contingent things are merely possible in their own nature and cannot passe out of the condition of things merely possible into the condition of things future without a cause And no other cause of this transmigration can be devised with any colour of reason or probability save only the will of God Neither doe I find that digression of mine in any the least part weakened or so much as assailed by ought that this Authour hath delivered Who sheweth himselfe upon the stage rather to brave his opposites with the bare authority of his words then with sound argument to dispute ought Sect 2. Because it taketh away the desert and guilt of sin Offences if fatall cannot be justly punished 2. The reason is because those deed for which men are punished or rewarded must be their own under their own power and and soveraignty but such are no fatall acts or events Neither temporally nor eternally can sin be-punished if it be absolutely necessary Not temporally as God himselfe hath given us to understand by that law which he prescribed the Jewes Deut 22. 25. Which was that it a Maid commit uncleanesse by constraint she should not be punished His reason was because there was no cause of death in her what she yeilded to was through compulsion being overborne by power As a man that is wounded to death by his neighbour so was a Virgin in that case a sufferer rather then a doer This particular law is of universall right No just punishment can be inslicted for sinne where there is no power in the party to avoid it The speech of Lipsius is but a mere crorchet contrary to reason Fatali culpae fatalis poena fatall faults must have fatall punishments Did magistrates thinke mens offences unavoidable they would thinke it bootlesse and unreasonable to punish them Nay not only so but we see by dayly experience that Judges following the direction of reason have very remissely punished such faults as have been committed through the power of the head strong exorbitant passions Yea we may read of some who have not thought it fit to punish such faults at all Valcrius Maximus telleth that Popilius a Roman Praetor sitting in judgment on a woman who had in a bitter passion slaine her mother because she had murthered her children neque damnavit neque absolvit neither cleared her nor condemned her And Aulus Gellius reporteth of Dolabella the Proconsul of Asia that when a woman of Smyrna was brought before him who had poysoned her husband and son for murthering a son of hers which she had by a former husband he turned her over to the Arcopagus which was the gravest and most renowned judgment seat in the world The Judges there not daring to acquit her being stained with a double slaughter nor yet to punish her being provokt with just greife commanded the accuser offender to come before them an hundred yeares after And so neither was the womans fact justified the lawes not allowing of it Nor yet the woman punished because she was worthy to be pardoned If wise
impose or can impose any such necessity on things neither are creatures capable of such necessity But if we speake of such necessity as creatures are capable of under the divine liberty by causes intermediate it is to be said that all things doe not come to passe of necessity but some doe and some doe not God will have some things come to passe by the mediation of causes necessary those come to passe necessarily Others come to passe by the mediation of causes contingent and those come to passe contingently Whereby saith he 't is manifest that they say not well who say that all things come to passe of necessity in reference to the Divine will because as hath been shewed in respect of the Divine will all things come to passe freely and therefore speaking absolutely they may not come to passe although upon supposition that they are willed they cannot but come to passe but this is only necessity upon supposition 1. Indeed if men did sinne against their wills and virgins sometimes are ravished men are slaine by force full sore against their wills they deserved no punishment But is it possible that a man can will that which is evill against his will Every ordinary Scholar in the University knowes that axiome Voluntas non potest cogi the will cannot be forced Lipsius his speech fatali culpae fatalis poena fatall faults have fatall punishments this Authour saith is but a mere crotchet contrary to reason As if he would teach the very maintainers of fate yea the very first to understand themselves For fate wherewith our doctrine is charged by our opposites is commonly called Fate Stoicall Now Zeno was the father of the Stoicks yet when his servant was taken playing the theife pleaded for himselfe saying it was my destiny to steale Zeno answeared him in his own language that it was his destiny to smart for it too right in this same sense that Lipsius spake Yet Zeno knew full well that he punished his servant freely And Zeno is well knowne to have been a great Master of morality for all this which could not consist with denying the liberty of man's will as this Authour well knowes And Austin censureth those who feared to subject the will to all manner of necessity as men transported with vaine and causelesse feares manifesting thereby that some necessity may very well consist with a man's liberty Magistrates though they believe with Austin that Not any thing comes to passe unlesse Allmighty God will have it come to passe And with the Church of Ireland that God from all eternity did by his unchangeable counsell ordaine whatsoever should in time come to passe And with Aquinas that the roote of contingency is the effectuall will of God yet may they well thinke it reasonable enough to punish offences seing that God decrees that some things even all the actions of men shall come to passe contingently as well as other things shall come to passe necessarily For to come to passe contingently is to come to passe avoidably and if they be the actions of men freely also It is incredible that any sober man should remissely punish faults for the exorbitancy strength sake of the passions whereby they were committed but rather in consideration of the potent causes which raised such passions in them under a colour of justice And we commonly say the greater the temptation is the lesse is the sin So Peter surprised suddainly with feare denied his Master Yet what saith Aristotle In some things no force is suffecient for excuse but a man ought to dy rather any manner of death then commit them For those things in Euripedes are rediculous which moved Alcmaeon to kill his mother Indeed Plato maintained that things done through passion were not voluntary But Aristotle a better Master then he disproves it and by excellent reasons confirmes the contrary And whatsoever Popilius the Roman Pretor judged of her who slew her mother provoked by her Mothers fact in murthering her children yet let our lawes be consulted and the opinion of our Judges in such a case and whether such a one were not to be condemned and whether Popilius his judgment deserves to be admitted for the correction of the lawes of our land and working a reformation in this particular We should soone have a wild world if every one being provoked by the insolencies of others should thrust themselves into the throne of God for the execution of vengeance Yet none more unfit for this then the daughter to execute God's vengeance upon the mother that bare her Yet it was wont to be held If I forget not that potestas patria originally was power of life and death But all is fish that comes to this Authour's net like as her fact who poisoned her husband and son for killing a son of hers destroying two for one without all authority most unnaturally and that not hastily but in a deliberate way by poisoning And doth it become Christians to admire such heathenish courses of men nothing acquainted with the divine providence And was this so doubtfull a case whether so wicked a wretch avenging her selfe by poison secretly given upon her husband and son for the death of another son of hers that the sentencing thereof should be put over untill an 100 yeares after But what of all this These willfully affect revenge the execution whereof belongs not to them but it is just with God to punish sinne with sinne one man's sinne by another As of Senacherib the Lord professeth that he would cause him to fall by the sword in his own land this was brought to passe by his own children falling upon him furiously and as unnaturally as the actions of any of these How was innocent Naboth used and by publique sentence condemned to be stoned to death and accordingly executed by the practise of wicked Iezabel Yet Solomon spareth not to professe that every man's judgment commeth of the Lord. Never were more abominable courses executed upon any then upon the holy son of God Yet these were all foredetermined by the hand of God and the counsell of God as the Apostles with one voice acknowledge By the same providence was Ioseph sold into Egypt God working thereby the preservation of them that sold him Thus Sihon was hardened and the Canaanites and the Egyptians with Pharaoh their King to their own destruction Thus the Lord punished David's foule sinne by the murther of Amnon contrived by his own brother and by the sword of Absolon rising up against his own father and by the sword of Shimei's tongue cursing David wherein David acknowledged the hand of God Thus he punished the Idolatry of the Gentiles by giving them over to vile affections and so prostituting them to abominable courses What outrages were committed by Senacherib that proud and blasphemous wretch upon the people of God yet is he called the rod of God's wrath and the staffe in his hand is
comprehended under sic velle which Austin calls tantum augeri munere charitatis to have the gift of charity so much increased in him as thus Tantum Spiritu sancto accenditur voluntas eorum ut ideo possint quta sic velint ideo sic velint quia Deus sic operatur ut velint The will of God's children is so inflāed by the Holy Ghost that therefore they are able to do good because they have a will to it in such a manner that is with such fervency and eagernes therefore they have a will to it in such a manner because God so workes as to make them willing to wit in such a manner Secondly we say that to believe if a man will to repent if he will is to be accounted nature rather then grace which I prove thus Supernaturall grace is not inferiour to a morall vertue but a morall vertue doth more then leave a man indifferent to doe vertuously if he will For it inclines the will to vertuous courses only and not vitious Like as vice inclines the will only to vicious courses and not to vertuous how much more doth supernaturall grace not leave a man indifferent to doe good if he will but inclines the will only to such things as are pleasing unto God and not to things displeasing unto him Againe to have power to believe if we will is to have power to have faith if we will But this Austin hath expressely professed to belong to the nature of man in distinctio fró the grace of the faithfull Posse fidē habere sicut posse charitatē habere naturae est heminū fidē habere sicut charitatē habere gratiaeest fideliū The nature of man makes him to have power to have faith to have charity but the grace of the faithfull makes a man to have faith to have charity It may be objected out of the former place taken out of Aust deCor grat c. 11 that habere justitiam si velit is gratia prima to be righteous if he will is the first grace I answer Austin there speakes of the grace that Adam had before his fall which was this posse si velit to abstaine from eating the forbidden fruit And this first grace is called grace in this respect that there was in Adam no flesh lusting against the Spirit So that if Adam had but a will to abstaine he should have no cause to complaine as Saint Paul doth To will is present with me but I find no meanes to performe that which is good Now such a posse si velit is not found in any man now a daies no not in the regenerate But all men that have a will to doe good by the grace of God have withall a posse secundum quid a power in part a weake power but this is not sufficient to denominate them simply able to doe that which is good unlesse the love of God be increased in them so as to overcome the will of the flesh lusting against the spirit as I have represented Austin thus expounding it Thirdly whether tends this that all men have power to believe if they will to repent if they will But to maintaine that faith and repentance are not the gifts of God bestowed of his free grace on whom he will but that they are the workes of man's free will directly contradictory to the word of God expresly professing that faith is the gift of God and that not of our selves So repentance is the gift of God yea that it is God who worketh in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ Heb 13 21. Yea both the will and the deed and that of his good pleasure 4ly If all reprobates have power to believe and repent if they will and so consequently to persevere if they will how comes it to passe that not one of them doth believe repent and persevere seing it is confest among Philosophers that such contingents as depend upon the free will of man are equally propendent on either side to passe as often one way as the other But proceed we along with this Authour 1. Here he grants expresly that the state he speakes of is the state of originall sin in which state we acknowledge that man hath not libertatem à peccato freedome from sinne And Doctor Potter towards the end of his answer to Charity mistaken confesseth it to be the doctrine of the Church of England Yet doe not we say but that it is in the power of any man to abstaine from any particular sinne it being but a naturall act and a man hath free power to performe any naturall act or to abstaine from it so farre forth as to become very vertuous as much as any man among the heathen many of whom have been renowned for vertuous conversation Calvin in the passages here alleadged hath nothing concerning either the guilt of Adam's transgression passing upon his posterity or the corruption derived therehence unto them but only of their falling from eternall salvation in the one that all are enthralled to eternall death in the other And that Adam's fall hath enwrapped all in eternall death in the third My passages quoted and related out of my Vindiciae are more to the purpose I say indeed the guilt of Adam's transgression is derived unto us that is to our persons by imputation but that very sinne of Adam was the sin of our natures as Austin speaks Non modo natura facta est peccatrix sed genuit peccatores Not only our humane nature became a sinner but also begat sinners And accordingly it is justly imputed unto our persons otherwise how could it be just with God to condemne any man for originall sinne which yet is expresly acknowledged by Mr. Hoord And the Apostle saith expresly that in Adam all have sinned And Austin gives the reason of it De Adamo omnes peccatum originale trahunt quia omnes unus fuerunt All draw originall sinne from Adam because all were that one So that I have noe cause to doubt but this Authour is of the same opinion untill I find him to avouch the contrary and so much the rather because he finds it is the opinion of Bernard also And that the corruption consequent is derived to us only by propagation I thinke it is without doubt amongst all who concurre not with Pelagius in maintaining that it is derived unto us by imitation and so only Yet notwithstanding it cannot be denied but that God might have caused the punishment of Adam's sinne to rest upon himselfe only and immediately destroyed him and created another and propagated mankind from him Yea supposing his ordinance of propagating mankind from him yet God of his mercy might have derived others from him of his mere grace indued with the holy Ghost if it had pleased him like as whom he justly damnes for sinne he might have caused them to have lived one yeare or more longer and in that
saved as Prosper doth without assaying to cleare it by interpretation as Austin doth and will have it goe for a secret and withall he expresly concurres with Prosper in expressing first that God doth not give grace for mens good workes sake nor denyes it for their evill workes For the ages wherein God so plentifully communicated his grace were no better then the former Observe farther that Austin himselfe in his Enchiridion treating of this place of Paul God will have all to be saved after he hath given two interpretations thereof the last whereof interpreting it of genera singulorum not singula generum is most generally received as most congruous both to Scripture phrase in generall and in speciall unto this very text of Paul as Piscator observes and Vossius against himselfe improvidently confesseth Yet see the ingenuity of this great light in Gods Church If any man can give any other convenient interpretation let him provided we be not driven to deny the first article of Creed whereby we confesse that God is omnipotent And this I conceive proceeded out of a desire to hold up the meaning of that text to the uttermost that the very letter of it may be applyed so we might not be driwen to so foule an inconvenience as to say that God willeth that mans salvation which is never saved which is as much as to say that such a one therefore is not saved because God cannot save him Observe farther in the dayes of Hincmarus and Remigius these controversies being revived in the cause of Goteschalk the church of Lyons writes a booke wherein it treats of the meaning of this place of Paul whereof he gives fower expositions according to the antient fathers First That it is to be understood of genera singulorum not singula generum of all sorts of men not of all men of all sorts Secondly That none is saved but by the will of God Thirdly That God workes in us a will or a desire that all may be saved Fourthly That God will have all men to be saved if they will Then they propose their judgement concerning these fower expositions distinguishing betweene the three first and the last thus In the three first expositions of these words wherein it is sayd that God willeth all men to be saved no absurdity is to be found no repugnancy unto faith But as touching the fourth and the last here we are to take heed for it gives occasion to the Pelegian pravity in as much as it affirmes that God that he may save men doth exspect the wills of men Now this Pelagian pravity is the very substance of our Authours orthodoxy whom I deale with Against this errour sayth the Church of Lyons we read Definitions have beene made in the antient counsels of the fathers This I take out of the extracts which Vossius hath made out of that booke which goes under the name of the Church of Lyons in his Pelagian history l. 7. c. 4. p. 755 756. there is an addition of some few lines in the third Sect concerning Gods justice but they adde noe moment at all to the rest and therefore the answer made in that third Sect to M. Hord may suffice And in the same sect and subsection subordinate to the second assertion which he obtrudes upon the maintainers of the lower way which was this God hath determined for the sinne of Adam to cast away the greatest part of mankind for ever this Interpolation is inserted This is so cleare a case that Calvin with some others have not stickt to say that God may with as much justice determine men to hell the first way as the latter See Instit l. 3. cap. 23. s 7. Where against those who deny that Adam fell by Gods decree he reasoneth thus All men are made guilty of Adams sinne by Gods absolute decree alone Adam therefore sinned by this only decree What lets them it grāt that of one man which they must grant of all men And a little after he saith It is too absurd that these kind patrons of Gods justice should thus stumble at a straw and leap over a blocke God may with as much justice decree Adams sinne and mens damnation out of his only will and pleasure as out of that will and pleasure the involving of men in the guilt of the first sinne at and their damnation for it That is the substance of his reasoning To the same purpose speaketh Maccovius Fromhence we may see sayth he what to judge of that opinion of our adversaryes viz. That God cannot justly ordaine men to destruction without he consideration of sinne Let them tell me which is greater to impute to one man the sinne of another and punish him for it with eternall death or to ordaine simply without looking at sinne to destruction Surely no man will deny the first of these to be greater But this God may do without any wrong to iustice much more therefore may he do the other As touching the assertion it selfe here charged upon our Divines namely that God hath determined for the sinne of Adame to cast away the greatest part of mankind I have thereunto answered at large in my consideration of M. Hords discourse Yet let me adde something by way of an apt accommodation of that before delivered to cleare the ambiguous phrase of this Authour as touching the phrase of casting away For it may well be doubted whether by casting away which he makes the Object of Gods determination he meanes the act of damnation or the act of denying grace If the act of damnation it is most untrue For Reprobates are not damned for originall sinne only but for all the actuall sinnes that have beene committed by them And as they are and shall be damned for them So God from everlasting decreed they should be damned for them Secondly According to my Tenet in noe moment of nature is Gods decree of damning reprobates before the prescience not of originall sinne only but also of all their actuall sinnes Indeed I do not make the prescience of sinne to go before the decree of damnation Nor do I make the decree of damnation to go before the prescience of sinne but I conceive them to be simultaneous It is true many infants we say perish in originall sinne only not living to be guilty of any actuall sinne of their persons why should this seeme strange when M. Hord himselfe professeth in his preface sect 4. That all mankind are involved in the guilt of eternall death If all are guilty of eternall death then it were just with God to inflict eternall death upon all for originall sinne How much more is it just to inflict eternall death upon some few being guilty of it Therefore observe the foxlike cariage of this Authour For this former free acknowledgement of the guilt of eternall death adherent to originall sinne in M Hords discourse is quite left out in this though there it was professed with
the heart of his servants that I might worke these my miracles in the middest of his realme Here we have plaine enforcements those of great power used by the Lord yet still the Lord continues to harden Pharaoh's heart and professeth as much not fearing the censure of any vile wretch to cast upon him the imputation of imposture throughout the whole course of his ministery And the truth is all the learned concurre in distinguishing between Voluntas praecepti voluntas propositi and count it absurd to inferre the purpose of God or his will to have such a thing done from his commanding it though this command be joyned with exhortation expostulations wishes or whatsoever other emphaticall expressions all which the learned conclude under Praeceptum as a signe of God's will And the Pelagians of old urged it no farther then as God's precept backt with what exhortations and enforcements soever thence to conclude that man had power to yeild obedience but not to conclude it was God's will it should come to passe and to impute desires unto God in proper speech which never are accomplished what an unscholasticall course is it even as much as to deny him to be God and to bereave him of his blessed condition by frustrating him of his desires Whereas the time shall come that the Elect of God shall be so blessed as to have no desire of theirs in vaine Neither doth the objectour introduced by St. Paul breake forth into any such blasphemy as to charge God with any imposture in hardning whom he will when neverthelesse the ministery of the word hath course with them as well as with any other but rather proposeth it as a thing unreasonable that God should complaine of mens disobedince when himselfe hath hardned their hearts whereby it comes to passe that it cannot be that they should obey God as they ought For who hath resisted his will Yet we know what answer the Apostle maketh to stop the mouthes of all such as call God to an account for his procedings But ô man who art thou who disputest with God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lumpe to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour And wilt not thou allow as much power unto God over thee or over the matter whereof thou wast made as the Potter hath power over the clay Proud man thinks himselfe able enough to believe to repent Now God by his passionate expressions in the Prophets discovereth the vanity of this proud conceit and laboureth by their little profiting by all these patheticall moving courses to manifest the strength of man's corruption And when they will not learne and receive this instruction by his workes he tells them the plaine truth of it to their faces Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and unto all his land The great temptations which thine eyes have seen those great miracles and wonders Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive nor eyes to see nor eares to heare unto this day Is this the course of imposture when he tells them to their faces that albeit he commands them exhorts them expostulates with them and expresses formes of desire of their obedience in his word yet except God gives them an heart they cannot perceive except God gives them eyes they cannot see except the Lord gives them eares they cannot heare What can be more plaine dealing then this Like as our Saviour no lesse plainly told the Jewes to their face He that is of God heareth God's words ye therefore heare them not because ye are not of God Yet was he earnest and patheticall enough in exhorting them to repentance by the ministery of Iohn the Baptist by his own ministery Ierusalem Ierusalem that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee how often would I have gathered thy children together as an hen gathereth her chicken under her wings and ye would not Behold your habitation is left unto you desolate For I say unto you ye shall not see me henceforth till that ye say Blessed is he that commeth in the name of the Lord. I come to this Author 's Prosopopey for the truth is his Rhetorick surmounts his Logicke whereat I wonder not a little O ye Reprobates once most dearely beloved in your father Adam But where hath he found in any of our Divines that Reprobates were at all beloved in our father Adam We all hold Reprobation to be as antient as election which St. Paul testifies to have been before the foundation of the world And to ordaine to damnation I should think is to hate rather then to love and this ordination divine was from everlasting And the Scripture hath taught us that the divine nature is without variablenesse or shadow of change He speakes in the language of his own Court when he talkes of sealing up under invincible sinne and misery The Scripture speaks of sealing unto the day of redemption by God's holy spirit which gives them assurance that they are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation That God will deliver them from every evill work preserve them to his heavenly kinngdome But no such spirit is given to Reprobates to assure them of their damnation so to seale them up under invincible sin misery They are under the power of Satan but he hath neither power nor authority to assure them of their damnation And albeit this Authour fashions a discourse to reprobates as if they were a sect well known Yet we are so farre from knowing who they are that they are in our opinion neither known to themselves nor known to Satan no nor to God's holy Angells unlesse he reveale it unto them If we should have any cause to addresse our selves to Reprobates which kind of case and occasion is incomprehensible by me we should describe them no otherwise then thus O ye who are not only for the present under the power of Satan and so are all God's elect before the time of regeneration but will continue vassalls unto him even unto death going on from sinne to sinne and never breaking them off by repentance but continuing to despise the goodnesse of God leading thereunto Now this being only in reference to the time to come I cannot speake to any in present under this forme absolutely but hypothetically For none are Reprobates to us but such who finally persevere in impenitency Therefore I cannot exhort them to amend their lives under the stile of Reprobates but as such who although they are under the power of sinne and Satan may for ought I know belong to God's election and in good time come out of the snare of Satan And because the ministry of the word is the only meanes whereby God brings men unto
repentance and that by instruction admonition and exhortation therefore I doe instruct them in the knowledge of God that made them after his own Image and how this image of God came to be defaced in them to wit by the sinne of our first parents and how hereupon we became to be shapen in sinne and borne in sinne and therewithall children of wrath and such as deserve to be made the generation of God's curse then I represent unto them the mercy of God towards man in giving us his Son to beare our sins in his body upon the tree and suffer a shamefull and bitter death upon the crosse for them and that for this his Son's sake he offers unto us the pardon of all our sins upon our repentance and faith in Christ and thereupon I exhort them unto repentance We farther say that God takes no pleasure in the death of him that dieth but takes pleasure in a man's repentance We doe not say neither doth the word of God say that he willeth not the death of him that dyeth For undoubtedly he willeth the damnation of all them that dye in their sins without repentance We doe not say that God would have no man to perish but all come to repentance Neither doth the Scripture say any such thing For that were to deny God's omnipotency For seing many there be that perish if this were contrary to God's will then God's will should be resistible and we should be driven to deny the first Article of our Creed As Austine hath long agoe argued the case But indeed Peter writing to them who had obtained like pretious faith with the Apostles themselves and such as were Elect unto sanctification of the spirit and were begotten againe to a lively hope by the resurection of Jesus Christ from the dead to them he writes saying The Lord of that promise is not slack but is patient towards us not to us Reprobates God forbid that we should so corrupt the interpretation of his words but rather to us Elect to us called to us begotten of God not willing any to perish to wit of us but all come to repentance to wit all of us whensoever through our frailty we turne out of the good wayes of the Lord. God cries unto you by us and calls upon you by us and hath along time shewed great patience and long suffering and hereby led you unto repentance by his word stands knocking at the doores of your hearts and calling upon you to open unto him And the more to move you he is pleased to expresse himself in the affections of a weake man who is not able to accomplish his desires O that there were an heart in you to feare me and keep my commandements and with great passionatnesse cryeth out unto you What shall I doe unto you how shall I intreat you As if he were to seek what course to take and willing to use every provocation to excite you and stirre you up sometimes by gracious promises as Come and let us reason together though thy sins were as scarlet c. Sometimes by threatnings Woe unto thee ô Jerusalem wilt thou not be made cleane when shall it once be And withall he gives us to understand requires us to preach as much unto you also even to acquaint you with the whole counsell of God tell you that as many as are ordained unto eternall life as many as to whom the arme of the Lord is revealed as many as are of God they obey this calling they believe they heare God's words and turne unto him by true repentance sooner or later They that doe not it is because they are not of God And albeit those words are the words of Moses O that there were an heart in you to feare me speaking to them in the name of the Lord yet the same Moses tells the same people plainly that The Lord had not given them an heart to perceive nor eyes to see nor eares to heare unto that Day And albeit the Lord professeth in like manner by his Prophet Esay O that thou hadst hearkned unto my commandements then had thy prosperity been as the flood and thy righteousnesse as the waves of the sea Yet this very disobedience of theirs was consequent to the Lord's obduration of them as appeares Es 6. 9. Goe say unto this people ye shall heare indeed but ye shall not understand ye shall plainly see not perceive Make the heart of this people fat make their eares heavy and shut their eyes least they see with their eyes and heare with their eares and convert and he heale them Then said the Lord how long should this obduration continue And he answered untill the Cityes be wasted without inhabitant and the houses without man and the land be utterly desolate And the Lord have removed men farre away and there be a great desolation in the midst of the land Yet I dare not say of any of you that ye are Reprobates For God may open your eyes before you dye to see your sins and touch your hearts that ye may bewaile them And whensoever this blessed condition doth befall you I will stirre you up to give God the glory of it who alone it is that worketh in us that which is pleasing in his sight Yea both the will and the deed according to his good pleasure If he never workes any such thing in you the more inexcusable are you who presuming of your own power to believe to repent yet are nothing moved with such passionate expressions unto repentance If you doe believe there is such impotency in you to good and that it must needs continue in you while God continueth to harden you by denying his grace and thereupon ye except against Gods course in complaining of their disobedience whom he hath hardned saying Why then doth he complaine For who hath resisted his will I put all such over to St. Paul to receive answer from him Rom 9. 20. 21. 22. As touching this Author's conclusion Dares he himselfe say that by God's decree Reprobates shall ever repent or be saved What then is his meaning why doth he not expresse himselfe in this particular but most unshamefastly earthes himselfe like a foxe unwilling to bring his vile opinion to the light which I take to be no other then this that God's decree of giving faith is not absolute but conditionall namely to give faith to as many as shall prepare themselves for it And to deny it to none but such as faile to prepare for it as much as in plaine termes to professe that Grace is given according unto workes The very filth of Pelagianisme Yet hath he no where discovered wherein this preparation consists that he keeps to himselfe and to his own Muses P. 80. I find another addition to the third Sub-section in these words To offer salvation under a condition not possible is in circumstance a great deale worse For it is a
body or the decree of advancing a subject by way of reward doth presuppose his service or the decree of a Patron to present his sonne to a benefice doth presuppose his fitnesse for it or the decree of Solomon to bring Shimei his gray haires unto the grave in bloud did presuppose the offence for which this was brought to passe but rather from these decrees and intentions each Author in his kind proceedeth to bring to passe every thing that is required to the accomplishment of that end which he requires As I prove by instance in every particular 1. I have knowne one that to shew the power of his balme hath wounded his owne flesh and pouring his balme into it hath cured it in the space of twenty foure houres Aske wherefore he wounded his flesh every one seeth that both he wounded it and healed it with his balme to make the vertue of his balme knowne So that his intention of manifesting the vertue of his balme did not presuppose the wound but drew after it both the making of the wound and the pouring of balme into it as the meanes tending to the demonstration of the power of the balme 2. So we have knowne another to take poyson and afterward his cordiall against it both the one and the other joyntly tending to the manifestation of the vertue of his cordiall 3. A King intending to promote a favourite but withall to doe it without envy of the Nobility may resolve to doe it by way of reward which purpose presupposeth not good service but rather hereupon he will imploy him in service as in some honourable Embassage or in the Warres to the end that he may have occasion to advance him upon his service without envy of the Nobles 4. A Patron having a young sonne may entertaine a resolution to bestow a living upon him when time serves This intention doth not presuppose his fitnesse without which he cannot be admitted but because he hath a purpose to preferre him thereunto therefore he will take order to bring him up like a Schollar and send him to the University to make him fit 5. Last of all Solomon you know upon Davids admonition on his death bed entertained an intention to bring Shimei to his grave in bloud yet not for his cursing of David but for a new transgression therefore he takes a course to ensnare him and bids him to build him an house in Jerusalem and not to passe over the Brooke Kidron upon paine of death Now it was not indeed in Solomons power effectually to ensnare him and so certainely to bring upon him the execution of death But this is in the power of God For let him but expose any creature unto temptation and derelinquish him therein without giving him his grace to support him that creature shall certainely fall into sinne otherwise if any creature can keepe himselfe from sinne without Gods grace then Gods grace shall not have the prerogative of being the cause of every good action But this prerogative of Gods grace must and by Gods grace shall be maintained unto the end And upon this foundation the prerogative of his soveraigne power also over his creatures in disposing of them as he thinkes good and making some vessells of mercy and some of wrath which Arminius himselfe professeth he dares not deny to be in the power of God to wit to make vessells of mercy and vessells of wrath and that ex massa nondum condita in his Analysis of the ninth to the Romans But I proceed to the forme of your Syllogisme 1. The reason you say may be laid downe Syllogistically thus 1. God could not intend to pardon any without supposition of that which is necessarily required to make them capable of pardon But sinne is necessarily required to make them capable of pardon therefore God could not intend to pardon any without supposition of sinne 2. God could not intend to punish any without consideration of that which is in justice required to make them punishable But sinne is required in justice to make any person punishable therefore God could not intend to punish any without consideration of sinne Resp 1. In both Syllogismes the Minor we grant the Major we deny as being in effect the very same proposition which is in question and all the evidence it carryeth with it consisteth in the parts which have a shew of an Enthymeme thus 1. Sinne is necessarily prerequired to the pardoning of sinne therefore it is necessarily prerequired to the decree of pardoning sinne 2. Sinne in justice is prerequired unto punishing Ergo 'tis in justice prerequired to the decree of punishing Now this is the very proofe which formerly I laboured to disprove by shewing the inconsequence thereof yet the proposition whereon you rely either must depend upon this proofe or upon none at all But I will proceed with you a little farther upon these Syllogismes you propose 2. Sinne you say and that truly is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon And this generall truth brancheth it selfe into two specialls 1. Sinne originall is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon for sinne originall 2. Sinne actuall is necessarily required to make men capable of pardon for sinne actuall Now because God doth intend to pardon all the sinnes of his elect not onely originall but actuall committed throughout the whole course of his life it followeth that God could not intend to pardon these actuall sinnes without the presupposition of them 3. By the same reason of yours I dispute thus 1. God could not intend to bestow salvation upon any man by way of reward without supposition of that which is necessarily required to make him capable of reward But the obedience of faith repentance and good workes is necessarily required to make a man capable of reward Ergo God could not intend to bestow salvation on any man by way of reward without supposition of faith repentance and good workes 2. As God cannot intend to punish any without consideration of that which in justice is required to make him punishable so God cannot intend to punish any in such a degree without that which is required in justice to make him punishable in such a degree Now not onely sinne originall but all actuall sinnes of every Reprobate together with their finall impenitency therein is required in justice to make every one of them punishable in such a degree Ergo could not God intend to punish any Reprobate in such a degree without consideration of all their actuall sins And as mens actuall sinnes are the meritorious causes of their damnation so the consideration of them shall be the meritorious cause of their reprobation or at least of that decree whereby God doth decree to inflict damnation upon them in such a degree And by just proportion of reason like as faith repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto salvation so the consideration of faith repentance and good workes shall be the
sin Neither are these generalls the only end that God aimed at in this but many other particulars there are whereby the glory of God's wisedome and power and grace doth appeare by occasion of sins entrance into the world The horrible facts of Jewes and Gentiles cōmitted upon the person of the Son of God were such as whereby the Lord brought to passe the redemption of the world if Christ had not been crucified what satisfaction had been made for the sins of the world how could he have been set forth as a propitiation for our sins through faith in his blood yet this is not all the glory of God that breaks forth by the permission of sin The punishment of one sin by another is an admirable worke of God's providence and that more waies then one For God can punish and doth one man by the sin of an other The Assyrians and Babylonians committed outrages enough upon the people of God yet hereby the Lord was just in punishing the sins of his own people Senacherib blasphemed the God of Israel the creature his Creator most unnaturally this unnaturallnes of his towards God the Lord avenged by the unnaturalnesse of his own children towards him This was the worke of the Lord as himselfe acknowledgeth I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land Man seeketh the face of the Ruler but every man's judgment is of the Lord. Many unjust judgments have their course in the world yet Solomon saith every man's judgment is from the Lord. It is just with him to punish unjust courses with unjust courses and there is mercy in this for no better way then this to bring mens former wicked courses to their remembrance As Adonibezek when the thumbs of his hands and great toes of his feet were cut off then he remembred his former cruelty and how that 70 Kings had eaten bread under his Table having the thumbes of their hands and feet cut off And herein he acknowledged the just hand of God saying As I have done to others so hath God done to me And as many as will not in like manner acknowledge the just hand of God in like cases let them take heed lest Adonibezek one day rise up in judgment against them Thus it is just with God by one sin of the same man to punish another For because the Gentiles knowing God glorified him not as God but were unthankfull turning the glory of the incorruptible God into the Image of corruptible things therefore the Lord gave them up unto a reprobate mind to doe those things which are not convenient Therefore God gave thē up to vile affections Therefore God gave them up to their hearts lusts unto uncleanes to defile their own bodies between thēselves And what were these inconvenient things what was this uncleanes Wherein consisted this defiling of their bodies between themselves The text expresseth it thus For even their womē changed the naturall use into that which is against nature And likewise also the mē left the naturall use of the women burned in their lust one towards another mā with man wrought filthines But was there any judgment of God to be observed in this The Apostle hath discovered this also unto us in the words immediately following thus And they received in thēselves such recōpence of their errour as was meet observe manifestly the just hand of God in all this As for the manner how God brought all this to passe we answer with Austin whether it be modo explicabili or inexplicabili by a way that may be explicated by us or whether it be inexplicabile the Apostle troubleth not himselfe hereabout his care was only to shew how great a judgmēt this was this is prosecuted farther by Austin in the same place shewing by variety of particulars all taken out of the word of God in the place formerly quoted Neither is this all the glory of God that cōes to be manifested by the permission of sin For he knows not only how to judge one sin by another but to heale one sin by another also Audeo dicere saith Austin utile est superbis in aliquod apertum manifestumque cadere peccatum that so they may be humbled and brought to sobriety and passe the time of sojourning here with greater care and feare Now consider in how hungry a manner this Authour sets downe our tenet concerning God's providence in willing and decreeing that sin shall come to passe in the world by his permission whē he talkes of sin being a meanes of punishment a most absurd expression both in a sinister stating of the end punishment not being the end but a meanes coordinate to an other end to wit the manifestation of God's glory who hath made all things for himselfe that is for the setting forth of his own glory as also in a sinister stating the end sin being not a meanes as most absurdly he stiles it but a meritorious cause of punishment Like as in reference to the manifestation of his glory it is not the meanes but the materiall cause thereof But the permission of sins that and not sin is the meanes together with the punishment thereof tending to the manifestatiō of God's glory in the way of justice 1. A good end cannot moralize a bad actiō We grant it But seeing it is impossible that the divine hand can doe any bad action the end of his actions is sufficient to justifie his courses For as Aquinas hath delivered God's wisedome is his justice For he is a debtor to none but to himselfe and how to himselfe Not otherwise then in all things which he doth to carry himselfe so as it becōmeth himselfe that is to order every thing to a right end which is only the manifestation of his own glory For himselfe is most lovely and 't is his nature to be most loving of that which is most lovely Now to order all things aright to their congruous ends is the part of wisdome And see how extravagant this Authour is in evey one of his instances For to steale to commit adultery to oppresse to kill is to sinne and in willing any of these a man wills his own sinne But the Argument we treat of is of God's willing the sins of others as when God's hand and his counsell determined that those things should be done which by Herod Pontius-Pilate the Gentiles and people of Israel were committed against the holy Son of God and when the Kings gave their kingdomes to the beast herein they are said to doe the will of God and when every mans judgment is said to come frō the Lord not only judgmēt just but even judgments unjust to wit of men yet God hath a just hand in plaguing others by thē man ought not to doe evill that good may come thereof but God's willing it to come to passe by his permission is no evill at all Nay it is good nor so only