transgression of some Law so every punishment is the revenge of some sin upon which it follows that if a mans sin is from himself 't is from himself that he is punisht And as the Law is not the Cause but the * Occasion only of sin so God is not the Cause but the inflicter only of punishment for so saies the Apostle Sin taking occasion by the Commandement wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law sin was dead That which is good not being made death but sin working death by that which is good God and his Law are each of them the Causa sine qua non the Condition without which sin and punishment could not have been for without Law no sin without God no Reprobation but not the Energetical efficient Cause of which sin punishment were the necessary effects For if God had made a Hell by an absolute purpose meerly because he would that some should suffer it and not in a previous intuition of their sins Damnation had been a Misery but not a Punishment as if a Potter makes a vessel on purpose that he may break it which yet none but a mad man can be thought to do or if a man meerly for recreation cuts up Animals alive which yet none ever did that I can hear of except a young Spanish Prince it is an Infelicity and a torment but no more a punishment than it is any thing else Indeed the Common people who doe not understand the just propriety of words make no distinction many times betwixt Pain and Punishment not considering that Punishment is a relative word of which the correlative is breach of Law and therefore is fitly exprest in Scripture by the mutual relation betwixt a Parent and a Child when lu◠hath * conceived it bringeth forth sin sin being perfected bringeth forth death Iam. 1. 15. which is as much as to say according to the propriety of the Apostles words sin is the parent and death is the childe Now there cannot be a child without a parent for they are relata secundum esse much lesse can the child be before the parent for sunt simul natura dicuntur ad convertentiam Upon which it followes that punishment could not be ordained by God either without sin or before it or without respect and intuition of it which yet the great * Mr. Calvin does plainly say I say it could not because it implies a contradiction For though God could easily make Adam out of the earth and the earth out of nothing yet he could not make a sinful Cain to be the son of sinful Adam before there was an Adam much lesse before there was a sinful one because it were to be and not to be at the same time Adam would be a Cause before an entity which God Almighty cannot do because he is Almighty So that when the Romanists assert their Transubstantiation or the posterity of Marcion their Absolute decree of all the evil in the world both pretending a Reverence to Gods omnipotence they doe as good as say †those things which are true may therefore be false because they are true or that God is so * Almighty as to be able not to be God that being the Result of an Ability to make two parts of a contradiction true so said S. Austin against Faustus and Origen against Celsus Whensoever it is said God can do all things 't is meant of all things that become him So Isidore the Pelusiote But to return to that argument in the pursuit of which I have stept somewhat too forward if Gods preordination of mans eternal misery were in order of nature before his prescience of mans sin as Mr. Calvin evidently affirms in his Ideo * praesciverit quia decreto suo praeordinavit setting Praeordination as the Cause or Reason or praevious Requisite to his Praescience either mans Reprobation must come to passe without sin or else he must sin to bring it orderly to passe which is to make God the author either of misery by it self without relation to sin or else of sin in order to misery The first cannot be because God hath * sworn he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner Ezek. 33. 14. much lesse in his death that never sinn'd And because if it were so the Scripture would not use the word Wages and the word Punishment and the word Retribution and the word Reward Hell indeed had been a torment but not a Recompence a fatal Misery but not a Mulct an act of power but not of vengeance which yet in many places is the stile that God speaks in Vengeance is mine and I will repay Rom. 12 19. Nor can the second be lesse impossible it having formerly been proved that God is not the Author of sin he hath no need of the sinful man whereby to bring mans Ruine the more conveniently about and most of them that dare say it are fain to say it in a Disguise Some indeed are for ligonem ligonem but the more modest blasphemers are glad to dresse it in cleaner phrase A strange {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Divinity to put the 1 child before the parent the 2 wages before the work the 3 end before the means the Reprobation before the sin yet so they do who make the Decree of Reprobation most irrespective and unconditional and after that say that whom God determines to the end he determines to the meanes To put the horse upon the Bridle is a more rational Hypallage For by this Divinity eternal punishment is imputed to Gods Antecedent will which is called the first and sin to his consequent will which is the second The first {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the other only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} punishment chiefly and sin by way of consecution Men are bid not to sin ex voluntate signi or revelata but are determin'd to it ex voluntate occulta or beneplaciti Distinctions very good when at first they were invented for better uses the former by S. Chrysostome from whom it was borrow'd by Damascene and from him by the Schoolmen But I say they all were used to very contrary purposes by them and by these who endeavour'd to repel those Fathers with their own weapons as the elaborate †Gerard Vossius does very largely make it appear I am sorry I must say what yet I must saith * Tertullian when it may tend to edification That the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering abundant in goodnesse and truth who is all Bowels and no gall who hateth nothing that he hath made who in the midst of Iudgement remembreth mercy ever forgiving iniquity transgression and sin is exhibited to the world by the Authors and Abetters of unconditional Reprobation as a kind of Platonick Lover of so excellent a Creature 's everlasting misery Which if
THE Christians rescue FROM THE GRAND ERROR of the HEATHEN touching the fatal Necessity of all Events AND The Dismal consequences thereof which have slily crept into the CHURCH In several Defences Of some Notes writ to Vindicate the Primitive and Scriptural Doctrine of Gods Decrees By THOMAS PIERCE Rector of Brington in Northamptonshire LONDON Printed by J. G. for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivy-lane 1658. The general Preface to the ensuing Tracts 1. I cannot but think it very expedient and very agreeable to Reason that Altercations and Controversies in every kind those especially in Religion should be made to acknowledge their mortality as well as the Controverters themselves by whom the dissensions are kept alive This concerning Gods Decrees of Reward and Punishment as it is much stricken in years and even decrepitly aged so by the blessing of God it is drawing the faster towards its end too The Erroneous side of the controversie is grown so feeble and dispirited what with its wounds and bruises and putrifying sores which in its desperate encounters it hath received and is become so gastly to lookers on that even they who are ashamed to see it falling are more ashamed to hold it up 2. There is not sure a more effectual or shorter course for the putting a period to a Dispute then by proceeding from such principles as are assented to and granted by men of all sides 3. There are not any two Principles more universally received throughout the world then that God is the Author of every thing that is good and that he cannot be the Author of any thing that is evil I mean the evil of sin which is properly evil in it self for the evil of punishment is in it self very good and doth onely seem evil to them that suffer it 4. In these preceding Considerations I began to reason on those two * grounds And supposing my self to be of neither or at least of both parties I was resolved to state the Question between me and my self as I should finally be conducted by those infallible guides religiously intending to go as far and withal resolving to go no farther then those granted Maxims should either carry or allow me 5. I have had the happiness to observe that none of those whom I displeased in the course I took have either dared in †plain terms to deny the truth of my Principles or adventured to discover wherein my deductions could seem illegal but only talking at Rovers they have largely expressed their dislikes without exhibiting to the Reader a reason why except the contract they had made with some vulgar Errors with which my Principles Deductions were very equally inconsistent 6. What deductions they have made from their fanciful notions of Gods praescience and decrees I have abundantly proved to be blasphemous And my proofs have been taken not from Scripture only and Reason and the whole suffrage of Antiquity and the most eminent of the Moderns for Life and Learning but over and above from their own Confessions which in their soberest intervals have happily falne down from their publick Pens So unadvised was * M. Baxter in charging Grotius and others with uncharitable censures and odious inferences for the odious inferences are made by his own dear Brethren and Praedecessors who have avowedly deduced them from those grounds of Theology on which they go whereas Grotius and others have but recited them to their Authors out of their publick works 7. The head spring of their Doctrines is known by the * streams which issue from them as the †tree is known by its fruit * It cannot be a good tree which bringeth forth evil fruit much less is that a good Doctrin whose very Patrons and Abettors have often acknowledgâ—d it doth infer what a thousand times they have themselves inferred from it that God is the natural cause of sin 8. The head-spring of their Doctrines is that of irrespective praedestination or praedetermination of all events antecedent to praescience 9. If Gods eternal Decrees concerning the final estate of man cannot possibly be absolute or irrespective of those respective qualifications by which alone he can be qualified for reward or punishment it cannot chuse but follow by the confession of all that those Decrees are respective or as some express it conditional that is according to Gods prâ—science of such and such qualifications There being clearly no medium of participation or proportion no nor so much as of abnegation betwixt the respectiveness and irrespectiveness of the very same act as they both relate to the very same object For what implies a contradiction is very happily exploded by men of all sorts So as the ruine of the one is the establishing of the other And they that are beaten from the hold of irrespective praedestination must fly to the tenet of the respective by way of refuge there being nothing betwixt them but the pit of Atheism 10. It is confessed by Mr. Whitfield Wollebius and Dr. Twisse against Moulin to name no more that there is parity of reason in the decrees both of Election and Reprobation And the respectiveness of the later doth evince the former to be respective 11. That I have spoken on these subjects according to Gods revealed will and not proceeded a step farther then I was warranted to go by unavoidable deductions from clearest Scripture not enduring their boldness who interpret Gods revealed word by those Caprices of their brains which they presumptuously call Gods secret will alwayes implying this contradiction that it is secret and not secret the following Tracts will make apparent 12. As for those mysterious Questions 1. Why the word of God is preached rather to one sort of men then to another and sometimes to a more impious people then those to whom it is not preached 2. Why the means of conversion perseverance unto the end are not afforded alike to all to whom the Gospel is daily preached and many times in greater measure to an exceedingly evil people then to a people less evil 3. Why some mens lives are prolonged to a happy opportunity of true repentance whilest others are speedily cut off like Corah and his complices in a state of impenitence I never yet have inquired I never will * The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children 13. I shall conclude with an Admonition to the unstable and unlearned among the people that they beware of those Teachers who prefer the interest of their Faction before the honour of their God and will rather take part with a Presbyterian in making God to be the Author and cause of sin then live in any kind of charity with an Episcopal Divine who proves that Doctrine to be blasphemous Some have made themselves examples of this prodigious partiality whilest even in Print they have thought it fitter that a Brother of the
Presbytery should invent strange slanders against the innocent then that a man of the Church of England should proceed to conviction against the guilty It will appear to all Readers from the first to the last of these following Tracts that my principal intention hath been to vindicate my God both in his Essence and in his Attributes from the publick calumnies of evil doers whilest one doth teach that God willeth sin and another that he ordaines it and a third that it is one of Gods works the desperate sinner is taught to say I have done the will of God and what God appointed me to do 2. Whilest some affirm that Gods willing of sin doth make it cease to be a sin and others say he willeth all sins a third sort conclude that there are no sins at all 3. Whilest they say with eagerness that God must be such or there is no God at all they teach as many to be Atheists as cannot believe with the Libertines that God doth will and work sin 4. Whilest they say that the Regenerate cannot possibly fall away nor become notoriously ungodly by their commission of Crimson and Scarlet sins they teach the Ranters to live accordingly I can name the persons who have taught such things and experience hath taught us what they are who have reduced their knowledge of the several Lessons into Practice Towards the remedying of this I have in singleness of heart considered what should be the cause and as God hath enabled me us'd my endeavours to remove it I have been most of all intent upon clearing the Holiness of God that men may think of him with Reverence and Love unfeigned A wrong apprehension of the Deity is apt to breed a wrong worship and so I have pitch't upon the subject wherein it primely concerns us to set men right The holiness of God is his Soveraign Attribute and dearer to him then his power The Cherubims and Seraphims do continuaily cry out in honour to him Not high and mighty and unresistible but Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts As if God esteemed more of this then of all his Attributes besides And Bishop Andrews of precious memory thought fit to make it his observation that in God Holy Holy is before Lord of Hosts His Holiness first his Power after May all that hate me upon the earth but follow the method of the Angels which are in Heaven speaking so honourably of God to a peevish world as not to miss of his favour in the word to come I shall not fail of their Love and shall receive the best recompence for all my Labour Fiat Fiat THO. PIERCE Directions for the placing of the ensuing Tracts I. The Correct Copy of Notes II. The Divine Philanthropie defended III. The Divine Purity defended in answer to Dr. Reynolds IV. The Self-Revenger exemplified in Mr. B. V. Self-Condemnation exemplified in Mr. W. and others A brief Table to the five ensuing Tracts immediately to follow the General Preface I. In the Correct Copie Two General Principles 1. That no moral evil is from the evil of God but of the Creature p. 6. 11. 2. That all good is from the free grace of God p. 6. 55. The distinction of Gods secret and revealed will as contrary to one another blasphemous p. 12. God permits sin only so as not to hinder it by sorce p. 15. Man is the sole efficient cause of his own destruction p. 17. Absolute Reprobation contrary to all the antient Fathers p. 25. 45. Even to S. Aug. p. 28. 44. The judgment of the Church of England p. 29. Gods Decree of Reprobation is not irrespective but conditional p. 32. Knowledge and Fore-knowledge in God p. 48. Gods Antecedent and Consequent will p. 51. All good is from Gods free Grace p. 56. Gods free Grace doth not destroy mans Free-will p. 57. Irresistible Grace not reconcileable with Choise p. 59. Distinction between Infallible and Necessary p. 61. Sufficient Effectual and Irresistible Grace p. 61. Taking and Chusing p. 62. Voluntary and Spontaneous p. 64. Gods Grace the Cause of Good Mans will the Instrument of Choise p. 63. Gods Decree of Election Conditional and Respective p. 68. II. In the Divine Philanthropie defended Post-destination p. 4. Eternal Praedestination Receptive p. 7. Pelagianisme p. 8. Arminius and Arminianisme p. 12. chap. iv p. 35. The judgment of the Church of England p. 19. Literal and Figurative Interpretations of Scripture p. 21. ch. iv p. 47. Absolute and Conditional will of God p. 56. Faith not the Cause but the Condition of Election p. 63. Negative and positive Reprobation p. 65. ch. iv p. 4. Hell prepared for Devils not for Men p. 70. Special Grace p. 83. and Redemption p. 84. Christ died not only for the Elect p. 85. Christ died for all not only sufficienter but intentionaliter p. 93. Grace of Perseverance p. 101. chap. iv p. 17. not irresistible p. 102. Vniversal Tradition p. 105. The cause of Punishment eternal p. 108. 117. The cause of sin not Deficient but Efficient p. 113. Gods permission of sin p. 129. 139. Gods Decrees Absolute Conditional chap. iv p. 1. Praeterition p. 4. Fundamentals p. 10. Synod at Dort p. 13. Gods Soveraignty and Justice p. 20. Plea for Infants p. 25. Vniversal Redemption p. 28. Esficacious Permission p. 33. Act and Sinsull Act p. 43. Twofold command of God p. 52. God hath not two contrary wills p. 57. III. In the Divine Purity Defended The Judgment of King James p. 6. Making God the Cause of Sin is blasphemy in the judgment of the Antients p. 22. and Modern learned men p. 26. even the Calvinists p. 30. Gods hardening Mens hearts p. 66. Gods Allmightiness p. 81. Gods way of working on the will p. 92. Free grace not unconditional p. 112. IV. In the Selfe-Revenger Abuse of the Tongue p. 1. Selfe-deceiving p. 2. Adams Sin p. 22. Original Sin p. 23. Born in Sin p. 24. Innocency p. 32. Christian Perfection p. 35. Excommunicating and Murthering Kings p. 77. Dangerous effects of Presbyterian Discipline p. 80. Vniversal and special Grace p. 87. Grotius his temper and Designe p. 92. Episcopacy and Liturgy approved by Calvin p. 95. Rigor of Presbytery advances Popery p. 98. In the Appendage Vniversal Grace and Vniversal Redemption p. 128. Extent and Intent of Christs death p. 138 142. Application of it p. 145. V. In Selfe-Condemnation Irrespective Decrees founded in the mistake of Gods Prescience Introd p. 3. Conditional Decrees p. 15. Order of Time and Order of Nature p. 20. Gods Promise Conditional p. 28. Gods glory not advanced by irrespective Reprobation ch. 1. p. 3. Act and obliquity of the Act p. 11. Efficacious permission p. 22. Hebraisme p. 39. Actions Natural and Vnnatural p. 72. 77. 81. Sin and the sinfull Action inseparable p. 84. Sin makes not for Gods glory p. 87. The Nature of Knowledge and Degree p. 122. Foreknowledge p. 123. doth not necessitate p. 126. nor presuppose
may be so much the blinder he offers them instruction but that they may be the more ignorant and he useth a remedy but to the end they may not be healed That a wicked man by the just impulse of God doth that which is not lawful for him to do That the Devil and wicked men are so restrained on every side with the hand of God as with a bridle that they cannot conceive nor contrive nor execute any mischief nor so much as endeavour its execution any farther than God himself doth not permit onely but command nor are they onely held in fetters but compelled also as with a bridle to perform obedience to such commands That Thieves and Murderers are the instruments of the Divine Providence which the Lord himself useth to execute his Judgements which he hath determined within himself and that he works through them That Gods Decree by which any man is destined to condemnation for sin is not an Act of his Iustice nor doth it presuppose sin or if Damnation doth presuppose sin it doth not follow that the Praescience of sin doth precede the VVill or Decree of Damning or if the Will of Damning any man is an act of vindicative Iustice it doth not follow that it presupposeth sin That God can will that man shall not fall by his will which is called Voluntas signi and in the mean while he can ordain that the same man shall infallibly and efficaciously fall by his Will which is called Voluntas beneplaciti The former Will of God is improperly called his Will for it onely signifieth what man ought to do by right but the latter VVill is properly called a VVill because by that he decreed what should inevitably come to passe That when God makes an Angel or a Man a Transgressor he himself doth not transgresse because he doth not break a Law The very same sin viz. Adultâ—ry or Murder in as much as it is the VVork of God the Author mover and compeller it is not a crime but in as much as it is of man it is a wickednesse That they are Cowards and seek for subterfuges who say that this is done by God's Permission onely and not by his Will If the excaecation and madnesse of Ahab is a Judgement of God the fiction of bare permission doth presently vanish because it is ridiculous that the Judge should onely permit and not also decree what he will have done and also command the execution of it to his Ministers That God's decree is not lesse efficacious in the permission of Evill than in the production of Good Nay that God's Will doth passe not onely into the Permission of the sin but into the Sin it self which is permitted Nay that the Dominicans do imperfectly and obscurely relate the Truth whilest besides Gods concurrence to the making way for sin they require nothing but the negation of efficacious grace when it 's manifest that there is a farther prostitution to sin required Nay afterwards that God doth administer the occasions of sinning and doth so move and urge them that they smite the sinners minde and really affect his Imagination according to all those degrees whether of Profit or Pleasure represented in them If my hand were not weary if my heart did not tremble if both my ears did not tingle I could reckon up many more such frightful sayings from mine own knowledge and inspection which I have quoted to the very page and can do to the very line of their several Authors besides a cloud of blasphemies which I could name from other compilers if I either listed or had need to take up any upon Trust Now by all this it appears as well as by many too literal expositions of some Texts in Scripture which make God blessed for ever to be the Tempter the Deceiver and the Father of lies there is a necessity lying upon me to prove my first Principle before some Readers will dare to trust it viz. That all the Evil of sin which dwelleth in me is not imputable to God's Will but entirely to mine own Adam and the Serpent may be allowed as shavers but my God blessed for ever is none at all 8. This is plain by Scripture and by the Evidences of Reason to which anon I shall adde Antiquity And first for Scripture though the force of a Negative Argument is not irrefragable yet it is not unworthy to be observed that God is a no where affirm'd to Predestine sin and therefore the word Predestination is us'd without any Epithet to signifie nothing but Election in the ordinary sense and it is set by b Divines both ancient and modern as an opposite member to Reprobation which cannot be done from the bare nature of the word but from the Use of it in Scripture and why should that be the sole use of it when the word it self is as fit to signifie the contrary but because God is the Author of all the good we doe and of all the good that we receive whereas Man is his own Author of all the evil which he committeth and of the evil which he suffereth for such commissions 9. And though this bare negative Proof might seem sufficient in such a case that God doth no where professe he wills or decrees the sin of Man yet to make us inexcusable when we excuse our selves like Adam by any the least accusation of him that made us God doth every where professe that he wills it not as when he a forbids it by his Laws when he provides against it by his b Discipline when he c shews us how to avoid it when he tels us he cannot d endure it when he e wins us from it by Promises when he frights us from it by f Threats when he professeth that it is to him both a g Trouble and a Dishonour How doth he h wish that his People had walked in his wayes How doth he i expostulate and make his Appeal whether he had omitted any thing which might tend to the conversion of a sinful Israel In the whole 18. k ch. of Ezekiel God is pleased to make his own Apologie and Appeal even to them that had accused him in an l unworthy Proverb the Fathers have eaten sowre Grapes and the Childrens Teeth are set on edge Are not my wayes equal and are not your wayes unequal Sure their wayes had been his if he had absolutely contriv'd them The soul that sinneth it shall die vers. 4. And why will ye die O house of Israel vers. 31. Which was virtually to ask them why they would sin too which they ought to have done if he had willed it for the positive will of God must and ought to be done and can any man be punish'd for doing that which he must must any man be punish'd for doing that which he ought 'T is but an ill {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}
chuse and withall to execute the will of God and that it is Gods will the greatest part shall be damn'd it will then be a duty in the greatest part of men to go industriously to Hell and to do good will be a vice because it tends Heaven-wards and so to the crossing of an absolute irreversible decree Which since I have considered I have lesse wondered than I was wont at the conclusion of Carpocrates that the very worst of Actions are out of duty to be performed and that the soul shall be punisht with its imprisonment in the body until she hath filled up the number of her iniquities according to that Text Mat. 5. 29. Which we call Iniquities but they Duties And so indeed they would be if every thing in the world the means as well as the end were absolutely ordain'd and by consequence effected by God blessed for ever who can ordain nothing but good And such sin and Hell must be exceeding good if they could possibly be ordained by as absolute a decree as the Heavens and the earth the water and the air of which God said they are very good Secondly Gods revealed will being that all should repent and his secret will being that very few shall it follows thence That it is his will that his will should not be done and that God hath one will which is the same with the Devils and that when a Reprobate saies in the Pater noster thy will be done he vehemently prayes for his own damnation Which things as they were falsly objected in France against S. Austin so Prospers way to excuse him was to make protestations against any such Tenent as conditional Reprobation He sayes the very things in his Masters vindication which I have said in my own and cals the sequels of that Opinion which he disowns most sottish blasphemâ—es and not only prodigious but Devilish lies But he denies not that such ill consequences will follow upon the bold assertion of irrespective Reprobation which he does therefore very distinctly and very earnestly disclaim And he doth so much speak the very minde of S. Austin that he seems sometimes to speak out of his mouth too it being hard to say whether the Answers to the Objections of Vincentius doe truly belong to the Master or to the Scholar they being inserted in both their Works and that which is called Prospers by Vossius is ascribed to S. Austin by Ludovicus Lucius If I have made any unfriendly or injurious inference I will instantly retract it upon the least conviction that it is so But truly the Reasons which I have given have serv'd to confirm me in my adhaerence to my second inference which I yet farther prove by the remaining votes of Antiquity For though my former Citations are all to this purpose yet I will not repeat them but adde some others perhaps more fully and indisputably to the number 32. * And first I will set down the Confession of Mr. Calvin That †the Schoolmen and Ancients are wont to say Gods Reprobation of the wicked is in praescience of their wickednesse but he professes to believe with one more modern that God foresaw all future things by no other means than because he decreed they should be made or done Nor ought it saith he to seem absurd that God did not onely foresee but by his will appoint the fall of Adam and in him of his posterity The Ancients he confessed were quite of another mind but because he addes dubitanter and would have it thought that S. Austin was for his turn I will set down some of their words and begin with Austins 33. No man is chosen unless as differing from him that is rejected Nor know I how it is said that God hath chosen us before the foundation of the world unlesse it be meant of his prescience of faith and good works Iacob was not chosen that he might be made good but having been seen to be made good was capable of being chosen If S. Austin was so distinctly for Conditional Election and in those very works too which he afterwards writ as very sufficient to confute Pelagius he was infinitely rather for Conditional Reprobation as any man knows that knows any thing of him and may be seen in the same book to Simplician Esau would not and did not run for if he had he had attained by the help of God unlesse he would be made a Reprobate by a contempt of his vocation It seems unjust that without the merits of good or evil works God should love one and hate another Wicked men had no necessity of perishing from their not being elected but they were not therefore elected because they were fore-seen to be wicked through their own wilful prevarication God foresaw that they would fall by their own proper will and for that very reason did not separate them by election from the sons of perdition God is the Creator of all men but no man was created to the end that he may perish 34. I have given the more Testimonies out of Prosper because he is known to have been the Scholar and vindicator of S. Austin And to produce their suffrages is to imply all the rest they having been the onely Ancients whom their contentions against Pelagianisme made to speak sometimes to the great disadvantage of their own opinion as they do not stick to confesse themselves and we ought in all reason to take that for their Iudgement which we find delivered by themselves by way of Apology and vindication But though I need not I will adde some others He therefore brought the means of Recovery to all that whosoever perisht might impute it to himself who would not be cur'd when he had a Remedy whereby he might Even they that shall be wicked have power given them of Conversion and Repentance Gods love and hatred arises from his prescience of things to come or from the quality of mens works If the day is equally born for all how much rather is Jesus Christ When every man is called to a participation of the gift what is the reason that what God hath equally distributed should by humane interpretation be any way lessened * The fountain of life lies open to all nor is any man forbid or hindred from the right of drinking Let Dr. Twisse himself be heard to speak in this matter and that against Piscator both Antiarminians Damnatio est actus Judicis procedere debet secundum justitiam vindicativam at ne vestigium quidem Justitiae apparet in damnatione Reproborum He speaks of absolute irrespective Reprobation which Piscator set up Nam justitia neminem damnat nisi merentem At esse reprobum nequaquam significat mereri damnationem Sola Damnatio peccatoris splendere fâ—cit dei Justitiam Twissus in vind. Gr. de Praed. l. 1. Digr. 1. Sect. 4. p. 57. 35. Time and paper would fail me
whence there is nothing more evident than that the Devil is the d d Ibid. Father as well of Lyars as of Lyes It may also be of use to such as are able to believe the most incredible Narrations to consider the deceitfulnesse of that old Proverb to which they trust and give credence to wit that a great deal of smoak doth argue at least some little fire For the most impure Dunghil may smoak and vapour when yet there is not the least Fire that can be pretended to be the cause And therefore if any man shall liken me to that e Dragon of e e Correp Corr. Epist. Ded. 2. p 16. Hell Rev. 12. 15. or ††Id. ibid. p. 15 e That Dragon was the old Serpent the Devil and Satan Rev. 20. 2. use to call this Copy of harmlesse Notes Daemon Meridianum that is a masculineneuter-noonday Devil his Reader must not think so hardly of my Person or my Papers as to give the least credit to such Reports till we are able to shew him some Cloven Feet Now because I am ascertain'd by several Authors that my Notes and I shall be assaulted by some new Machines of the old Engineer assoon as a Stationer shall be found of a more daring complexion than those that hitherto have refused to thrust the Things into the light and because it is easier of the two to prevent a Calumny then to expel it and because I would abstain as much as in me lyes as well from every appearance as from every kind of so great an evil as that of raising a false Report which I so groundedly hate and so feelingly condemn that if through ignorance or credulity I have wronged any man I will upon knowledge of any such wrong make as ample satisfaction as I am able to require from my Delators I say for these good reasons I think it fit that I vindicate my self and others from the least suspicion of having injur'd the late most learned and pious Primate of Armagh whose utter di like and rejection of all the Doctrines of Geneva touching the points in debate betwixt my Neighbours and my self I did publickly affirm not without just ground and mature deliberation For which however I am censur'd and threatned too yet am I not able being innocent either tobe troubled at such unkindnesse or to be scared with such Bugs For first I spake what I spake and I speak it still to the immortal Honour of that Great Prelate who preferred Truth before Error although the Error was such as had first possest him The first point of honour is to repent us of our sins and the next to that is to retract our aberrations If I had spoken without witnesse I had but charitably err'd because in materia favorabili non odiosa I said no more of my Lord Primate than of King Iames and Bishop Andrews Melanchthon who in the declining part of their Lives did also change their Iudgements unto the better I said no more in effect than that the Reverend Primate did conform his Iudgement and so professed not long before his death to all the Fathers of the Church for the first four Centuries after Christ as even the Adversary must grant unlesse he will venture to accuse S. Austin's * * Prosp. Aquit in Epist. ad August p. 886. Second In saying that the Primate did embrace the Doctrine of Vniversal Redemption which I can prove by many most unquestionable Persons who had it poured into their ears by the Primates own mouth I do as good as say all although not all I have to say And yet in saying that I say no more than that his Lordship did concur with the Evangelist S. Iohn who hath delivered his Belief in these plain words That Iesus Christ the righteous is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins Onely but Also for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD 1 Ioh. 2. 1 2. In a word whosoever shall appear to hold that Negative which by being but a Negative will be impossible to be proved That my Lord Primate of Armagh did not declare his Rejection of those Opinions which I resist and which himself had embraced in former times will wrong the memory of the Bishop to whom in singlenesse of affection I have done this right And of what I now say or said before I am ready and willing to give a satisfactory account either privately or publickly to Friends or Enemies as occasion shall serve or need require What I said will be proved by several learned and grave Divines who had conference with the Bishop upon that subject and will be glad upon just occasion to attest the same under their Hands And to vindicate my self in this particular as well as the Friends of the Bishop who are the witnesses of his chanâ— and of the Bishop himself especially whoâ—e is the happinesse and the Glory to have profest it was one of my principal Inducements to give the Reader this little Post-script The End * Correct copy of Notes p. 6. †Note that though they often make God the Author of sin and use that word as we I as worse yet they oâ—ten confess it to be blasphemy which makes me say they have not dared to deny my principle because when they have they have not dared to stand to it but have rather denied their own hand-writing * Grot. R lig â—raef sect 5. p. 5. * Jam. 3. 11. †Mat. 12. 33. * Mat. 7. 18. Ezek 3. 6. Mat. 11. 21. * Deut. 29. 29. 1. John 8. 7. Rev. 12. 10. 9. 11. Joh. 8. 14 44. Episc. Winton in Iud. de art Lamb Rom. 11. 33. Psal. 36. 6. Sic propâ—nam sic asseram ut veritati quae nec fallit nec fallitur semper inhaream semper obediens consentiensque reperiar Fulgent ad Monim l. 1. sub in it Nec inest iâ—s quae de libero arbitrio Patreâ— quidem Neoterici asseruerunt ea quam olim nonnulli putant impietas si haecrite modò accipiantur sicut ipsi scriptores ea accipi voluâ—runt Apud Cassand consult p. 130. In prafat. ad Vind. Grat. p. 3. Gal. 6. 1. Prov. 19. 3. L. 3. 〈◊〉 23. Sect. 6. p. 324. L. 3. c. 24. Sect. 13 p. 333. ☜ L. 1. c. 18. Sect. 4. p. 71. L. 1. c. 17. Sect. 11. p. 66. ☜ 〈◊〉 1. c. 17. Sect. 5. p. 64. L. 1. part 1. Digr. 10. c 1. Sect. 4. p. 125. ☜ Ibid. Sect. 12. p. 140. ☞ ☞ In serm. de Pro. c. 5. c. 6. sic ciâ—atur l. 〈◊〉 part 1. p. 36. L. 1. c. 18. Sect. 1. p. 68. ☞ ☞ L. 2. part 〈◊〉 p. 142 143 147 148 c. ☞ The first Principle Proved by Scripture a Pâ—aedestinare Deum homines ad peccata aut poenas in S. Scripturis non diâ—itur sed eos ad vitam â—ternam prad stinare dicitur quos vocare decernit Grot. in Riv. Ap. Disc. p. 52.
the Apostle had foreseen an objection that the word all might be restrained unto the houshold of Faith he prevents it by a distinction of general and special For if he is a special Saviour of believers he is a general Saviour of those that are unbelievers not that unbelievers can be saved whilest they are obstinate unbelievers but upon condition they will repent and believe else why should the Apostle affirm the Saviour to be of all and then come off with an especially to them that believe Certainly if it is every mans duty to believe in Christ Christ dyed for every man And this very argument is not easily answered in the very confession of Dr. Twisse who yet by and by saies 't is easily answered and yet he leaves it without an answer he only scornes it and lets it passe Twiss. in Respon. ad Armin. Praefat. p. 16. col 2. This is secondly confirm'd from the Apostle's way of arguing 2 Cor. 5. 14. If one died for all then were all dead This is the major Proposition of an hypothetical syllogisme in which the thing to be proved is that all were dead and the Medium to prove it is that one dyed for all Now every man knows that understands how to reason that the argument of proof must be rather more than lesse known than the thing in question to be proved so that if it be clear that all men were dead by the fall of the first Adam it must be clearer as St. Paul argues that life was offered unto all by the death of the second Adam and if none were dyed for but the Elect then the Elect only were dead for the word all must signifie as amply in the Assumption as it does in the Sequel or else the Reasoning will be fallacious and imperfect The Apostle thus argues If one dyed for all then were all dead But one dyed for all that must be the Assumption Therefore all were dead Whosoever here denies the Minor does before he is aware condemn the Sequel of the Major and so gives the Lie to the very words of the Text which I can look for from none but some impure Helvidius who would conclude the greatest falsehoods from the word of Truth This is thirdly confirmed from the saying of the Apostle Rom. 11. 32. that God concluded all in unbelief the Gentiles first verse 30. and afterwards the Iewes verse 31. that he might have mercy upon all From whence I inferre that if this last all belong to none but the Elect then none but the Elect were concluded in unbelief But it is plain that all without exception were first or last concluded in unbelief therefore the mercy was meant to all without exception Lastly it is confirm'd from those false Prophets and false Teachers 2 Pet. 2. 1. who though privily bringing in damnable heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and bringing upon themselves swift destruction yet it seems they were such whom the Lord had bought So far is God from being the Cause of mans destruction by an absolute irrespective unconditional Decree that he gave himself a ransome even for them that perish They were not left out of the bargain which was made with his Iustice but the Apostle tels us they were actually bought He whose blood was sufficient for a thousand worlds would not grudge its extent to the major part of but one He was merciful to all men but the greatest part of men are unmerciful to themselves He is the Saviour of all but yet all are not saved because he only offers does not obtrude himself upon us He * offers himself to all but most refuse to receive him He will have no man to perish but repent by his Antecedent will but by his Consequent will he will have every man perish that is impenitent Which is sufficient to have been said for the negative part of my undertaking That the cause of Damnation is not on God's part in which if any one Text be found of power to convince let no man cavil at those others which seem lesse convincing If any one hath an objection let him stay for an answer till his objection is urged It might seem too easie to solve objections of my own choice or confute an argument of my own making and therefore I passe without notice of common shifts and subterfuges till I am call'd to that Drudgery to the second part of my enterprise which is the affirmative 16. That man himself is the cause of his eternal punishment Which though supposed in the negative must yet be proved to some persons who are prevailed upon by fashions and modes of speech and will deny that very thing when they see it in one colour which they will presently assent to when they behold it in another He who is very loth to say that God is the Author of sin and damnation will many times say it in other termes and therefore in other terms it must be proved that he is not O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thine help Hosea 13. 6. They that privily bring in Damnable Heresies shall bring upon themselves swift destruction The foolishness of man perverteth his way And as when lust conceiveth it bringeth forth sin so when sin is finished it bringeth forth death Iam. 1. 15. If death is that monster of which sin is the Dam that brings it forth how foul a thing must be the Sire and can there be any greater blasphemy than to bring God's Providence into the pedigree of Death Death saith the Apostle is the wages of sin Rom. 6. 23. and wages is not an absolute but a relative word It is but reason he should be paid it who hath dearly earn'd it by his work It is the will of man that is the servant of sin Disobedience is the work Death eternal is the wages and the Devil is the pay-master who as he sets men to work to the dishonour of their Creator so he paies them their wages to the advancement of his glory From whence I conclude with the Book of Wisdome God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living for he created all things that they might have their being and the generations of the world were healthful and there is no poyson of Destruction in them nor the kingdome of death upon the earth But ungodly men with their words and works call'd it to them and made a covenant with it because they are worthy to take {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} part with it 17. I will confirm this truth by no more than one Reason which if it is not the best doth seem to me to be the fittest as being aptest to evince both the connexion and necessity of my first inference from my first Principle It is taken from the nature and use of punishment which as soon as it is named doth presuppose a Guilt for as every sin is the *