to make a difference 3. The means much differ which several men have And God usually operateth according to the means upon the soul § 5. If the question be either of the Act or Habit it is no question For that were but to ask Whether all men have equal faith love and other graces which common experience denyeth § 6. Whereas some will stick at my mentioning a Divine Impress on the soul in nature antecedent to Act and Habit I would have them remember that either there is such a thing or not If there be I rightly mention it If not we are instantly at an end of all this sort of Controversies and Calvinists and Arminians cannot differ if they would For then the question must be only about that which is past question viz. 1. Either about Gods Act as in Himself which is his simple Essence 2. Or about the Act and Habit of Faith Love c. in Man which all the World knoweth is not equal For all men have not faith For as for pre-disposition the question will be revolved to the same point It is certain that all are not equally disposed and it is certain that Gods Acts as in him are his Essence SECT X. Whether the said Operation be Physical or Moral § 1. THis paltry question is worthy but a few words though â— make too much stir Of the sense of the words Physical and Moral having spoken before I will not repeat it here 1. If the question be de operatione ut est actus agentis before the effect it were but to ask Whether Gods Essence be Physical or Moral which is unworthy an answer § 2. 2. If the question be of the Action of second Causes as the Preacher c. if truly Acts they are both Physical as they are really actus naturalis and moral as they are the acts of free intellectual agentâ— But the Acts of Laws and other objects meerly as objects on man are called Moral Acts because they are but nominal but indeed are no Acts and therefore neither Physical nor Moral For they are but signa and significare is not agere but is only an objective aptitude by which an Intellectual agent can â—difie it self All the Books in my Library teach me without any Action by being signa objectively to my active Intellect § 3. 3. If the question be of the Divine Impress on the soul it is quid reale and therefore physicum And it is moral as it is the principium actus moralis The same is to be said of our own Acts and Habits They are physical and moral accidents And they cannot be moral unless they be physical § 4. But it must be known that to be quid naturale and quid morale formally differ as Actus qua talis and ordo qua ordo do differ ab ordine seâ— Relatione ad Legem ad finem morum and Moralitas est actus Physici vel privationis Relatio viz. ad Regulam finem morum § 5. But if the question be not of the Morality of the Act but the Morality of the Cause viz. Whether Grace or divine action do cause Physically or Morally I answer plainly that There is no true Cause which is not Physical A moral Cause not physical is but Causa reputata vel â—â—minalis Objects are usually said to Cause morally But if they be meerly objects they cause not efficiently at all but by termination only materially constitute the Act in specie But some things vulgarly called objects as Light Heat c. are Active and so effect And he that doth proponere objectum doth indeed effect by speaking or doing But he doth not effect any thing by the object on the mind as it is a meer object But the Vox loquentis doth more than present an object It doth by agency suscitate the Spirits and operate on the organs of sensation And many mercies afflictions and other means forementioned have their several wayes of active operation But it is readily confessed that nothing corporeal can by any direct efficiency operate on a soul but only Active Spirits like it self Remember therefore that I take the word Physical here as the Schools do largely as comprehending Spiritual or hyperphysical And I plainly say de nomine that Gods operations of Grace are to be called Hyperphysical in respect to God the Agent and Physical as they are Physical effects on man and Moral as the same are in instanti secundo also moral effects And that they are called Moral in two usual senses 1. In that it is Morality or Virtue that is produced by them 2. And in that objects being much of the Means the operation or efficiency of objects as objects is properly none at all They do but materially as it were constitute the Act and terminate it and occasion it as sine quibus non which many call a Moral Reputative Metaphorical Causation And yet diversification is much by objects § 6. If this stumble any who look not at the greater inconveniences on the other side and occasion them to think that it is little efficient operation which we own in the collation of faith and conversion I desire them to consider well 1. That it is no new substance at all that is to be produced but a pre existent substance and faculty to be actuated 2. That it is not an Act as such in genere that is to be caused by Grace but the due ordering of acts as to right objects c. 3. That the soul as such is an Active Spirit not indifferent between Action and cessation but as naturally prone to Act as the earth to rest and as a stone in the air to descend and as the Sun to move and shine so that it is never one minute out of Action even in this earthen tabernacle from its first being to the last breath day or night Though in different manner 4. That God as the God of Nature doth uphold the soul in this Active Nature affording it that Concurse or Influx necessary thereto which in Nature he made due to it As he doth to the Sun in its action and to the souls of Brutes So that Activity as such distinct from the due order of it is given by God in Nature 5. And God hath placed the soul in the Universe as a wheel in a Watch where it must needs have some effects of the co-operation of Concauses or superiour agents 6. And Angels and Devils who have very much to do with our souls do work as Voluntary Agents in Political Order though not without the regulation of Gods Law or Will 7. And God can do what he will on souls without any second cause though whether he do so or what we know not 8. All this being supposed for Efficiency objects duly qualified may do much for the Order of Acts though properly they do nothing so that though they be but ut Materia ad formam occasions sine quibus non yet the reasons
of the great alterations in the World being admirably fetcht from the various Passive or Receptive dispositions of matter no wonder Cum Thomistae dicunt Deum suo auxilio efficaci physice praedeterminare Voluntatem ad actum bonum non excludunt Motionem Moralem sed eam praesuâ—â—â—â—â—â— Alvarez de Aâ—xil disp 23. p. 108. â—â— if it be so with mans soul also A spark of fire which long was unseen if you put Straw Gunpowder or other fuel to it may burn a City or Kingdom when yet the fuel is not an efficient cause save the fire that is in it but an objective Matter What work doth a Student find all his life among Books What abundance of knowledge doth he learn by them which he had none of in his Infancy And so do Travellers by viewing the actions of the World And all these are but fuel to the fire The soul only is the Agent and all these are signs and objects that do nothing really on the soul at all You may lead a Beast up and down and govern them by objects which yet act nothing on them So Satan doth by the Drunkard Glutton Fornicator Gamester Covetous c. What Reputed work do objects make on them by doing nothing Thus Verâ—m Bonum are said to work And the case is this The Active Spirit is not only Naturally Active but Essentially Inclined to some certain objects Truth and Goodness And this Inclination being their very Nature when the object is duly presented to it and it self delivered from all false objects and erroneous Action on them and ill habits thence contracted it will Naturally work accordingly And therefore duly externally and internally to bring God and Holy objects to the prospect of the soul is the way of working them to God And sure the World would never make such a stir about Preaching to get fit men and to perswade them to diligence and to keep sound doctrine c. if these objective causes as fuel to the fire did not do much by occasioning the Active soul to do its proper work 9. Yet still remember again that Jesus Christ is the Political Head of Influx if not more who sendeth forth the Spirit as he please but ordinarily upon his setled Gospel terms to work on souls by his threefold fore-mentioned influx with and by these means according to them but in an unsearchable manner As God doth in Nature by the Sun and other Natural Causes SECT XI What Free-Will Man hath to Spiritual Good c. § 1. THe understanding of the Nature of the Power and Liberty of the Will is the very key to open all the rest of the controverted difficulties in these matters But having spoken of it so much before in the former part of this Book and more elsewhere I shall no further weary the Reader with repetitions than to note these few things following § 2. If any like not the name of Free-will Libera Voluntas let them but agree about these two the Power of the Will and Free-choice * * * Nolite esse adeo delicati ut abhorreatis ab usâ— vocabuli Lib. arbit Hypocritarum propriâ—m est rixari de vocabulis Nemo offendatur hoc titulo quia August in multae Volum singulis fere pagellis ad fastidium Lectoris hoc vocabulum inculcat Melancth Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 1. Liberum arbitrium and they need not contend about Free-will § 3. 1. As to the first It is the very Essence of the Will to be a natural Power or faculty of Willing Good and Nilling evil apprehended by the Intellect and commanding the inferiour faculties either politically or despotically difficultly or easily perfectly or imperfectly according to its resolution and their Receptivity § 4. 2. The Liberty of choice is not only Libertas Voluntatis but Libertas Hominis when a man may have what he chooseth or willeth Here the Act of choosing is the Wills but the object is somewhat else either an Imperate act of some inferiour faculty or some extrinsick thing So we say truly that the unbeliever or unconverted sinner may believe may repent may have Christ and life if he will as Dr. Twisse frequently asserteth § 5. 3. But the Liberty of the Will it self is but the mode of its self-determination as without constraint it is a self-determining principle in its elicite Acts considered comparatively § 6. The Liberty of the Will is threefold 1. Liberty of Contradiction or exercitii 2. Of †††Note that the Papists confess that by Christs Case it is proved that Libertas specificationis inter bonum malum is not necessary to merit So Pet. â— S. Joseph Thes Univers pag. 90. Contrariety or specification in the Act 3. Of objective specification which is Liberty of Competition 1. The first Liberty is to will or not will to nill or not nill 2. The second is Liberty to will or nill this 3. The third is Liberty to will This object or That or to nill This or That * * * Of the real difference of these three see Rob. Baron Metaphys I take not that which many Schoolmen call Liberty of Complacence to be another sort of Liberty Though I distinguish Liberty of simple Complacence from Liberty of election as being a prior distribution And I deny not but that Liberty of Complacency specially may stand with necessity of immutable disposition yea and with some sort of necessitating operation of God as is in Christ and the Glorified And in this large essential sense Liberum and Voluntarium are all one supposing Voluntarium to be the act of a self-determining unconstrained will So that the word Free-will being so exceeding ambiguous as my foresaid Scheme sheweth we must be sure that we pretend not the Controversies de nomine to be de re But it is the Indifferency of a Viators will that we have now to do with and not that state of perfect determination or that Amplitude or advancement of the will which Gibieâ—f and such others talk of And note that by Posse agere vel non agere which we put into the definition of free-will we must not mean that Potentia moralis metaphorica which is nothing but the wills moral disposition or habit but the Potentia Naturalis And so it may be said of Christ and the glorified that their not sinning or not willing sin is not ex impotentia naturali but ex perfectione § 7. The Will hath not all these sorts of Liberty about every object For it cannot will known evil as such c. But it hath all these about several objects § 8. By this power and Liberty the Will is made of God to be a kind of Causa prima secundum quid of the Moral ORDER or specification of its own acts Not simply or strictly a Causa prima For 1. It was God the first Cause that gave man this self-determining Power 2. It is God that upholdeth it And so it
Volitions is done by a suitable external means As by a more clear and lively awakening Ministry by some notable Providence especially by surprizing sufferings and distress A Thief when he is taken or judged a Fornicator when he is found in the shame of his Sin a Prodigal in Jail or want a Drunkard or Glutton when he is brought by it to the Gout or other pain and sickness c. have quite other apprehensions usually of the folly of sinning than ever you could bring them to before by any other the certainest convictions VII As we are certain by experience that the Acts called Intellection and Volition now are such operations of the Soul as ever stir and use the Spirits and we perceive both together as if it were a compound operation and know not by experience what any Knowledge or Volition is which useth not the Spirits so we find by true experience that the suscitation of the said Spirits or igneous particles in us much conduceth to the suscitation of the faculties of the Soul By which fervent speaking and awakening Providences do much And also that they that have clear and quick Spirits are easiliest awakened VIII We find also by experience that the internal sensitive faculty hath a great share in these effectual operations For the certainest apprehensions of the Intellect work but defectively on the Will unless they are accompanied with or stir up some Sense Affection or Passion either Fear Hope Love Desire Delight Anger or some other proper passion And Volitions themselves are but sluggish uneffectual Acts as to the imperium or command of the executive Powers or Thoughts unless they stir up some Passion to their aid And therefore lifeless wishes are common with sluggish and unreformed men IX The Spirit of God can and we have reason to think sometime doth stir up the faculties of the Soul to holy Cogitations Apprehensions and Volitions without any other means known to us than what the person before used uneffectually And when means are effectual to sanctifying Acts it is principally by the operation of the Holy Ghost and less principally the aptitude of the means X. The first received influx ad actum is not it which we call a Habit For a Habit is a fixed promptitude to act XI An habit in the Intellect is skill or intellectual promptitude to Act rightly and easily An habit in the Will is inclination and love it self radicated or aversation and radicated hatred And a habit in the vital executive Power is a promptitude and vivacity to the right executing of the Wills commands and first exciting it to act XII A habit infused is of the same Species with acquired habits though it be otherwise caused and of a more excellent use And in both we have reason to think that the Act goeth before the Habit Though the Holy Ghost can fix a Habit by one Act when acquired Habits are caused but by custom or many Acts. XIII In the strict sense as Acts so Habits are specified by their Objects and are not found but in such Species But in a larger sense and less proper we may say that there are more universal Habits not denominated at all from any sort of Objects that is the right Diposition of the Soul to its due operations But this is but an inadequate universal conception of the same Habit and not another thing I think XIV A habit of the Intellect about Principles is a Disposition to the knowledge of conclusions or consequents And a habit of the Will ad finem is a Disposition to the choice and use of the known means but not strictly a habit to them XV. Motion tendeth to further motion One Act of the Soul disposeth it to or furthereth another And as water that hath got a Chanel and is set in motion floweth still the same way and fire by burning the more forcibly proceedeth to burn so the Soul by acting the more readily holdeth on that course of action XVI The Soul hath at once more Acts than one and upon more Objects As at once it understandeth and willeth so at once it operateth on and towards the end and on and in the means But one of them specially ad finem is usually deep and not observed sensibly by the Agent And the other is uppermost and using the sense and fantasie more and the Spirits is easily perceived And so a man in his travel hath a deep unobserved but most constant and ruling Knowledge and Volition of his end or home though yet he seem to himself seldom to think of it but only of things obvious in his way XVII By all this its easie to perceive how hard it is to have the formal knowledge of the quiddity of a Habit when we have presupposed all this before-said 1. That the Soul is essentially of an active nature and as naturally contrary or averse to cessation or non-action as a stone is to action 2. And that it hath inseparably in its nature an inclination to Truth and Goodness as such and to its own felicity 3. And that it hath multitudes of exciting Objects and extraordinarily awakening Preachers and Providences specially dangers and sufferings naturally apt to excite the Soul into act 4. And that it hath the use of the sense and sensitive passions which things sensible are apt to excite by which it may be it self excited 5. And that it hath a certain degree of necessity of knowing by simple perception things received by the sense and fantasie men may know much of Good and Evil Duty Sin Danger whether they will or not 6. And that the Will hath a natural inclination to follow the Intellects apprehensions about Good or Evil in its Volitions and Nolitions though not always necessarily 7. And that the Soul excited to one Act is the more apt to another of the same sort 8. And that a cursus actionum with the fore-said inclinations is like a course of corporal motions which strongly tendeth to continuation so that they that are accustomed to do evil hardly do well 9. And that the potentiae secundae the sensitive powers and the Spirits by custom attain the same propensity to that way of action in themselves and so become to the active Intellect and Will what the Chanel worn by course is to the Torrent or River which with the natural gravity causeth the continuance of its course that same way Or as a Horse trained by custom who hath got his own peculiar habit is to the Rider 10. And that the Soul hath its profound or not noted Action which is constant and maketh so little use of the spirits sense imagination or passion as that it is unobserved while it is predominant such as is the aforesaid intention of the end in the use of means And doubtless the Soul is never unactive an instant no not in sleep but hath this kind of deep insensible action It is knowing it self loving it self intending its own Felicity deeply secretly insensibly
stir up their distast of others B. The question may have three several senses of passiveness as man is considered 1. In his Nature 2. In his Action And therein 1. In the reception of the Divine Influx 2. In the acting thereupon And so the questions are 1. VVhether mans Soul be an active nature or passive matter only 2. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in the reception of the Divine Influx ad agendum 3. VVhether mans Soul be meerly passive in its own first act of Faith or Repentance Tell me Are not these three distinct questions And are they not all that you can devise unless you will make another whether we are merly passive in the preparatory part And are you not now ashamed to confess that you need any answer to any one of these three questions I. All the world is agreed save the Hobbists and Somatists and Sadduces that mans Soul is not meer passive nature but is an active nature inclined to Action as passive Elements are to non-action And that when God moveth it he moveth not Earth Water or Air but a Spirit whose nature is self-moving as fire under the first mover II. All the world is agreed that the Soul and all Spirits are not so purely and meerly active as God is but are partly and first passive and that they do and needs must be receptive of the Divine Influx before they can act For all Creatures depend on the first Cause and both Being Nature and Action would cease if Gods emanation to it ceased And all the world agreeth that no man before Conversion or after doth any act of Faith Love c. no nor eating and drinking and going c. but he is in the first instant passive as influenced by God before he is active Who ever doubted whether physice recipere be pati Did you ever know such a man III. All the world is agreed that man is not meerly passive when he acteth An Act is an Act sure And to believe repent and love is an Act and an act of mans Soul And Scotus who thinketh that immanent Act are qualities as we think of habits yet thinketh that the Soul is truly active antecedently to that quality Where now is there any room for a Controversie C. You would make me believe that we are very ignorant Wranglers that make a noise in our dream and will not suffer others to rest Do not the Arminians say that man concurreth with God to the first act of his own Faith yea that he maketh Gods Grace effectual B. You shall not again tempt me to anticipate the question of effectual Grace though enough is said before to it as far as this Objection is concerned in it Gods Influx on the Soul is one thing mans natural faculty receiving that Influx passively is another And mans Act is another To thrust in here a general word man concurreth and so to run away from clear and necessary distinction is not the part of a man of knowledge Did ever man yet deny that man herein concurreth as aforesaid 1. Man concurreth not to make his Soul nor to continue it in being or power 2. Man concurreth not as any efficient of Gods Influx on his Soul ad agendum 3. But man receptively or passively concurreth as a Receiver of that Influx 4. And man actively thereupon concurreth to believe and repent Is not all this true But you would tempt the Arminians to say that it is you and not they that are herein to be accused For what mean you else by confining the Controversie to the first act of Faith or to our first Conversion Would you make men believe that a converted man is not as truly passive in believing loving God c. as the unconverted is Must not the holiest person be passive in receiving the Divine Influx on his Soul before he do any holy Act You seem to deny this and then you are the person that err by ascribing too much to man If not shew the difference C. There is a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act And it is in respect to that habit that the Arminians say we are active procurers of it which we deny But the godly operate from a habit B. You speak a private Opinion of your own brain against the sense of the Concordant Churches Where doth Scripture say that a habit of Faith goeth before the first Act Mr. Pemble * Vind. Gratâ— saith so indeed yet he sometime calleth that but a Seed which at other times he calleth a habit Dr. Ames in his Medulla contradicteth it Bishop Downame * In the end of his Treatise Of Perseverance Le Blank de diss Grat. 2. Thes 22. speaking of our being passive as to operating Grace saith truly Non videntur hac in parte Reformati a sanioribus inter Scholasticos dissentire licet aliis verbis mentem suam exprimant The School-men and Protestants little differ in the method of operations of Grace and all are drawn by Controversies too near curiosity beyond their reach hath written a large Confutation of Mr. Pemble The generality of Protestant Divines contradict it and thus with Rollock de Vocat distinguish Vocation from Sanctification that they suppose Vocation to cause the first act of Faith and Repentance and Sanctification to give us the fixed habit the act intervening Mr. Tho. Hooker is large upon it in his Souls Vocation Will you start one mans Opinion which Calvinists and Arminians are against and feign this to be a difference between Calvinists and Arminians And perhaps Mr. Pemble himself by his first semen or habit meaneth no more than the Divine Influx ad actum received I have before told you how unsearchable the nature of that Influx is and how hard it is to know the true nature of an Habit. C. But Mr. Pemble saith It is the Spirit that is given before we believe B. Away with Ambiguity By the Spirit is meant either the meer received Influx of the Spirit ad agendum and so it is granted Bad men receive the Spirits Influx to such acts as he moveth them to Or else you mean the foresaid fixed Habits and Dispositions to a ready and facile ordinary Operation Or else you mean the Spirit given relatively by Covenant undertaking to be the Sanctifier and Preserver of the Soul In both these latter senses the Spirit is not given before the first act of Faith to Infidels They have not the fixed habits of Holiness Love Hope Obedience c. Otherwise they were holy Infidels No Scripture speaketh it nay contrarily it promiseth the Spirit as to Believers and affirmeth it given after Faith Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 14. 17. 15. 26. Gal. 3. 14. 4. 6. Joh. 7. 39. And that the Holy Ghost is not given in Covenant to Infidels I need not prove to them that will not baptize Infidels The sixth Crimination C. They hold that none are damned only for Adam's sin imputed * Yes Vasqu and other
c. and the latter they call the formal nature of Grace viz. quatenus Deo gratiosi seu amati sumus So Alvarez de Aux disp 60. p. 275. Gratiam augeri in esse gratiae similiter charitas in esse charitatis nihil aliud est quam quod per illam acceptetur justus ad majorem gloriam By which he decideth the question whether Grace or Charity be increased by remiss acts or only by intense acts saying that 1. Gratia in esse gratiae similiter Charitas in esse Charitatis statim augentur etiam per actus remissos that is We are made more acceptable to God for greater glory But augmentum gratiae charitatis in esse Habitûs quod homo meretur per actus remissos dabitur postea in primo instanti glorificationis And it seems that so they sometimes take Charitas too both for the Habit and Act of our Love and for our Amability or Dearness to God Now this is ill done For these equivocal words signifie these not as one but as two distinct things Amor Amabilitas or Dearness are two things Though Love be materially our Loveliness yet not formally the latter being an obâ—ective relation resulting from the former Wisdom and Goodness are Inadequate conceptions of One God so all together are a more perfect expression of him than one of them alone Now in all these the former is still implyed in the latter as to the very sense of the word but not contrarily Power doth not alway signifie Wisdom or Love but Wisdom signifieth the wisdom of one Potent including power for there is Potentia Intellectiva And Will or Love include Power and Act. So Action may be without ORDER or Rectitude and Perfection but the order and perfection of Acts include or suppose the Acts. § 8. It is therefore the glory of Gods SAPIENTIAL work of Government which eminently shineth forth in the communications of Grace by the Spirit of Christ But not that Government which was fitted to the state of Innocency but that which stands nearer to the End as more demonstrating Love and tending more effectually to it § 9. Therefore it is much to be noted that all this frame of Grace as tending to Glory is usually called in Scripture The Kingdom of God and The Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 13. 45 c. which containeth the whole frame of Political Order and Government § 10. This Kingdom is the state of Relation between God and the Mediator as the Head or Ruler and Man as the Subject as he is to be guided by Grace to Glory God who is Physically neither Pars nor Totum maketh himself here as it were a Relative Part being the supream Head and the Mediator the supream official Head or general Administrator who hath under him a course of Political means for the accomplishment of this his work § 11. As Christ himself is the Head Means or second Cause so under him are Prophets and Apostles eminently qualified to make them fit to do this work so as tendeth to success § 12. These Prophets and Apostles were endued with that special infallible Spirit by which they certainly delivered Christs doctrine and actions and faithfully discharged all their trust § 13. They had the power of working Miracles many wayes to confirm their doctrine as the Truth of God Besides Christs Mâ—racles § 14. The Scriptures are Gods Record which they left us to be the continual standing signifier of his will § 15. In these Scriptures are his Doctrine to teach his precepts to make duty and oblige and forbid sin by prohibition his own and servants examples to move his threatnings to drive his promises to draw formed into a Covenant strongly to engage the Records also of his Judgements and Mercies upon others that they might every way be fitted to their sanctifying use § 16. He hath also instituted his Sacraments by which the mutual Covenant might be celebrated the more obligingly for its effects § 17. He hath appointed his ordinary Ministers as his standing officers through all generations to preach this word And he endoweth them with special gifts thereto and chargeth them vehemently to preach in season and out of season with urgency and importunity even to all mankind 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Mat. 28. 19 20. whatever it cost them and whatever they undergoe § 18. He hath appointed also Prayer as his Means to obtain Grace by preparing the heart to a due receptivity by the excitation of desires after it And Praise and Thanksgiving to sweeten it to us in the review when we have received it § 19. He hath commanded exercises of humiliation confession bringing down the body to fit us to receive it by a due sense of our sins unworthiness and wants § 20. He hath appointed the publick assembling of his servants that concurse might augment the Sacred flame in the performance of all this Sacred work § 21. He hath instituted the Lords day to be wholly employed in such works and helps that it be not neglected and lightly done § 22. He hath commanded every private Christian to be a helper to others by conference exhortation and good example § 23. He hath made Pastoral discipline a great ordinance to promote the due performance of all the rest § 24. He hath commanded us by secret Meditation Consideration Examination c. to preach to our selves and night and day to think on Scripture God Christ Glory c. and to stir up all Gods graces in our selves and to reprove our selves for all our sins § 25. He hath made it the duty of Parents to teach their Children diligently his word lying down and rising up at home and abroad Deut. 6. 11. and to educate them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord having bound them first in Covenant to God and the Mediator § 26. He hath made it the duty of husband and wife to help each other herein and of masters to help their servants and all relations to sanctifie their places and opportunities to this use § 27. He doth by multitudes of mercies and deliverances further all this work to make known the more his Love to win the hearts of men § 28. He greatly promoteth it also by seasonable afflictions to humble the proud and awake the sleepy § 29. He maketh it mens great duty to tame the body and mortifie concupiscence and make no provision for the flesh to satisfie the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 13 14. 8. 13. Gal. 5. 21 22. § 30. He commandeth us to avoid the company of the wicked and to joyn in the Communion of Saints and walk with such as will be our helpers toward Heaven § 31. He commandeth us to avoid all Temptations of Satan and the world and flesh and to live in a continual war against them § 32. He maketh all the world about us the book or glass in which we may see our maker and his will yea even our own natures and every
be an Active Spirit * Indifferentia Voluntatis in ordine ad auxilium praevium est indifferentia passiva caeterum in ordint ad actum liberum quâ—m producit praedeterminata tali motionâ— praevia indifferentia Voluntatis est activa libera Alvarez de Aux disp 23. pag. 115. and therefore what ever it receiveth it receiveth it as it is in that nature 2. But the same soul is Passive as well as Active and that in the prior instant of nature For it must receive from God the first cause which made the Greek antient Doctors and many of the Latines say as Damascene in sense though in grosser words that the soul in respect to bodies was immaterial or incorporeal but it was material in respect of God § 2. Not only in its Receiving the Spirits first Impulse to Believe the soul is Passive before it is Active but also in its Reception of every sort of Divine Influx even to every natural act So that in this there is no difference between Conversion and any common act For the soul is first passive in allâ— even in receiving that Natural Influx by which we Live and Move and Be. § 3. But the soul which is passive in Receiving Gods Impulse to believe the first effect is Active in the producing of its own Act of believing which is the effect of many Concauses And as I said It is not the Habit of faith properly so called which it passively Receiveth before the Act. SECT XVIII Whether the first Grace and the New and Soft Heart be Promised and Given Absolutely or on any Condition on our part And so of faith it self Answ § 1. BY the first Grace is meant either simply the first or the first special renewing Grace on the soul proper to them that shall be Justified Of the first Grace simply there is no Condition for it is given Universally to all viz. a Reprieval a Law of Grace a Redeemer c. And after this there is much common personal mercy given conditionally and much absolutely to all or some * * * And as to the first moving inward Grace see how copiously the Jesuit Ruiz as Vasquez and others proveth that it hath no initium in us no not an occasion or disposition much less merit for which it is given And he reasoneth from the Names Creation Generation by the seed of God resuscitation and Gods being found of them that sought him not and from the Cause of the difference between man and man De pradest Tr. 3. disp 18. â— 4 5 6 7 8 c. p. 227 228 c. Even Medina 12. p. 596. is so hesitant as to say Esse probabilem sententiam Doctorum quod facienti quod in se est ex facultate naturae Deus ex sua misericordia nunquam denegat gratiam Sed dico quod probabilius est magis consentaneum sanctis patriâ—us praeclpuâ— Augustino non esse Legem infallibilem quod homini pâ—â—atori facienti quod in se est ex facultate natura continub conferatur gratia Nam si esser Lex infallibilis certè initium bona pars justificationis esset à nobis c. Thus the Papists herein differ as much as the Protestants among themselves § 2. It seemeth to me an error which by oversight I was long entangled in my self to think that by the new and soft heart is meant the first special Grace For most Divines agree that it is proper sanctification which is meant by it as distinct from antecedent Vocation Vid. Ames Medul de Vocat Rolloc de Vocat Bishop G. Downame against Pemble Hookers Souls Vocation Joh. Rogers of faith and many others In Vocation they suppose the Act of Faith and Repentance suscitated by the Spirit and thereupon a Covenant-Relation to Christ and to the Holy Ghost with Regenerating Sanctifying Habits â—o be given And I see no reason to be singular herein § 3. That faith is by the Law of Grace made a Condition of this Sanctification and the Spirit promised us if we will believe and so the Spirit given to us by Covenant in Baptism when we believe is plain ill Scripture and the commonest doctrine of all Divines § 4. Therefore if it be this Spirit of Sanctification that is meant by the New the Tender the Circumcised heart it is not promised and given absolutely but on condition of faith § 5. Let us peruse the several Texts where it is promised Dent. 30. 1 2 3 6. When thou shalt call to mind among all the Nations and shalt return unto the Lord thy God and obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day thou and thy children with â—â— thy heart and all thy soul that then the Lord thy God will turn thy câ—â—tivity And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart and the heart of thy seed to Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul that thou maist live Here it is a Grace consequent to a condition even to much obedience which is described And Deut. 10. 16. it is a command Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts and be no more stiff-necked Jer. 32. 36 37 c. I will gather them out of all Countreys whither I have driven them and will bring them again into this place and I will cause them to dwell safely and they shall be my people and I will be their God and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever So Ezek. 11. 16 17 18 19 20. And Ezek. 36. 25 26 27 28 29. In all which there is a promissory Prophecy how great a deliverance God would give the Nation of the Jews both for body and soul And their temporal return and liberty is promised and prophesied in the same manner as a new heart is But here is not a syllable to prove that this is the first special Grace any more than perseverance is which in the same manner is promised in Jer. 32. 40. I will put my fear in their hearts and they shall not depart To say nothing how far in the first sense this was National to the Jews nor how the performance did expound it For doubtless it is performed the Text it self premiseth I will be their God and they shall be my people with other mercies And no doubt but Faith and Repentance go before this Covenant-Relation to God and therefore before the following gift of the Spirit ver 9. and Ch. 11. 19. And Ezek. 18. 31. the same is commanded Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit § 6. The promissory Prophecy of Jer. 31. 31 c. is recited by the Penman of Heb. 8. 8 c. to prove the cessation of the old Jewish Câ—venant and that a better should succeed And this much is easily proved out of both 1. That God would certainly have a holy people among the
therefore Gods moving a man to the Act of sin is not a permitting him to sin Motion being one thing and the not hindering of motion another thing or nothing §. V. III. Of the Scotists and Nominals way III. ANd as to the third way ascribed by Alvarez to the Scotists and Nominals I think that de nomine it is not a proper expression to call God causa partialis But if we agree of the sense we may bear Vasqu ubi sup taketh Alex. Al. 1. p. q. 26. n. 7. a. 2. ad 1. Ronavent 1. d. 40. a. 2. q. 1. to be for him because they say Actus nostros esse liberos quia Divina voluntas non est Tota Causa sed cum libero arbitrio quod cum sit proxima causa modificatur concursum primâ— But if this be his opinion he joyneth with these Scotists and Nominals de causa non-totali So Pet. à S. Joseph Thos Univ. de Deo saith that God is Causa totius effectus sed non tota Causa sed partialis with improper expressions about God of whom we can say nothing without some impropriety Doubtless God and man are not to be accounted co-ordinate concauses of the act but whatever man doth he doth it in subordination to God But God operateth 1. As the prime cause of Nature in a stablished way by natural causes And so he giveth man his Natural vital power and the Liberty of using it and by this Power and Liberty a man can do more than he alwayes doth So that Gods natural causality and concurse doth not bring all the Power which he giveth men into proportionable adequate Action but men freely exercise the same power sometime more and sometime less 2. And in the like manner God causeth gracious or holy acts Rectifying our Powers and fortifying them by holy habits and preserving and actuating them by the Holy Ghost Yet the Spirit is to Grace as God the prime cause is to Nature He giveth us more Gracious Power than we use and than his own concurse alwayes reduceth into adequate act So that Gods operations in Nature and Grace are not ad ultimum posse Dei nor ad ultimum posse hominis but limited by his most wise and holy will And man as a free agent is not only Able but obliged to use his power further than by all Gods concurse or premotion it is used And in this sense I conceive it is that Scotus and others call God and man Causae partiales in that there is a certain proportion of premotion and help which God as the first Cause of Nature and Grace doth afford to man And there is moreover a certain use of Gods help and Grace beyond what God predetermineth man to as comparative to this object rather than that c. which man can do and is bound to do Not independently or in co-ordination with God but by the Power and Liberty which God only giveth and upholdeth and affordeth him sufficient help to actuate Now if man do this Part which is left to his liberty the effect alwayes followeth If he do not it may not follow though God gave him that necessary help or grace or premotion which is commonly called sufficient And when Scotus likeneth God and man to two drawing a Boat where the strength of both must concurr I believe he meant no more than I have said 1. All the Power is of God as the total first cause 2. All the Grace that rectifieth and disposeth our faculties is of God as the total first cause 3. All the Act as an Act in genere is of God as the total though not the sole cause 4. All the Holiness or Moral Goodness of the Act is of God as the total first cause though not the only cause 5. But all the sinfulness or moral evil of Acts and Habits is from Man 6. And that implyeth that mans free will is not so much freed from sin mutability and infirmity but that it can neglect to use well the power and helps of grace afforded But of total and partial Causality I have spoken more fully in the first Book And of their opinion that Gods Influx puts nothing into the will but only is ad actum seu effectum if it be true it easily endeth the controversie of the difference of sufficient and effectual grace as to that Act But it is to me unintelligible and the thing quite above all our understandings and very unfit for bold disputes or mutual censures §. VI. The true face or Scheme of the Dominican predeterminant way as to the sense and consequents I Do readily confess that as the summ of all the Controversie is Whether man have truly any Free-will that is not moved as necessarily as any natural motions are caused so the arguments of Hobbes and the Dominicans and Dr. Twisse are not easily answered And had we not better proof of all that Morality and Religion which is inconsistent with this opinion I should my self be inclined also to think that we must be contented with the naked name of Liberty there being nothing indeed but Volition necessitated and that man is an Engine moved by God and other causes no less necessarily and physically than a Clock or Watch but only by more invisible causes and to us unknown and therefore our Volitions are called Contingent and free when truly there is nothing contingent in the World We that converse in the body with things corporeal are so much strangers to our selves and to all the race of Intellectual-free Spirits that we are very prone to such gross corporeal imaginations and to think that all action is like the motus projectorum violent and necessitated and that it belongeth to the perfection of the first mover that it should be so yea that he himself should be in all things the most necessary agent and consequently all things necessitated by him But as Alvarez confesseth Free-will is proved by Aquinas and many others by natural proofs and no Predeterminant or Hobbist can give the tenth part so full and certain proof of the necessitation of all Volitions as we can give of all the contrary principles in Morality which are overthrown thereby And therefore whatever some think of the fatum Stoieorum the Light of Nature taught almost all the Philosophers in the World the Freedom of mans will and the morality there founded of which Grotiâ—s hath collected so full a Volume of testimonies in his Book entituled De fato that it shall save me the labour of transcribing any Yet though I think Christianity inconsistent with their opinion I doubt not but many of the Predeterminants are good Christians and excellently learned and acute Divines as not apprehending the inconsistency of their own thoughts And I confess that there is a Religion consistent with their fundamental error which I shall therefore put into the Scheme lest any think that none but Hobbes hath made the right deductions from it And remember that I
But that which I ask you is whether this new power given by sufficient Grace be of the same Species with our natural powers or of some other A. What if I say It is of the same sort B. Then as I have hinted you must make the Soul to have either two orders of natural powers of the same Species one founded or subjected in the other which is it that Dr. Twisse derideth or else indeed to have two Souls For I have else-where at large proved with the Scotists that the faculties are essential to the Soul or else you must make the specifick powers of the Soul to have degrees and Souls to be augmented and so that they have more Soul that have Grace than they that have none and so Grace is a kind of generation or augmentation of Souls A. What if I say that it is of another Species B. Then we must consider what it is Is it of a superior Species or subordinate or co-ordinate If you say with some Fryers and Fanaticks that it is the Spirit of God in Essence or God himself it would be Omnipotency If it be not any created Spirit or Substance which would alter our Species or make each one two it must be an Accident as all confess it is and therefore not ejusdem speciei with the faculties that are essential And if so tell us what this power is A. The Soul of man is it self so little known to it self that we cannot easily tell what its natural powers be as the difference between Thomas and the Scotists sheweth much less can we tell how to conceive aright of the quiddity of the Accidents of a Soul who know so little of the Accidents of Bodies or of Bodies themselves Let me hear what your own conceptions are of the matter if they tend to elucidate or reconcile B. He that will take up with the bare words Can or Cannot and confess that he knoweth not what they signifie should not with the blind confidence of too many Contenders trouble the peoples ears in Pulpits and set them on fire against one another and by raving distract the Churches of Christ with such Can's and Cannot's Able and Unable And yet this one poor word is the Granade or Fire-Ball If I pretend to understand it no more than you yet I will be ashamed to vex and ensnare mens Souls with what I understand not but will use the easiest intelligible words But to answer your desires distinctly 1. The Soul is as you say so little known to it self that no man living I think hath a true formal conception of that first accident or effect which it receiveth from Gods Spirit nor yet of the true nature of a habit or disposition following it He that readeth but what our Metaphysicks and School-men have said of Habits will find this to be true and that their quiddity is past his understanding To say that they are qualities by which we are prompt to act is but to name a general notion no better understood than the quaesitum Quality and to name the effect promptitude and not the form or thing it self II. The nature of fire seemeth to be a kind of likeness to Spirits And in this sensible thing we cannot tell what it is that is added by excitation and incension And they that talk of generation of fire know not what generation signifieth whether the production of a new simple substance that before was nothing or the introduction of a new form into a pre-existent substance by mixture or how or only a new motion or if they say It is a generation of new Qualities they know not what the word Quality signifieth But this much is apparent that whether it be done by Collision or however to kindle a spark or latent fire into a flame or incendium is to excite a pre-existent active nature And this excitation is by motion And as we have some very defective conception what motion received is in Bodies and how by contact when it cometh from force motus motum causat vis per motum vint quandam imprimit so by some Analogy we may conceive how Spirits move Spirits and such as is the unexpressible action of one Spirit on another such is the thing thereby imprinted and received A kind of spiritual motus And as in bodily motion the first thing received is the very thing moved by contact qua talis as it self in motion or act so Spirits sno modo seem qua agentes attingentes transcendently to be the first received by the moved Spirits And the second thing the vis impressa and thence followeth the ipse motus But if it to this day most certainly surpass the wits of the greatest Philosophers formally to conceive what it is that adhereth to the res mota to contiue its motion and what that is that is called Vis impressa and in what subject it moveth the projectum c. For the Cartesian fancy that motus inceptus nunquam cessabit nisi impeditus either tells us nothing of the continued cause or supposeth moveri to be no effect and to need no more cause than negatio motus which is unworthy a confutation what wonder then if it surpass the conception of all mortal men to know what that spiritual Vis impressa on a Soul is But what-ever it is this much is the best notion that we can have of that which the Divine Action first communicateth that it is influxus Dei Receptus vel excitatio facultatum exeâ—â—ata as distinct from excitatio Dei excitans It is passive excitation or a spiritual Vis impressa whence Action followeth III. But it hath also a similitude to the Agent in more than simple motion Even as the Sun or Fire doth kindle fire on combustible matter which had also a latent fire before or else it 's not combustible which is not as the Cartesians feign by motion alone but by the operation of a three-fold virtue in the Sun viz. the motive lucid and calefactive producing the same in the Receiver so the Spirit of God doth in this excitation at once communicate to the three faculties of the Soul an impressed force for Vital-activity Intellection and Volition so that the three natural faculties by this received impress and excitation are suscitated to holy Activity Knowledge and Love the habit of which is holy Life and Light and Love abiding For it is certain that it is not one only but all the faculties of the Soul that are vitiated by Sin and therefore all that must be repaired by sanctifying Grace The Vital-active-power as it is a faculty of the rational Soul is as it were sleepy dead and impotent and must be quickened with spiritual life and strength The Intellect is dark and must be illuminated The Will is carnal and unholy and must be turned from the Flesh to God by mortification and by holy love And all this the Holy Ghost doth by Action but not meer Action in
Supereminence consisteth in 1. The Sub-propriety which we have in Inferiour Creatures 2. The Sub-government 3. That we are under God Their End and Benefactors SECT III. The several inadequate Conceptions which in order make up our Knowledge of God 21. BY the Knowledge of our own Acts we know our Powers and the Nature of our own souls though imperfectly And by the Knowledge of our souls we know the nature of other Intellectual Spirits And by the Knowledge of our selves and them and the Scripture expressions of his Attributes we know so much of God as we can here know And accordingly must speak of Him or be silent For we have no higher notions than such as are thus Analogical expressing that which is in God in an unconceivable eminency and transcendency by words which first signifie that which is formally in the soul as is said 22. And so we must conceive of God by all these following inadequate Conceptions confessing the impropriety but having no better I. The Essence of God who in Scripture is called in two words An Infinite Spirit is necessarily conceived of by these Three Conceptions 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Vita 3. Perfectio The two first being the substantial Conceptus of a Spirit and the third that which answereth to all perfective degrees properties and accidents in Creatures and comprehendeth a multitude of Perfective Attributes which I express in the Abstract being loth much to use Concretes or Adjectives of God Of these as the first answereth to Matter in Materials and to the Genus and substantia abstractè sumpta in Spirits so doth the second to the Form and Difference when yet in God there is no Composition or Matter 23. II. And the Formal Conceptus VITA must it self be conceived of in this Threefold inadequate Conception 1. * * * It is a great dispute with the Schoolmen Whether Gods Power be any thing but his Intellect and Will that is a necessary distinct conceptus inadaequatus of God For he is one simple essence Durand 1. d. 38. q. 1. justly affirmeth it Vasqu in 1. Tho. q. 23. d. 102. c. 2. saith Haec sententia noâ—null is recentioribus mirum in modum probatur yet he is against it though Suarez be for it But it is partly by misconceiving of the Potentia Vital is in man as if it were only Executive ad extra or in the inferior faculties and partly on such frivolous reasons as tend also to a denyal of his Intellection and Volition Methinks they that acknowledge Gods Understanding and Will to be analogically so called mans being the first which the word signifieth though Gods infinitely more excellent should on the same reason grant that Vita Potentia activa are terms as applicable to God For which denomination many reasons and cogent may be given And I am sure the language of the Scripture and our Creed will warrant this conception Potentia-Actus 2. Intellectus 3. Voluntas I call the first Potentia-Actus to avoid Concretes and to signifie that as God hath no Potentia Passiva so his Potentia-Activa is not an idle cessant Power but in perpetual perfect Act and that Act is a most Powerful-Act so that neither Potentia alone nor Actus alone but both together are our best Conception of this first Principle in the Deity And I take it for granted that even in Mans soul the Potentia-Vitalis Activa the Intellect and Will are not as Thomas thought Accidents but the formal essence of the soul as the Scotists and Nominals better say And I have largely elsewhere proved and therefore stand not here upon it 24. III. And the Existence of this Divine Essence must be known by us in this Gradual Threefold Conception 1. As in Virtute vel Potentia 2. In Actu Immanente 3. In Actione Transeunte Of the first I shall say no more but what is said before By the second I mean Gods own most perfect Essence as Active in it self without extrinsick effect or object By the third I mean not the Creature or the Divine Action ut recipitur in passo or the effect But the Divine Essence it self in the state of Agency ad extra which the Schools conclude to be Eternal though the effect be but in Time Yet if any will call this a free and not a necessary state of the Divine Essence I contend not 25. IV. The Essential Immanent Acts of God are Three 1. SIBI VIVERE or to be Essential Active Life in Himself 2. SE INTELLIGERE to know Himself 3. SE AMARE or to be Amor sui 26. V. The Trinity of Divine Subsistences or Persons also must be here acknowledged 1. The FATHER 2. The WORD or SON 3. The HOLY SPIRIT Of which the School-men have said so much if not far too much as that I may turn the Reader to them 27. I have elsewhere shewed that many of them and other Divines do take the Three last named Immanent Acts in God to be the same with the Three Persons or Subsistences Even the Three Divine Principles Potentia-Actus Intellectus Volunt as as in Act thus Immanently But of these great Mysteries elsewhere All that I say here is that seeing the Trinity of Divine Principles or formal Essentialities and the Threefold Act are so certainly evident to Natural Reason it self that no understanding person can deny them we have no Reason to think the Trinity of Eternal Subsistences incredible and a thing that the Christian faith is to be suspected for but the quite contrary though they are mysteries above our reach as all of God is as to a full or formal apprehension 28. Though God have no Real Accidents we are fain to conceive of Him with some Analogie to Accidents where 1. The Universal Conception is PERFECTION which comprehendeth all 2. The Divine Principles considered in PERFECTION denominate God 1. Potentissimus 2. Sapientissimus 3. Optimus 29. The Attributes of the Divine Persons are 1. Distinguishing viz. 1. GENERANS Patris 2. GENITUS Filii 3. PROCEDENS Spiritus Sancti 2. Common to all such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 30. The particular Attributes analogical as to Creatures Comparate Relative and Negative are very many But yet in Order to be conceived of and not confusedly which elsewhere I offer to the Readers view 31. VI. Gods Causal Relations to his Creatures are in General those named by S. Paul Rom. 11. 36. OF HIM and THROUGH HIM and TO HIM are all things And he is 1. The first EFFICIENT 2. The supream DIRIGENT 3. The Ultimate FINAL Cause of all things 32. Gods EFFICIENCY is terminated 1. On the Things in their Being 2. In their Action and Operation 1. And in the first respect he is the Cause 1. Of their Existing Essence 2. Of their Order 3. Of their Goodness or Perfection And so he is 1. The CREATOR and Conserver 2. The ORDINATOR 3. The BENEFACTOR of all the world And in the second respect as to Action
naturally happy is proper to God therefore Adam was to be led to it freely by a Covenant An. To be happy necessarily and independently and primarily is proper to God But you can never prove it any contradiction or impossible for God to make a Creature naturally happy nor that there are not such § 9. Here the M. S. citeth some words of his Gibieuf making our Being in God initially and finally to be our state of amplitude and liberty and our going out from God to be our particularity and state of necessity as if we were pre-existent in God and our individuation ceased upon oâ—â— return into him as our End An. But these are Platonick Phantasms And Gibieuf who was a devout Oratorian and talketh too oft of our Deification as Benedictâ—â— de Benedictis Barbanson Baker and other Fryers that talk phanatically must be read with caution and exception and as the Soul need not fear too near a Union with God as the loss of its individuation so neither must it desire or hope for such § 10. M. S. An unchangeable state of Happiness in the love of God is called Eternal Life An. No doubt but that is called Eternal Life in the fullest sense which actually endureth to eternity as to that particular Subject And so 1. The life of Glory perfectively 2. And a confirmed state of Sanctity here initially are usually called Eternal Life But 3. Whether the lossable state which the Angels fell from and Adam fell from or that measure of Grace which the ancient Fathers thought the justified may fall from be never so called also I cannot prove § 11. M. S. Adam's promised Happiness was 1. Essential in this perfect holiness or love of God 2. Complemental in the enjoying God iâ— all the sanctified Creatures in that Paradise but not to be translated to Heaven which Christ only procureth us An. I inclined to that Opinion 26 years ago when I wrote the Aphorisms which you oppose But I now incline more to the contrary and rather think man should have been translated to Heaven as Henoch and Elias were upon many reasons which I now pass by Though I take it yet to be scarce certain to us § 12. M. S. The Holiness of God is his loving himself as his End And the third Person proceeding by a reflex act of the infinite Will and self-love of God is therefore called the Holy Spirit An. 1. This notion of Gods Holiness that it is his Self-love is not to be contemned It seemeth to be so with this limitation that you confine not his Holiness to this but take this only as the most eminent among the inadequate conceptions of it For his whole Transcendency in Being Life and Knowledg as being adoreable by the Creature and its End and the Fountain of all created Goodness and specially of Morality is also Gods Holiness 2. But the saying that God is his own End seemeth improper though tolerable if spoken but analogically For God neither hath nor is to himself a Cause nor an Effect a Beginning nor an End 3. That the third Person proceedeth by a reflex Act of the infinite Will many School-men boldly say And so some say that he is Gods actual self-love which is â—he same that you call his Holiness And some say that he is the Divine Will or Love considered in it self as distinct from Vital Power and Intellect or Wisdom But of this I have spoken more largely else-where § 13. M. S. Adam's promised Reward was to be fixed in an unchangeable state of pleasing God by this Holy Spirit not by infusing any new quality which should unchangeably fasten him to the Rule for no created thing can unchangeably keep a man from falling An. 1. The promise to Adam is very obscure But Happiness it must needs be and everlasting 2. But it is past my reach to conceive how the Spirit of God can fix man in perfect holiness without any fixing quality as it 's called on his Soul A constant Act the Soul must have And 1. If that Act be caused by any Divine Impulse disposing the Soul so to act then that disposition is a quality 2. And if there be not both disposition and habit then the Soul will not in Glory be habitually or qualitatively holy but only actually 3. And a habit-acting being perfecter than an act without a habit or inclination the Soul will be more imperfect in Glory than in this state of Grace 4. Operari sequitur esse God fitteth all his Creatures to their works And as when he will give Immortality he will give a Nature fit for Immortality even indissoluble and incorruptible so when he giveth perpetuity of Love he giveth a nature or habits fit for perpetual Action Christ saith A good Tree bringeth forth good fruit and an evil Tree evil fruit Make the Tree good and his fruit good 5. The Operations of Love in Glory should be ex potentia aut violentia aut neutra if there were no intrinsick disposition or inclination to them In a word it is a contradiction for a Soul to be perfectly holy and not have the perfection of inclination to its Acts. 3. But if the meaning were that no holy quality alone sufficeth without Gods Influx that were no more than what must be faid of every Creature without Divine Influx no Creature can be or operate a moment No created thing of it self without God can continue How then should it keep a man from falling But if the Soul have any more goodness of nature or inclination in it than the Devils have it must be a created thing or God himself If only God that proveth not a Saint to be himself better than a Devil as to nature or disposition but only that God in him is better His reason why the Sun is naturally fixed to its Operations but not a glorified Soul is § 14. M. S. that one is a natural and the other a voluntary Agent One as Gibieuf saith Non agit sed agitur the other doth agere non tantum agitur An. 1. Gibieuf and you were deceived in thinking that such naturals non agunt Passive matter doth not Act ex principio essentiali unless Dr. Glissons and Campanellas Doctrine hold true But the three Active Natures Intellectual Sensitive and Vegetative and so Fire and the Sun do ex principio Activo essentali agere but nothing doth Act without an Antecedent Influx to action from the first Cause in which it is passive For no Creature is Independent 2. Voluntas est quaedam Natura quamvis libera To move naturally only and not freely is proper to Agents meerly natural distinct from free But to move freely and yet from a fixed principle which shall infallibly determine the Soul to act freely is not a contradiction nor that which Gibieuf should deny to the glorified § 15. M. S. Man though a Creature is the first Cause of his own action He moveth and sets himself on work else he were
which is not likely To perform one act of Love and Obedience is not so hard as to do it to the death though we lose our lives in the expressions of it Object But our first Faith giveth us Right to the Spirit of Confirmation and Immutability though more must be done for Perfection Answ 1. It appeareth then that Perfection and Glory is more than Confirmation 2. It is certain that the Regenerate are mutable as to the degrees of Grace and are far from Perfection at the first 3. The generality of the Fathers and ancient Churches thought that true Justification and Right to Heaven and true Love to God was lost by many And Austin himself and his Followers so thought 4. And they that think otherwise yet know that Glory is still given us quoad jus in the Promise on condition of our perseverance And we should hardly find so many Threatnings against them that fall away if all might so easily know that the first act of Obedience doth so fix us and give us in justice a Right to Immutability § 19. M. S. The Arguments to prove that any one Act had the pròmise of Immutability and Glory are these Argument 1. If God were to declare his rewarding Justice then he must reward one act Thus Bradwardiâ—â— also chideth his Master Lombard as inclining to Pelagius for holding that Adam could have forborn Sin by his Free-will without Gods spâ—dâ—l Grace that is his Will that so it should be which he saith was necessâ—ry before the Fall as well as since and that else Adam by once not sâ—â—ning when tempted had merited Confirmation as he saith the Angels did being tempted by Leviathan lib. 2. c. 10. An. 1. God was not obliged to any Reward but according to the tenor of his Law Prove that his Law promised Glory or Immutability for one act 2. Bonum est ex causis integris one act is but a small paâ—â— of a mans life The Promise was to the whole course only 3. God did reward every act His acceptance and the continuance of all â—he blessings of that Paradise and the comfort of his Love was a greâ—â— Reward § 20. M. S. If one act of Obedience deserved unchangeable Happinesâ— then God must bestow it But c. An. I deny the minor One act deserved it not No act deserved in Commutative Justice And no act deserved it of governing Justice but such as the Law antecedently made it due to § 21. M. S. Merit it is a fuitableness of the work to the wages â—â—â— that please God are under his good pleasure the fruit of which must be â—â—â— enjoying of his Spirits infinite assistance This Adam might have claimed â—â— Justice and gloried for one act deserveth a Reward An. This is sufficiently answered 1. Wages strictly taken is Mâ—â—â—â— given by a Proprietary commutatively It 's blasphemy to say that God can owe any Creature such for he can receive nothing but his own The word when used to us is improperly taken But praemium a Reward we have but no work deserveth that but by the ordinate Justice of the Law Some few Papists talk of a dignity ex proportione operâ—â— but the Scotists and the wisest of them deny any but 1. Ex congruitate 2. Ex pacto Your suitableness may signifie either 1. A congruity ad fines regiminis or else ad praemium qua promissum And thus it 's true But it 's not proved that any one act was such 2. Or it may â—ignifie a suitableness in proportion ex simplici dignitate operis obliging the Governor antecedently to his Law 2. Or obliging God as Proprietor to compensation And so it is untrue that Merit is a suitableness of the work to the wages here 2. It 's unproved that Gods pleasedness must ever be shewed by the Spirits infinite assistance or that one act deserved this It 's unlike that the Angels that kept not their first state did never one act of Obedience nor were never under Gods approbation Prov. 16. 7. When a mans ways please the Lord he maketh his Enemies to be at peace with him God saith This â—is a Reward You say less than eternal life is none 1 King 3. 10. The speech of Solomon pleased the Lord And yet one would think by his filthiness and Idolatry and forsaking God that he was not glorified nor made immutable With the Sacrifice of Alms God is well pleased Heb. 13. 16. Phil. 4. 18. and with Relation-Duties Col. 3. 20. And yet all that did them even sincerely were not glorified then nor absolutely immutable § 22. M. S. Arg. 2. Unchangeable misery would have been the reward of one sin Ergo c. An. I deny the consequenâ—e Misery was threatned to one sin Glory was not promised to one act of Obedience Obedience during life is certainly due from Man to God He that denieth it him in one act denieth him his due But he that giveth it him in one act giveth him but little of his due Your Argument is like these The Souldier that is a Traytor in one act deserveth death Therefore he that watcheth or fighteth but once deserveth all his wages and honour The Son that curseth his Father once deserveth punishment Therefore he that obeyeth him once deserveth the Inheritance He that is bound to pay an hundred pound forfeiteth his Bond if he leave a penny unpaid Therefore he forfeits it not if he pay but a penny The Servant that is hired for a day or year doth forfeit his wages if he be idle or rebel an hour or a day Therefore he deserveth his wages if he do Service but an hour or a day The disease of one part may kill a man Therefore the health of one part only will keep a man alive He that is hired to build a House or a Ship well forfeits his wages for one hole or gross defect Therefore he deserveth his wages if he lay but one Brick or Board But bonum est ex causts integris § 23. M. S. His Sin is more his own than his Obedience Ans The assistance of the Spirit could not take place in the first act because not deserved And his Obedience would have been as much his own as his Sin An. This is quite beyond the Jesuites 1. It 's true that the rewarding gift or help of the Spirit for confirmation was not given Adam to his first act But it 's not true that he had no help of the Spirit If you will not call Gods necessary Grace which you said did sanctifie all his powers by the name of the Spirits help you must say It was the help of God the Father Son and Holy Spirit without which he could have done nothing 2. But can you think that God did as much to his Sin as to his Sanctification and caused it as much as he was ready to cause his first Obedience Should he have been no more beholden to God for his Holiness than for his Sin This is too indifferent
whether he be a true Christian and must judge of his sincerity and right to Christ Justification and Salvation as he is or is not a sincere consenter to it truly understood in the essential parts SECT V. Of the Gift and Works of the Holy Ghost 72. There are three sorts of Operations of the Holy Ghost one common and two proper to them that shall have or already have Justification 1. The first is preparing common Grace which maketh men fitter for special Grace which yet they may have that perish 2. The second is that Grace of the Spirit by which we perform the The Thomists make the act of contrition and chariâ—y to be the ultiâ—ate disposition to Justification which is with them the habit And yet they say that it floweth from that habit And if the distinction of Alvaâ—ez Disp de Aux 59. p. 264. possim be not contradiction I understand it not Eadem contritio quae est ultima dispositio ad gratiam in genere causae materialis antecedit illam in genere tamen causae formalis efficientis est effectus ejusdem gratiae Though that which is the effect of one act of Gods Love be the Object of another act first Act of special Faith and Repentance called commonly by Divineâ— Vocation which goeth before any special habit but not before any holy seed Because the very influx of the Spirit on the Soul is as a seed which exciteth the first act before a habit though not ordinarily before some preparations This Faith is commanded us as our duty first and made necessary to us as the Condition of the Covenant And when we know it to be thus required of us and hear in the Gospel the Reasons which should perfwade us then the Holy Spirit moveth us by his Influx to believe and consent where God and man are conjunct Agents but man subordinate to God 3. The third sort is the Spirits Operation of the habit of Divine Love and all other Graces in the Soul which is called his In-dwelling and Sanctification This is that Gift of the Spirit besides Miracles of old which is promised to Believers To this Faith is the Condition To this upon believing it is that we have Right given us by Gods Covenant and thus it is that by Baptism our right to the Spirit as an in-dwelling Sanctifier and Comforter is given us 73. This third Gift or Work of the Spirit eminently so called is in the same instant of time given us as the second but not of nature or at least immediately thereupon when we believe But yet they are not to be confounded on many accounts 74. But yet though some degree of the Spirit be presently given to every Believer it is usually but a spark at first And there are further means and conditions appointed us for the increase and actual helps from day to day And he that will not wait on the Spirit in the use of those means doth forfeit his help according to his neglect 75. Hence it is that most if not all Christians have lower measures of the Spirit than otherwise they might have and that judicially as a punishment for Sin However God is free herein and if he please may give more even to them that forfeit it 76. This Covenant of Grace being a conditional pardon of all the world The extent of the New Covenant is universal in the tenor or sense of it It is of all Mankind without exception that Christ saith If thou confess with thy mouth and believe iâ— thy heart thou shalt be saved No person antecedently is excluded in the world 77. And as to the promulgation of it Christ hath commissioned his Ministers to preach this Gospel to all the world and to every Creature So Matth. 28. 19 20. Mark 16. 15 16. that to the utmost of their power they are to offer and publish it to the whole world And Princes and people are all bound in their several places to assist them and to help to propagate the Gospel throughout all the Earth So that the restraint of it is not by the tenor of the Law 78. Those Nations which despise and refuse the Gospel are justly deprived of it penally for that rejection 79. Those Nations that live inhumaâ—ely and wickedly against the means and mercies which they have do forfeit their hopes of more 80. As God in all Ages hath visited the sins of the Fathers on the Children as the instances of Cain Cham Nimrod and others commonly shew and hath proclaimed it as his Name Exod. 34. and put it in Tables of Stone in the Second Commandment and not only of Adam's sin so may he justly deal by the Posterity of the Despisers of the Gosâ—el in denying it them Though he may freely give it the unworthy when he pleaseth 81. All the rest of the world who have not the Gospel and the Covenant The state of those that have not the Gospel of Grace in the last Edition are left by Christ in as good a state â—at least if not better than he found them at his Incarnation He took â—way no mercy from them which they had 82. Therefore as it is before proved that before Christ's time none Of Zuingliu's Opinion of the Salvation of Heathens by name Hercules Theseus Socrates Aristides Antigonus Numa Camilli Catonâ—s Scipiones c. Vid. Montaâ—ut exercit Eccles 1. Sect. 4. Twissum contra Corvinum pag. 371. col 1. Omnium temporum una est fides Deum esse eundemque Justum Bonum Remuneratorem sperantium in se omnium plene meritis respondentem ante legem sub lege sub gratia Nemini rectum sapienti venit istud in dubium sine ista nemo unquam ingressus est ad salutem Rob. Sarisberiens Polycrat de nugis curial Pol. Peucer Hist Carcerum against the Lutherans Concord saith p. 715. Etsi nec ad Ethnicos ante natum Christum nec ad Judaeos post natum Christum misit singulares ministros sonuit tamen vâ—x doctrinae de Deo patefactae utroque tempore Hoc modo adhuc sonat ut exaudiatur nunc etiam a Turcis Judaeis Nec fuerunt unquam exclusi prorsus a gratia miserecordia Dei ante Christum Ethnici E quibus innumeri ex omnibus gentibus fuerunt ad Deum conversi Post Christum natum Judaei Panciores ex his tamen of the world were left desperate under the meer violated Covenant of â—nnocency but that the tenor of that New Covenant as made to Adam â—nd Noah extended to them all so are they still under all the Grace of â—hat Edition of the Covenant further than they are penally deprived of â—â— for violating it The Law of Grace in that first Edition is still in force â—nd the Law by which the world shall be governed and judged They â—re all Possessors of Mercy which leadeth to Repentance and bound to use â—he means afforded them in order
and the Collation is according to the order of his Will though the Things Given have their intrinsick difference 115. All men confess that this Moral Reception is an Act and therefore hath an object which Physical Reception is not And that thus to Receive doth suppose a Moral Gift which Gift maketh not the thing ours necessarily as physical operation doth but on supposition of our voluntary Reception or Consent And all confess that Gods Donation is by his Covenant Testament or Promise and this Covenant hath its proper nature and mode that is the Condition as imposed antecedent to our Receiving Therefore as the thing Given is made ours by the Donation so according to the order appointed by it and our Consent no otherwise maketh it ours than as the Condition of the Gift performed But Gods Covenant doth Give us Christ and Life that is Justification Sanctification and Glorification in tithe or right in one Gift to be Accepted by one entire faith as the Condition not making at all the order of the Gifts and faiths respect to them in that order to be any of the Ratio proprietatis 116. This will be plainer by humane instances A Servants Relation is founded in his consent to be a Servant a Wifes Relation is founded in her Marriage-consent to be a Wife and to take that man for her Husband simply without any more adoe Now if the Master of that Servant or the Husband of that Wife be a noble man a rich man a wise man a good man and they knew all this and by knowing it were induced to consent and are to have their proportionable benefits by his Nobility Riches Wisdom Goodness yet their title to these benefits ariseth not from the act of their consent as it respected these benefits severally and distinctly but meerly by consent to their Relation as being his Condition of Collation The Wife is made Noble by her Husbands Nobility she is made Rich by his Riches she is instructed by his Wisdom c. But she hath no more Right to his Riches for marrying him in the notion of Rich or for consenting to him for Riches than for marrying him in the notion or thought of his wisdom or goodness On her part it was not consent to be Rich by him that gave her right to his Riches and consent to be Noble by him that gave her right to Nobility but consent simply to be his Wife that gave her right to all 117. This is yet fullyer evident in that most usually men make consent to one thing to be the condition of their Receiving or Right to another And usually that which one is most backward to is made the condition of their Right to that which they are most forward or willing to have The Master doth not say If thou wilt have thy wages thou shalt have right to it But if thou wilt do my work thou shalt have thy wages The condition of Marriage is conjugal Love and fidelity q. d. I will be thy Husband and give thee right to all that I have if thou wilt be and do what is essential to a Wife and not if thou wilt have my Riches c. If a Father give a Child a free gift on any condition it will likely be If thou wilt be a thankful and obedient Child and not If thou wilt have it Or if meer consent to have it be put it is usually when it is some gift which it is supposed that the person is not very willing to have As if a Sick man will have Physick if an ungodly man will have Teaching Books or Godliness it self But to this usually they are induced by the Promise of somewhat else which they are willing of As to the Sick If thou wilt take this Physick thou shalt have health To the ungodly If thou wilt have Christ and holiness thou shalt have pardon and happiness Now in the sence of Physical Receiving He that receiveth Physick hath Physick and He that receiveth health hath health c. But in the moral sence of Receiving which is Accepting as it is the condition of a gift so He that receiveth the Physick shall have the health and He that receiveth Christ and his sanctifying Spirit shall have Pardon Justification and Salvation Not that his willingness to have pardon and happiness is the chief or only condition of his pardon and happiness But his Accepting Christ and his Spirit which men are naturally unwilling of is the condition of that pardon and happiness which men would have By all which it appeareth that to say Faith justifyeth me as it is the Receiving of Christs Righteousness and not as it is the Receiving of Christ as a Teacher Ruler c. is a confounding or seducing saying For 1. If it intimate that Faith Justifyeth us as an efficient cause principal oâ— Instrumental it is false * * * Unless by Justifying they mean the acts of Love Hope Obedience called Hâ—â—iness 2. If it mean that Faith is the Condition of Justification quatenus as it receiveth Christs Righteousness only it hath either one or two falshoods 1. If it mean that Faith 's receiving act is the formalis ratio Conditionis or that it justifyeth not qua conditio dâ—â—ationis but quae Receptio Justitiae Christi it is false Therefore qua here can signifie nothing but the Aptitude of faith to be made the condition and so Qua Quae here are all one 2. And then that only the Accepting of Righteousness justifyeth us that is Is the condition of our Justification is a falshood 118. Therefore our consent to be a Holy and obedient people or to take Christ for our Teacher Exemplar Ruler Sanctifier by his Word and Spirit and Judge hath at least as great a hand in our justification being principally the Condition of the Promise as our belief in our acceptance of Christ's Righteousness hath SECT VIII Of Justification by Christ's Righteousness imputed 119. Christ's personal Righteousness Divine or Humane habitual active How little the Papists differ from the Imputation which they quarrel with See in Bellarm. words cited and approved by Davenant de Justit And Pet. a S. Joseph Theol. Speculat l. 4. c. 10. saith Obj. Pâ—ccatum remitti non potest quamdiu homo manet conversus ad creaturam aversus a Deo At semper aversus erit a Deo nisi mutatur Resp Sufficere mutationem moralem quae per solam Dei condonationem fieri potest ut jam homo non dicatur aversus a Deo This is Antinomianism and false As if God called not him averse who is really averse Obj. 2. Si peccatum remitti potest sine actu aut habitu per solam imputationem erit quae est â—aereticorum sententia Resp Haereticos loqui de facto non de imputatione peccati remanentis vere non remissi nos de possibili de verâ— remissione qua peccatum tollatur See how the case is turned and wranglers
really all is but a Thankful Accepting of the mercy of the new Covenant according to its nature and use as it is offered 196. It is a great question whether a man may Trust to his own Faith Of Trusting in our own faith repentance holiness c. Repentance or Holiness But some men still trouble the world with unexplained words where no sober men differ No wise man can dream that we may Trust to these for more than their proper part as that we may Trust them to do any thing proper to God to Christ to the Spirit to the Promise c. And to use the phrase of Trusting to our own faith or Holiness when it soundeth absolutely or may tempt the hearers to think that they may Trust them for Gods part or Christ's part and Of which see more in my Life of Faith Tollit gratia Meriâ—um non quod omnino nihil agamus sed quia non satisfacimus legi procul absumus a perfectione Melancth in Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 7. not only for their own is a dangerous deceiving course But that really they may be Trusted for their own part and must be so no sober person will deny For so to believe obey pray to God c. and not to Trust to them in their place that is not to think that we shall be ever the better for them is unbelief and indeed distrusting God and saying It is in vain to serve him and what profit is it that we call upon him And such diffidence and despair will end all endeavours Let every man prove Gal. 6. his own work and so shall he have rejoycing in himself and not in another This is our Rejoycing the testimony of our Consciences that in simplicity 2 Cor. 1. 12. and Godly sincerity we have had our Conversation in the world If we are Justified by faith we may Trust to be Justifyed by it But the rare use of such a phrase in Scripture and the danger of it must make us never use it without need As if we were disputing whether the Popish or Protestant Religion be that which a man may trust for his Salvation or the like And when ever it 's used it implyeth our Trust in God and our Saviour only for their part 197. To conclude this great point of Imputed and Inherent Righteousness The last objection of the mistakers of Imputation To save me that much labour of citations I desire the Reader to see in Guil. Forbes Consider Pacific the Concessions of Vega Pighius Stapleton and other Papists about Imputation of Christ's Righteousness as granting us all that Protestants mean as Bellarmine expresly doth as Davenant Nigrinus Joh. Crocius and many others have observed it may be objected that The same man may well be judged a Sinner deserving hell never fulfilling the Law nor satisfying Justice nor deserving Heaven in himself that is in his Natural person and yet be Judged one that never sinned but fulfilled the Law is perfectly holy and righteous and merited Heaven in his Legal or Civil person in and by Christ To which I answer One man is but one and hath but one person But if you take the word Person equivocally as signifying another that is made like him in some respects or that hath his Nature or doth somewhat in his stead and for his benefit as a second person say so and we will strive with no man about words If you will say we are now on earth in our Natural persons and are in Heaven in Christ or that we are Redeemed in our Natural persons but Redeemed our selves in Christ or that you are sick in your Natural person and well in your person in Christ c. I like not your language but there are scarce any words so bad which a man may not put a good sence on But we would be understood and plainly ask whether Christ was properly every sinners or believers person in Law-sence so that ipso facto God accounteth us to have been habitually and actively perfect in Him and to have merited and satisfied in him If so the Law can look on one man but as one And he that paid a debt by his Servant or any other as his Legal person cannot be required to do it again in his Natural person unless you will say that God loveth our Legal person and will save it and may hate our Natural person and damn it The Scripture useth no such contradictory subtleties as these SECT XI How faith Justifieth 198. The common saying that faith justifieth as an Instrument might pass as tolerable if too many did not strain it to a wrong sence and raise Note that when we call faith an Accepting it relateth to the Donation of the Covenant and the Donatum which is a Jus ad beneficia Renovation is effected by faith as a second cause but Pardon is Accepted by it And we fully grant the Papists that Renovation and pardon go together whatever they call them And some of themselves do speak just as we de Remissione Macula which others are confounded about Vid. Wotton's citations out of the Schoolmen de Macula de Reconcil pec And Brianson saith in 4. q. 8. fol. 116. that sin as â—emitted or guilt is Tantum quaedam Relatio rationis in quantum est objectum intellectus Voluntatis divinae Quia postquam commissit peccatum Dei voluntas ordinat ipsum ad poenum correspondentem peccato Intellectus praevidet pro omni tempore donec poena debita sit soluta Videre peceata Dei est ad â—oenam imputâ—re Avertere faciem est ad poenam non reservare August Ergo niâ— aliud est post actum câ—ssantem pâ—â—catis offâ—nsa Macula reatus nisi ista relatio rationis Sâ—d hujus Ordinatio ad â—oenam ut est disconveniens ipsi animae dicitur ejus Macula ut autem est obligatio formaliter ad istam poenam dicitur Râ—atus Et ut est divinae voluntatis c. dicâ—tur Offensa Nil n aliud est Offendi vel Irasci in Deo quam vâ—lle Vindicare ista poena But he after owneth that the culpa is another thing unwarrantable Doctrines from it and harden the Papists by unwarantable Answers A Justifying Instrument properly is an efficient Instrâ—mental cause of Justification which I have elsewhere too largely proved that faith is not either Gods Instrument or ours Physical or Moral noâ— any way efficiently justifieth us But justifying is one thing to Receive justification is another thing and to be justified is a third Faith iâ— no justifying act But faith is in its Essence the Acceptance of an offered God Christ Spirit for Life This Acceptance is by the Covenant made the condition of our passive true Reception and Possession of Right before opened To be such a Condition performed is to be a removens prohibeâ—s of the said Reception which is strictly to be Dispositio materiae recipientiâ— And so it
I believe I grant it if 1. This be in it self as evident 2. And as certain to me as Gods Word is otherwise I deny it 236. Obj. A man cannot believe and not know that he believeth Ans But a man may sincerely believe and yet through ignorance either of the Scripture or himself be uncertain that indeed his Faith is sincere and not such as is common to the justified 237. Some Protestants by erring in this point and saying that justifying Faith is a certain perswasion or belief that we are justified and that it is Gods own Word that I or you are actually justified or are sincere Believers and that the believing it is properly fides Divina have greatly scandalized and hardened the Papists to our disgrace 238. And so have those that say that in the Creed the meaning of I believe the Remission of Sin is I believe that my sins are remitted actually And that all must thus believe 239. Some say that the Spirit within them saith that they are sincere Believers and the Word of the Spirit is the Word of God and to believâ— it is to believe God Ans This is the Enthâ—sâ—asts conceit which if true all such have prophetical Inspiration For the Spirit to bring any new word from God is one thing and to give us the Understanding Love and Obedience to such a Word is another thing The Spirit doth indeed assure us of our sincerity but not by a new Word from God to tell us so but 1. By giving us that sincere Faith it self 2. By acting it and increasing it 3. By helping us to know it 4. By giving us the love of God and other Graces 5. By giving us the comfort of all But the reception and perception of these internal Operations is not properly called a Belief of the Word of God Else when we make Gods Word the adequate Object of Faith we shall be still at an uncertainty what that Word is 240. Yet this perswasion that we are sincere and justified is divine where the Spirit causeth it but not a divine Faith Yea it is participatively of divine Faith because Gods Word is one of the premises though the weaker must denominate the conclusion * * * Of this see Albertinus's Disp at large 241. Obj. A Reprobate or Devil may believe all the Articles of Faith without application but justifying Faith applieth Christ and his benefits to our selves Ans It 's true But this application is not a certainty nor a perswasion nor a believing that I am justified no more than that I am glorified no nor that I shall be so neither But it is an accepting of Christ offered that I may be justified and saved So that here are all these applying acts in it 1. I believe that Christ as the Saviour of the World is my Saviour as he is all other mens and is not the Devils that is that he hath done that for me which he hath done for all mankind 2. I believe that he is offered to me personally in the Promise or Covenant of Grace on condition of believing-acceptance and that with and for all his purchased benefits and so for my Justification 3. I believe that if I so accept him I shall be justified 4. By true consent I do accordingly accept him to justifie sanctifie and save me But when all this is done 1. I do not believe that God hath said in his word that I am justified nor that my Faith is sincere 2. And my Faith is so weak that I may long doubt of that sincerity which I have and so of my Justification 3. And when I come to be certain of my Faith it is not by believing God as saying that I do certainly believe but by experience of its sincerity upon just trial by the Spirits help 242. No man can be sure that his Faith is sincere and saving who is not assured that it will help him to love God as God above all yea already doth so and that it mortifieth selfishness and will prevail with him to deny even life it self and all the world for Christ and Salvation So far as a man doubteth of any of this he must needs doubt of his own sincerity 243. So weak is Faith in most that are sincere and so little kept in exercise and so strong is sense and self and flesh and worldly bâ—its and interest and Satan's temptations that in my experience who have conversed with as many that are careful of their Souls as most have done I think it is a very small number that I could ever hear say I am certain of my Justification and Salvation But a great number who have lived in holy confidence hope and peace and some in great joy but most in tollerable fears and doubting and some few oppressed by those doubts So that certainty of Salvation is very rare 244. When Bellarmine saith that our assurance more belongeth to Hope than Faith and that it is but moral certainty by signs that we have of our Justification Sincerity and Salvation he so little differeth from the sense of almost all godly Protestants that were it not through other distances and partiality we had never read in Luther's days that for this one point alone we have cause enough of our alienation from the Romanists 245. They err on one extream who say that all are commanded to believe that they are justified or any as if it were Gods Word And they err on the other hand who command doubting or commend it as if it were a duty or a benefit And they speak the truth who say that our doubting of our own Sincerity and Justification if we are sincere is a sin of Infirmity and a Calamity proceeding from weakness of Faith Hope Love and Self-acquaintance which we should use all possible diligence to overcome But they that are not sincere are bound to know it And first to seek and get sincerity and then discern it 246. It is by the Spirit that all Christians must come to their assurance But not by the Spirit as speaking this in us as a word from God Thou art justified or shalt be saved or art sincere But by the aforesaid Acts The Spirit in us is first Christ's Agent Advocate and Witness to assure us that he is the Saviour of the World And next he is our Witness to assure us that we are Gods adopted Children which he doth by being in us Gods Mark and the Pledge First-Fruits and earnest of our heavenly Inheritance by effectual habituating our Souls to the predominant love of God and Holiness and Heaven Where-ever this Sanctification is there is the Evidence and Witness of our Adoption He that findeth by the Fruits that he hath the Spirit findeth the certain proof of his Justification and earnest of Glory SECT XVII Of Love as the end of Faith 247. This predominant Love of God and Holiness is so proper a Cui non unus idemque vitâ— scopus est hic
d. 17. q. 1. â— 2. Gabr. ibid. Radâ— 2. p. Cont. 19. Suarez in 3. p. To. 4. Disp 9. Sect. 3. n. 8. all for this opinion And against it Aureol in 1. d. 1â— Ruard a. Sect. 5. That a man cannot be just sine Justitia inhaerente por potentiam Dei absolutam Pet. de Lorâ—a saith in 2. 2. q. 24. a. 12. d. 22. as the Protestants do that Peocatum Mortalâ— actuale meaning some one act of a heinous Sin may consist with Grace and the Habit of Charity but not the Habit of such a Sin that is in predominancy See Malderus opinion 1. 2. q. 113. a. 2. 8. p. 574 c. who saith that Dâ—us remitâ—endo offersam delet peccati maculam and that Macula is but the privation of Grace quatenus facit hominem Dâ—o gratum that is of Acceptability or Loveliness And accordingly he expoundeth the nature of Remission of Sin as I said before And Brianson in 4. q. 8. fol. 115. C. D. diligently enquiring what it is that remaineth after the Sin committed can find nothing but 1. The Habit or privation of a good habit 2. And the Guilt which he calleth Reatum culpae quae est qâ—â—dam obligatio ad poenam debitam illi culpae Illa n obligatio est quâ—dam Relatio realis non fundata super actum culpae sed super essentiam aâ—imâ— non nisi ut culpae actualis est praevia which is just the Protestant opinion who say that the Guilt is done away by forgiveness and the Habit by Renovation calling one Justification and the other Sanctification But we better distinguish Reatum câ—spae in sâ— Reatum pâ—â—ae sâ—u culpae ut ad poenam One is the Reality of my being a Sinner or one that did Sin This is never done away The other is the obligation to punishment for that Sin This is remitted and virtually containing all good actions and being the operation of the Spirit by which he is said to dwell in believers 306. 2. That this Rectitude or Holy Nature is first and radically active in our Complacency or Displicency Love or Hatred And that what a man Habitually loveth that his Will is habitually inclined to And against that which he habitually hateth 307. 3. That yet in acting this inclination worketh freely and always is specified by the conduct of the Intellect which must tell us what is Good and Evil Amiable and Hateful 308. 4. That Love and Hatred being practical Habits do ever engage the will in such Practical Resolutions as are answerable to their nature and degree 309. 5. That no Resolution will prove Holy Love and Inclination but that which is fixed as proceeding from a fixed principle which is like a new Nature in us 310. 6. That this Resolution is first de fine The Soul loving God and its own felicity in his eternal Love and Glory is first firmly Resolved to adhere to God and that felicity and to prosecute it to the last in all necessary means 311. 7. That next the Soul firmly resolved of the use of means in general is resolved also to choose and cleave to Jesus Christ as the Head and Summary of all means as the Physician is as to Physick And â—o resolveth to adhere to all the Essentials of Godliness and Christianity 312. 8. That all this is done by the Intellects discerning of those solid Reasons which prove to us the excellency necessity and possibility of all the foresaid ends and objects And he that knoweth not fixing and â—olding Reasons for his Resolutions cannot be expected to have fixed Resolutions 313. 9. That these general Inclinations Love and Resolutions for God for Means in general for Christ and all the Essentials of Godliness and Christianity are constant in the Godly and virtually contain a Love of and Resolution for every known duty and against every known Sin but not actually And these continue to shew themselves in adhering practically to these Objects and in the Practice of a Godly Life 314. 10. That therefore Sin as Sin is hateful to every true Christian and Godliness as such lovely And that in respect of this radical general Habit every true Christians love to God and Good is more than his averseness and his hatred to Sin more than his love or Inclination to the created Good for which it is loved For no man loveth Sin as Evil 315. 11. That the Inferior sort of Means and Good appear not always in their worth or necessity to the believer Besides his Ignorance the remnants of Concupiscence may pervert his Judgment so far as to doubt of some means whether they are absolutely necessary or at least mihi hic nunc And this failing of the Intellect may embolden the Will to some degrees of negligence even of known duties And so we may doubt of some Sins whether they are Sins and of others whether they are so great as to be inconsistent with Gods love and our Salvation and by that failing of the Intellect to be emboldened to commit them while yet we adhere to God and holiness in the main as such And so small Sins are ofter committed and with less reluctancy than greater because we think that their badness and danger is not so great And though at other times we be more sensible of both yet in the time of Temptation that apprehension may be altered For the mind of a Godly man is more mutable about the Means than about the End and about the smaller sort of Means and Sins than about the greater And when the opinion changeth not yet the practical judgment may change or when it is not turned it may be suspended Or truth may be apprehended with less quickening lively feeling and then it will not sufficiently work As a loud call doth suscitate us to action when a negligent whisper is neglected And upon some of these accounts known sins when small may more stand with Grace and be ofter committed and more dully repented of than greater 316. 12. And as we must distinguish of Sins as more or less dreadful and dangerous and of duty as more or less necessary at least in our apprehension so also of Sins which are more or less within the power of a willing mind to leave them Some Sins are such as that the forsaking of them requireth little more than a willing mind As to forsake lewd Company Taverns Play-houses Harlots Drunkenness Theft Oppression Persecution Perjury Deceit c. Meer will though instigated by lust committeth them And a will that is but truly bent against them may easily as to power cast them off Whoever committeth them doth it because he will do it And to live in the frequent committing of these is a greater sign of want of Holy habits or Grace than of others For there are other Sins which besides willingness require great power and care and labour to forsake them As to keep a just order in our Thoughts to keep them from vain objects to keep
that his Wisdom and Mercy and repent of their sins and unfeignedly give up themselves to God as their merciful Redeemer Thus far we are agreed about the Grace of the Covenant II. And as to the second sort of Communicative Grace that is The Promulgation of this Law of Grace and offers of the Covenant-Benefits to man we are and must be all agreed 1. That besides what Tradition sacrificing did intimate the first Edition of the Covenant of Grace as is said is universally promulgate by Providence For whereas by the violation of the Law of Innocency all blessings were forfeited and all miseries deserved and no man had any notice by that Law of any hope or means of his recovery on the contrary all the world hath great abundant mercies and are not punished according to the first Law and therefore have sensible forgiveness of sin and all have an inward testimony or conviction that they are obliged to gratitude for these mercies and also to the use of certain means as Repentance Prayer c. in order to their farther pardon and salvation And all this fully demonstrateth that God hath so far promulgated the old Edition of the Covenant of Grace as to make it notorious that the world is not under the meer Law of Innocency And to believe in a Merciful pardoning God as he was Exod. 34. proclaimed to Moses is become even the Law of lapsed Nature 2. And as I said the last Edition of the Covenant is commanded by Christ in his Ministers commission to be proclaimed to all the world Yea Magistrates parents neighbours all men in their several capacities are bound to promote it 3. And the world hath actually heard so much of the Gospel as that Paul in his dayes said That their sound went into all the Earth and their words to the end of the world Rom. 10. 18. when it had gone but a little way in comparison of what it hath since done Thus far we are agreed of the Promulgation III. The third sort of Grace is the Internal operation of the Spirit of God upon mens hearts And here it is that the heart of all our difference seemeth to lie SECT I. The presupposed Principles § 1. THe way of Gods operation on souls yea or bodies or any creature is so unsearchable that I had rather silence than pretend to decide abundance of the Controversies long agitated about it And had not mens audacious decisions and furious contentions not yet allowing the Churches peace made it accidentally necessary to repress their presumption and their error I should reverently have passed by much that I must now meddle with But the cure must be suited to the disease § 2. So much as is * * * See a notable discourse of Bradwardint of mans little knowledge of God li. 1. c. 1. cor 32. contrae philos which excellently rebuketh audacity in this case intelligible herein is divine and honourable and amiable and the prospect of Gods Providence is delectable to the wise For his works are great and wonderful sought out of them that have pleasure therein § 3. The nature or the order of them cannot be known by the single consideration of particular effects but by beginning at the original and proceeding orderly from the superiour Causes to the inferiour and seeing how every thing worketh in its proper capacity and place which man can do but very defectively and therefore knoweth but little or in part § 4. It is necessary therefore that I briefly look back to the Principles of Providence and Action which were partly mentioned before where UNITY in TRINITY shineth to us in God and in his works § 5. * GOD is ONE INFINITE SPIRIT in THREE ESSENTIAL VIRTUES or PRINCIPLES LIFE or ACTIVE POWER UNDERSTANDING and WILL †††Bradwardine li. 1. c. 1. cor 8. p. 5. Deus est Substantia Potentia rationalis habens intellectum liberam voluntatem cognoscens actualiter â—olens which are wonderfully ONE in ESSENCE yet THREE we know not perfectly how but as the Scotists say formaliter or rather as the Nominals by connotation of their objects and operations ad extra and so by Relation and extrinstck Denomination Not that Life Intellect and Will are formally the same in God as in the Creature or can formally be conceived by us But that while we must know God in a Glass mans soul must be this Glass and the Scriptures must be our Onomasticon and Logick Books and we must use such Notions and Names of God or none § 6. * * * Bradwardines language is Deum esse Omnipotentem active nullipotentem passivâ— li. 1. cap. 1. corol 1. n. 7. p. 5. These Principles as Transcendent in PERFECTION are called GREATNESS †††Communitâ—r antiqui Scholasticâ— agunt de intâ—llâ—ctu Voluntatâ— Potentiae operativae Dâ—â— quasâ— dâ— Potentiis ratione distinct is instâ—tâ—â—ntque de â—llis peculiares tractatus cum Magis Thom. c. Ruiz de Vohâ—â—â— Dei disp 14. â— 4. pag. 158. And he contradicting it saith as much Nihilomiminus intra â—asdem lineaâ— gradus intellectus voluntatis distinguimus Potentiam executivam â—â— partem â—arundem Potentia rum But less aptly or OMNIPOTENCE WISDOM and GOODNESS or LOVE by names borrowed from their effects upon the creatures § 7. This ONE GOD is revealed to us in THREE PERSONS The FATHER the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wisdom Word and Son and the HOLY SPIRIT One in Essence incomprehensibly Three ad intus but discernibly Three in their Operations ad extra and Relations thereto § 8. As we must conceive of GODS ESSENCE by INADAEQUATE Conceptions as aforesaid or not at all so must we of his EXISTENCE as in the Creature we call it Modally viz. His ESSENCE being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 substance VIRTUS PERFECTIO which in the Creature is MATTER or substance FORM and DEGREE and his FORMAL VIRTUS being Potentia-Vitalis Intellect and Will so his Existence is considerable 1. In VIRTUE it self radically which is Potentia Activa Inclinata 2. As in Act IMMANENT objectively as Gods self living self-knowing and self-loving 3. And as in ACTION ad extra either objectively or effectively TRANSIENT And in this third respect Gods Essence is the Operator of all his works § 9. The Three Divine Principles Vital-active Power Intellect and Will and the Three Divine Persons Father Word and Spirit do alwayes inseparably co-operate But so as that there is a Trinity also of their Impressions or Vestigia which are answerably to have a Trine attribution each Principle being eminently apparent in his own impression though with the rest § 10. Gods WORKS are CREATION GOVERNING and PERFECTING And so he is 1. The first EFFICIENT OF ALL BEING Ex QUO by creating and continuing which are as one 2. The DISPOSING or GOVERNING Cause PER QUEM 3. The END AD QUEM IN QUO perficiuntur § 11. God having given a BEING to the
There is no Place where any Corporeal being is where some Active created Nature is not with it so that considering the proximity and the natures we may well conclude that we know of no corporal motion under the Sun which God effecteth by himself alone without any second Cause § 6. Joh. Sarisburiensis and some Schoolmen liken Gods presence with the Creature in operation to the fire in a red hot Iron where you would think all were Fire and all Iron But the similitude is too low The SUN is the most Notable Instrument in visible Nature And GOD operateth on all lower things by its virtue and influx God and the Sun do what the Sun doth and we know of nothing that God moveth here on earth that 's corporeal without it § 7. But the Sun moveth nothing as the Cartesians dream by a single Motive Influx alone but by emission of its Threefold Influx as every Active Nature doth that is Motive Illuminative and Calefactive which are One-radically in Three-effectively § 8. This Efflux of the Sun is universal and equal ex parte sui But causeth wonderful diversity of effects without diversity in God the prime Cause or in it self The same Influx causeth the Weed and Dunghill and Carrion to stink and the Flowers of the sweeter Plants to be sweet some things to live and some to dye some things to be soft and some hard c. In a word there are few changes or various actions below in bodies which the Sun is not the Cause of without difference in it self But not the specifying Cause § 9. The reason why one equal Influx causeth such wonderful diversity of motions is the DIVERSITY of RECEPTIVE DISPOSITIONS and natures Recipitur ad modum recipientis So one poise maketh various Motions in a Clock c. § 10. God operateth on second Causes as God Omnipotently but not ad ultimum potentiae but Freely as he pleaseth § 11. God worketh by second Causes according to the said Causes aptitude so that the operation of Infinite power is limited according to the quality of the second cause which God useth § 12. There is a superiority and inferiority among Spirits as well as Bodies And whether God work on all our souls by superiour Spirits as second Causes is unknown to us It is not improbable according to the order of his providence in other things But we know little of it certainly § 13. But certain we are that superiour Voluntary Agents Angels and Devils have very much to do with our souls and operate much upon them It is a wonderful power which wise observers perceive Satan hath upon the Imagination or Thinking faculty of which I could give some instances enough to convince a rational Sadducee And it is not like that good Angels have less power skill or will § 14. And we are sure that God hath ordained One Great Universal second Cause to convey his Spirit and Grace by which is JESUS CHRIST As the Sun is an Universal Cause of Motion Light and Heat to Inferiour creatures and God operateth by the Sun So is Christ set as a Sun of Righteousness by whom God will convey his spiritual Influx to mens souls and there is now no other conveyance to be expected § 15. Christs Humane Nature united personally to the Divine and Glorified is by the Office of Mediator Authorized and by Personal Union and the Fulness of the Holy Spirit enabled and fitted to this communication of Gods Spiritual Influx to mankind § 16. Object A Creature cannot be a Cause of the Operation of the Holy Ghost who is God the Creator Sending is the Act of a Superiour But Christs humanity is not superiour to the Holy Ghost Answ 1. Christ as a Creature is no Cause of any Essential or purely Immanent Act of God for that hath no Cause But 1. He is a Cause of the Spirits operation as it signifieth the effect 2. And so the cause why his Act is terminated on the soul and 3. Of the ordering of these effects why rather on this soul than on that and at this time measure c. And 2. This Christ doth not as a superiour sender of the Spirit but a Ministerial and a second cause As a Master payeth his servants as his Steward determineth § 17. It is certain that Christ is the Political Cause or Head of this spiritual Influx on souls that is As Mediator is Authorized to determine of the Persons measure time conditions of the Communication of the Spirit But whether he be a Physical Head of this Influx by proper efficiency giving the Spirit from himself as the Sun giveth us its Influx is all that is disputable That is Whether the Spirit be first given Inherently to Christ and pass from his person as his unto us as the Spirits do from the Head to the Members § 18. This question may be put either of all Natural Being and Motion or only of Spiritual Motion in the soul of man Whether Christ be so the Head of Nature as that all Nature in Heaven and Earth is sustained and actuated by him as the physical efficient Cause or whether this be true of this Lower World which was curst for sin or whether it be true at least of Humane nature or whether it be true only of Gracious operations § 19. 1. That Christ hath the Political dispose of the whole Universe contained in the words Heaven and Earth the Scripture seemeth to assert 2. That he hath the Political disposal of humane nature and of all other creatures that belong to man so far as they belong to him Angels Devils Sun Air Earth c. is past dispute 3. That the real â—hysical effects acts and habits of the Spirit on mens souls are caused by Christs Moral Causation by his Merit and his Political Mission is past dispute 4. That besides all this the Spirit it self by Baptism is in Covenant with all the members of Christ and that as they are such and is in a prior Covenant first Related to Christ himself and so by this Covenant given us in relation as we are united to Christ is past dispute 5. And that Christ himself doth make such Physical changes on our souls by Means and by the foresaid Political Mission of the Spirit by which we are made Receptive of more of the Spirits operations is past dispute 6. But whether moreover any Action of Christs own Humane soul glorified do physically reach our souls or whether the Holy Ghost may in its own essential Virtue which is every where be said to be more in Christ than elsewhere and communicated to us as from the root or the Spirits effects on the soul to come by Reflection from the first effects on Christ as Light and Heat from the Sun by a Speculum or Burning-glass are questions not for me to determine § 20. Christs spiritual Influx on souls is not single but is ever Three in One as the Sun 's aforesaid which are according to
Creature doth preach him to us and all things must be sanctified and used to this holy end § 33. He setteth Death continually before our eyes assuring us of the shortness of our lives and shewing us how we must leave this world that we may read Vanity upon all and not be deceived by it § 34. By all this we see that this Kingdom of Christ is a sapiential frame of Moral Causes designed for the Government of man in right ordering his internal and external acts and glorifying eminently the wisdom of our Ruler § 35. And he that will think rightly of this excellent frame must have all these things in his consideration 1. That Christ himself is not only a Justifier and Actor of us but a Prophet Priest and King and that the Government is laid upon his shoulders Isa 9. 6. 2. That we are not only Patients and pardoned sinners but also Subjects and engaged Covenanters 3. That Christs Church is not like a Statuaries shop but a Kingdom and a School where all must learn and obey 4. That Christ hath not only Motive power but Laws Promises Threatnings c. to work by 5. That his great blessings of Glory are his Rewards and Hell at last after those here are his punishments foretold to work on souls 6. That he hath a day in which as Rector he will judge the world in righteousness according to what we have done in the body 7. That faith is wrought by Preaching and Love and Hope and obedience are the ends and uses of faith 8. That the felicity of individuals and in them of the Heavenly Society in one Glorified body with Christ is the end of all where Gods Remunerating Justice is to be glorified and his governing Wisdom and Love for ever § 36. From all this I conclude That they that slight all this work of God by the contemptuous name of Moral Suasion and take it to be a diminutive term as to the honour of it to call it Moral and by Means and talk of Gods work of Grace on the soul as if there were no more in it very honourable than a physical Motion and God Converted souls but as Boyes whip their Tops or Women turn their Wheels or the Spring moveth the Watch are Cartesian blind Theologues and overlook the very nature of that Theologie which they profess which is the Doctrine of the Kingdom of God over man And while they see little but Matter and Motion they are fitter mechanically to treat of or deal with Stones or Bricks or Timber than men â— being unfit to treat of humane Government much more of Divine SECT IV. How far God useth Means § 1. CHrist who is the chief means is used in all the Conveyances of Grace to any one in the world § 2. God hath a double work in Illuminating and Converting souls One by activity of exteriour appulsive causes The other within us on the Agid. Column Rom. Quodl 1. qu. 2. p. 5. citeth Dioâ—ys de div nom l. 3. as holding that every order of second causes is like a beam of light streaming down from God as so many cords let down to men to draw them up to God And if a man should take hold of one of them and ascend to Heaven he might imagine that Heaven did bow down to him when indeed it moveth not but he would draw himself up to it so when upon Prayer or other second Causes God doth us good he seemeth to incline and bend to us but it is not so but he is unchangeable and it 's we that are drawn and moved to him and by the use of means by us we are conjoyned to Gods purpose that the things may be done for us which he hath decreed Vid. reliq where he confuteth the contrary errours faculties of the soul without those causes I cannot better illustrate it than by the causing of sight hearing c. The Light without us is not only a terminating object as some dream but an Active thing or Action which operateth by appulse upon the eye And the Sun and Aire are the causes of it The eye is not only a passive Receiver as some dream but an Organ where the visive spirits and soul are Active And God worketh internally on this visive faculty by his influx to sustain it in its activity And by a congress of these two fires or Active causes the sensitive soul doth see Now we all know that God giveth the external light only per media by the Sun c. But how he sustaineth and actuateth the Visive faculty is more difficult His own influx or Causation is undoubted And that the same Sun ut causa universalis cherisheth and moveth the visive spirits But whether God move the sensitive faculty or soul it self by any superiour spirit or mediate cause in its motion or action towards and on the exteriour light is past our knowledge Though the order observed in other cases maketh it not improbable Even so in the Illumination of the mind and conversion of the will we are sure that beside the terminative object there is an external motion which by the foresaid means is made at least on the senses and imagination whatever it do further on the Intellect But in the superiour Influx on the soul it self what use God may make of Angels or other superiour spirits or causes we cannot tell We are sure as is said that if there be a second cause yet as to proximity it is never the less neerly from God And souls being Intellectual and for ought we know of the highest nature of Creatures though not the highest Degree neither is improbable that God moveth us by a second cause or that he doth it without § 3. But as Christs fore-described mediate Causality is still supposed so it is certain that God doth not only work as some think concomitantly with the word but by it as his Instrument Though his wayes of co-operation are past the reach of man yet this much is sure 1. That he adapâ—eth the means to do their work both word Minister c. 2. And that his concurse maketh the due Impression on the sense and imagination 3. And though no Philosopher certainly know whether the Images in the phantasie be meerly passive as to the Intellect or what use is made of them and the passions to Intellection and Volition yet such use as is naturally to be made of them for these ends God maketh and manageth them accordingly by skill and power § 4. But here MOTION the effect of Active force and ORDER of motion as the effect of GOVERNMENT must be well distinguished For it is not so much the second Causes of the souls Action as such that we are now enquiring after But of the ORDER and Rectitude of its Actions which is done by Government § 5. That God doth work Grace on man by means ordinarily as ordinarily he causeth natural effects by means and Miracles are rare may be proved by all
the Natural power in it self but by so doing formaliter relativè it maketh it no power ad hoc to the contrary in that instant Of which more anon § 10. Such grace of God as cometh from his Absolute Will or Decree of the due Event is never overcome For Gods decree is not frustrate § 11. Gods gracious operations are never overcome by any contrary Act but what he himself is the Agent Cause of as an Act For in Him we Live and Move and Be. Yet man is the only Cause of the Inordination of that act by which it is set in opposition to Gods other acts For God doth not militate against himself § 12. The case lyeth thus God antecedently to his Laws framed Nature that is the Being and Natural Order of all the World and so he became the Head or Root of Nature the first Cause who by his wise decree was to concurr to the end with that Natural frame and to continue to things their proper forms and motions And man is one of his creatures having a Nature of his own to which God as the God of Name doth Antecedently concurr By this natural concurse of God the fomiâ— cator the murderer the thief c. are naturally able to do those acts But being free agents that can do otherwise God maketh them a Law to restrain and regulate them And when they break this Law they resist that gracious concurse which suitable to the organical cause God conjoyneth with the means But they do this by their Natural power and activity not used as God requireth them but turned against his own Law So that if God would withdraw his sustentation and destroy mâ—ns Nature they could not resist his grace But that he will not do being his antecedent work and so God is resisted by his own-given-power and act disordered and turned against his grace § 13. The Will of God which is thus resisted is only 1. His Preceptive or Legal will de debito 2. And his will of purpose to give man so much help and no more by which he can and ought to believe and Repent is said to be resisted or frustrate so far when by mans fault it doth him not that good which it might have done § 14. Gods Grace and Spirit are said to be resisted when the Word and other Means are * * * That God doth govern inseriora per superiora and work by means not for want of them but from the abundance of his Goodness so as to communicate to his creatures the dignity of causality See Aquin. 1. q. 103. a. 8. q. 104. a. 2. Alexand. 1. p. q. 26. m. 5. a. 2. 3. m. 7. Albert. 1. p. q. 67. m. 4. a. 1. Richard 1. d. 39. a. 2. q. 3. d. 45. a. 2. q. 2. Agid. Rom. 2. d. 1. p. 1. q. 2. a. 6. ibi Gabritl d. 1. q. 2. resisted which call him to his duty For these themselves are gifts and acts of grace § 15. But it is not the barâ— Word or Means alone but the Spirit working in and by those means which is so resisted For though no moâ—tal man can clearly know just how the Spirit concurreth and operateth by the Word and Means yet we may know that God doth limit his own operation to the aptitude of the means ordinarily and that he worketh with and by them not according to his Omnipotency in it self considered but according to the means or organs And as in Nature he operateth nor quantum potest but agreeably to the order and aptitude of Natural Causes so in Grace he operateth non quantum potest but according to the aptitude and order of the sapiential frame of Governing-means of grace § 16. When the preaching of the Word Education Company and other visible Means seem equal God hath innumerable means supernal internal external invisible and unknown to us by which he can make all the difference that he maketh in men So that we cannot prove that ever he worketh on souls without any second cause or means at all though we cannot prove the contrary neither And therefore he that resisteth all means for ought we know in so doing resisteth all Gods gracious operations on his soul § 17. * * * I know not how to find both sense and concord in the words of your Alvarez de Aâ—x l. 7. disp 59. p. 264. Eadâ—m contritio que est ultima dispositio ad gratiam in genere cause materialis antecedit illam In genere tamen causae formalis efficientis est effeclus ejusdem gratiae propterea quamvis non sit meritoria gratiae est tamen meritoria vitae aeternâ— Et p. 265. Contritio qua penitens disponitur ad infusionem gratiae habitualis est meritoria vitae aeternae ut Thom. 1. 2. q. 112. a. 2. ad 1. Ergo est effectus gratiae habitualis Nulla enim operatio hominis est-meritoria vitae aeternae nisâ— procedat à gratiâ— habituali ordine saltem naturae sit ea posterior How can the Act be the ultima dispositio to the infusion of that habit which it floweth from Unless he mean eadem specie and not numerically which yet is false For it is not eadem or else he falsly supposeth that the same Love of God may go before Grace Whereas Dr. Twisse so frequently asketh Whether Gods condional will and so his operation be Volo te velle modo velis or credere modo credas to give us faith if we believe and so maketh non credere or non velle to be the only resistance and the Arminians to be ridiculous in making the effect antecedent to the cause as a condition of the causation and itself This semi-subtilty though it beget voluminous confidence must cry peccavi if a little more subtilty do but detect the defectiveness of it We are not now enquiring of the Rationes fidem habendi but of the Rationes non habendi nor are we enquiring Whether God have made a Covenant or formal Promise of giving faeith upon antecedent conditions But whether he deny or give-not grace for actual faith effectual or sufficient to any but those that resist and wilfully omit the preparatory acts which they were able to perform even preparatory Volitons Or if you will make the question to be de ratisnibus fidem habendi not de causis Actus donandi Whether God do not ordinarily give or produce the act of faith in that soul which doth not wilfully resist and omit such preparatory acts as it could do even Volitions And so I answer 1. It is not I will give thee faith if thou wilt believe or I will make thee willing if thou be willing of the same thing But it is 1. If by resisting common preparing grace thou so harden â—hy heart or increase the privation of receptive aptitude in thy self as that the same degree of grace means help impress will not change thee which otherwise would
have done it and will change another not so self-hardened thy gracelesness and destruction both absolutely and as compared to others that are converted is imputable only to thy self 2. And if thou be unwilling to use the Means as thou art able to hear read or meditate on that which should affect thee and unwilling Privatively to hear and receive the inward motions of my Spirit which should convince and turn thee and wilt not either by previous Cogitation or immediate conatus and suscitation of thy Intellect to Think and of the will to its act actively concurr to receive my gracious motions and influx thy gracelesness absolutely and comparatively is imputable not to me but to thy self 3. Much more if when thou canst do otherwise thou run the contrary way and turn thy thoughts and affections eagerly after vanity and hate and oppose my help and grace because it is against thy lusts 2. Or if you will take it in the form of a half promise or encouragement from God thus 1. If thou wilt not by wilful progress in sin and custom so increse thy Privation and obdurateness as that the same measure of Gracieâ—s Means and Impress will not convert thee as would do one that hath not so abused common grace 2. And if also thou wilt at the present do what thou canst in stirring up thy own will to concurr and thy Intellect to consider and wilt but Consent that my Grace shall help thee and that thou wilt wait for it in the use of means 3. And if thou wilt not hate and resist my motions as enemies to thy lusts and turn wilfully after vanity in such a degree as thou art even Morally able to forbear Thou shalt find that I am gracious and merciful abundant in goodness and truth and forsaking none before they forsake me and have not appointed thee these means in vain To whom thus prepared did I ever deny the grace of faith Name him if thou canst So that Volo si velis hoc is one thing and Volo si velis aliud si ad hoc volendum quantum potes teipsum suscites Gratiam non oppugnes nec contraria prosequaris quando pravas Volitiones frâ—nare possis is another thing § 18. That God giveth his gracious operations sometimes in a Resistible limited degree besides what is said is most evidently proved 1. In that all Divines confess that in making the World he hath not done quantum potest but quantum voluit 2. In that there are innumerable Possibilia quae non sunt aut existentia aut futura God could have made the World sooner or made more Orbs Earths Trees Men Brutes in specie numero and done more acts and made more alterations than he doth 3. There is certainly some Divine operation with and by his instituted means which is limited to their instrumental aptitude § 19. And it is no dishonour to Gods Omnipotency to work thus limitedly and resistibly For 1. Else he should be the Author of his own dishonour who freely diversifieth Instruments Receptivities and effects throughout the World in wonderful variety 2. If the total Non-Volitions Non-operations or forbearing to do what he could as in all the innumerable Possibles aforesaid be no dishonour to him then to will only in tantum and to operate hoc hactenus limitedly and resistibly is no dishonour being more than not to Will and Work at all SECT VIII What that Operation of God on the soul is which is the subject of our many questions as Whether it be equal on all Whether it be resistible Whether it be moral or physical Whether it be sufficient when it is not effectual c. And what the various opinions about it are and how uncertain they are YOU may think this should have come first but for some reasons I have reserved it to this place § 1. I think the Ignorance of this in a great measure is common to all mankind But the Ignorance of mens Ignorance and presumptuous contending about what we understand not pretending even to triumphant scorn of dissenters that we do understand it is the very life of most of our contentions about these points § 2. My own judgement is that our own Intellection and Volition in the body are Acts that take in so much of the sense imagination and corporeal spirits into that of them which we perceive and denominate as that we cannot tell how far the Acts even of our own separated souls will differ from these which we here perceive and from perception call Intellection and Volition And much less do I know the difference between Gods Vital-activity Intellection and Volition and ours Some likeness there is or else ours were not his Image But all Schoolmen and Divines agree that the names are not Univocal and that it is not the same Thing in God as in man which these names signifie And that no man can have a formal conception of them I am satisfied that a glow-worm or the fire in a flint yea or in a stick or clod is incomparably liker the Sun than Man 's poor Life and Intellection and Volition is like to Gods And if so how unfit are we unnecessarily to dispute of these acts of God with curiosity or at all so as implyeth a nearer likeness The Lord knoweth that I would with reverence withdraw from this consuming fire and no further meddle with it than the Glorifying of God and the pacifying of the contentious and the healing of divisions and calling off the presumptuous doth require § 3. * * * The great difficulty is what it is which we must conceive to go between Gods essence and mans act or inclination given Dr. Twiss accuseth the Jesuits for denying Intellection and Volition to be instantaneous Acts sine motu And yet his friend Alvarez holdeth the Divine Act antecedent to be properly motio and would have his predetermination so described quâ praeviâ motionâ— actuali causis secundis praesertâ—m liber is inharente illas applicâ—t â—d operandum c. But it is either God or an effect of God which he calleth motio If an effect it is so called as it is in the receiver And what motio antecedent to mans Act can be imagined in man when motion is an Act though every Act be not motion Therefore they voluminously dispute de non ente or of they know noâ— what If we must have a distinct conception of it I think Viâ— impressâ— fitter By Divine Action or operation must be meant 1. Either something in God or something caused or Created by him 2. If caused or created it must be either something in the second Causes or something in the Recipient soul I think the distribution is sufficient § 4. I. In GOD there is nothing but GOD His Life Knowledge and Will are no accidents but his essence And therefore invariable and no subject for any of these questions To ask whether Gods Essential Knowledge Will and Activity
be equal or unequal physical or moral c. is to dote § 5. But yet this Knowledge and Will of God is transient or terminated Objectively when it is not so Effectively And so God is said to know things differently as they differ and to will things differently as they are different objects But this speaketh truly nothing New or various in God but only a Relative and so denominative connotation of his simple essence from these objects whose diversity giveth divers names to Immutable most simple Unity Of this all Schoolmen for substance are agreed however the Thomists Scotists and Occamists differ about the notions of Ratio ratiocinata formalitas denominatio extrinseca § 6. II. If it be the operation of the second Causes ex parte operantiâ—â—â—n and so of God by them that we dispute of the disputes would have the easier decision But this is denyed by the Dominicans and another Infusing Immediate operation is made the subject of these Controversies § 7. III. It remaineth therefore that it is only the effect as in the soul-receiving which we dispute of And if so this must be remembred that we dream not of any Controversie about Gods Action as ex parte agenâ—is in Him or between him and the soul § 8. In mans soul we know of nothing but 1. The substance in the first notion as answerable to Matter in bodies 2. The form which is a Threefold Virtue or faculty in One viz. The vital Power Intellect and Will which is at once Virtus Vis Inclinatio naturalis ad proprias actiones All these are but Inadequate conceptions of the same simple essence and not compounding parts None of this is the thing in question for the soul is presupposed to be a soul 3. The Accidental and mutable Disposition of the faculties to the Acts. 4. The Impressions of sâ—periour Causes God and means in moving to the Acts. 5. The Acts of the soul themselves 6. The Habits I know of no more § 9. I. Though All Habits are dispositions yet all Dispositions are not Habits And before Habits the soul may be many wayes predisposed to the Act As 1. By former acts of another sort which yet conduce to this 2. By other habits that are preparatory 3. By deliverance from many Internal and External Impediments 4. And lastly By the Divine Impress it self in the instant of Nature though not of time before the Act. For God so disposeth the soul to act § 10. This predisposition is sometime but a Moral Power that is in so low a degree as containeth only the Necessary power to the act with which alone it is sometime done And sometime besides this Moral Power it containeth some further degree of accidental Inclination or propensity to the Act. And these degrees are various in various instances and sâ—bjects § 11. II. When God moveth the soul to believe or repent we must conceive that in the instant antecedent to the Act the soul receiveth some Impress or Impulse from the divine essence by which it is disposed or moved to act * * * Aâ—xilium praevium non appellatur à nobis Forma Voluntatis impressa quoniam hoc nomen significare videtur qualitatem constituentem potentiam in actâ— primo sed proprio vocabulo dicitur motio Actualis qua Deus vere efficienter facit ut liberum arbitrium operetur actum liberum determinatum cum vera expedita facultate qua potest illum non operari si velit Alvarez de Auxil disp 23. p. 108. Mâ—tio is the proper notion he thinks between God and the Act or Habit of man as aforesaid but unaptly I think so conceived by him And though spirits especially God move not by such contact and impress as things corporeal yet in an unconceivable manner some spirit some spiritual Impress Influx or motion must be Received by which faith is caused And this Impress and the Disposition to the Act caused by it perhaps are really the same § 12. III. The Act it self by this and by the soul disposed and excited is next caused not given as pre-existent but given by causal efficacious suscitation of the pre-existent faculty or power § 13. IV. The Habit which is a Promptitude to facile acting is caused by all the forementioned causes conjunct and not by any one alone viz. by God and his Impress on a soul some way pre-disposed and by the soul it self further disposed and excited by that Impress But of Habits more anon And here because almost all our seeming difference dependeth on the question What it is that is between Gods essence and mans act which is the cause of our Act or may be called grace sufficient or effectual more or less c. I shall tell you how Alvarez handleth the question and thereby further shew you that it is a thing unsearchable and past mans knowledge and though I satisfie my self with calling it an Impulse or Impress or a Received energie or force or Influx yet these are but general notions and tell us not as to a distinct formal conception What it is And you shall see that the boldest disputers know no more Alvarez de Aux l. 3. disp 19. p. 77. tells you that there are these several opinions of it What is the previous motion by which God moveth and applyeth second causes to operate I. Some Thomists hold that It is a Quality not permanent but by way of transient disposition with operation Cabrera 3. p. q. 18. ar 4. dub 1. Conc. 4. n. 58. For it must be some Virtus and that must be a Quality Imperfect supernatural acts as attrition fear of hell c. are before habits and have only such transient virtues or qualities c. II. Others hold contrarily that Gods motion is nothing besides his own will or essence and mans act being simultaneous Their reasons I omit * * * So Bradwardine and many others And this would cut short most of our present Controversies if it would hold Dr. Twisse saith Vind. Grat. li. 2. p. 2. Crim. 3. c. 15. §. 9. p. 348. Probabile esse nullam motionem à Deo recipi in Voluntatem sed quia Deus velit Voluntatem creaturae Velle aliquid necesse est ut velit Ratio haec est cujus solutionem mihi expediat Arminianus aliquis Sola Dei Voluntate factum est ut Mundus crearetur Quis enim influxus Dei potest fingi praecedaneus qui occuparetur circa nihilum c. III. Others hold that Gods previous motion is somewhat received in second causes in order of nature before they operate and when they are asked What it is they say It is really the very operation of the second cause e. g. man it self as it proceedeth from God And so that Gods premotion and predetermination of our Will is not really distinct from the actual determination by which the will determineth it self but is the same The same act being of God and man So that they
make this motion to be somewhat received before we act and yet nothing but our act which is absurd IV. Other Thomists hold that It is somewhat really distinct from our operations and that is Quoddam complementum virtutis activae quo actualiter agat And he that knoweth what predicament this complementum belongeth to and what it is let him take this opinion for more than a meer complement And here they tell you that they speak not of Gods simultaneous concurse for that Alvarez confesseth is nothing besides Gods essence and mans act But of his previous motion which he saith is somewhat more So Amesius Antisynod de Grat. c. 2. pag. 255. Satis esset apud omnes pios dicere Dei Velle sine ulla Impressione intercedente certe posse efficere ut Voluntas consentiat ipsius Vocationi I now meddle not with the truth of this and Twisses argument is easily answered But I intreat the Reader to note into what all our controversies are by these excellent men reduced who yet most aggravate them What now is the Gratia efficax ad credendum Nothing besides Gods esse but ipsa fides Is faith effective of it self No. Is Gods essential will effective of it Who ever denyed it What place is there for Controversies of sufficiency and efficacy when it is but Gods essence and the known effect of which they speak and hold not as Alvarez doth any motion or Impress made by God upon mind or will at all Gods will then is effectual quia vult effectum and it is virtually sufficient for whatever he willeth not but could will But then no man can possibly do any more good or less evil than he doth because no more or less is willed of God which volition is the first necessary Cause of all things And is not all their Volumes de Auxiliis Gratiae and the several sorts previous simultaneous operating co-operating c. meerly vain when there is no such thing as any Grace besides Gods meer will and the Act of man And yet Dr. Twisse elsewhere saith that Gods Decrees do nihil ponere in objecto As if they differed in the nature of motion And he saith that this is true both of supernatural acts which are from Infused habits as faith hope Love and of Imperfect supernaturals as fear of hell and attrition by which man is remotely prepared for Justification ◠which proceed not from supernatural habits but from the spirits special impulse not yet inhabiting but moving And Alvarez thus concludeth I. That which God doth in second causes by which these act is Aliquid habens esse quoddam incompletum per modum quò colores sunt in aere virtus artis in instrumento artificis It is Aliquid incompletum transiens cum ipsa operatione Are you ever the wiser for all this II. Hoc ens incompletum praevium actioni causae secundae producitur in illa effective à solo Deo nullo modo dependet efficienter ex influx◠ipsius causae secundae And therefore herein the will is passive though not in its own Act as he falsly affirmeth Luther to assert for what can act and not be active III. When second causes natural or supernatural have by their inherent form sufficient Active virtue per modum actus primi proportioned with the effect then Gods premotion is not a Quality but proprio vocabulo dicitur Motio Virtuosa by which the universal cause maketh the second actually operate according to its proper mode Therefore it is not a Habit or disposition or natural power IV. Yea in Imperfect supernatural acts as fear of hell which go before habits and by preventing grace are elevated to the acts it is not a Quality but Motio Dei virtuosa by which they are done and is of the same sort with that which causeth acts from habits V. This previous Motion is Really distinct from the operation of the second cause and is not our act it self but is immediately from God Which he useth many arguments to prove And can all this give any man a formal conception what it is which he calleth aliquid incompletum and Motio Virtuosa We know not what the Vis projectis impressa is in corporeals And can we tell how spirits and how the God of spirits maketh his Impressions or what the word Impression or Motion here signifieth We know that we know it not if we know what we know and know-not And why is it called Motio Virtuosa Virtus he maketh a quality It is no quality and yet Virtuosa Omnis motio est Actio Is it Actio Increata Then it is God himself which he denyeth and speaketh of somewhat between God and mans Act. Is it Actio creata Then it is a Modus Agentis for so is every Action as such as distinct from its effect in patiente And if so it cannot be modus Dei for then it is Ipse Deus And if it be modus hominis it is either homini◠agentis vel patientis If the first then it is mans Action If the second it is formally no action For modus patientis is passio though many would confound action and passion with saying after their Masters that Actio est in patiente which is equivocation So that the plain truth is that mans understanding can reach no further than to conceive 1. That our souls are the termini of Gods Volition and Active power 2. That though God act not on us by corporeal contact yet we must call our selves Patients and think of the Attingency of his Active essence with its effects by some Analogie of Corporeal attingency contact and impressed moving force But truly to know how God toucheth moveth operateth on any Creature and by what Impressions or what there is indeed between Gods essence and mans Act we know not at all And if Christ had never said Joh. 3. so is every one that is born of the spirit our own experience might have told us that we know it not Boldly then tell our Church-distracting wranglers that contend about the nature sufficiency efficacy resistibility of this Act of Grace that they know not the very subject of their disputes And shall we still fire the Church by striving about words that profit not but subvert the hearers and tend to the increase of ungodliness Yea and shall bold blind zeal use the Reverend names of God and his precious Truth to colour and countenance these pernicious contentions I grant that the nature of Grace and the concord of it with Free-will may be soberly treated of But when men have followed the controversie beyond the ken of humane understanding and there will proceed to build great Fabricks upon unknown suppositions and perversly contend for them against Love and peace they do but serve Satan against God under the colour of his sacred truth and name And I think it not amiss here to tell you what Alvarez saith to this Question de Aux l. 12. disp 118. p.
cessationem aâ— vaâ—ationem ab aâ—â—u boâ— necessitate naturaliter praecedentâ— cor p. 649. Omnia quâ— sunt fiunt aut eveniâ—â—t sunt â—â—â—â— eveniunt â—â— aliquâ— necessitate ipâ—â— naturalâ—tâ—r praecedentâ— This is just Hobbs Soâ— 5. â—â— 654 that No creature hath simple liberty of Contradiction or Contingency but only secundum quid in respect to second causes but only Gods acts of will ad extra are simply free and contingent As if God had given no creature Liberty to forbear sin or do good but doing it or not doing it were from Gods necessitation though not from the creatures The Dominicans the Masters of the Inquisition and Murderers of the Waldenses and Albigenses of old and therefore faulty as well as the Jesuits though there are very Learned men among them both do commonly hold that No Creature natural or free can act unless God by Immediate physical efficient premotion predetermine it to that act both in the act as such which they call the substance of it and all the modes circumstances and order of it 3. Augustine and Jansenius after him with their true followers hold not this necessity of predetermining premotion to all acts natural or sinful but only to spiritual good acts which is not from the Nature but the Corruptâ—â—n of â—â—an and therefore the predetermination is not made say they by Gods Common Natural Motion but by Medicinal Grace 4. Durandus and his followers as Lud. à Dola and Aureolus partly do hold that if God do but uphold â—ll creatures as compaginate in the Universe in the Nature he made them in and so natural Inclination and media and objects all supposed this sustentation and Influx maintaining their Active Natures and means is sufficient to cause an Act without another particular predetermining premotion of God As e. g. in Naturals they think that if a Rock were violently held up in the Air God continuing its Natural Gravity and all other circumstant Natures and Concauses this Rock if loosed can fall down of it self without another predetermining premotion of God And that a new Act of God supposing the said support of Nature is more necessary to the not-falling than to the falling of it As it was to the fires not burning the Three Confessors Dan. 3. And I am unable to see the error of this Opinion And so in Free agents they think that if God continue the Nature of a free-will with all circumstants and necessary natures it can freely determine it self without another act of predetermining premotion And doth so in each act of sin Though as Jansenius saith by accidental corruption for Conversion we need Medicinal Grace 5. The Jesuits and all others explode this Opinion of Durà ndus as singular but give so little and slender reason of their dissent as would draw one the more to suspect their cause Instead of it they scarce know what to assert But Bellarmine and the chiefest of them under a pretended opposition speak I think the same in other words Even an Universal Concurse like that of the Sun which operateth in specification according to the nature of Recipients which specifie the effect Which Universal Influx no doubt Aureolus and Durandus include in Gods sustentation of Nature For to sustain an Active Nature in all its Active disposition by a suitable active Influx is universally to cause its motion The difference they are unable to assign 6. After these come Hobbs Cartesius and Gassendus with a swarm of Epicureans a Sect commonly despised even in Cicero's time and yet called Wits in ours by men that have no more wit than themselves and some of these say that Motion needeth no continued cause at all any more than non-movere But when a thing is in motion it will so continue because it is its state without any other continued cause than the motion it self And so they may as well say and some do that when a thing is in Being it will so continue till it be positively annihilated without any continued causation of its being As if esse existere were nothing more than non esse and agere were no more noble a mode of Entity than non agere and so needed no more that is no Cause For non esse non agere need no Cause When this distraction is worn out and shamed the next Age will reproach us for attempting the confutation of it And yet the Wits of this delirant Age have not the wit to understand a Confutation Some of them say that Spirits cannot move bodies for want of Contact as Gassendus Some say that Matter and Motion are eternal and that of themselves As if there were no God but Matter and Motion Some say that there is a God who gave matter one push at first and so set it in that motion by which one body by a knock will move another to the end And some say There is no other Intellect but the wonders of wisdom and order in the World are done by such fortuitous motion But Hobbes meeteth the Predeterminants and saith that the Will is free in that its Act is Volition but that this Volition is necessitated by superiour or natural Causes as much as any motion in a Clock or Watch and that it is unconceivable that any Act or Mode of Act can be without a necessitating efficient cause But he differs from them in his consequents and in the Notion of a Spirit acknowledging no being but Corporeal § 2. The Predeterminants commonly build not their doctrine on Gods free-will but on the Necessity of the thing As if it were a contradiction which God cannot do for God to make a creature that can Determine it self ad ordinem actionis without his particular predetermining premotion or to make a Stone that can fall from the Air of it self unless he move it downwards besides his sustentation of its natural gravity and all other natures by his Influx or universal Concurse § 3. But till they can prove the Contradiction they must pass for the denyers of Gods Omnipotency which is to deny a God § 4. * * * Let the Reader note 1. That all the rest of their arguments save this one are of no value 2. And that Dr. Twisse affirmeth that God is not alwayes the effector of all Good either of Profit or Pleasure which yet he saith are Good Now if there be no such Entity in Bonum conducibile vel Bonum Jucundum as necessarily to require God to be the Cause of them tell us if you can Why there is so much entity in Malum morale as that man is not able to cause it unless God predetermine his will Yea as to Entity there is no more in Bonum honestum than in the rest fore-named His words are Nos tueri poterimus Malum fieri esse Bonum per se neâ—â—pe in genere Boni conducibilis ad certum aliquem fiâ—â—m sed arguit adversarius Ergo Deus esset non modo
Some of you will grant that as motion causeth motion by contact of bodies so the first effect on the soul can cause the second And others of you will deny it and say that Gods Actions being diversified only by the diversity of effects and objects that which causeth the second effect is to be denominated a second Action and not the same numerically which caused the first no nor specifically if the effects specifically differ And so as scholastick wits here exercise their curiosity without respect to Arminianism or Calvinism you will here fall into notional Controversies in the way § 20. 2. But granting that the first effect is that efficacious Grace which must cause the second how shall we know what the first effect is and what the second Gods Grace like the Sun is still shining though we are not still receiving it When it worketh but the commoner sort of effects these tend to more and more The first Gracious effect may be forty years before Conversion But this is not your meaning But I suppose you will say that it is the first special effect or gratia operata that is proper to the saved which you mean But to pass by that Augustine Prosper Fulgentius much more their predecessors held that sincere faith Love holiness Justification present right to Life if they so dyed are not proper to the saved but that some lose all these If you say but proper to the Justified or Sanctified or Converted or it be the first effect which is proprium Justificandis which you mean Are we agreed what that is § 21. Either the first effect on the soul or the first Gratia operata is the Act of faith it self or somewhat antecedent If the Act as many subtilly maintain then it were a foolish question to ask Whether the Act of faith be Effectual to cause it self and How Therefore it must be somewhat antecedent or we can find no matter for our Controversie de efficacia Gratiae ad credendum § 22. If somewhat antecedent to the Act it is either a Disposition or Infused Habit or an Impression Impulse or Influx which is neither Disposition nor Habit. * * * Dico 1. Non certo constare ex divinis literis esse hujusmodi Habitus supernaturales 2. At baptizatis infunditur Gratia â—o sensu quod efficiuntur Dâ—o grati consortes divinae naturae renati 3. Conceditur Dei adjutorium ut credamus velimuâ— diligamus per inspirationem infusionem spiritus sancti 4. Dei adjutorium desuper infusum est omnino necessarium ut credamus diligamus c. non tantum ut facilius credamus Medina in 12. q. 51. p. 282. See many definitions of a Habit confuted in Medina 1. 2. p. 271. and that which he resteth in is Aristotles Qualitas quâ rectè vel malè afficimur § 23. 1. A proper Habit of faith it is not Though Mr. Pemble singularly seem so to think yet he meaneth but a seminal disposition And it 's commonly held that the Habit is given by sanctification after the Act given in Vocation 2. But if it were otherwise the Habit is not alwayes sufficient to ascertain the Act. For holy men oft sin against a Habit and believers do not alwayes exercise it Habits Incline per modum naturae but do not certainly determine to the act 3. And of a Disposition it must be so said much more § 24. 2. And if it be an Impulse or Influxus Receptus as I think we must affirm this is but a general notion of which our understanding is very crude or small A meer Motus it is not For as was said in the beginning the Divine Influx is threefold viz. From Vital-Activity or Power Wisdom and Love to Life Light and Love in man Now as I said if there be no such Impulse besides the Life Light and Love produced our Controversie is at an end For these are not efficacious or efficient of themselves But if such a different Impulse there be it 's hard to know what it is in man I conceive it best expressed by all these inadequate notions conjunct 1. An inward urgency to this threefold act which is called in the Schools both auxilium concurse and Influx 2. By which Urgency the soul is more Disposed to the Act in hoc ordine than it was before 3. Which Disposition containeth in it a Moral Power to that Act so ordered and somewhat more even some Inclination to perform it If any man can tell me better what that Divine Impulse is which is antecedent to mans Act I am willing to learn § 25. Now if this be the question Whether this Divine Impulse which is the first effect of Gods spirit be of its own nature efficacious to produce According to Jansenius the first Grace is Necessary Delectation or Love in act before that which is free and full And if so then there is no grace causing this grace and so none to be the subject of this question Whether it be more or less sufficient or effectual operating or co-operating grace which maketh one man love God initially rather than another For it is no Grace bâ— Gods essential will this Love be the first Grace and no received Impulse antecedent to it our Faith Love c. as the second effect I answer 1. Sometimes Gods Impulse is so Great as propriâ vi doth change mind and will and overcome resistance and procure our act 2. Sometimes it is so strong as that it prevaileth against the contrary ill-disposition so far as to give man a Moral Power to the Act with some Inclination which yet contrary habits and temptations do overcome and the Act doth not follow which yet was not for want of Power to have done it And this is called sufficient Grace 3. We have great reason to believe that as in some Instances Gods greater Impress is the chief differencing Cause so in other Instances an equal Impulse of God on unequally disposed subjects doth produce the Act of faith c. in one of them which it produceth not in the other through the incapacity of the recipient 4. Therefore there is a double degree of efficacy or Vis One which only so far moveth and helpeth the will as that it can do the act and sometime doth it without more Another which is so strong as that the second effect alwayes followeth it 5. But whenever the Act of faith is produced by force or Impulse more or less God is the first and principal cause of it and man but the second and the praise of it is accordingly due And I think this decision accommodateth both sides of our contenders § 26. The foresaid Impulse or first effect is only the work of God and the means and not ours But the Act of Faith Love c. is Gods work and ours and ours as Free-agents Therefore that Impulse of God which is Aptitudinally efficacious on supposition of mans due reception and self-excitation
of the Holy Ghost which is specially promised in the Gospel to believers For there are 1. Many common works of the Spirit 2. And the special effect of faith it self before it § 2. This gift of the Holy Ghost unto Believers was formerly two fold the Gift of Miracles or wonders and of special Holiness of which the latter continueth to the end of the world § 3. The spirit is Given to Believers in several respects conjunct 1. In that he is Given to Christ their Head with whom by Union they are Relatively one Body 2. In that He is Given to them by the Baptismal Covenant in special Relation to their own persons to be their sanctifier In which respect they are Baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost as being now in Covenant theirs 3. In that he worketh in them the Acts and Habits of Holiness even of Love to God and to his Image and helpeth them in all duties and against all temptations enemies and sins But not that his essence is more in them than elsewhere but his Operations from those Relations § 4. This Gift of the spirit is the great priviledge of believers and of Gospel times in the eminent degree and He is the great Agent Advocate and witness of Christ in us the divine nature and name of God and his mark upon us our witness earnest pledge and first-fruits of life eternal and the great difference between Christs living members and the unregenerate world § 5. So powerful and fixed is this Habitual Holiness or Love of God for that is the summ of it that though it be no substance nor alter not mans species nor operate not by natural necessitating determination yet it strongly and constantly inclineth the soul per modum nature to the act of Love and so emulateth nature that it is called in Scripture the Divine Nature and the new man § 6. The greatest blessing in this world is to have more of this Spirit and the greatest punishment to be for saken by the spirit and deprived of it And believers themselves must fear most lest they should quench and grieve the spirit and be punished with any measure of its desertion And their great work is to cherish it carefully and obey it faithfully and constantly § 7. The word Infusion as to Habits being metaphorical is ambiguous 1. If the question be Whether Habits be so Infused as that they are caused without Means we must deny it ordinarily 2. If it be Whether they are not at all procured by any cogitations desires or preparatory duties of our own to fit us to receive them It is to be denyed as to the ordinary way 3. If the question be Whether the Act of faith do ever go before the Habit as a cause of it It must be affirmed of the ordinary case 4. If it be Whether the Habit ever go before the Act we must say that some Impulse disposing to it doth And God can cause a Habit before the Act But we cannot prove that he ever doth so much less that it is his ordinary way § 8. Whence it is plain that ordinarily All Infused Habits are so far also Acquired as that they follow means and the Act But all Acquired Habits are not such as are called Infused § 9. The difference is in this that Habits are said to be Infused when the Holy Ghost doth excite the soul to the Act and by that Act unto a setled Habit by such a special powerful Impulse as would not follow Gods ordinary operation by meer natural second Causes As the seal set home on the wax by a strong hand maketh a deep impression more than when it 's laid on lightly by a child so are sacred objects and means and motives when set home by the spirit allowing for the differences of the things § 10. Whether in every true Believer a fixed Habit of Love instantaneously follow the first act of true faith though weak or whether in many God only give after the first act so small an increase of the Disposition as is short of the true nature of a habit till increased by frequent acts is a case that I think more difficult than needful to resolve § 11. That which God worketh in Infants is a seminal fixed disposition But I cannot prove that it is a proper Habit. § 12. Whether Adams Natural sanity or sanctity antecedent to his first Act was to be called more properly a Habit or only a seminal disposition I leave to others But if his and Infants be to be called Habits you must say that they are only certain General Habits such as Health in the Body and not those particular Habits which are strictly so called § 13. The nature of a Habit is not well known to mortal men We know that it is a strong and fixed Disposition to prompt and facile action of this or that special sort But what that Disposition is we well know not That is whether it be the robur of the essential virtues or faculties of the soul Intellection Will Activity And if so wherein that second Gradus Virtutis which is not essential differeth from the first that is And whether it be any thing else than a secret constant Act in and by which the soul is excited to more sensible acts it 's hard to know But certain I am that besides those Acts which taking in somewhat of Imagination or sense are ordinarily perceived by us which are our ordinary conversation the soul hath also some deep secret fixed acts which make no use of sense or Imagination or none that is observed and yet are the ruling acts of the man Such commonly is the Intentio finis which operateth constantly without memory or observation in all use of means As a travailer on his journey keepeth on his way while he seemeth wholly taken up with the occurrences company and talk of his way and thinketh not sensibly of his end And yet had he not an unobserved Intention of it he would not go on And night and day the soul hath this secret insensible sort of Action § 14. As when a spark of fire is blown up to a flame and the excited Act doth tend to more and the more it burneth caeteris paribus the more it is strongly inclined to burn And yet no man can say that here is any new Matter that was not before existent nor that the second degree of fire is not of the same nature with the first nor that there is any thing but nature and action which inclineth it to more action And yet how the same essence before not perceived is suddenly blown up by Action to such observable appearance and effects is past the power of man to understand aright So some such thing there is in the present case allowing for the difference of natures and kinds of operation SECT XVII Whether man be meerly Passive as to the first special Grace § 1. Answ 1. THe Nature of mans soul is to
circumstantially but by the Immediate Physical efficient adequate predetermining Premotion of Gods Omnipotency as the first Cause besides his Influx by which he sustaineth their natures and concauses and affordeth them his general Concurse or premotion to the act as an act in genere only And it is Impossible for any Agent so predetermined by physical premotion not to act in all the circumstances that it is so moved to act in II. To say that any creature can act without this physical predetermination to all the circumstances or can forbear to act when so predetermined is by consequence to say that such a creature is God the first cause For it is as impossible as to be God or to make a World III. Yea the creature that will forbear any act which God so predetermineth him to must be stronger than God and overcome him or do contradictions IV. And if God had not decreed so to predetermine by physical efficient premotion he could not have known any future acts No though with Scotus we say that he willed all those Acts antecedently to his prescience it would not serve unless he willed so to predetermine the agent in causing them V. Yet we will say that the Will is free but we mean only that to will and to will freely are words of the same sense For a man is said to will freely in that he willeth and his Willing is not a Nilling VI. Free-will then is nothing but Facultas Voluntatis rationis â—d utrumlibet agendum vel non agendum ad agendum unum vel alterum sed tantum prout à prima causa physice praedeterminatur That is it is such a faculty as God can predetermine to act which way he will by making it will yet its Indifferency is not only objective or passive but also Active because it is an Active Power of the will which God predetermineth God predetermineth the will to determine it self VII We will call this the wills Power but it is but hypothetically a Power viz. It can act if God physically predetermine it else not at all As the Wheels of the Clock can move if the Poise or Spring move them or rather as the hand can move if the Will and the Spirits in the Nerves do move it VIII The will is said to be free partly by reason that its active power is capable of being determined by God and then by it self ad utrumlibet and partly in that it is not lyable to coaction IX The will that is by Omnipotent physical premotion efficiently predetermined by God is not constrained because it willeth not unwillingly that is so far as it is willing it is not unwilling and reluctant X. Yet the will that was one way enclined habituated and acted in the precedent instant is oft physically premoved and predetermined by Omnipotency to the contrary act in the next instant which it could not resist As he that in this instant wilâ—eth Chastiâ—y may in tâ—e next instant be predetermined by unresistible Omnipâ—tency to will fornication or he that Loved God may be predetermined and premoved by God to hate him the next moment But we will not call this irresistible efficiency coaction because it is ad Volendum and so in ipso actâ— there is no reluctancy or resistance XI When God hath given man a Power with liberty to will or nill or not will to will this or that and also giveth him all necessary objects and concauses and also as the first cause of natural and free action giveth him all that Influx which is necessary to an Act as such yet the moral specification of that Act to this proposed object rather than that as to hate God rather than to hate sin or to this Act rather than to that as to hate God rather than to Love him or to speak a lye rather than the truth hath so much Entity in it that it is a blasphemous deifying man to say that man can do it without Gods fore-described unresistible predetermining physical premotion XII God made the Law which forbiddeth sin and God made mans nature Intellectual and free to be ruled by Law and God made and ordereth all the objects temptations and concauses and God by the said efficient physical premotion causeth irresistibly every act of sin in all its circumstances As when David was deliberating Shall I do this Adultery and Murder or not God first by omnipotent motion determined his will to it or else he could not possibly have done it And sin in its formale is nothing but the Relation of Disconformity to Gods Law which can have no cause but that which causeth the subjectum fundamentum terminum nor can it possibly be but it must exist per nudam resultantiam hisce positis And yet though God make the man the Law the act the object and all that is in the world from whence sin resulteth as a meer relation we are resolved to say that God is not the Author or Cause of sin XIII Yea though the Habits of sin are certain Entities and therefore God must needs be their first cause in their full nature according to our principles who account it proper to God to be the first and principal cause of any such entity yet we are resolved to say that God is not the Cause or Author at least of sin XIV Yet we will say that he is an enemy to Gods Providence that holdeth that man can possibly do any wickedness unless God thus predetermine both Will Tongue Hand and every active part to every act which he hath forbidden with all its circumstances XV. Sin is caused by God as to the circumstantiated Act which is the materiale but not as to the formale And yet we must confess that the Relation is caused by causing the subject foundation and term all which God principally doth and can be caused no otherwise XVI But the formale of sin is but a defect or privation which is nothing Therefore man and not God is the cause of it For God cannot be a deficient cause nor have any privation And yet we cannot deny but that 1. There is as much positivity of Relation in disobedience as in obedience in curvity as in rectitude in disconformity as in conformity 2. Nor that God can be a Cause of Privations such as death is though not a subject of them even such a cause as they can have 3. Nor that some of ours even Alvarez say that sins of commission and habits are positive in their formale 4. And sin is such a Nothing as is mans misery and he is damned for and by And if it be such a Nothing as can have no cause man can no more be the cause of it than God 5. And that the Reason of non existences negations or privations is as notoriously resolved into the will or non-agency of the first necessary cause of the contrary as existences and positives are resolved into his will and agency And if a man cannot
I mean not only Whether some other acts as Intellectual perception and belief be not in order of nature before it and in time with it and real parts of the same new creature but also Whether aâ— Alvarez and others say there be not such a divine motion or Impulse on the soul tending to this love and antecedent to love it self in nature love being an effect of Gods will and mâ—â—s which Jâ—â—sâ—nius denyeth But 4. If it be not so but really love be the first effect of God on the soul then the controversies are all at an end about the difference of sufficiâ—â—t and effectual equal and unequal grace For then it would be as Jaâ—senius saith and there is no grace but the effect it self and so there would be no question but Whether all men love God and all alike But I yet believe that there is soe preparatory grace of Christ which tendeth to the love of God XVI I believe that the will is the prime seat of Morality and that love or complacency is as the spirit of all saving special grace But yet it is ill said that Christs grace is necessary only to love or delight For the soul of man hath three faculties which must be conjunctly sanctified viz. Vital active power Intellect and Will and sin is in all And the Spirit reneweth them by a threefold effect Vivification Illumination and Conversion or love And hatred of sin and fear of sinning and of God are graces of Christ also as are obedience patience c. though below love 2. There is an Analogical good that is done by self-love and fear which hath a tendency to mans recovery though not such good as is true holiness and hath a promise of salvation XVII I. Here we come to a difficult case 1. Whether indeed any ungodly man or Infidel do love God sincerely amore amicitiae propter se The doubt is because to love him less than sinful pleasures and the creature seemeth to be a loving him as less amiable or good And to love him as such is not to love him as God nor indeed to love God but an Idol of the imagination I think we must say 1. That no man loveth God adequately for no man hath an adequate conception of him 2. But yet that there are some essentials of such true love as is necessary and suitable to our dark and weak condition which all must have that will be saved either distinctly or confusedly As to know and love him as the Infinite Spirit the first cause and last end of all most powerful wise and good our Owner our Ruler and our Benefactor and chief good Father Word and Spirit the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier the Author of Nature Grace Glory 3. That no wicked or unholy person truly loveth God thus viz. As his own Governour to make him holy and save him from the Flesh and World and as the Author of those holy Laws by which he governeth and a righteous Judge according to those Laws 4. Therefore Jansenius's little sincere Love in sensual men is but a love of aliquid Dei somewhat of God and not properly of God as God speaking of God as the object of love it self 5. Yet the same person may have all the â—orâ—said Notions of a Deity and may notionally call them all good and laudable but his Practical Judgement is not such of God as his holy Governour Judge and End as to bring him truly as such to love him 6. Yet this may be called a Love of God analogically as he is said to love the King who loveth him as great and good to the Common-wealth though not as a governing restrainer of his lusts By this I would have that explained which I have said of this subject in my Saints Rest II. But here I am at â— further loss Did he mean that this love called sincere is in none but those that are saved oâ— not As I said before If he did then a common Drunkard Adulterer c. may have this love and be saved But I suppose he meant Negatively And if so methinks hence all his opposition to sufficient Grace turneth back upon himself And to him it may better be said Why do you feign Christ and the Holy Ghost to give men such a Grace such a Love to God as no man ever was or will be saved by without more Is it any more dishonour to Christ to give men some such Power to do some more good â—han actually they do as Adâ—m had to have continued innocent than effectually to give so many persons sincere love which shall never save theâ— Whether these be they that he will adjudge to Purgatory I know â—â— If so he will stretch the rank of Venial sins to those that other men call Mortal III. But yet my greatest difficulty remaineth I am in doubt Whether he that denyeth common sufficient grace and extendeth the grace of Christ seemingly but to few do not really either make it the same thing with Nature or extend it to all For I suspect that all or almost all men on earth till they have sinned themselves into diabolical desperate malignity have this which he calleth Amor amicitiae and sincere imperfect love to God and Justice For Intellectus est Entis veri intellectus Voluntas est Boni Good apprehended such is the Wills necessary natural object And a simple complacency in apprehended good is the wills first necessary act Nature telleth man that there is created goodness and that the Creator who giveth it must needs have more than all his creatures And nature tells men that the World or millions are better than one person and their good to be preferred And how can it be then that he that taketh the World to be so much better than himself and God to be better that is more amiable than all the World should not have the least simple complacency in thinking of him All men take Wisdom and Goodness and Beneficence for amiable And they that believe that God hath most of these must needs have some Love to him not only as good to them but as most excellent in himself Insomuch that as Adrian the sixth before cited saith in some sort a bad man may love God better than himself and he is scarce worthy the name of a man that would not rather be annihilated or wish that he had never been born than that there were no World or no God if per impossibile he supposed he could live without them And if you tell every man that he hath that sincere love to God which is Gratia Christi who hath the least love to God and Justice propter se though he have more love to his fleshly interest and sinful pleasures I doubt you will not much differ from Pelagius and will have no way left but to say that it is not of Grace by Christ that Nature is reprieved and supported Or at least that this is of a common
sort of grace We may presume of many things as received from our Teachers but it is hard to prove that Adam the next moment after his sin was totally deprived of all degrees of love to God and goodness and so was privatively as bad as Devils or that all mankind are naturally so Though I believe that it was of grace even Gods first pardoning act as our Redeemer not so totally to execute the Law nor take away his grace and leave man to the utmost penalty of his sin but to keep nature from being as bad as else it would have been But sure Man is Man still and not a Devil And I speak with few or none that seem not to have some liking of God and goodness or Justice as such though they love not God or goodness as contrary to their fleshly lusts nor love God as their Sanctifier and Ultimate End And thus the Carnal Mind is Enmity to God being not subject to his Law though this be consistent with loving him secundum quid IV. I believe him that there is a faith such as the Devils which may be without Justification both in habit and act But that the same Faith which after justifieth can be many years Habitually before Justification that is Sanctification as he meaneth it I believe not Seeing God hath promised that all that believe thus shall be justified and have his Spirit V. Jansenius seems to me to set too light by Habitual Grace as if it were some common thing in comparison of the Act Whereas I take a Habit of love to God to differ from an act either as a Spring or Rivolet from a drop or as Honesty from an honest act or Learning from a learned exercise or as a fixed friendly Inclination which is like to Nature differeth from a friendly action and to be more excellent than a particular act XVIII His judgement of the Matter of the Reward that it is but God himself seen and perfectly loved for himself is of great use But yet it is both lawful and ex individuationis principiis ex natura humana necessary that we take and desire this as our own felicity and so under God intend our selves And quoad rationem praemii it is the Reward of a Rewardable state or work and therefore of the free act of a creature not meerly necessitated It may be a gift without Respect to our Liberty and Obedience but not a reward But it is both a gift and a Reward XIX That Fear and its effects are good and yet not of Christs grace that they are of Gods Spirit but not the Spirit given by Christ but the grace of some other Providence All this I take for unsound and injurious to Christ and grace Where doth the Scripture tell us since the fall of any grace given to the World but by the Redeemer who is Head over all things to his Church If you say that God can give men the grace to fear him and depart from evil without a Saviour or Mediator how can you prove that he may not do so by the rest Either he giveth this grace as Rector according to his Laws or not If not then on the same reason you may feign that most men are not his subject nor under any Law of God and so sin not nor are punishable If yea then it is according to the Law of Innocency or of Grace For if Moses Law as Jewish be called a third it is nothing to our case If it be by a Law of grace it is Christs Law either of the first Edition called the Promise or of the second called the Gospel The Spirit and grace in various measures given by both are of Christ It 's a dangerous assertion that there is any yea so much grace which is not Christs It prejudiceth me against Jansenius's Opinion that it should cast him on such absurdities as to deny so much of the grace of Christ while he pretendeth to honour it and to set up such a feigned way and sort of grace without a Saviour and yet speak so hardly of the Pelagians as he doth for wronging grace 2. As Fear is one of mans natural passions though but subservient to love so the sanctifying of it is one part of the Work of Christs Spirit 3. I am sure Christ himself commandeth Fear Luke 12. 4 5. Heb. 4. 1. 12. 28 29. passim And is it our own Legal Righteousness to obey the commands of Christ Indeed if Fear were all or had no conjunct hope and love it would be Legal and shew the Spirit of bondage from which Christ delivereth us by the Spirit of Power and Love and a sound mind which are the fruits of the Spirit of Adoption For Moses Law separated by the Infidel Jews from the Law of Grace or Promise of a Justifying Mediator could have no better effects than Fear But Abraham that believed and foresaw Christs day rejoyced in that Faith and yet had a Law of obedience which had its penalty and so hath the Law of Grace which we obey XX. Of Free-will I have said enough before Natural Liberty as distinct from the Moral freedom from sin and ill disposition is sure more than meer Voluntariness And I think if God gave Satan or man power to take away from a Saint all his Habitual and Actual love of God and goodness whilest antecedently the person did hate such a change and pray against it by making him willing of evil and making a Devil of him remedilesly he would take away or cross the Natural as well as the Moral Liberty of his will though it were Willingness that were caused If any think otherwise remember that it is but de nomine for de re we are agreed that such a change would be our great misery XXI I take it to be the commendation of Jansenius that he renounceth the Dominicans Physical Efficient Predetermining Premotion as naturally necessary to all actions natural and free But his habitation converse and worldly interest tempted him factiously to calumniate Calvin lest he himself should become odious with his own party and so miss of his expected success which hath prevailed also with Gibieuf Arnoldus and most other Papists to do the like when they differ from their Brethren XXII He well saith that Permission of the first sin is no effect of Reprobation But his ordination of Gods acts into this Before and that After and so his differencing the Election of Angels and men I fear hath somewhat in it presumptuous and unproved In conclusion I much mislike in Jansenius 1. His contempt of the Sacred Scriptures as being not properly Christs Laws but some odd occasional Writings his Laws being only in the heart and tradition 2. His slighting of Habitual Grace comparatively which yet is indeed Christs Law and Gods Image in the heart 3. His â—eigning a new or odd sort of grace fear which is none of the grace of Christ no not preparatory to his higher
Enemies and Unbelievers Christ died not for them as such but as in their antecedent recoverable pardonable sin and misery THE Fifth Days Conference WITH AN ARMINIAN Of mans natural sinfulness and impotency to good and of FREE-WILL A. You have hitherto perswaded us that all the Controversies of the Decrees and Redemption between the Synodists and Remonstrants being resolved into those of the Execution we should there expect the solution of all To this therefore we are next to come And first about mans Sinfulness Impotency and Free-will And there all these things following offend me The first Crimination That some of them deny all true Free-will and others deny all Free-will to good and others to all spiritual good by which man is made uncapable of being a moral Agent and so uncapable of moral Good or Evil any more than a Tree or Beast seeing Free-will is the seat of moral Virtues and Vices which necessitated Natures are uncapable of B. I hope you are willing to understand your self and to be understood Tell me then what mean you by Free-will A. I know that the true nature of Liberty is much controverted but I mean that Qua positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis possumus agere vel non agere * Alvarez hath these conclusions hereof de Aux l. 12. d 115. p. 469. 1. Ad liberum arbitrium necessario requiritur quod positis omnibus antecedenter secundum ordinom rationis vel temporis ad actum praerequisitis possit operari vel non operari Ita viz. ut cum iisdem praerequisitis stet simul in libero arbitrio facultas potentia qua possit operari si velit vel non operari si velit But the question is de posse velle 2. Non est de ratione aut definitione liberi arbitrii quod positis omnibus secundum ordinem causalitatis antecedenter praerequisitis ad operandum talem actum possit eundem actum non operari in sensâ— composito si compositio fiat inter hujusmodi requisita carentiam talis actus seu actum contrarium 3. Legitima liberi arbitrii definitio ita se habet lib. arb est facultas voluntatis rationis ad utrum libet agendum vel non agendum ad agendum unum vel alterum But I suppose his predetermination inconsistent with his potentia ad contrarium in the first proposition Because it is antecedent to the wills self-determination and the Will is not able to determine it self against the predetermining causality of God nor as he holdeth without it neither and so hath no true power but on supposition of the premotion of God predetermining B. 1. Do you mean by agendum imperate Acts only or also Volitions A. Both All moral Acts of Body and Soul B. That which is requisite to extrinsick moral Acts is that they be commanded by a determined will You mean then that it is Liberty for the Tongue or Hand to be able to Act when the Will forbiddeth it and not to Act when the Will commandeth it A. I mean it only of imperate Acts as voluntary for it is the Will and not the executive power that is the seat of Liberty B. 2. By Agere what Action of the Will do you mean you know that mans Soul is an active nature and can no more cease all action than cease to be You may as well say that fire with fuel can forbear to burn as a Soul to be active A. I mean only moral Acts of Virtue and Vice B. All that a man doth by Reason is Actus humanus a moral Act either good or bad And a man at the use of Reason liveth among thousands of intelligible Objects necessarily presented to his Intellect by sense and among thousands of Objects good for us or bad for us desireable or hateful And is it possible for such a sensitive intelligent Creature to live continually with intelligible amiable or odible Objects and to suspend all rational apprehensions Volitions and Nolitions of them A. I mean it not of all moral Action in general but of this or that singular Act â—ic nunâ— B. I will not entangle you with an enquiry whether he that câ—n do every particular good act cannot do all universally and whether he that can forbear every singular evil or good act cannot forbear all when all is nothing but all singulars But 3. What mean you by requisitis All things of meer necessity to the Act sine quibus non Or also all things that can possibly be put to ascertain the Act A. Of the first I am most fully resolved Of the second there is much doubtfulness If I include it I know you will ask me whether it be impossible for God so to determine the Will as to make the contrary act impossible without taking away its Liberty And whether Christ could commit every sin or else was not free And whether Heaven take away all Liberty if it make sin impossible But briefly I answer you that the Libertas Viatoris differeth from that in Heaven and that Ours still supposeth a possibility of the Contrary but Theirs doth not B. But if it be their Liberty to be past a posse peccare why should it not be ours to come as near it as may be especially when we have the fore-tasts and first-fuits of Heaven on Earth and Grace is the seed of Glory A. It is our Liberty to be as far from sin as may be But this is another kind of Liberty and not to be confounded with that which is a meer power of doing or not doing B. 4. But that a man can act positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis is no wonder so can a Stone or Bruit but how say you potest non agere when non-agere is not an effect or exercise of Power There needs no Power ad non agendum A. Yes when Nature or Vice and Temptation draw us to a forbidden Act it is a work of Power to resist them and forbear it B. But sure Nature Vice or Temptation do not so draw us to love God perfectly to hate all Sin perfectly to be heavenly-minded to consent to suffer Death for Christ c. as that we should need any power to resist such drawings or forbear such acts How then do you make this a part of your power A. But when the Spirit of God draweth us to love him it is an act of natural abused power to resist him And also in this and the former case I say that by possumus here we do not mean a moral or physical power always but in this instance only a logical power And our meaning only is that we are not necessitated to Act or not Act to love God or to hate him or not to love him As Privations are reduced to Entities in Descriptions so are Impotencies to Powers B. The word Posse then in your definition is equivocal and signifieth both Power and No Power What a definition is that But
I pray you tell me A. It is an idle question For that is but necessitas existentiae He that is ungodly is necessarily ungodly while he is so B. II. VVe hold moreover that the same man will certainly all that time omit the prevalent love of God and all acts proper to the godly A. That 's but the same else he were a godly man B. III. VVe hold also that yet this man may forbear many acts of sin and do many things commanded and so is not under a vicious necessity of committing all Sin or omitting all Duty IV. VVe hold also that his vicious necessity of disposition is curable and not remediless and desperate V. VVe hold also that it is not curable without Gods saving sanctifying Grace proportioned to his disease or pravity VI. VVe hold also that God hath appointed every man certain Duties and Means to be used in order to his cure VII VVe hold that he giveth much outward help and some inward commoner Grace antecedent usually to sanctifying Grace by which much of these Duties and Means may be used VIII And we hold that God appointeth no means in vain nor commandeth any unprofitable Duty or which man hath not sufficient encouragement to use with hope of success and is not unexcuseable if he neglect Do you differ from us in any of this Or is there any thing more that we must have to be capable of your love and concord A. Though I granted you a necessitas existentiae that a wicked mans life while such be wicked in the main for that is but to say that a wicked man is a wicked man yet I grant you not a necessitas effecti as if his pravity made his wicked life unavoidable or necessary as a necessitating cause B. His wicked life is considerable 1. As to his inward actings or to his outward 2. As to the immediate or next Acts and as to the remote 3. And the necessity is voluntary or involuntary And so I say 1. He is under no natural or involuntary necessity but under a * Etsi Amor ille non excedat vires physicaâ— voluntatis humanae per se spectatae eas tamen superat si spectentur difficultates quae occurant Unde fit ut sine speciali auxilio non possit ad actum reduci naturalis inclinatio Dâ—um super omnia diligendi Non potest homo credere mysteria â—fidei â—t oportet ad salutem sine gratiae auxilio etiam quum sufficienter sunt proposita probatum a Deo esse revelatum Non potest homo servare quoad substantiam ullum praeceptum affirmativum supernaturale de interno actu sine auxilio gratiae etiam de singulis Pet. a S. Joseph Thes general de aux p. 81. 82 83. vicious inclination or habit which will produce some effects certainly and others uncertainly 2. The certain effects of the habitual privation of the love of God and enmity to him and to holiness is that his Soul will not in statu praesenti immediately nor till it be cured or over-swayed by a superior cause â— love God above all nor love holiness nor live a holy life Because the Soul will not go contrary to its habitual inclination without somewhat to over-power that habit An effect will not be contrary to the fixed inclination of its cause 3. And another certain effect of a Soul predominantly habituated to sensâ—ality is that it will live a sensual life constantly as to the bent of inward Volitions and ordinarily as occasion serveth in outward actions 4. But being not so necessitated to every Sin nor against every Duty and means of Cure this Soul is not under a necessity of so continuing uncured Now if it be the present voluntary ascertaining Disposition which you deny then 1. You must hold that an Enemy of God can immediately love him above all and live a holy life 2. And that there is some cause in a man most habitually sensual by which he can forbear both the inward desires and outward acts of sensuality which are contradictions to him that knoweth what a prevalent fixed habit is 3. And that all wicked Enemies of God have in them a cause that can immediately cure all their own enmity and pravity without Gods Spirit of Grace or else have his Spirit and Grace immediately at an instant at command And if all a mans Original Sin and contracted habits be so easily laid by at any minute the cure seemeth much easier than the depravation which perhaps hath been a long time growing to that strength which is contrary to all the Worlds experience As it is easier to kindle a fire in the City than to quench it and to catch the Plague or any Disease than to cure it or to wound the Body than to heal it or to pull down a House than to build it to drown a Ship than to make it c. So all Ministers Tutors Parents Christians yea persons find how wofully hard it proveth to cure one Sin To cure the Ignorant the Unbelieving the Hard-hearted the Proud the Lustful the Covetous the Passionate much more the malignant Enemies of God and holiness What need of the sanctification of the Holy Ghost or the medicinal Grace of Christ if the very depraved Will can do all in a moment of it self and depose its enmity A. You speak to me as if I were a Pelagian I am not for any of this But will rather yield to what you say B. II. And as for your second Charge * Vid. quae haâ—â—t Ruiz de praedefin tr 2. d. 8. per tot de necessitate vaga consistentâ— cum libertate secundum quid Et a. 9. p. 137. That all good actions are fore decreed of God proved and multitudes cited that defend it that they assert unresistible necessitating Grace I pray you leave it to the Fourth Article which is its proper place to avoid repetition But here let me remember you by the way 1. That not to love God not to believe not to repent not to live holily are no Acts and therefore no Effects of power but a privation 2. That therefore Gods causing a man to love him to Believe to Repent to be Holy is not to deprive him of any power but to give him act and power 3. Therefore it is not a depriving him of any true Liberty For true Liberty is the Liberty of some faculty or power 4. But if you will call a voluntary Impotency and Viciousness by the name of a free-power then God taketh away such Power by giving us Power and such Liberty by making us free But proceed to the next Crimination The second Crimination A. * The Arminians say that God giveth a supernatural power even to the Will it self and that by immediate operation Synod art 3. 4. p. 15 c. And they add Mente illuminata voluntati concessa supernaturali potentia partim per illuminationem partim per virium immediatam insusionem
without using the memory and imagination to the Act and this deep insensible Act is such as that a man may doubt whether it be not the very thing which we call a habit I say now all these ten things being presupposed which yet are none of them commonly taken to be the habit of Grace How hard is it to us to know what a habit is indeed beyond all these and what it is that it addeth to these We are sure that it is a Disposition Propensity and Aptitude to holy Action in Specie But what that Disposition and Propensity is besides all this fore-named it is not easie to understand And yet undoubtedly it is the Operation of the Holy Ghost XVIII How hard then must it be to know how much Power or what kind of Power and in what sense so called it is that this superadded habit containeth beside all the ten fore-mentioned excitations and propensities And whether it be properly called Power and how it differeth from the potentiae naturales XIX But yet our great Disputes being more about the first act of Faith which antecedeth the habit than about any of the acts that follow the habit the case will be yet harder what that Power is which the Holy Ghost giveth before the habit of Faith as to the performance of that particular act That it suscitateth the natural â—aculty to act is certain Therefore in order of nature it must be disposed or inclined to that act before it act That the Soul receiveth the Divine influx is certain But no mortal man knoweth what that is We commonly conclude that ex parte Dei it is nothing but God himself By God himself is meant his Act By his Act is meant his Essence as in Act But how his Essence is always immutably in equal Act and yet produceth a world in time which it produced not from eternity and how the equal Act or Agency of the Essence is natural necessary and eternal and the Effect free How the Volition is necessary in se and yet free in every termination and effect ad extra How a natural-equal-eternal Agency can produce such wonderful diversity of Effects And how Souls are said to receive Gods Influx if it be nothing but his Agent Essence All these are past the reach of Mortals XX. And it addeth to these difficulties that we are uncertain what use it is that God maketh of Angels in operating on the Soul They are ministring Spirits for the good of them that are Heirs of Salvation about the matters of their Salvation It is absurd to think that Devils whose very powerful Operations on our imagination we surely feel have more power to put evil thoughts into us and stir up evil passions in us than Angels good ones And seeing a Spirit is more active than a Body they that take the Sun to be a Body and perceive that its Beams and Virtue of Light and Heat and Motion is extended to this Earth and incomparably further in a minuite should not take an Angel to be like a stone or staff that moveth no where but where it corporally toucheth and is no where but where it moveth XXI And all Motion and Action hath so many impediments in the world and all Active Natures as fire have so strong a natural inclination to act when they are not hindred by a greater Power that we little know how much of the action of the Soul is promoted by removing impediments internal and external As they that dam up the water all ways save one do force it to rise if it be a stream till it flow that one way Embittering all other things to a Soul doth much to turn its thoughts towards God and dispair of any delight or felicity on Earth maketh Heaven regarded XXII Seeing all naturally-necessary Concauses Objects Media are supposed to the Ratio formalis of Power which is Relative ad possibile he that giveth or taketh away any one of those necessaries doth give or take away Power though he never change the Soul or faculty at all And this is called A moral collation or causation of Power not a moral Power As when a man bringeth a Light into a dark Room he enableth us to see or if he bring in a Book he enableth me to read that which else I could not have read If he open the Windows or if he cure me of blindness by cutting a Suffusion c. So he that preacheth the Gospel to them that had not heard it and God when he gave Christ and the Gospel to be an Object of Faith did make the natural faculty to be more in sensu naturali potentiam ad hoc to which before it was no power but hypothetically only XXIII The Will is not a Power of choosing or willing an unknown good Therefore it may be truly said to be naturally unable to will that which the Intellect perceiveth not to be good And he that giveth knowledge to such a Mind doth truly give more power to the Will as the loss of knowledge is its loss of power Though the Will it self should receive no habitual alteration by it XXIV We must not conceive of the suscitation of an active nature as we do of the motion of dead matter which is meerly passive But as of that which is passive indeed from God and superior Causes but active in it self and on inferiors And I think like the Sun beams passive from no lower nature save by stop or resistance of its own activity XXV As the Scotists distinguish Passive Receptive Power into natural which is naturally disposed to the form received and violent which is averse or opposite to the form or neutral which is indifferent and affirm the Soul to have the first sort of passive power natural to the love of God and supernatural felicity so the distinction is sound and their assertion is true as to the nature of the Soul in it self considered for it was made to love God But accidentally by reason of adventitious pravity it is but potentia passiva violenta for the the carnal mind is enmity to God and neither is nor can be subject to his Law So that it is both natural and violent in several respects XXVI As for the great question what is a moral Power I answer 1. Power may be called Moral ab objecto because it is ad mores and so our natural power is moral and actus humanus and actus moralis are oft put for Synonima's 2. Power may be called moral from the way of effecting it And so our natural Powers also are moral not in the Essence of the Soul but in the Relative form of the power in specie vel individuo ad hoc objectum For he that causeth or revealeth the Object doth by moral causation give us a natural power ad hoc 3. Power is called moral formally In that of it self it is a moral Virtue or Vice Good or Evil which yet could not be true if it were
and believe or not is never the more ascertained for Grace if it give men but a power For you leave it still to Free-will to use that power or not use it I speak but of some of you 2. And hereby you contrive Grace into this conception that it is but some common thing like nature and as a man that hath power to sit or stand or go may use that power as he will himself so all men where the Gospel cometh have a power to obey it which they may use as they will But to the Will it self Grace giveth but this power And if that were true that a habit of the Will were but a power to will fair fall Pelagius A. It 's well you charge us not all with that Opinion But I confess I am not yet satisfied that it is false and that the Will hath any thing but power and act But power facilitateth the act B. You may say it facilitateth because â—it maketh it possible which is easier than that which is impossible Is that facility But mark 1. If that Opinion be true then 1. Gods inward workings are not suitable to his outward means For his means are Perswasions and Exhortations and Mercies and Corrections which are not only to make men able but willing And if they make them willing they do in primo instanti dispose them to be willing and then procure actual willingness and then fix the Will in an habitual propensity 2. If that Doctrine be true then a habit hath no moral good or evil in it it is no Virtue or Vice And then there is no Virtue or Vice that is no such thing as moral Habits but only Acts. For no man should call meer power or impotency which is neither habitual dispositive or actual willingness or unwillingness by the name of Virtue or Vice It is not goodness meerly to be able to do good nor evil to be able to do evil unless as eating walking may be good or bad materially by participation so far as voluntary 3. If that Doctrine be true the Will as a Will should be an unsanctified or unrenewed faculty further than it is found in action For its disposition is its holiness and rectitude 4. And a man should have no Grace in his sleep or when he is minding natural things alone unless you will say as I hinted before that sleeping and waking he hath still a Latent insensible Volition in act which is it that we call a habit But if you acknowledge such a habit even a fixed latent deep constant act inclining to other holy acts the strife then is but about a name 5. It is certain that the Soul hath in it besides power and observed acts a natural inseparable inclination The form of the Soul is not only potentia but potentia seu vis vel virtus inclinata Man is not only able to love good as good and felicity as such and sensible Pleasure as such but he is inclined to it And if there be such a thing as natural inclination or propensity besides power and act then 1. It is possible and probable there may be a gracious inclination 2. Yea and if the whole Soul be sanctified must not its inclination be sanctified 6. Why else are we said to be New Creatures and have soft and tender hearts and to be made partakers of the Divine Nature Nature in active things is a principle inclined to action and not only able for it And surely a Divine Nature can signifie no less than an inclination to holiness and the love of God 7. Whence can you imagine that a wicked man should rise every morning so ready to go on in wickedness again that sleep doth not end his sin yea that he is so obstinate in such acts if besides the act he hath nothing but a power to do evil If you say that it is also a disability to do better or forbear 1. You will extenuate his sin by saying that he can do no better 2. Experience telleth you that his sin is sensuality And Appetite inordinate which ruleth him is more than Power Impotency or Act It is also an inclination to that Act. 8. No doubt but each faculty hath Grace suited to its nature and use And therefore as the potentia vitalis activa executiva hath its power and vivacity so the Intellect hath Illumination and the Will holy Love in disposition and in act 9. Lastly The Scripture calleth that which is given us by the name of the Spirit of God and I would the Church would hold to that name and say Men have or have not the Spirit of holiness But the word Spirit cannot be judged to signifie nothing but power and act Yea it is expresly named in reference to our three sanctified faculties the Spirit of Power and of Love and of a sound Mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. And the Spirit of Love or Adoption Gal. 4. 6. Rom. 18. 16 26. is not only a power to love A Child hath more than a power to love a Father It is a filial loving nature which is called our regenerate state And if it were only the Act also why is it called a Spirit and Nature A. To confess the truth you have said much to prove that we have ill managed this Controversie about Power and Impotency to repent and believe And for my part I mean hereafter to use most the common and Scripture phrase and say as to the efficient that men have or have not the Spirit and as to the effect that Power Disposition or Inclination Act or Habit are things to us observable in the Soul and that cannot and will not must not be confounded And if it be moral or logical Power that I speak of I will mention it properly as it is in the effect or event called Possible or Impossible rather than as it connoteth the faculty called Potent or Impotent thereto lest I deceive men And I will let them perceive an impossibility of consequence from an impotency of sufficiency For I know that when it 's true that logically in ordine dicendi it cannot be that is be true that God fore-seeth or decreeth that Peter will not sin and yet that he will sin yet it is not true that Peter had not power to sin But I proceed The third Crimination A. They make man so corrupted and that by Adam's sin without his own consent as that there is no good in him But he is dead in sin And so all men should be utterly and equally wicked B. * Melanct Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 7. Etsi peccatum Originis vitiat naturam non prorsus aufert eam nec delet nec mutat eam in aliam speciem Et sp sanctus non abolet sed adolet naturam non destruit sed sanat Et Ambros de Voc. Gent. l. 1. c. 3. Nec quia spiritu Dei agitur ideo putet se libero arb carere quiae nec tunc perdidit quando
commonest observation 3. All other Habits follow the Acts and therefore we have little reason to say it is otherwise here C. Doth the Soul believe before it is inclined or disposed to it B. Inclination is a hard word and belongeth both to Natural Inclination such as we have to Felicity and to Habits and to meer Dispositions And a pre-disposition we grant As when you spur your Horse you make him first the patient of your act and by suscitating his natural faculty you dispose him to a speedy motion though the similitude doth not quadrare per omnia because Gods influx is on the whole Soul it self But this Disposition to the present act is far less than a proper Habit or it 's another thing C. When I spur my Horse or whip my Dog I do but stir up a former faculty or slothful power But God giveth a new life and power to them that were dead in sin B. Yet I cannot take words for matter 1. It 's nothing but the natural faculty or power which you suscitate in the beast And hath not an unbeliever the Natural faculties or power Is he not a man Why do you not bury him if he be not alive 2. Death in sin is relative or real The Relative is Reatus mortis which denominateth men filios mortis and is done away by pardon The real is the Privation of a holy disposition to the act of Faith and Repentance c. or of the Act it self or of the Habit. You can name no other Now 1. the death which consisteth in the privation of the first disposition to act supposing all natural dispositions is taken away by the first influx or suscitation of the Holy Ghost 2. And by the same in secunda instanti is caused the Act and the death gone that lay in its privation 3. And in the third instant or afterward by degrees is taken away the death which lieth in the privation of the Habit. And this giving the Habit is called in Scripture and by Divines Sanctification as following Vocation and it is wrought in us by degrees and not all at once and that by the Spirits power with and by our exercised Acts. In my youth I was so prematurely confident of the contrary that the first Controversie that ever I wrote on was a Confutation of Bishop Downam Amesius Medall de Vocat Mr. Tho. Hooker c. in Defence of Pemble herein but riper thoughts made me burn that Script C. But the spur or rod putteth no new power at all into your Horse but Gods Spirit putteth a new Power into us B. I have talkt long enough to you about Power before and therefore would not turn back needlesly to say it over again Gods Spirit putteth no such thing into us as we call a faculty or natural power For that is the form or essence of the Soul and our Species is not chang'd by Grace But he giveth us that which is called a Moral Power which consisteth conjunctly in the concurrence of means and objects and the disposition of our faculties to the act Hear Dr. Twisse against Hord pag. 12. lib. 2. He secretly maintaineth that every man hath such a power by Grace by which he may repent if he will Concerning which Tenet of his we nothing doubt but every man hath such a power but we say it is nature rather Page 18. Truly I see no cause to deny this that even the wicked could do good if they would We may safely say with Austin Omnes possunt Deo credere ab amore rerum temporalium ad Divina praecepta servanda se convertere si velint Here is posse se convertere id est velte si velit But saith Twisse pag. 170. l. 1. But such is the shameful issue of them that confound impotency moral with impotence natural as if there were no difference which he oft sheweth is but the want of actual and dispositive willingness Now the rod or spur may cause both a present disposition and an act of will C. But is this all the new Life and Spirit and Divine Nature that is given us Sure it is much more B. No doubt but it is much more But that Spirit Life and Nature is promised and given to Believers and is promised on condition of our accepting Christ in whom is our life And therefore it is that habitual Grace which followeth the first act of Faith and is a nobler disposition to the following acts C. Will one act of ours cause a Habit B. Not as ours only But when the Spirit will work by it it will But even that Habit I told you is weak at first and increased by degrees But proceed and tell me Quest 7. Are you sure that in the Acquisition of Habits there is no immediate operation of God on the Soul that causeth them C. We all hold an immediate Influx necessary to the Being and Action of every Creature natural and free but not an immediate Infusion B. What 's the difference between Influx and Infusion C. The first is an universal operation the other a particular B. Do you mean that the difference of the acts or operations is at all ex parte agentis sen act us ut est agentis antecedent to the effect or only in the effect it self C. I dare not say that there is any difference in God for it is against his simplicity and his very will and act as in himself is his Essence though varioâ—sly related and denominated by cannotation Therefore I must needs confess that the diversity is only in the effect B. Do you not see then what a delusory and troublesome stir men make for and about meer words What 's the Crimination come to then about Acquired and Infused Habits when the difference is only in the effects You confess that all proper Habits Infused are by our cogitation and use of means and so are also acquired And you confes that all Acquired Aabits are wrought besides our cogitation and use of means by an immediate influx of God so that as to the Causes you can name no difference And yet the words Acquired and Infused signifie a difference in the Causes and their operation and not in the Effect by their notation Is not this deceit then C. Tell me what you take to be the difference your self B. 1. I suppose that ab uno omnia God without diversity causeth all diversity which is only in the Creatures and not in him 2. I suppose that God hath appointed natural means and second causes for common natural effects and his Will is that they shall operate according to their aptitude And that he hath appointed extraordinary means even Christ and supernatural Revelation for the production of saving Faith And it is his will that they shall work usually according to their aptitude 3. It is his command that we use these several means natural and supernatural accordingly 4. As these means are special extraordinary and for a special end
never read that any mans damnation was any whit the more increased for not performing these acts And again page 170. It is true there is a Faith infused by the Spirit of God in regeneration But who ever said that any man was damned because he doth not believe with such a Faith As much as to say that non-regeneration is the meritorious cause of damnation C. I am amazed at this especially his supposing that no man ever said that which I thought no man of us had denied B. I would think that his meaning is that men are not condemned for want of Gods infusing act but their own believing act or for the privation of Infusion but for the privation of Faith or of Faith not quatenus infused but as they ought to have believed without infusion But he was not so wanting in accurateness but that he knew how to have exprest himself had that been his meaning And then I know not how his words will consist with this sense I never read that any mans damnation was the more increased for not performing these acts where changing their own hearts is one And whoever said that any man was damned because he did not believe with such a Faith Here it is the Faith as such which is supposed spoken of the privation whereof is not the meritorious cause of damnation And indeed though the power of this Faith would have been in us had there been no Sin or Saviour yet there would have been no obligation to believe in Christ as Mediator And therefore if the Law of Innocency had stood alone even the want of an acquired Faith in Christ would have been no sin But this is the unhappiness of such as must read Controversial Writings There is no end of searching after the Writers meaning But the thing it self I think is plain c. that only an effectual special Faith will save us and it is such a Faith of which Christ speaketh Mat. 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned though he believe with any other Faith whatsoever which he calleth acquired Perhaps this his opinion hath some dependance on what he saith before ibid. He punisheth the disobedient with eternal death True but according to what Covenant Not according to the Covenant of Grace that is only a Covenant for Salvation but according to the Covenant of the Law the Covenant of Works Woful error and confusion The Covenant of the Law is almost as bad a phrase as the Covenant of the Covenant 1. Gods Law of Innocency was a Law and Covenant in several respects 2. So was the Jewish Law which Paul meaneth by the Law of Works 3. So is the Christian Law of Christ and of Grace No man is now condemned by the Jewish Law of Works as such it being ceased and never did it bind the Gentile world The Law of Nature and of Innocency indeed condemneth the disobedient but the Law or Covenant of Christ or of Grace doth condemn them to much sorer punishment Luke 19. 27. Those mine enemies that would not I should reign c. Mark 16. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned Heb. 10. 29. Mat. 25. throughout But this confounding of the Covenants I must not here rectifie But yet I hope he meant only that men suffer not for want of Gods Regenerating Infusing Act but for want of their own act of Faith The fifth Crimination C. I find Dr. Twisse ibid. alibi saepe charging it on them as holding that Grace is given according to Works which is Pelagianism For they think that God looketh at some preparation in the Receiver and giveth it to some because they are prepared for it and denieth it to others because they are unprepared whereas it is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in him that of his meer good pleasure sheweth mercy B. There is enough said of this after about differencing and effectual Grace But if we must say more I ask you Quest. 1. Do you by this phrase according to Works mean to urge the Scripture that speaketh in that phrase in its proper sense or do you Vulgatum illud facientâ— quod in se est Deus non denegat Gratiam intelligitur de faciente â—â— gratia auxilie Pet. â— S. Joseph Thes Univers de auxil pag. 83. Idem pag. 90. Nequidem ipsius Christi opera fuerunt actu meretoria citra promissiâ—nem Dei usi ex se essent valoris inâ—â—â—iti which needeth explication only use the phrase in some other sense of your own C. I use Scripture phrase in Scripture sense because I rest on its Authority B. Quest 2. Are we not also saved without Works in Scripture sense And would it be contrary to Paul to say we that we are saved by Works yea or according to them in that sense that he speaketh of them See James 2. 14 c. Tit. 3. 5. Ephes 2. 5 8 9. Gal. 3. 2. 5. 10. Acts 15. 11. c. and 16. 31. Rom. 5. 10 And yet saved according to Works in another sense James 2. 14 c. Phil. 2. 12. Gal. 6. 4. Rom. 20. 12 13. 2 Cor. 5. 10. C. In several senses of Works we deny it not B. Quest 3. At least you will grant that we are not justified by Works and yet that we are justified by Faith yea in another sense by Works Quest 4. Is not believing and repenting in order to Justification and all holy obedience in order to Salvation as truly opâ—â— a work and in a far nobler sense than preparation for Faith is C. That cannot be denied B. Then you cannot affirm that the phrase not according to Workâ— which excludeth not Faith Repentance holy Obedience to justification and salvation doth intend the exclusion of all preparation in order to Conversion or Faith in Christ when by Works excluded it meaneth the same thing or sort in all C. But saith Dr. Twisse ibid. page 154. Pardon and Salvation God doth confirm only on condition of Faith and Repentance But â—â— for Faith and Repentance doth God confer them conditionally also If so whatsoever be the condition let them look to it how they can avoid the making of Grace to wit the Grace of Faith and Repentance to be given according to Works B. I know he frequently saith the same But 1. I speak now only of the sense of that Scripture and say that this goeth upon a most false and dangerous supposition that Justification and Salvation are given according to Works though Faith and Repentance be not whereas in the sense of Works there meant by Paul no man can be justified by Works And though Christ saith This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom the Father hath sent yet it is not that which Paul meaneth Let not therefore Scripture words be abused to mislead mens understandings 2. But as to the matter of the Controversie I spoke to it enough
a long answer B. Not as Paul meant it but as our troublesome Contenders use it in Even those that found the infallibility on scientia media make congrous Grace ex proposito convertendi to be the cause of the difference So Malderus 1 2. q. 111. a. 3. p. 517. Quod hic credat prae alio indubie venit de misericordia Dei ipsum siâ— vocantis ut accomodet assensum misericordia inquam qua nos in Câ—risto elegit Totum est miserentis Dei ipse vocat ipse facit â—t vocatus veniat ipse â—t currat ipse nolentem praevenit ut velit volentem subsequitur nâ— frâ—fira velit vi sua Gratia it a sibi aptat liberum arbitrium ut a nâ—llo dâ—ro corde respâ—â—tâ—r quod diciâ—â—s provenire ex â—o quod meris inâ—â—â—abilibus occultis modis noverit Deus ita hominis â—over sensum ut accomodet assensum Fatemur Dei omnipotentiam Dominium quod habet in voluntates hominum manifestari in gratiae effâ—catia Et consensus homiâ—is est donâ—m Dei descendens a Patre luminum â—llumque consensum Deâ—â— vult â—acit quia facit â—ominem viribâ—â— gratiâ—â—acerâ— Yeâ— he yieldeth to â—radwardines Doctrine supposing him only to intend necessitatem quandam consequentiae necessarium esse hominem libere velle illâ—d ipsum quod Deuâ— cujuâ— omnipotentia quaecunque voluit facit praevoluit ipsum ville libere Item gratiam efficacem derâ— intuitâ— meritorum Christi non tantum quatenuâ— est sufficiensâ—sed etiam quatenus est eâ—â—iâ—ax dum seeundum propositum â—â—â—â— â—â—â—m cura Dâ—â— non est aqualis do omnibus another sense the answer must be suited to the question And here note that really it is the state of both parties compared and not of one of them that constituteth the dissimilitude as is said And the efficient causes of both states are the causes of the difference And so truly the cause of Nero's unbelief and the causes of Paul's Faith which are many as aforesaid all set together are the causes of the differences or rather all make up one cause of it This no Logician can deny But yet in vulgar speech we use to say that that person or thing is the cause of the difference 1. Which is the cause of the singularity 2. Or which causeth the state of the second person compared supposing the state of the first person to be already existent And so you will find yet several senses of the question C. Explain it by some instances B. 1. As to the cause of singularity If one man be born an Ideot or a Monster when we ask what made him differ from other men though really the causes of the dissimilitude be to be assigned on both parts yet we mean only on his part why is he not like others So if one Child be unlike to all his brethren or one Scholar in the School be much better or much worse than all the rest or if one in a Family be sick he that asketh what maketh him differ doth mean what made him sick c. 2. And so as to Posteriority of State if you suppose one of the dissimiliar parts pre-existent and ask what maketh the other to differ from it as if you ask why the Scholar writeth not like his Copy why the Son is so unlike to the Father why this age is so unlike the last c. We mean only what causeth the difference ex parte subsequente C. Apply it to the case in hand B. If you ask what made the difference between the Devils and the persevering Angels In the full and proper answer you must assign the reason on both parts But according to the usual sense of the question you must say The wilful sin of the Devils made the difference For the equal state of uprightness went before the difference So if you ask what made the difference between the world after the fall and before it vulgarly we must say sin because that came last So if you ask what made the difference between Noah and the world between Lot and Sodom Ans Indeed that which made one part sinful and the other righteous But according to the vulgar sense of the question it was the Righteousness of Noah and Lot and the causes of that righteousness So what made the difference between Judas and the eleven Apostles Ans Judas his wilful sin and Wickedness though indeed the cause is on both sides So what maketh the difference between Believers and the Unbelieving world Really the unbelief of the world and the Faith of Christians with their causes But it 's like the speaker meaneth only ex parte credentium And then the cause of their Believing is the cause of their differing But now if it hold true that God giveth a sufficiency of Grace ut causa universalis ex parte donantis antecedently to mens accepting or rejecting equally then if one ask what maketh the difference you would understand him why have not unbelievers Faith as well as others And then the answer would be wilful resisting or refusing Grace or the moral special indisposition of the Recipients makes the difference or else all would be alike believers But note that we ask not What maketh the difference between Believers and unbelievers but do particularize the subject and ask what maketh the Believer differ from the Unbeliever or what maketh the unbeliever differ from the believer It is then supposed that we mean only ex parte nominata And thus in the vulgar sense the questions what maketh the believer differ from the Infidel and what maketh the Infidel differ from the believer must have various answers C. I understand you thus in brief 1. You say that constitutively it is Faith that is the difference on Paul 's part and unbelief on Nero ' s. 2. The causes of the said Faith and unbelief are the causes of the difference As the causes of the whiteness of one wall and of the blackness of the other cause their difference 3. That to ask why the Believer differeth from the Unbeliever is but to ask why he is a Believer when the other is not 4. Here you say the two Relations of dissimilitude in two ubbjects make the questions two in one viz. 1. Why or whence is Paul a Believer 2. Whence is it that Nero is an Unbeliever 5. You say that Nero is an Unbeliever through his own wilfulness and illdisposition resisting Grace Satans temptations concurring And that Paul is a Believer from many conjunct causes 1. Gods Grace by his Spirit 2. Christs Merits 3. Christs donation of that Spirit 4. The means by which he worketh 5. The concurse of Pauls will To which efficients you add in most a competent Receptive disposition in genere causâ— materialis both passive and active 6. You say that in all this Gods Grace is incomparably the greater cause than man's will 7. But yet not the sole cause and that some free-not-necessitated concurse of mans
to anything in our duties in his reward tell me 1. Why are they said so oft to Please him and we are commanded to do those things that Please him and 1 Joh. he heareth us because we do those things that Please him 2. And why then doth he not as well for Christs merits or Righteousness reward our sinning our folly and vanity our idleness our dreams or all our natural indifferent actions as our Love and holiness 3. And why do you and all men regard or reward a loving thankful obedient child more than one that will scorn you and spit in your face And why do all Princes and Rulers make any difference between the righteous and the wicked a rogue and an honest man And why do Churches so strictly try the Godliness of their members Why do you make any difference in your Communion What meaneth Church discipline And why are you your selves so desirous to be esteemed Godly persons and differenced from others if God himself do make no difference And how is the righteous more excellent than his neighbour and called Gods jewels and the apple of his eye his peculiar people a holy Nation and his treasure And why is it made the mark of a faithful man Psal 15. 4. that a vile person is contemned in his eyes but he honoureth them that fear the Lord if there be nothing in holiness and obedience any more than in sin for God to reward Lib. You delight to make me seem foolish by your Cavilling You might easily understand that I did not mean that good works are no more Rewardable than Idleness or Evil But that they are not rewarded for their proper worthiness as being faulty and so unjustifiable with God but it is for the merits of the Righteousness of Christ imputed to believers P. When you understand what you should say you will speak intelligibly But be not angry that your confusion is laid open to you About Merit and Imputation we must speak distinctly afterwards That no works of ours are Rewardable till their faultiness is pardoned nor Rewardable according to the Law of Innocency nor upon any terms but those of the Covenant of Grace which freely giveth salvation to penitent believing accepters which free gift and acceptance of our duties is purchased by the meritorious righteousness of Christ all this we hold as fast as you do We dream not of any access to God but by a Mediator nor of any acceptance of our selves or our duties works or righteousness but on the account of Christs merits and intercession by which the sins of our best works are pardoned and life eternal freely given to obedient believers Of the worthiness of our works we must speak more anon Lib. I smell whereabout you are You make us hear the Pope that is in your belly You mean as the Papists that Christ hath merited that your works shall be meritorious P. Hath not Christ Merited that our holy Love and obedience be Rewarded Lib. Yes but what 's that to Merit P. Hath he not by his Merit made them Rewardable Lib. Yes or else how can they be Rewarded P. Do you not know that by Merit the Papists themselves profess that they mean nothing but Rewardableness At least do we Protestants mean anything else by it Lib. What the Papists or you mean you best know your selves but I know what you say And you both talk like the ignorant enemies of Grace P. Do you include the Jansenists who say that all Christs Grace now is nothing but his irrestible efficient operation of Holy Love in the soul and that God moveth us to it necessarily or insuperably and that he now giveth no Grace meerly sufficient which is not effectual or meerly effectual to make us Able but also to make us Act and that now he leaveth nothing to our Free-will in Christs gracious operations but giveth in act all the Will and all the merit that men have and that Fear and obedience of a Law written is our own Legal Righteousness though it respect the new Law but Christs Righteousness which he giveth us as distinct from our Legal Righteousness is only his Spirit or Love put into the heart Lib. I do not believe that any Papist is so much for free grace P. But if you deny it and the book be opened and it found there written is it nothing to you to be found in falshood Lib. But I say not as Jansenius that it is the Law written in us but Christs Righteousness imputed to us which is our Righteousness P. Did you not even now confess an Inherent Righteousness Lib. Yes but not to our Justification P. Of that more anon By Justification they mean Making us holy Lib. But Jansenius is not a common Papist why tell you me of him P. My business here is not to justifie the Papists but to understand your mind I do not think you know what the Papists hold in it Lib. I am not ashamed to be a stranger to their Books But I will bring one when you will that shall open the abomination of their doctrine of merit Till then it 's you to whom I speak P. Content we will make another dayes work of that Tell me then whether it be Names or Things that you make so much ado about Lib. Both we like not ill names and worse false doctrine P. What are the Names that displease you Is Reward or Rewardableness one Lib. No if you will understand them well For they are Scripture words P. Is worthiness one of them Lib. Yes if you will say that we are worthy of the Reward or of salvation P. Do you not know that the Scripture usually so speaketh Rev. 3. 4. They shall walk with me in white for they are worthy 2 Thes 1. 5 11. Worthy of the Kingdom of God 1 Thes 2. 12. Walk worthy of God Luke 20. 35. That are accounted worthy to obtain that world 21. 36. That you may be counted worthy to scape all these things and to stand c. Matth. 10. 11. Enquire who in it is worthy 13. If the house be worthy let your peace remain If it be not worthy let your peace return 37. He that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me Matth. 22. 8. They which were bidden were not worthy Acts 13. 46. Ye judge your selves unworthy of everlasting life Is not this Scripture Lib. By Worthy the Text meaneth not merit but fitness to receive P. Our question is not now of the Meaning but the Name you know Lib. I am not against the Scripture names if well understood P. Merit is a name I perceive that you are against And we make so small a matter of words that you shall choose any other name of the same signification and we will forbear this rather than offend you But yet tell me Q. 1. What if the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were translated Deserving and Merit would it not be as
15. 58. And they work out their salvation with fear and trembling laying up a treasure in Heaven Matth. 6. 20. and laying up a good foundation for the time to come and pressing forward for the prize Phil. 3. 8 9. and laying hold upon eternal life Lib. All this leadeth us to our own works and sets up the Law and taketh down Christ and his righteousness and is meer Popery for humane Merits P. If this be Gods Word and Christs own Law and Doctrine then you inferr that Christ taketh down himself and his own righteousness and sets up man and humane merits But give me leave to tell you that if you deny the Reward of Evangelical duty and the Rewardableness or Worthiness or Merit of such duty as it is but our Merit or Worthiness of the free Gift of Christ and Life given by Paternal Love and Justice to believing Penitent accepters according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace 1. You do contradict so much of the most express Texts of Scripture as alloweth us to suspect that really you believe not the Scripture to be true or that it is not it but your own contradicting fancy that is the measure of your belief and you may on such terms hold the vilest absurdities even what you list as in despight of Scripture while you pretend that it is for you 2. You will deny the honour of Gods Image on man and the work of the Holy Ghost and the design of Christ who came to destroy the works of the Devil and save his people from their sins and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works 3. You will disgrace the Church of God which Christ washeth and sanctifieth and render it too like to the unsanctified world 4. You will leave man no ground for true assurance of Justification or Salvation while the difference between the worthy and unworthy is taken away 5. You will harden the wicked in their false presumptuous hopes and teach them to say We are but unworthy and so are all 6. You will destroy the comfort of well doing by denying the reward and making it seem to be in vain 7. Hereby you will take down all holy diligence in our Christian race and warfare while you deny the prize and recompence of reward Heb. 11. 26. We run for an incorruptible Crown 1 Cor. 9. 25. Phil. 3. 14. 8. You will strengthen all Temptations while you take down that which should be set against them See Luke 12. 4. Heb. 4. 1. 12. 28 29. Matth. 6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 19 20 c. Matth. 5. 10 11 12. 9. You will disgrace the Word and Ministry and all Means if after all we are never the more accepted 10. In a word you deny Gods Government in denying his Governing Justice and Judgements and that is to deny God to be our God Yea you deny all Religion all the Kingdom of Christ all Law all Judgement all Retribution Heaven and Hell all the true difference between Good and Evil Holiness and Sin all Praise and Dispraise while you deny the Reward and Rewardableness of holy obedience by the Paternal Government of the Law of Grace and that glory honour and peace is to every one that doth good both Jew and Gentile Rom. 2. 7 10. Lib. You would perswade us that holiness is good for nothing if it be not Rewardable as if you knew of no other use of it so ignorant are natural men of the things of God which are spiritually disâ—erned I will tell you that which your carnal mind cannot understand 1. Holiness Faith Love Obedience c. are Gods free Gifts excellent in themselves without a Reward 2. They are Fruits of the Spirit and marks and signs of our future felicity though they deserve it not 3. I told you that they are Rewards to Christ and Gifts to us P. 1. That they are Gods Gifts we doubt not But are not Faith Love and Obedience also the Acts of man by that Grace which is the gift of God Lib. Yes they are mans acts but it is God that worketh them in us P. And tell me if you can 1. Why God cannot Reward those acts which are done by his own Grace Cannot God make the Promise of a Reward to be a fit Moral Means for his Spirit to work by Nay doth not the scope of the Scripture tell you that he doth so 2. Is there ever the less worthiness in it because God causeth it Tell me without shifting Is an honest man no more worthy of a Princes favour than a Thief If you are no more worthy of liberty and protection and life than Atheists and Rebels why do you call men Persecutors for using you as if you were such Why call you men Malignants for hating deriding and opposing godly men if they deserve no better than the worst Lib. They deserve better from men but not from God P. Do you deny Rulers to be Gods Officers and that they are to make this difference by his appointment and therefore it is done by God 3. But without shifting tell me Doth not every good action or inclination deserve praise from God and man Doth it not deserve to be accounted and called just as it is Lib. All our Righteousnesses are as menstruous rags and what praise then do they deserve Can that deserve praise which deserveth Hell P. 1. Come on then let Conscience be a while unmuzzled Why do you so much praise those of your own Church or Opinion Why praise you so much the Ministers and people that are of your way Why do you make a difference between them and such as are against you 2. Why do you so aggravate the sin of those that vilifie deride and persecute you Why call you the Saints the precious ones on earth Gods treasure and peculiar people 3. Why were you lately so angry with the Ecclesiastical Politician the Debate-maker and other such Books which vilifie men whom you and I have better thoughts of if they deserve no more praise than the vilest men 4. Why were you so angry lately when you heard of one that reproached you and so pleased with one that proclaimed your wisdom and goodness and took your part 5. And if good actions deserve not praise from God himself why doth he praise them so greatly in his Word Why will he say before all the world Well done good and faithful servant c. 1. Dare you call God Ignorant Legalist or charge him with mistakes 2. Doth not every thing and person deserve to be thought and called just as it is Else lying or silence must be the virtue and Truth the Vice 3. Is there no more good in a Saint than in a Devil If there be doth it not deserve to be called just as it is 4. May not he who deserveth Hell by the Law of Works or Innocency be yet Morally fit for that is Worthy of Heaven according to the Law of Grace which pardoneth his sins