same spiritual drink for they drank of that rock which followed them and that rock was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 5. Further after the fourty years pilgrimage were ended the Lord doth promise that their Convoy should not leave them but that he should go before them and drive out the Canaanites because it was not in their own power to bring the land into subjection This is the Lords promise and therefore in sense and substance the Angel must do the whole work Secondly let us consider what is the duty of the people and that is contained in these words Beware of him obey his voice provoke him not c. Because they did wholly depend upon him for all therefore they should be careful to observe him and to follow him in his leadings The force of the reason is the same in the words of the text work out your salvation with fear and trembling because God works in you the will and the deed because his Spirit is all in all the cause of mans salvation to carry on the work because his Spirit doth convince reprove teach comfort seal and guide the Saints therefore they should walk tenderly and carefully toward him The Apostle saith grieve not the Spirit of grace by which ye are sealed unto the day of Redemption Ephes 4.30 In case they do with him as disobedient children do with their parents when they give them good counsel the Spirit will neither comfort nor seal them any more but will leave them to a state of darknesse and discomfort And this is the true meaning of the text We may hereby understand how God doth carry on the whole work of salvation and this doth no way impair or diminish the endeavour of man In the close of all you tell us Let us say with the Apostle in our hearts that we desire to strive with dayly labourings according to the mighty workings whereby he worketh in us Col. 1.29 And do not say any more it is God that worketh our actions but be thankful to him that giveth us sufficient means Page 63. You have heard before that the Lord doth work in us the will and the deed and therefore the spirituality of the action is wholly from God though we are free workers by the help of his grace But let us take your words in the fairest construction If you will stand firmly to this principle that God gives sufficient means by a power working in us you need not fly to the purity of nature to natural free-will and to such like beggerly rudiments to salve the endevour of man In this place you seem to speak for grace when elsewhere through your whole treatise you drive the bargain altogether for the natural abilities of the will But seeing you have offered this text to our consideration we will endeavour to draw from it the concord betwixt the grace of God and the endeavour of man The words are these Whereunto I also labour striving according to his working which worketh in me mightily The Apostle speaketh of the work of the Ministery whom we preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdome that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus whereunto I labour according to the mighty workings that he worketh in us Here it is plain that the Apostle did work in teaching and instructing every one and it was not so much his work as the work of the Spirit in him and by him When he was at Athens his Spirit was stirred up in him when he saw the City wholly given to Idolatry Why are not the like excitations of spirit in men in there dayes who travell to Constantinople to Ligorn to Rome seeing hose people are wholly given either to Mahumetan superstition or Popish Idolatry The reason is manifest the same spirit doth not work so mightily in the hearts of men as it did sometime in the heart of Paul because he was filled with the Spirit he did shew abundant sympathy and bowells of affection towards all the lost sonnes of men But to come to instances in these last times when the Gospel was plucked down and the Mass was set up in Queen Maries dayes the Martyr being in a journey declared his intention that he would preach in his charg the next Lords day and when he that journeyed with him told him then he would certainly be cast into prison his answer was I am in prison till I am in prison He was bound in his spirit to preach the Gospel to the soules which he had taken charg of he could have no peace otherwise then in the discharge of his duty He did labour freely yet so as his labour was by the inward moving of the Spirit But of all other places that passage of our Saviour is most used by the Enthusiasts Ye shall be brought before Kings and Princes for my sake but when they shall deliver you up take no thought how or what you shall speak for it shall be given to you in that houre what you shall speak For it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you Mat. 10.18 19 20. Though this promise is made to the Martyrs and Confessors in times of persecution yet it is not made to them in that manner as to extinguish and drown all endeavour of their own as though God would do all and they should be discharged of their duty The promise is only made to such as should engage themselves for Christ and should humbly in the use of the means depend upon him for the supply of his Spirit And thus we see that the Spirit does all and yet in the most spiritual actions man himself is a free-worker It shall be given you in that houre what you shall speak This expression what you shall speak sheweth plainly that the Saints are free Agents Let us now consider that place Ephes 2.8 9. For by grace ye are saved through faith not of your selves it is the gift of God ☜ Here you yield that salvation as purchased by Christ is the gift of God but you will not have faith it self to be the gift of God you grant one part of the text to deny another If you consider the words you shall finde that not onely salvation but also faith it self is Gods free gift If this be not so how could the Ephesians come to beleeve The Apostle saith that they were dead in trespasses and sinnes they walked according to the course of the world they fulfilled the lusts of the flesh and of the mind Therefore they could not come to beleeve by any natural ability but meerly by the quickning work of the Spirit Further this expression is added ver 10. We are his work manship created of God unto good works By nature they were dead in trespasses and sinnes and if that now they could perform any spiritual act they were made able to do this by the new creation or workmanship of God Further if faith be not the
natural say you were to have acted such actions as might have testified to the world that they had been lovers of God because those actions were wanting they are said to be unnatural So it may appear that nature was not improved to those ends to which God assigned it page 146. It is true that in these Scriptures the word nature is taken in the better sense yet not in such a sense as will furnish your intention First I do acknowledge that God hath left reliques or remainders of his Law in the hearts of the Gentiles This is commonly called the Law of nature and by this men know that God ought to be worshipped that parents ought to be honoured and that every man is to have his own c. Secondly I yield also that they who go against this Law may rightly be called unnatural because they go against the dictates or principles of of nature Thirdly they who do thus deviate from natural principles do not improve nature to those ends which God hath made it All these things I do allow so far I wil go along with you But how do you prove from hence the purity of nature and that a meer natural man as such is able to understand the things of the Spirit of God You do in the next page distinguish natural men into two kinds these are your words Who requireth no other way to be glorified but by those principles that he had furnished them withal And because they opposed their own nature resusing the counsel of God they are called unnatural because they imployed their nature wholly to satisfie their lusts Such natural men percieve not the things of God The same matter in substance is spoken by the Examiners in the Chapter of free will for the Synod having rightly determined according to the Scriptures that a natural man being altogether averse from that good and dead in sinne he is not able by his own strength to convert himself or prepare himself thereunto Against this passage the men take great offence and as their manner is accuse the Synod for their defects and falshoods For their defects they blame them because they do not distinguish the several kinds of natural men and for their falshoods they accuse them for saying that the fallen man hath lost all ability to spiritual good They distinguish also several kinds of will and tell us in the third place as the will of our first parents so of all men else doth stand in a kind of aequilibrium pag. 128.129 130. Now to take off these several Objections I would entreat both you and them to consider these two points First if you look to the better sort of natural men to those who are no Backbiters no Covenant-breakers c. Whether may not many of these in the most essential vital and spiritual parts of the Law be great enemies against God and be lovers of themselves more than lovers of God If the most refined natural men may be secret enemies why do you and they speak of pure nature and of the improvement of natural abilities when it is certain that men can do no good without the help of the Spirit Natural men may be distinguished into a thousand kinds according to the different circumstances of time and place yet all of them do agree in this that they are natural and without the help of the Spirit they are not able to judge of the things of God Secondly when the Apostle speaketh of the Gentiles who having no Law do by nature the things contained in the Law their thoughts in the mean while accusing or else excusing one another Romans 2.14 When the Gentiles do make use of the Law written in their heart as they do at certain seasons to judge themselves doth not this proceed from the general convictions and workings of the Spirit If the act of self-judging be from the conviction of the Spirit this is no praise to natural abilities but the glory belongs to the grace of God And the words of the Confession are very sound that a natural man cannot convert himself or prepare himself thereunto In which words they do distinguish between conversion it self and the antecedaneous works before conversion In neither of these they say that a natural man is able to do any thing of himself but all his ability is from the help of the Spirit I wonder then what reason the Examiners had given them to cavil at such an innocent expression But if you shall stand upon the letter of the text that the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law Here you may observe that the Apostle doth onely oppose the natural Law to the Law written in tables of stone and communicated to the Church by revelation He never meant that any of the Gentiles meerly by their own strength were able to keep that Law which was made known to them Only at seasons the Spirit did excite and stirre up strong convictions in their consciences to apply those principles and dictates which they had by the light of nature The most common and universal maxime of all men in the world is this that there is a God Why then doth the consideration of the Godhead so forcibly and powerfully awake at some intervals of time more than at others We can give no other reason but this that the truth in the hearts of the Gentiles is like a cinder in the Smiths forge which by the operations and stirrings of the Spirit is enlivened and being once enlivened men have more power to judge themselves and to look after God in those seasons than at others And from hence also we might take occasion to answer that great difficulty in the Epistle to the Romans The Apostle in the first Chapter speaking of the knowledge of the Gentiles and how naturally they hold the truth in unrighteousnesse and that for this cause the Lord doth give them up to a reprobate sense yet in the next Chapter he doth shew that the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law and do shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work of the Law written in their hearts when their thoughts do at sundry times accuse or excuse one another To the resolution of the difficulty we say that the Gentiles so farre forth as they are principled by the corruption of nature are prone to no other but to imprison the light but as they are under and do submit unto the convictions of the Spirit they are helped sometimes to go so farre as to judge themselves and to cry out in their misery O being of beings have mercy upon us The main drift of the Apostle is to shew that Jewes and Gentiles are both under sinne and how by the sight of the misery of nature such of them as are saved come to be saved onely by looking after the grace and the free-mercy of God If this be the meaning of the Spirit what shall we think of pure nature or
the Spirit So in the present case the creatures were free from sin as well as Adam but their freedom was meerly from incapacity because they were not able to receive a spiritual Law And Adams freedome was from the holinesse of that state in which the Lord had made him Therefore in the point of nontransgression Adam was put into such a state as none of the creatures could come to Next you enquire Whether the Image of God did consist in light These are your words If the light that Adam had was the Image then it must be a light spiritual or natural or both Now that it was not the light of the Gospel that Adam had is clear there being neither malady nor remedy which were in being in the time of this light page 15. Though there was neither malady nor remedy at that time yet he might have spiritual light in the substance thereof and the Image of God might principally consist in this The Apostle speaking of the regenerate hath this expression renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Col. 3.10 This sheweth plainly that man in the beginning was created after the Image of God and that Image did chiefly consist in the spiritual light that was in the understanding But because there is a great controversie between the Arminians and us about the nature of this light viz. Whether Adam had a power before his fall to beleeve in Christ and because this is a point pertinent to our purpose I will briefly recite three Arguments used by Corvinus in his Answer to Du Moulin First saith he Adam was not bound to beleeve in Christ therefore he did not receive ability to beleeve in him such an ability would be unnecessary and unprofitable where there was no use of it at all Chap. 11. sect 4.5 page 156. Answ The Argument doth not hold God did not require Adam to beleeve the Stories written in the five Books of Moses the Books of Josbua Judges Samuel c. But will any man be so void of reason to argue that he had no power to beleeve these Stories in case they had been revealed to him so God did not require Abraham to beleeve in Christ as he was revealed and exhibited in the last dispensation of the promise shall we therefore argue that he had not ability to beleeve or that he had not the same spirit in substance which the Saints now have He that doth so judge let him answer the meaning of this Scripture We having the same spirit of faith according as it is written I beleeved and therefore have I spoken we also beleeve and therefore speak 2 Cor. 4.13 It is clear from hence that the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles had all of them the same spirit of faith in substance yet all of them have not the same revelation of the promise in the circumstances thereof Secondly Corvinus saith that before the fall the Gospel was not credible because in the Gospel a sinner is commanded to believe himself to be a sinner and that by himself and his own works he cannot be saved and that all salvation is placed in Christ the Mediatour And further he addeth It was so far from man to be able to believe all these things that he was then bound rather to believe the contrary to wit himself to be upright and that he should be blessed if he did persist in his uprightnesse p. 154 162 164 165. Answ To this we willingly agree That the way to salvation as now it is doth differ very much from that state wherein Adam stood But the question is not concerning the diversitie or contrariety of the states but concerning the power and ability that Adam had whether it be one and the same in substance with that which the Saints now have White and black are two contrary colours yet the same eye doth see both Heat and cold are two qualities in the extream yet they are tangible objects to one and the same sense of seeling So in the like case though the Word of the Law and the Word of the Gospel are two contrary wayes to salvation yet there is nothing doth exclude but they may be apprehended by one and the same spirit of faith The Word may be one and the same in the general notion and nature of the Word and it may be apprehended by one and the same spirit of faith yet it may differ in circumstance But because the force of the Argument doth lie in the contradictory nature of the two states we will come to instance in a case or two Adam before his fall could not shew mercie if we look to the outward act or the performance of the duty for where there is no misery what mercy can be shewed shall we therefore argue that he had no such affection in him as mercy So in the like case it is not compatible with the state of the blessed Angels to beleeve in a Christ to recover them out of their fall for they that never fall have no need of a recovery what then shall we say that they have no ability to understand the Mysterie of the Gospel This cannot be for so the Apostle reasoneth By them which have preached the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven which things the Angels desire to look into 1 Pet. 1.12 Though the blessed Angels have no need of salvation by grace held out in the Gospel yet they have ability to understand it they have a desire to pry and gaze into it So in the like case though Adam had no need of salvation before his fall by the Mediatour yet he might have ability to understand that way of salvation in case it had been revealed Thirdly Corvinus saith that greater abilities are required to faith in Christ then that ability which Adam bad before his fall Answ I cannot see possibly how he can consist with his own principles For seeing he doth stand upon it in his Treatises against Moulin page 159.165 that God doth proportion abilities to commands and seeing also he saith that God did promise life to Adam under the condition of most perfect and absolute obedience By the position of these two he must necessarily affirme Adams abilities to be exceeding great before his fall For seeing the work required was to yield such a perfect obedience as none else can perform since the fall but Christ alone it must necessarily follow that Adam must have a large portion of spirit fitted for such an employment As in some Monuments of Antiquity we do argue how strong such a Prince was that died many hundred yeares ago from the greatnesse and weight of his sword so from the spirituality of the Law given to Adam before his fall we do infer his abilities to have been exceeding great And thus much out of Corvinus his own principles Now Mr. Everard let us return back again to you And here to deal plainly with you and the Churches that do
to us For though we wholly ascribe all to grace ☜ yet we acknowledge man to be a free agent who worketh and acteth by the help of grace administred Though God himself be almighty often doth work so almightily that none can or shall resist him yet his way of working in the soul in the excitings and movings of his grace are not always in that almighty way Sometimes men do resist nay the very elect themselves do oppose the workings of his Spirit though they do not nor cannot finally resist We constantly affirme that the grace is Gods and the act is mans For proof of this let us consider the meaning of that expression By the grace of God I am what I am and his grace in me was not in vaine but I laboured more then they all yet not I but the grace of God which was with me 1 Cor. 15.10 Here he doth ascribe all to grace when he saith by the grace of God I am what I am Though he doth attribute all to grace as to the Architectonical and principal cause for all was done by the vigour and efficacie of that grace which was in him yet for all this he doth not deny himself to be a free agent He did instrumentally work by the power of that grace which was in him Therefore in the work of his Ministery there is a truth that grace did all and Paul did labour more then any of the Apostles Grace did it principally and Paul did it organically and ministerially And thus you see though the action be mans the vigour spirituality and efficacie is wholly from God and nothing from man This is the substance of our doctrine Now let us see how you concord Gods grace with mans endeavour Without further controversie say you let it be confessed that the teachings of God come in to the sons and daughters of men as the tillings and manurings of God to provoke them to produce obedient actions page 50. This passage of yours we might let go for present were it not for a Pelagian sense which it carries with it For from what Scripture or experience have you this similitude that mans nature is to be compared to a fruitful soile in such things as concern salvation A fruitful soile though it do want due culture hath a natural aptnesse to bring forth fruit will you say that there is the same aptnesse in the nature of man to produce actions of obedience doth not this go against the scope of Scripture and do not the Saints for the production of obedient actions finde need of a daily and continual supply of the Spirit of Christ All shall turne to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ Phil. 1.19 Though the Saints do bring forth fruit and though it be the act of their own free obedience yet it is not from nature as a fruitful soile but from Christ the Vine John 15.1 2 c. Our Saviour doth plainly shew that every branch abiding in him brings forth fruit But if you will needs argue from hence the goodnesse and fertility of the branch in it self he saith in expresse termes without me ye can do nothing Further you add If this opinion should take place that God giveth our actions it would as well dismisse the office of the Spirit of God and so destroy the internal meanes The Spirit standeth at the doore of the heart and calleth provoking us with a multiplicity of allurements that we would put forth our abilities to a present performance of action p. 51. Here Sir as I have formerly said we have nothing to do with that idle opinion that obedient actions are only the gift of God we have nothing to do with them who demolish the endeavour of man let them bear their own burden whosoever they be But on the other side we must needs blame you for running into a contrary extreame for whereas you say that the Spirit standeth at the doore of the heart provoking us with a multiplicity of allurements to put forth our abilities to present performance here I would entreat you to define what those abilities are which the Spirit doth provoke us to exert and put forth If you mean our natural abilities as you can mean no other seeing they stand contradistinct to the allurements of the Spirit then you will ascribe the chief work of salvation to mans nature and the part of the Spirit shall be onely to allure and perswade By this account not onely the action but also the ability and the power to act will be from man But because the Pelagians of old the Arminians of late and you now have such frequent recourse to this Scripture Rev. 3. 17 18 19 20. let us read the words Because thou sayest I am rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art poor miserable blind and naked I counsel thee that thou buy of me gold tryed in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white rayment that thou mayest be clothed that the shame of thy nakednesse do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayest see As many as I love I rebuke and chasten be zealous therefore and amend Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man heare my voice and open the door I will come in and sup with him From the words these Corollaries may be deduced First not onely the Church of Laodicea but also all men else are spiritually dead and miserable if we look upon them as considered in the state of nature Secondly men by their natural ability do not discern the miserie of that condition Thirdly such as Christ doth intend to bring to salvation he will begin with them in the opening of the eye of their understanding to see that in themselves they are poor miserable blind and naked Fourthly by the conviction of his Spirit he will shew them that he hath a supply for all their wants for their blindnesse he hath eye-salve for their nakednesse he hath white raiment for their poverty he hath gold tried in the fire and for all their wants he hath a proportionable supply Fifthly the Lord Christ at sundry intervals of time doth stand at the door shew these things to the hearts of the sons men if therefore they see them receive them and in the sense of their own emptinesse go to him for all they shall have more large and full communications of himself he will come in and sup with them This is the natural sense of the text and what is here to set up the ability of man The whole scope of the place is rather to pluck down his abilities that the Lord Christ may be all in all But in case you stand upon these words if any man hear my voice and open the doore we grant that in the matter of salvation man is a free agent when God sends the Spirit into his heart to reprove
him of sinne he is then able to judge himself when the Lord also discovers the love of Christ to the heart by the teachings of the Word without and the Spirit within he is then able to beleeve Further when God giveth a Christ-like disposition he is then able to shew son-like affections towards God and make expression that the Law is written in his heart In a word he hath power so farre to open the doore as he hath ability from Christ he cannot go one step further And therefore when the Spirit stands at the doore and knocks to speak properly there is no natural ability in us all ability is from grace we must look to Christ onely and the more we look to him in the sense of our own weaknesse the more we shall have All that may truely be gathered from this Scripture is that a man is a free agent in the work of his salvation but the ability is onely from Christ and not from us Now we will consider the force of your third Reason Reas 3. If God say you giveth men actions of obedience then were he to be obeyed by men no otherwise then the winds and seas obey him In this case there can be no talent no neglect of duty on mans part no more then there is in the axe or saw in dividing of a piece of timber Answer This argument I confesse is of force against them who give all to the Spirit that they make man himself meerly passive as a stupid block I am against them as well as you But you do not onely strike at these but against them also who are for the Lords free election and the special communication of his own grace infallibly to bring his people to salvation And thereupon say you such an obedience may thus be compared as if God should come and put a purse of gold into the hand of men and force it upon them and call that their obedience and to many other men give them not a penny-worth and demand some of them and because it was not there dispose of their persons to everlasting ruine page 53. Here you endeavour to misrepresent the doctrine of the Lords free election and make it odious to your own ends But we will make it clear that mans obedience may well consist with the doctrine of election and his disobedience also may consist with the doctrine of non-election ☞ For the first let us consider the meaning of that place I will make an everlasting covenant with them I will never turne away from them to do them good I will put my feare into their hearts and they shall never depart from me Jer. 32.40 That which is here spoken must needs be a promise to the elect because it is expressely said I will make an everlasting Covenant with them I will never turne away from them These words do note the communication of an infallible grace but yet not so as any kind of way to diminish and empaire the endeavour of man for this is not wrought immediately by the Spirit alone but mediately by the Spirit upon the heart of man And therefore these words are immediately added I will put my fear into their heart and they shall never depart from me Because the Lord had an intent to keep them from back-sliding de did resolve to infuse a son-like fear into their hearts to avoid all spiritual dangers and to keep themselves from falling And so we may see how the infallible administration of the grace may stand with the free act and endeavour of man But let us go to another Scripture I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh I will put my Spirit within you and will cause you to walke in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Then shall ye remember your own evil wayes and your doings that were not good and shall loath your selves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations Ezek. 36.25 26 27. Here in these words also there is a promise to the Lords peculiar people that he will bestow his special grace upon them in these words a new heart will I give them and they shall keep my commandments I will wash them with cleane water Secondly here is their particular act by the power of grace received they shall freely walk in the Lords statutes when he shall give them a new heart they shall loath their abominations when he shall wash them with cleane water The more subtile sort of Arminians in several Treatises do seeme to ascribe much to grace onely they make the point of the question to stand in the modus rei or the manner of the grace that God doth not so infallibly work upon the heart ut eventus non possit non sequi that the event cannot chuse but follow This is the stumbling stone and the rock of offence that they stumble at Now let us consider what is alledge in their Apology to the forementioned Scripture First say they this promise is peculiar to the last times therefore it cannot be applied to the conversion of the elect which is one and the same in all times Answ Though the promise is specially to be applied to the call to the Jewes yet it doth strongly inforce the point For the question being onely de modo rei concerning the manner of the thing this Scripture plainly sheweth the certainty and infallibility of such a grace by and thorough which the Jewes shall be brought home in the last dayes If we look to the dispersion of that Nation over all Countreyes of the world we may conceive it a thing impossible to natural reason for them to be gathered together yet God hath promised to gather them into one body and that David shall be their King in the latter dayes Even so if we look to the enmity and perversenesse of a people against the Gospel of Christ there is no Nation under the whole heaven for these many hundred years that hath been such desperate adversaries as they have been There are neither English nor Spanish nor French nor Italian no not Turks nor Tartars that are greater haters of the Gospel then this people have been and yet are Yet notwithstanding all this antipathy they shall be called and thorough the call they shall be infallibly brought home in the latter times Though according to natural reason this may seeme very improbable God will certainly performe his promise and no obstacle or hindrance shall be able to obstruct the work From hence then it is clear if we go to the modus rei or the manner of the thing we may easily collect that the way of God in working the conversion of his people may be after a certain and infallible manner Secondly they argue If God will do all by his power why are men commanded to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit This were irrational to do on
VINDICIAE FVNDAMENTI Or a threefold defence of the DOCTRINE OF Original Sin Together with some other fundamentals of Salvation The first against the exceptions of Mr. Robert Everard in his book entituled The Creation and the Fall of man The second against the Examiners of the late Assemblies Confession of Faith The third against the Allegations of Dr. Jeremy Taylor in his Unum Necessarium and two lesser Treatises of his By NATHANIEL STEPHENS Minister of Fenny-Drayton in Leicestershire LONDON Printed by T. R. and E. M. for Edmund Paxton in Pauls Chain right over against the Castle-Tavern near Doctors Commons 1658. THE PREFACE TO THE Reader Shewing the Reasons of publishing the present Treatise in these times ALthough we are fallen into an age where books of all sorts do abound yet in two cases as long as the Lord hath a Church upon the earth there will be still need of writing more The first when many divine mysteries do remain still inclosed and sealed up in the Scriptures no man will doubt upon such a supposal but it is the duty of those that read according to ability to bring the truth to light I did in order to this publish a Tract concerning the Beast his name mark and the number of his name c. Here if any will say shall we be wiser than our fore-fathers to endeavour the discovery of that which they could never finde out The answer is cleare truth is the Daughter of Time A Pigmy upon a Gyants shoulder may see farther than the Gyant himself Even so we standing upon the shoulders and enjoying the labours of those that have gone before may see as farre as they did and by wading into further depths may go further than they Upon this account it doth more peculiarly belong to us to continue the 〈◊〉 where they left it to adde to the stock of knowledge to be clear where 〈◊〉 were confused to turne into the way where they went 〈◊〉 and to bring those things to light that have been either totally or in part obscured from them Some are of the judgment that we are come to the very Zenith and top of all kinde of learning and that we know already all that we need know But an hundred and a thousand ensamples may be shewed to the contrary We are dark in many of those things that are reserved for the industry and diligence of the latter times If men would convert the course of their studies this way as they would make a better return of their labours so they would be lesse prejudicial to the writings of former times At least all must acknowledge that there will be just occasion of printing 〈◊〉 books as long as new matter remains to be published to the world A second case of new writing is when the plain fundamenal common truths of God are made dark by the new fangled opinious and brangling queres of each age In such a case a necessity doth lie upon us and woe is unto us if we do not plead for the truth when it is notably and eminently endangered by others In the present case I have not to do so much with that which is darke and abstruse in its own nature but with that which is made so by the devises and subtilties of men The doctrine of original sin and the natural servitude of the will at least to any spiritual good is plainly enough set forth in the Scriptures yet there are more than too many in these times who endeavour with all their might to draw a cloud over this cleerenesse I cannot see but as a Minister is to preach and to live according to the truth so it is his office and duty also to clear the same truth from the errours and intanglements of his own age As evil manners occasion good Laws so evil opinions and evil interpretations of Scripture specially where gain-saying spirits do endeavour to puddle the stream should make us more skilfull in the mystery of salvation Whatsoever the reason is many of the friends and followers of the separation with us do not rest satisfi'd with the denyal of Infant Baptism but they proceed also to deny al infants to be born in original sin The confession of the faith of the thirty separate Congregations hath not as farre as I can perceive any one word of the sin of the nature Some do more apparently deny the thing and others are more close in what they hold But Master Everard in his Book entituled the Creation and the fall of man containes the substance of all their arguments Which Tract of his seeing it is spread farre and neare to the deceiving of many poore soules and to the troubling of others I have thought it necessary to examine all the material passages and to detect the subtilties and fallacies thereof The chief points he doth insist on are these whether had Adam the Spirit or was he a spiritual man before his fall Secondly how farre do obedient actions proceed from the operation of the Spirit and how farre are they a mans own act Thirdly he treats concerning the contrariety of the two wills the secret and the revealed will of God Lastly he cometh to the maine point to assert the innocency and the purity of the natural birth And for this he seemes to himselfe and others of that way to have some coulourable reassons When I had done with him there came to my hand the Examen of the late Assemblies Confession of Faith I am uncertain whether one or more are the Authours Some circumstances do not obscurely insinuate it to be the act of more than one man and therefore in the ensuing Discourse I do speak of them in the plural number Because in the points of free will and original sinne they do concord with Master Everard and the Antipedobaptists of our Vicinity I have taken them into the Company to which they do belong Now this last year considering the State of our Affairs when certain friends of mine Ministers as well as others did desire me to publish what I had written At the same time did Doctor Jeremy Taylor set forth his Vnum Necessarium In that Book of his Chap. six as also in two other small Treatises the answer to the Bishops letter and The Further Explication doth the Authour fall upon our differences alleadging the same things in effect which our Antagonists for certaine yeares past have alleadged against us Onely this difference is to be made he doth ascribe much to the Testimonies of the Fathers and other Ancient Authours They do slight all such kindes of authority He doth owne for ought as I could ever hear the Baptisme of infants They more securely to deny infant Baptisme do seeme also upon the same reason to deny all Infants to be borne in original sinne His Writings are like to have a free passage in all the parts of the Land Theirs for ought as I can heare are received more chiefly in their own society His
causes of that being which he had in the beginning and tell us that God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good Gen. 1.32 From whence you draw this Conclusion doubtlesse these words were spoken to take off some future objections or to prevent mens sayings that Adam consisted in creation of two sorts of people one being assigned for heaven the other for hell And lest we should judge that God made any part of him for damnation at that time he assures us that he made all things very good When I read this passage of yours I do call to minde a kinde of torment used in the Primitive times when the persecutors would expose the bodies of Christians to wilde beasts they did sometimes cover and disguise them with the skins of other living creatures So do you here and in other parts of your book with the doctrine of Gods free election When you see that there is such a Majesty in the truth it self that you cannot well oppose it you do draw an ugly visage and forme over it to the end that you may baite and encounter it more easily at your own pleasure The Lords making all good in the beginning doth not infringe the election of some and the non-election of others if these things be rightly construed And therefore whether you consider men in that first state made after the image of God or in that state as fallen in both these I conceive all mankinde to be equal The difference of elect or non-elect is immanent onely in the Decree of God and election doth onely so farre forth begin to be manifest as men living under the meanes come to be called justified sanctified by the Spirit Rom. 8.30 2 Thess 2.13 We have no other way to take notice of election but this onely For that saying of yours that Adam consisted of two sorts of people in creation the one part being assigned for heaven and the other for hell We willingly acknowledge that the number of the elect were known to God before the foundation of the world yet this difference between man and man in the Lords secret intention did make no difference between man and man in the creation or in the fall The nature of all men elect and others was equally good before the fall as it was equally corrupted and depraved after the fall As in the like case Jesse was the father of many sons of which one was designed in the secret counsel of God to rule the Kingdom of Israel As they were the sons of one parent they were all equal made of one blood partakers of the same education though one was specially designed for the Kingdome So in the present case the nature of all men may be equally good before the fall all may have one and the same image of God all may fall in one and the same parent yet God may in a special manner intend to bring some to salvation and to leave others voluntarily to run their own ruine he may have mercie on whom he will have mercie and he may have compassion on whom he will have compassion You do then plainly impose upon us with your sophistrie when you fetch arguments from some temporal acts to overturne the Lords eternal Decrees But this is a passage onely by the way we will go to the next Chapter CHAP. II. Wherein Adams abilities did consist HEre you define ability that it is a fitnesse in the subject commanded every way answerable to performe any action that the Creator is pleased to call the creature to pag. 5. In this I do agree that originally God did proportion the abilities of Adam to the commands that he gave him I do also willingly acknowledge with you that he had first a capassity to receive intelligence secondly directions thirdly abilities in present possession and fourthly time But whereas you say p. 7. that our Lord the Creator afforded all these aforenamed accommodations as a sufficient means for every man to obey his commands In this I beleeve you do not onely equal but go beyond Pelagius himself For you say in effect that man hath as great abilities after the fall as before But lest that any may think that these are the consequences of mine own making and that they are not the true result of your doctrine let him go to the fourteenth chapter of your book and there let him see how you do expedite the question You propound the quere what Adam retained of his forfeiture after his death and here you determine that his power was inwardly as great to keep the commands of God as before You say if in that service of God which Adam had to do he was compleatly furnished by God why should I judge that he would employ him in a more hard service and not aford him sutable accommodations seeing God was as willing that his commands should be obeyed after as he was before the fall For I judge the work that God set Adam about before the fall he had ability to do after the fall if God had given him a command to returne into the garden page 110. Let any man who readeth these words judge in his own heart whether Pelagius himself could have spoken more to the derogation of the free grace of God in Christ then you have done To this if we adde the several passages in your Treatise concerning the improvement of nature and the freedome of infants from original sin and compare all together we shall finde the whole tenour of your doctrine to be manifestly destructive to the Covenant of Grace We will therefore endeavour on the contrary to shew the positive truth And therefore seeing God doth require obedience of man after the fall I do freely assent that he doth give sutable accommodation But how the accommodation doth not consist in the presence of any natural ability but in the promise since the fall there is an ability to obey the Lords commands but that ability is out of man in Christ onely To him they must go to supply all their wants and he must help them to performe all the duties enjoyned If you stand upon the proportion of abilities to commands then say that the ability is in Christ onely to be had and we shall easily agree He of God is made to us wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 In him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid Col. 2.3 Of his fulnesse have we all received grace for grace John 1.16 It shall never be denied by me nay I will maintain it that now since the fall there is a proportion betwixt the ability and the command but then the ability must be had from Christ onely and the immediate supply of his Spirit In this sence Saint Paul had abilities in a meet temper and correspondence to his duties for he saith I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me Phil. 4.11 12 13. And in another place my grace
depend upon your Institution I must tell you that neither Arminius nor Corvinus nor any other of that party to my knowledge did ever spin such a course thread as you do For though they stand upon it that Adam had not abilities to beleeve in Christ to raise himself from his fal yet none of them do utter such speeches as these that Adam was altogether destitute of the Spirit of God and that he was a meer carnal man before his fall This to my understanding doth cast a blurre upon the Creator himselfe Now I would intreat you to shew some further reason wherefore the Image of God did not stand in spiritual light You say it remaineth yet to prove that Adam had a supernatural light Which they will never be able to do unlesse they will prove that he was set about some spiritual employments For God giving light suitable to the employment he sets his creature about so suitably God proportions his light that it might be just suitable for his works and no more page 16. And for the works wherein Adam was employed you tell us what they were p. 17. He was to look after the Garden to dresse and keep it and to settle names and titles upon every creature to eat and drink with such like works as also to bear rule and dominion over the creatures But Sir in this point you are wonderful fallacious For first what warrant have you to take the height length and breadth of Adams abilities from his present employments There is many a true Christian man in these times that doth beleeve some truths who hath ability to receive more if it would please the Lord to reveal them So we may say in the like case concerning Adam he was able to receive more truths if they had been revealed and to do more duties if he had been commanded We are not absolutely to tie and confine mens abilities to their present employments Further what ground have you to affirm that Adams employment was only in those externals of keeping the Garden and giving names to all cattel c Will you argue because you reade of no more that therefore he had no more employment Thirdly suppose it should be granted to you that Adam was wholly taken up in these outward actions this doth not prove that he was destitute of spiritual abilities When the Apostle speaks to servants to obey their Masters according to the flesh Eph. 6.5 There is no man doubts but he speaks of an outward work but when he saith that they should do it with singlenesse of heart as unto the Lord Christ and not unto men Here is the performance of an outward service in a spiritual manner Even so Adam might be spiritually employed in those works of his of dressing the Garden and of giving names to all cattel c. And thus we have tried your Reasons how far you are able to prove that the Image of God in Adam did not consist in righteousnesse and true holinesse and that he was not a spiritual man before his fall This also is the doctrine of the Thirty Separate Congregations who place the Image of God only in Lordship and dominion over the creature Next you come to enquire Whether the Image of God in dam did consist in degrees of light And here say you if this be admitted upon such a supposition not one in all the world can tell what it is to beare the title for how can they tell of what height length and breadth this knowledge should be of page 17.18 To ease you of all the pains of searching out the several degrees of longitude or latitude I say precisely at that time when a man doth receive the true light of the Spirit he doth resume more or lesse that Image of God which Adam lost And look by how many degrees this light doth increase by so many degrees proportionably this Image of God is renewed The Apostle speaketh very properly to the purpose We all with open face beholding as in a glasse the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.19 Here these foure things are to be noted First the pattern or the Idea we are changed into the same Image to wit into the Image of the Lord Christ himself Secondly the degrees or the several stages we are changed from glory to glory Thirdly the mean or the instrument of the change we all with open face beholding as in a glasse the glory of Christ revealed in the Gospel by prying into it and gazing upon it we are altered and translated into the same image Fourthly the principal cause of the transmutation even as by the Spirit of the Lord by the inward work of the Spirit men come to be enlightned and so more and more to put on the Image of God From these several particulars it is clear that the Regenerate are renewed after the Image of Christ and the excell noy thereof doth stand in spiritual light And this light in substance we say that Adam had before his fall They are the words of the Apostle as we have formerly said renewed in knowledge after the Image of him who created him Further you endeavour to shew that the Image of God did not stand in holinesse You say If it had layen in holinesse never so Evangelical and spiritual surely the woman that beleeved in the Lord Jesus would not have been deprived of that title but the Apostle expostulateth the cause of the difference 1 Cor. 11.7 where he clearly ascribeth that title scil the Image of God to reside only in preheminence page 23. But this will not serve your turne neither for when God created the woman in the beginning she was not only created after his Image in righteousnesse and true holinesse but she was also created in a state to have Lordship over the creature These are the words of the Text So God created man in his own Image in the Image of God created be him male and female created he them And God said unto them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea Genes 27.28 These words were not only spoken to the first man but to the first woman also and to all mankinde whether male or female that should come of them that they should people the world and bring it in subjection If this be so the man and the woman were both created in that state to have preeminence over the Creation And for the words of the Apostle they do not deny the woman to be made after the Image of God though this Image was more immediately and fundamentally in man the head and lord of the Creation If you look narrowly into the text you shall finde a reason wherefore man doth more immediately bear the Image of God and is a more lively representative of his Majesty because the woman was
have you to assigne the difference between the power appertaining to a Magistrate and the power belonging to every private man for if that be true as you say that Rulers are to be obeyed so far forth only as they bring the Word I pray you tell me must not every man be obeyed upon the same termes what do you make then of the power of the Magistrate when Pilate boasted Knowest thou not that I have power to crucifie thee and power to release thee The Lord made him this answer Thou hast no power but it is given thee from above John 19 10 11. It is plain then that Pilate as a Magistrate and a Judge had a power given him of God Now then if that be true which you say that the Magistrate hath no power but the Word it self then it will follow that these are co-incident termes For to speak properly the power of the Magistrate and the Word are not one and the same but the Authority of the Magistrate doth depend upon the Word from whence it hath its Original and Institution You go on and argue Are not all men Gods creatures if so how cometh it to passe that one should be in subjection to anothers will and that upon such sore punishment page 30 31. Here in these words you come very near the doctrine of the Levellers Can you make no distinction between subjection to the lawful power and mans illegal will And then turning off from this digression you conclude that the Command of God is the Power and therefore so far as the Lords Command did extend so much power Adam had But for this matter we are content to let you passe with your own peculiar way of expression Let us now see how you describe Adams entertainment in the Garden CHAP. VI. Adams entertainment in the Garden IN this Chapter you discourse how Adam was placed in the Garden how Eve was made an helper meet for him and how the Lord brought all the creatures to him that he might give them their several names and titles Because these are Plain Scripture-truths I will not be an adversary to you here But then two questions are to be demanded First whether was his chief emploiment in these externals Secondly whether he did act in them as a meer carnal man For the first if you shall say that Adam was only employed in these externals then shew why was the Law of God written in his heart None can imagine but that it was engraven and written there to that end that he should yield proportionable obedience he had spiritual abilities that he might be proportionable to a spiritual Law If you shall deny this you will unavoidably be cast upon that rock that Adam had the Law put into his heart for no use or end at all Secondly though he was taken up in externals in giving names to all creatures and in tilling of the ground yet in this you must look upon him as a man that was spiritual able to do these things in a spiritual manner These two points I thought good to re-minde you of because you did a little before affirme that Adam was a meer carnal man before his fall and that his occupation and employment was only in externals Let us go to the next Chapter CHAP. VII Free will in its nature unfolded HEre in the beginning you define free-will to be a cheerful putting forth of those abilities which the Lord hath given us to action And this you prove by many Scripture-instances to clear the nature of freedome By this account it will follow that a natural man as such without the help of the Spirit hath no free-will at all he is so far from a free voluntary and cheerful putting forth of abilities that in spiritual things he is utterly void and destitute of all ability But as in the former Chapter you had your digression to turne out against the Magistrate when you spake of the power of Adam before the fall so now speaking of his free-will you have your vagaries and excursions against the Ministry These are your words Paul preached the Gospel freely he stood not upon such punctilio's to have the tenth of the labours of the people page 40. The Separate Congregations also agree with you here For say they the maintenance of the Ministers which labour in the Word of God ought to be the free and charitable benevolence or the cheerful contribution of those that acknowledge themselves members of the same fellowship page 22. And the ground they have to prove it is from that place of the Apostle while by the experiment of this ministration they glorifie God for your professed subjection unto the Gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution unto them and unto all men 2 Cor. 9.13 It is clear that the Apostle in these words speaketh of the distributions and the voluntary benevolences of the Churches to the necessities of the poor Saints at Hierusalem But by what Logick the brethren of the Separation can apply this to the maintenance of the Ministry in the time of the New Testament for my part I cannot discern Sure I am when you and they shall go about to make the people free-willers in so doing you will make a servile and a slavish Ministry As for the due in the payment of the tenth it doth as truly appertain to the Ministers as any mans possession or inheritance doth belong to him And therefore if either you or any man else shall endeavour to take away the tenth from the Ministry it is all one as to endeavour to take away the proprietie from other men Having gone so far along with you in your digression let us now come to that freedome of will which Adam had before his fall And here I do agree with you that he had libertie to put himself forth chearfully and freely to action by vertue of such abilities as he had received from God yet when you come to the negative part to pluck that down which is built by other men you plainly shew that your definition is not proper to the case in hand For thus you conclude Now some have conceived that free will had been a mans being left to his choice whether he would do the Will of God or no. But I know no such freedom given by God that a man should have liberty to dispose of himself unlesse you will call that freedom of will which a man is prohibited from upon penalties of death but God gives no man freedom to sin but preventions To this I answer though the Lord gave Adam no freedom to sin but rather tied up his liberty by a contrary command yet it is a sure rule that he made him in such a pendulous estate that he might stand or fall And though in that state he had freedom and power to will that which was good nay chearfully to put forth his ability to act yet for all this his condition was but mutable he might fall
so much light into the heart of the Gentiles to know that they must not steal that they must not defraud or oppresse the Lord also doth give them power to act according to their light in these and such like outward moralities This is clear from the first and second Chapter of the Epistle to the Romanes and it is evident also by that Scripture that God was indeed much dishonoured by their not emproving their abilities which he had bestowed upon them to the bringing forth of such actions of obedience as he had required of them He was angry with them because they did not walk after the light because they held the truth in unrighteousnesse because by oppression and other sinnes they did not answer the Law written in their heart Though in these externals the Gentiles had abilities some way proportionable to the Commands yet in the case of true repentance and turning to God the same Apostle doth drive the Gentiles from all confidence and dependance upon natural ability The whole tenour of his speech is to shew that the proper use of the light which God giveth is primarily and immediately to help a man to judge himself and in judging to see his owne emptinesse that so in the sense of his own misery he may make out for mercy The whole scope then of the Apostle is to shew that Jewes and Gentiles are all under sin that they have no ability of their own and the end is to drive them to a Christ to make up all Next you go to the Parable of the Talents Matth. 25. You reason Our Saviour comes and bears witnesse to the world that he desires no more encrease then the benefit of what he had first given means sufficient to bring forth no more then was answerable to the seed he had first sowen if one Talent then the encrease of one verse 18. The slothful man hides the Lords treasury but verse 30 the Lord presents to us what course he will take with such servants who use such kind of sayings as too many do in these dayes that God would be gathering where he scattereth not but that must needs be a lye for what pleasure could the Lord himself take in any such increase where himself is not the planter page 45. I have often found this Scripture cited by the Arminians yet among them all I never met with any that made so corrupt a use of it as you do Not many years since the learned Chamier treating of the point of free-will did endeavour to shew the difference betwixt the Philosophers and the Jesuites They saith he meaning the Jesuites do admit some kind of grace which never entered into the thought of Aristotle they acknowledge the corruption of nature by sinne which the Philosophe's did never so much as dreame of Tom. 3. lib. 3. cap. 2. sect 9. If this Author were now alive I would gladly know what difference he would set betwixt the Philosophers and the Brethren of the Separation who hold that infants are free from all natural corruption what difference he would set betwixt Aristotles Ethical Philosophie and your Moral Divinitie when you teach that Adams abilities were as good after the fall as they were before But now let us come to clear the Parable of the Talents First suppose by sufficient means you understand onely the supply of the Spirit of Christ how can you justifie this to be a true interpretation that Christ requires no more encrease then the benefit of what he had first given sufficient means to bring forth Will you say that it is absolutely necessary to have the ability in present possession before the command can be given If this be your opinion you must needs block up the right and the true way of bringing a soul to Christ We preach the Law in the spiritual nature of it to a natural man to what end is all this but that by the sight of his own emptinesse by the convictions of the guilt of sinne he may look after a Christ first to justifie and to pardon secondly to sanctifie and to cleanse the pollution of his nature We do not preach the Law to him supposing that he hath ability but the immediate end of our preaching is by and thorough the inward working of the Spirit to empty him of all ability that so he may look to the promise where true ability is onely to be had For the words of the Parable that he gave to every man according to his ability ver 15. We are not strictly to adhere to the letter as though the Lord doth give his grace according to every mans natural ability but it is spoken after the manner of men he giveth his grace in a different measure to some more and to some lesse yet all the ability is from Christ himself And therefore when he that received one Talent accused the Lord for an hard man for reaping there where he did not sowe the answer was thou shouldest have given my money to the exchanger that is though thou hadst no ability of thine own yet if thou hadst gone to the exchanger to the Promiser he was able to make profit of the money he was able to help thee with forreign supply where thine own natural and domestical ability was wanting Secondly whereas you affirm that there are many in these dayes that use such hard kinde of sayings that God would be gathering where he scattereth not and that one day he will call such servants to account I do acknowledge as heretofore so now there are more then too many who do neglect their talent and cast the blame upon God himself But your aime is not so much at these as against others who oppose free-will and your way of setting up the natural ability of man Though some passages in their writings are hard yet if you would compare one thing with another you should find that they do speak of abilities that do answer duties of a word of promise that answereth the word of command of the fulnesse of Christ set in opposition to the sinfulnesse and misery by Adam Doctor Twisse disputing against the Arminians lib. 3. errat 9. pag. 211. doth of all others seeme to tread something hard yet he doth shew many pithie reasons wherefore the Lord may give a command where there is a want of abiliy First saith he men are too apt to trust in their own work to bring them to salvation therefore that they may know the common contagion of Original sinne and thereupon the impotency and weaknesse that hath ensued to all good the Lord taketh this course to shew them their misery Secondly he addeth these words If by the grace of God we know our selves to be no way fit or able to do those things which the Lord commandeth yet by his just counsel he doth command us and by his commands he doth shew what we are indebted to him as Lord Creator and that which we are not able to performe our selves
this let us consider that text I am perswaded that he who hath begun a good work in you will performe it to the day of Christ Phil. 1.6 Here the Apostle speaks of a work that is spiritually and theologically good Secondly concerning the person that doth begin the work Thirdly the persons who they are in whom this good work is begun Fourthly the accomplishment and performance thereof I am perswaded that he who hath begun a good work in you will performe it unto the day of Christ Here some may say if the Apostle had that persuasion that the work of grace would go on in the Philippians hearts whether they did eat or drink sleep or play why did he not bid them be secure and refer all to God He had no such meaning for when he saith I am perswaded that he who hath begun a good work in you will performe the same he doth speak in relation to his own prayer in the words immediately going before Alwayes in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy for your fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now In relation to this prayer and their particular striving and looking after further degrees of grace he was confident that the Lord who had begun the work would bring the same to perfection Let us consider the words in the following chapter ver 13. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Here the Apostle doth attribute the whole work of mans salvation the will and the deed to the powerful working of the Spirit of God And that which is more he doth ascribe it to his good pleasure to work when he will how he will and upon what termes he will If any shall say seeing God doth all what is here left for man to do doth not this utterly drown and extinguish endeavour No for upon this ground he exhorteth them to work out their salvation with feare and trembling seeing they have no natural ability and free-will of their own but must meerly depend upon the grace of God for the supply of his Spirit to carry on the work therefore they must walk humbly with him and take the season of grace as it is offered Because the husbandman cannot make the Sunne to shine and the raine to fall at his own pleasure therefore he doth wait upon God for the seasons Even so because in the work of mans salvation the will and the deed doth meerly depend upon Gods good pleasure to work it when he will and how he will we are to apply our selves to him only When he administers the grace we should be careful to make use of the season seeing the matter is wholly in his hands we should walk humbly with him And thus Mr. Everard you see that though the action is mans yet the ability to will and to do is only from God and nothing from man And so the natural ability which you endeavour to set up is nothing at all Now let us see what you gather from the parable of the talents I observe say you that Christ sets no man on work whom he hath not enabled to perform it for he giveth out his work answerable to abilities Matth. 25.25 Comparing himself to a Merchant he straight way went from home as if he had said I have so ordered my family that I have seen my servants furnished such a course have I taken to give every one employment not exceeding their abilities And what could I have done more for them do but name it Is it not sufficient that I have made men and women fit for my work I gave them light to direct them and they wanted for no materials for time they had enough They had my commands and persuasions and also threats in case they did neglect page 48. These collections of yours from the parable of the Talents I might let passe seeing I have some way hinted at these things before But because the Pelagians Arminians and you of the Separation do so triumph in the words of this Scripture I will take the more pains to clear the meaning of the text And I will do it the rather because of one particular passage which if it were clearly understood would break the great design of all those who endeavour to set up the will of man They would quickly perceive that they have no such colourable ground from the words of this Scripture First I do willingly agree that the command doth stand in proportion to abilities but how not in proportion to natural abilities not in proportion to abilities of grace in present possession but in proportion onely to the supply of the Spirit as it shall please the Lord to administer to them that shall work out their owne salvation and by the prayer of faith wait upon the Lord for the performance of the promise Now whereas the slothful servant did complaine against the Master for requiring more then he gave him ability to do the Lord tells him plainly though he had no ability of his own to husband the talent yet he might have put the money to the exchanger The force of which words is thus much that though in these supernatural works which men have to do in and toward the working out of their salvation they have no ability of their own they may go to the exchangers to the word of promise to the prayer of faith and to the continual supply of the Spirit of Christ As the ability did lie in Adam before the fall so now all ability is to be had from Christ onely To him therefore all that are weary and heavie laden must go for help And the Apostle when he had exhorted the beleeving Ephesians to the performance of many duties for matter of ability he shutteth up all with this conclusion Now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can aske or thinke according to the power that worketh in us Ephes 3 20. Here it is plaine that Christ giveth forth work answerable to abilities but these abilities are not inherent in men or in the natural power of mans own will but they are wholly to be had from the supply of the Spirit of Christ They who pray seek and aske they onely shall receive We come now to your second reason Reason 2. Secondly say you If God giveth us these good actions which we performe by confequence this will make void all the commands of God page 49. Answer In this I am of your judgment for if any shall say that the Lord doth all by the inward working of the Spirit and doth not leave so much to man as to be a free agent by the power of grace received to what purpose are counsels commands and direct one given to him who is to perform the work This may properly be applied to the Enthusiasts but it doth not any way extend
mans part seeing God hath already decreed and promised to do the work himself ☞ Answ Though God doth resolve certainly to bring a thing to passe in his decrees and purposes though he doth promise also that it shall be certainly done yet this doth not hinder the endeavour of man seeing it is his manner to bring things about by mans endeavor as the chief mean or instrument As for example when Saint Paul and his company were in danger of shipwrack the Lord did tell him by night in a vision that there should not be the losse of any mans life but of the ship onely Acts 27.22 Here was a certaine promise and thereupon the Apostle did certainly conclude that they should all come safe to land You will say then did not the certainty of the promise especially seeing God would performe it by power hinder their endeavour No For when they came into a place where two seas did meet and the ship did stick fast in the sand every man did shift for his own life some by swimming and some upon broken pieces of the ship God had promised that there should not be the losse of any mans life ☜ and this he did effect by making every one of them careful to preserve his own life So in the case of those men which God doth intend to bring to eternal salvation he will first or last sooner or later and that by his own power make them careful of their own salvation As in the words of the text he first promised to give a new heart that is the spirit of love into the heart and when this is done then they shall keep his commandments So then it is cleare that the infallibility of the decree of election and the certainty of the promise of God do not make void the free obedience of that people which he doth intend to bring to salvation But thirdly they object Though he doth give a new heart it is not absolutely necessary that he should give it cum effectu with the effect He may give it with great efficacie yet neverthelesse the grace may be resisted by the malignity of the will of man Answ It is confessed that God may give grace and men may resist and by resisting may lose the grace that is offered But the question is whether the new heart or the new spirit may finally be resisted ye or no If any man beleeve that it may let him answer the words of that promise Jer. 31.31 32. Behold the dayes come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel not according to the Covenant which I made with their fathers when I tooke them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt which Covenant they brake But this is the Covenant that I will make after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people In the present case then the writing of the Law in the heart must be meant only of an effectual inscription if this be not so where will be the difference betwixt the old the new Covenant betwixt the Covenant that God made with the people when he brought them out of the Land of Egypt and the Covenant that he will make in the latter days For the covenant that he made with them at their coming out of Egypt they brake but the new Covenant shall not be broken when the Lord shal write his Law in their hearts then all shall know him from the greatest to the least Therefore if we go to the manner of the thing the work of conversion may be wrought with efficacie and infallibility on Gods part and yet there be no detriment or dammage to mans obedience Master Everard I have stayed the longer upon this point to to shew you the inequality of your similitude as though God did deale with his elect in forcing a purse of gold upon them and then call that their obedience We say the contrary God may infallibly work upon the hearts of his people and by his necessary and infallible workings bring them on to a free and a chearful obedience Their free endeavour must needs stand with a subordination under his decrees and workings Now let us go to the harder case of the Non-elect and here the decree of God and the certainty thereof doth not any way free men from being the children of disobedience Let us take a view of that Scripture What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted to destruction Rom. 9.22 From hence it is cleare that there are none destroyed but such as are prepared and fitted for destruction and for the preparation the Lord in the ordinary way doth endure men first with much long-suffering For the clearing of this let us consider that passage of the Apostle 1 Pet. 3.19 20. By which spirit also he went and preached to those spirits that are in prison which sometimes were disobedient when once the long-suffering of God waited in the dayes of Noah Therefore let the decree of non-election be what it will be in the purpose of God yet we are sure in the ordinary way it is not put in execution ☞ but the Lord doth endure men first with much long-suffering We may proceed with this gradation None are destroyed but those that are made fit for destruction None are made fit for destruction but such as he hath endured with much patience and there is none that he hath endured with much patience but he hath striven with them from time to time with convictions of his Spirit and they have shewed many acts of disobedience against such inward motions and workings Therefore the decree of non-election as it is to be put in execution may well stand and consist with the disobedience of man so that he himself shall be the cause of his own condemnation If this be so I know no just cause you have to complaine for say you I wonder how they can call it our duty while they affirme that God never intended that we should do that work and so never furnished us to that purpose page 55. If you apply these things to us and our doctrine as it is probable you do then I must tell you that you heap up calumnies we do not maintaine any such position that the Lord doth not surnish the non-elect with abilities there is none of them all but he hath more ability then he useth And for the temporary beleever we hold that he hath very great qualifications and is able to go very sarre Here onely lies the point of the difference that the Lord doth not give him such abilities as will infallibly carry him on unto salvation This is his peculiar dealing with the elect as may be proved from divers Scriptures ☜ But here perhaps will
at meat nor pray in their families nor hear the Word nor perform any other spiritual duty untill they have a motion of the Spirit Indeed the Waiters in this sense do come to your pitch they think themselves to be discharged from duty till the coming of the Spirit But is there no middle between these desperate extreames Is there no discharge of duty in obedience to the Commands of God There is no man that lives in the Kingdome of grace but in some one thing or other he must be contented to stay the Lords time what then shall we say because he is necessitated to wait he is therefore discharged of all duty Not so he is still to act in a lower spheare and to wait for further communications as it shall please the Lord to impart them These are the words of the Apostle let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded and if in any thing you be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you Neverthelesse whereunto we have already attained let us walk by the same rule Phil. 3.15 16. The meaning of the place is this every man should walk according to his present attainments and abilities ☜ and in walking doing and discharging his duty wait upon God for further discoveries A natural man is furthest off from God what then is he absolutely discharged from duty Is he not to come to Church to hear the Gospel and to wait upon the means peradventure God may give him repentance to convince him of the evil of his ways Though it is not in his own power to repent yet thereby he is not acquitted and discharged from all performance of duty And so in sundry cases men are to discharge their duty according to present abilities they are to walk in those paths that he hath appointed and to wait upon him for the supply of spirit It is the voice of the Church in her great tribulation I will look unto the Lord I will wait for the God of my salvation Mic 7.7 Now tell me I pray you seeing the Church was compelled to stay Gods time to wait as it were on a Watch Tower for so the word in the Original doth signifie will you lay that in this whole interval she is discharged from all duty This is not so she did discharge her duty in praying seeking and looking to God onely and in the performance of all these she waited upon him for comfort she had none else in all the world no father no brother no friend no wisedome of the flesh no other refuge but God onely When she had darknesse and no light she had a firme perswasion that at last he would plead her cause execute judgment for her that he would bring her forth to light and she should see his righteousnesse But you go on do not other men say of God that he so pitied the world seeing their hard cold frozen hearts therefore of his own goodnesse did he provide fewel enough to warm and melt them but when that is done with-holds the right hand of his power from putting the fewel into a flaming fire to succour them in their distresse and then comes to them and saith be warmed and comforted likening God to that hard hearted man spoken of Jam. 2.15 16. And more such like passages you have page 72. Who these other men are whom you here intend I cannot certainly tell if you mean the friends and followers of this Church from whom you have departed I must tell you you do charge us with that which we do not maintain It is not the result of our doctrine to resemble God to that hard hearted man Who bids them be warmed and gives them not wherewithall We say there are promises to give faith as well as to faith given to give love as well as to love given to put fear into the heart as well as to fear which is put into the heart There are sundry promises given to that end that men may go chearfully about the performance of action that doing their duties they may feel the power and presence of the Spirit to go along with them Therefore we do not say that God keeps the fewel in his own hand and that men are frozen for want of heat These are your calumnies but not our doctrine But to aggravate the matter you further adde The Physician openeth the mouth of one in a hundred and poureth it in by force as for all the rest they are not alotted any share or part therein and yet shall suffer deeply for not taking it it being proffered but not given them page 73. How hard a thing is it for you to leave your old custome of corrupting our sayings before you do confute them We hold that there is a peculiar number which God hath chosen from the beginning to salvation these in time he effectually calleth justifieth and sanctifieth but we never teach that he poureth his grace into them by force Again for others we hold there is a grace given to them nay temporary believers have very great degrees of grace which they fall from by their own desault It is an Impudent calumny then to affirme of us that we should say there is no share or part alotted to them that grace is proffered and not given For my part I do believe in the ordinary way God gives more abilities to men by the convictions of his Spirit then they do profitably use All the difficulty of the point will come to this issue touching the peculiarity of this grace which carries some infallibly and certainly to salvation when others are left for their resisting of the Spirit If then you list to go further and ask after the reason why God doth deal so unequally with men here the Scriptures doe confine you to the Lords good pleasure This I am sure they would not do if a substantial reason otherwise might be given from any thing in man himself Why else should our Saviour say Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes even so O Father because it pleaseth thee And yet further ☜ they who do with judgment maintain the doctrine of election do not think that this mystery is to be propounded to all men and at all times as some unadvised and inconsiderate men have done To let passe all that may be said if you will go to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the seventeeth Article you shall finde that the main sense and import of the Article is this that such persons onely should have the consideration of their election in Christ propounded to them who feel in themselves the Spirit mortifying the works of the flesh As for curious and carnal persons it is more proper for them to look to the threats of God that they may be humbled and for others also when they come to be humbled it is not for them presently and immediately to meddle with election but
the emproving of nature to those ends to which God had assigned it These are the Chimera's and fictions of mens own devising For if we will go to the utmost that a natural man can do at seasons he hath ability to judge himself this is not from himself but from the convictions of the Spirit And it is never better with him in the way to attain salvation than when he is beaten off from all his own abilities when in the sight of his own misery and emptinesse he doth rely upon the mercy of God Now we will go on to the meaning of that expression and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others Here you distinguish betwixt that wrath which is due by the appointment of God for Adams sinne and the wrath which is due for despising the riches of grace Concerning this text say you we were by nature the children of wrath as well as others if it be universal it must be meant of the first condemnation which came by Adam But if it be meant of the second wrath then it belongs to such persons onely as are dead in trespasses and sinnes that is such as have been in actual defiance which walked after the course of the world after the Prince of the power of the aire in opposition to the Spirit of truth page 150. Here I do agree with you that distinction is to be made between the wrath due for the sinne of Adam and the wrath due for the actual refusal of Christ in the tender of grace Though this distinction be admitted yet it doth not disanul that truth we were by nature the children of wrath as well as others For infants so farre forth as they come out of Adams loynes in that precise and single consideration they may be the children of wrath by nature though the cause why wrath doth not seize upon them is from the shedding of the blood of Christ Secondly let us take this expression and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others that it is meant onely of those who have been in actual defiance this will avail nothing so long as it is clear from the text that men by nature can do no other than live in actual defiance against God Neither do the Examiners mend the matter by their Intepretation when they say it is one thing to be sinners from our first nativity and another in time to become the children of wrath by our personal fall and actual disobedience which also coming to pass in our natural man and by his default we may truly be said to be by nature the children of wrath especially when sinne by custome becomes a second nature to us page 78. Here we will be no adversaries to them so farre as they say that men become the children of wrath by their own personal falls and actual disobedience But the question is whether this disobedience doth not radically and originally proceed from the default of the nature They seem to say so much in sense when they do oppose it Secondly though it be true which they say that the evil doth come upon men throught heir personal fall yet the Apostle doth especially look unto the sinne of the nature And therefore doth amplifie the grace of God in quickning and enlivening again when he saith you hath he quickned that were dead in trespasses and sinnes They were not onely truly dead in sinne thorough custome and sinful conversation but also thorough the state and condition of their natural birth they were by nature the children of wrath as well as others Upon these grounds he tells them that God who was rich in mercy did quicken them when they were dead in trespasses and sins Next you come to open the meaning of the expression dead in trespasses and sinnes You say a spiritual death must be meant of a declining from spiritual things which is a resistance of the spirit or a dying that is a forsaking the truth of God made manifest in them Now such a death as this cannot befall any who never had that spiritual life for it is the losse of life that must prove a death or otherwise we may say that all other creatures besides man are spiritually dead page 151. In this point you and I do agree that the losse of life must prove a death and this to me is the great reason why not only the Ephesians but also all mankind had sometimes spiritual life before they became to be dead in trespasses and sinnes It is plaine from the scope of Scripture and the Analogy of faith as I have proved before that this death came in by the fall of Adam therefore he had spiritual life before his fall And for that expression of yours otherwise we may say as well that all other creatures are spiritually dead I answer not so neither other creatures can not properly be said to be spiritually dead because they never had a capacity of spiritual life And though men are dead in trespasses and sinnes they are not dead as stocks and stones and other sencelesse creatures but they are dead as they who sometime had spiritual life and may have the return of the same life again in and thorough Christ the way the truth and the life So also the Examiners in the Chapter of free will page 130. do but calumniate when they say that we teach that a man is a meere passive block or a dead trunck without a willing or a nilling faculty This is an odious imputation of their own devising we hold that man is a rational creature and he hath those natural and essential properties of the soul though in spiritual things he be altogether dead And for spiritual things also he may be said to have a remote capacity when blindnesse shall be taken away from his understanding and perversenesse from his will It is an excellent speech of Augustine posse credere naturae est hominum to have a remote ability to beleeve is of the nature of men for stocks and stones have no such capacity And in opposition to natural men he saith velle credere gratiae est fidelium to have a will to beleeve is of the grace given to beleevers shewing that no natural man hath an immediate power to beleeve till he come inwardly to be enlivened by the Spirit Let us hear then what you can say how the sonnes of men may be said to be dead in trespasses and sinnes If you shall mean that every man or all mankind in that sense is dead before the light or the life of the Gospel is made known to them then I shall grant it But I shall deny that such a death is any sinne For where no Law is made manifest there is no transgression But all children if you mean infants have no Law or Law made known page 152. This is true in the case of actual sinne that there must be a Law and a Law made known or else there can be
disobedience of the first man Augustine speaks to good purpose Sic ego tibi rectissime dico malum cum quo nascitur homo c. Thus I do most rightly say to thee that the evil with which a man is borne is not of the fruits bodies sexes conjunctions of which goods the Lord is the Author but of the first sin which is to be ascribed to the devil Here he doth distinguish between the work of creation and so God is the Author of all that good that was made in the beginning and the sinfulnesse of nature that he will have to spring only from the devils temptation and the disobedience of the first man Sixthly how can it be saith he that the Father that contributes nothing to the production of the soul should contribute to her pollution and he that did not transmit life how should he transmit his sin Answ Though the Father doth not contribute to the soul in her production yet he doth contribute to the soul in her union with the body So by this account the action of God is terminated in the simple being of the soul The action of the Parent is her being in the body that is in her union with the body But if it be here alledged that a man is principally a man in respect of his soul and therefore if the Parent doth not contribute to the soul he doth not contribute to the being of a man the answer is plaine A man is not a man neither by the soul apart nor by the body apart but by the whole humane nature which doth consist in the union of both we see in ordinary experience as children derive their inheritances priviledges nobility and such like from their Parents so also their Parents miseries infelicities poverty and ignobility do naturally descend In the present case I demand how do they descend will any man be so curious to hold a dispute whether they do descend from the body or the soul of the Parent Or whether is the soul the first seat or receptacle of nobility or ignobility or doth the right to the fathers inheritance descend from the fathers body or the soul In the affaires of this life it is not usual with men to spin out themselves with such philosophical niceties The skilful in the laws conceive it is enough in the general to say that such a Son did come out of the loynes of such a Father Why then should the learned man with whom we have to do be more curious in the conveyance of original sin why should it not be enough for us to say that that which is borne of flesh is flesh Joh. 3.6 Suppose for the manner of the thing we are not able to satisfie the doubt shall we deny the thing because we are not able to explaine every punctilio why by the same reason doth not he himselfe deny the motion of the Sun the ebbing and the flowing of the sea the organizing of the infant in the mothers womb in these and a thousand more the thing is cleare when the manner doth lye in the dark Seventhly saith he If in him we sinned then it were just that in him we should be punished for as the sin is so ought the punishment to be Answ If he will stand to this rule he both doth and will make good that which is asserted by us The disobedience of the first man must be imputed to all his posterity because he is the head the root and the representative of the whole nature But if he thinks this to be a meer non-ens then let him say that the obedience of the second man as the head-root and the representative of the whole nature is a non-ens and a nullity also and so he will raise the Gospel to the foundation thereof Now we come to the third question to enquire whether Adam did debauch our nature by the sentence and the just judgement of God and here he layeth down this for a sure ground He and all his posterity were left in the meer natural estate that is in a state of imperfection in a state that was not sufficiently instructed and furnished with ability in order to a supernatural end whether God had secretly designed mankind Answ In this expression of his we know no such state of meer imperfection which is not also a state of corruption Againe in this expression he seemeth to me to pluck down that natural ability of the will which he endeavours to set up For if a man since the fall is not instructed and furnished with abilities in order to a supernatural end he must come to Christ only for the supply of all Why then doth he raise all this dust against the rigour and severity of our doctrine when he himselfe doth here plainly teach that the will can do nothing without the help of the Spirit He goeth on It cannot be supposed saith he that God did inflict any necessity of sinning upon Adam or his posterity because from that time even unto this day he by new laws had required innocency of life or repentance and holinesse Answ The consequence is not good for now since the fall the Lord doth not give laws in proportion to natural ability but in relation to his own word of promise and his free mercy in the Covenant of grace So far then it is a testimony of divine favour that God will employ us and require more service of us that where we have no strength of our own we may in the sence of our own natural weaknesse go to him for help And whereas he bringeth us speaking in this wise that it is just with God to exact the law of man even where he is unable to keep it because God once made him able but he disabled himselfe True indeed this is an answer given by us but it is not the whole nor the principal part of that answer which may be given For secondly where God doth require subjection to his law man being not able to performe it his demand is not irrational For though man is not subject nor in himselfe can be subject to the law Rom. 8.7 This non-subjection doth not so much arise from the want of judgement will or any other natural faculty as from a perverse sinful habit that doth reside in the faculty That a drunkard cannot stand walk nor performe acts of reason as an other man is not simply for want of ability as from an evil distemper that doth suspend the operations of the faculties so it is in the present case men need no new faculties but they need new habits to set the faculty aright But our third answer is though a man naturally cannot be subject to the law respecting the evil habit that disorders the faculty yet if he go to Christ in the sence of his own misery all ability is to be had from him God is so infinitely gracious that he is ready to help all that come to him A bruised reed he will
come and let him that is athirst come Revel 22 17. c. All these desires are the fruit of the Spirit He that comes to the first doth not come to the second at least not to the third or fourth degree However the whole course of Christianity is unum continuum sitis one continual succession of spiritual desires And in immediate opposition there is unum continuum auxilii an interchangable supply of auxiliary grace this latter answering the former as the one part of the deed doth answer the other So then though the Saints have no ability in themselves to supernatural duties yet they may have it from Christ and the freenesse of the promise These things I have drawn out more at large because I see as formerly it hath done to others So our doctrine doth seem to give great offence to our Authour It seemeth strange to him that we should exhort men to spiritual duties and yet teach that all mankind through the condition of the natural birth lye under a necessity of sinning Whereas if he did well understand the grand designe of the Gospel he should finde that all ability to do these things is to be had from Christ alone and that upon termes of beleeving desiring longing and waiting for them The Prophets Apostles Martyrs and other holy men have in their several times done their duties and served their generation But how not by any ability of their own but by the continual supply of the Spirit of Christ as the Scriptures and all experience do abundantly testifie Now we come to the next Section SECT 2. Consideration of the objections against the former Doctrine THE first Scripture which he insists upon is Gen 6. Every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart are onely evil continually Here he doth end avour to frame sundry answers First it is true saith he they were so but it was their own fault not Adams for so it is said expressely All flesh had corrupted their way upon earth and the earth was filled with violence Repl. It was their own fault and Adams too It was their own as they corrupted their own wayes it was Adams as they were flesh for he brought them into that sinful condition by his fall So then the force of our argument stands thus First the thoughts of man were evil Secondly they were all evil Thirdly they were onely evil Fourthly they were continually evil Fifthly they were evil from his childhood Now such an universal effect cannot be without some universal cause from whence all this evil must necessarily spring And where shall we look for the cause but in the text it self My Spirit shall not alway strive with man because he is but flesh Because he is but flesh and borne in the sinne of the nature therefore the thoughts of his heart are evil from his childhood Secondly saith he if this corruption had been natural and unavoidable why did God punish all the world for it except eight persons Why did he punish those that could not help it and why did others escape that were equally guilty Repl. That which God did punish in the old world in ordinary men was the violence of their hands and in his own people was the breach of covenant Though these two did naturally flow from original corruption as all other evils do yet we cannot say that they are absolutely unavoidable for the act of violence and of marriage with the daughter of a strange god men have a liberty to forbeare the outward execution of these evils And for the lust of the heart though it is unavoidable by nature yet it is not simply unavoidable for God is so full of mercy that he is ready to help all those that flee to him in the sense of their own misery He hath declared himself to be a Physician ready to cure all broken-hearted sinners The men of Nineveh did turne from the violence of their hands and how ready was he to forgive them The people in the dayes of Ezra and Nehemiah did repent of their Idolatrous marriages and how did he passe by their iniquity Of all the Authors that ever I met with Luther in his Tract deservo arbitrio is most severe against the liberty of the will yet in the end of the treatise he bringeth in Erasmus thus speaking Why doth he command us any duty seeing all things are done by necessity His answer is he doth command that he may admonish and instruct us what we ought to do that being humbled in the sense and feeling of our own evil we may repair to his grace for help as we have abundantly spoken And as for the Lords punishing of those that could not help it We say in publick solemn and exemplary judgments he hath alway reserved a liberty for the exemple of others and the declaration of his justice and mercy It is true also that they that were equally guilty did not perish in the waters of the flood What of all this though they did escape that judgment they were lyable to the judgment of God Thirdly saith he God might have as well punished all the world for sleeping once in a day or for being hungry as for sinning if so to do be natural and unavoidable Repl. The cases are not equal mankind cannot live without meat and drink sleep and such other refections of nature when they were made in the beginning they were made in such an estate that they had need of these things I trow they had no need of sinne Againe for sinful acts though they come from the corruption of the flesh as the sparkes do out of the Chimney yet in externals man hath a liberty to commit or not commit such an evil Also for the lust of the heart that which is unavoidable by nature is avoidable by grace The guilt of sinne may be taken away by the blood of Christ the power of it by the Spirit of Christ and the very being of it when the Saints shall be made partakers of the adoption or the redemption of their bodies Fourthly if God in these words complained of their natural and original corruption why did he but then as if it were a new thing complain of it and repent that he made man since he proved so bad Repl. God did then complain of original corruption because in a most eminent degree it did put forth it self in oppression breach of covenant and other evils He did complain in those times because iniquity was then come to a ripenesse and the years of his patience was almost runne out Fifthly saith he this malice and corruption was such that God did send Noah a Preacher of righteousnesse to draw the world from it But no man supposes that it was fit to send a Preacher to dehort them from being guilty of original sinne Repl. So farre as we may gather Noahs message to the old world was the same in effect as that of Jonah's to Nineveh he was to exhort them to turn from
a new spirit I will give them Ezek. 36.26 The Psalmist prayed create in me a cleane heart O God and renew within me a right Spirit Psal 51.10 All these places of Scripture do abundantly prove that the inward act of the will is under the decree of God as well as under laws and that the certainty of the decree doth not overturne the liberty of the will but both do go together Next he tells us That Augustine in his zeale against a certaine errour of the Pelagians made him take in auxiliaries from an uncertaine and lesse discerned errour and caused him to say many things which all antiquity disavowed and which the following ages took up upon his account Answ The following ages specially since the times of Luther have adhered to the doctrine of Augustine But that the Sager sort have done this meerly upon his account we cannot easily admit They have followed him so far as his interpretations have come nearer to the natural and genuine sence of Scripture What hard speeches he hath concerning original sin the natural servitude of the will the spirituality of the law and the imperfection of man the rigour and austerity of them will be well allayed by comparing them with other sweet sayings of his concerning the fulnesse of Christ and the freenesse of the promises His scope is no way to hinder the endeavour of man but to ground and settle it upon such principles that are more solid and divine And whereas our Author in his Vnum Necessarium and his further explication doth commend the Fathers before the times of Auguistine for their temperate speeches concerning free-will Here many things are to be observed First who will assures us that he may not do the same with their authorities about free-will as he doth with the doctrine of the Church of England and the sence of the Article in the point of Original sin If he will pervert the plaine sence of that which is open in the view of all men what may he not do with the testimonies of the Ancients Besides what he alleadgeth for free-will out of Justin Martyr Cyril Hierome and others those speeches may admit of a benigne interpretation All Divines do agree that a man hath free-will he hath a power to understand to choose to refuse to act by counsell he were not a man if he could not do this The speeches of the Fathers may be taken in such an absolute sence in relation also to a particular state Adam had free-will in innocency and the Saints have free-will to that which is spiritually good in the state of grace Further suppose some things have escaped from them that have been lesse authentick let us consider that many of them came new out of the Schooles of the Philosophers and therefore together with the truth they might mingle some errours of Philosophy Their conflicts also were with the Philosophers and the Maniches and therefore it was necessary that they should speak something more than ordinary for the liberty of the will But enough of this matter which is so largely spoken and so plentifully by others FINIS A Catalogue of some books printed for and sould by Edmund Paxton over against the Castle Taverne near to the Doctors Commons THe holy Arbor containing the body of Divinity or the summe and substance of Christian Religion for the benefit and delight of such as thirst after righteousnesse wherein also are fully resolved the questions of whatsoever point of moment have been or are now controverted in Divinity By John Godolphin J. C. D. fol. The holy Lymbeck or A Semicentury of spiritual extractions wherein the Spirit is extracted from the letter of certaine eminent places in the holy Scriptures By John Godolphin J. C. D. 12. The Temple measured or a brief survey of the Temple mystical which is in the instituted Church of Christ wherein is solidly and modestly discussed most of the material questions touching the constitution and Government of the visible Church-militant here on earth c. By James Noyes of New England 4. Lawes and Ordinances of War in 4. Englands compleat law-Judge and Lawyer by Charles George Cock The method of grace in the justification of sinners being a reply to a book written by Mr. William Eyre of Salisbury by Benjamin Woodbridge Minister of Newberry