appears a Truth as it seems at least very agreeable to my Reason and will be found as Consonant perhaps to the Judicious with the Scripture that the Merit or Purchase of Christ's Death or the Price he laid down for our Redemption was not offered to the Father to procure of Him that he should give Faith and Repentance to any but that he should give Remission to those that Repent and Salvation to those that believe on him I humbly offer you these Reasons 1. The holding otherwise than thus does make Christ's Redemption a double thing one thing for one man and another thing for another If shall be procuring Salvation for Judas if he repent and it shall be the procuring Repentance for Peter that he may be saved 2. It goes quite against the hair to reason that Christ should procure the Benefit upon Condition and only on Condition and not otherwise and yet that he should procure also the Performance To what purpose do we make such a Labour about as this Why do you not say He purchased the Benefit rather free altogether without condition 3. If our Believing and Repenting be also purchased then is there nothing in Man's Salvation but of Purchase and we shall be beholding to Christ for all and to God for nothing But if we are beholding to Christ for his Purchase that Salvation may be had if we repent and to God for this Repenting then do we see how highly Both are to be magnified for the Contrivance 4. The Death and Redemption of Christ is for All for every man for our sins for the world 's Distinctions to answer this are but Evasions But if Faith and Repentance be the purchase of Christs Death or Redemption then cannot his Death and Redemption be universal according to so many Scriptures Let me double this and add also that the Purchase or Redemption of Christ being universal certainly as it is in Scripture if by his Death he had procured the Condition as well as the Covenant and abatement of Terms then must all Men Actually have been saved I have one Reason yet more to offer which is That the want of knowing this is I take it the great Stumbling-block or Temptation to our Divines in the receiving universal Grace to cast special Grace quite off when they should learn the true Mediocrity of reconciling both these together according to the Scriptures When the Arminian then argues here Christ hath died for All and Every man and that is not to be put off with the genera singulorum or the Gentiles as well as the Jewes therefore the grace of God is universal for all and every one to repent and beleeve that they may be saved I answer this is manifestly inconsequent because it is true that what Christ hath done by way of Redemption is universal and belongs to all the World and every man alike which is terminated in procuring these terms to be offered to the World for salvation But as for mans belief repentance sincere obedience which are the terms they come directly and immediately otherwise not from the grace of Redemption nor from the fountain of mans free will with them but from the grace of Election God gives us his Son and he gives us his Spirit His sending his Son is one thing and his sending his Spirit another The work of drawing persons to Christ I do observe is attributed to the Father and the Spirit because this is Peculiar when the work which is attributed to Christ in distinction to them is Generall to all mankind He sent his Son to purchase salvation if we Beleeve he sends his Spirit to work that faith and repentance in us that we may be saved In the one does lye the mystery of our Redemption in the other I say the mystery of Election Let it be true on one hand that Christ by his Redemption hath indeed procured no more for Paul and Peter than for Judas and the reprobate and so the honour of his Redemption be kept up with the Arminian to the height they contend for it Yet may it be true I hope likewise on the other hand that the grace of God towards Peter and Paul was more in giving them saving faith and repentance than to Judas or the reprobate and so the doctrine of Speciall Grace and Election need not neither be discarded For caution There is the Direct and Collateral issue if I may so speak of Christs merit purchase or death It is certain that the Lord Jesus may be said by his death and merit to have procured his own exaltation and as he is become thereby the Dispensatour of those treasures that are in his Fathers Eection so repentance or faith in a collateral way may be accounted to issue from thence Whom God hath exalted to be a Prince to give repentance as well as be a Saviour to procure remission to Israel But repentance faith perseverance or the condition which God requires of us and not of Christ in the business of our salvation does not flow to us directly from or is no direct and immediate fruit of his Death or Redemption I know moreover the Scripture tells us that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in him But that may be true I hope though some of those blessings only are the purchase of his death and others the effect of his Intercession or some the fruit of his Purchasing others the effect of his Administring of the new Covenant This is certain the Spirit is the Authour of our faith repentance all grace but the Spirit is obtained by vertue of Christs intercession I will pray the Father and he will send the Comforter I offer you one argument The Spirit proceeds not from the Son alone but from the Father and Son The mission or giving of the Spirit therefore cannot be the effect of our Redemption which is peculiar to the Son and belongs to all the World but is the fruit or off spring of our Election It is true we come in the name of Christ to ask his Spirit and grace that is we ask it through Christs merits but there is the merits of his Person as well as the merits of his Death it is one thing to be the Propitiation for our sins and another to be also our Advocate with the Father This is that I will pitch upon that we are not so to attribute all things to his Oblation as to make any other part or parts of his Mediator-ship more then needs There is a distinction the Scripture makes of Christ in the Flesh and in the Spirit He was of the seed of David according to the the flesh and declared to be the son of God according to the Spirit in his Resurrection from the dead and in his living ever to make intercession for us What he did for man in the flesh I account he did for all mankind for he took not on him the flesh of David onely and the elect but of all
man-kind or of human nature but what he does in the Spirit that may be peculiar in some points at least onely to his elect Hence it is that when he tells us he Laid down his life for the World yet I pray sayes he not for the World but for those thou hast given me out of the World The prayer of Christ is a part of his intercession which is Distinct from his oblation and it is no argument from his not Praying for the World that therefore he Died not for it If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly Father give his holy Spirit to them that ask him God hath given his Son to those that never ask him even to the whole World but he gives the Spirit of the Son only to his Children even to such as can cry Abba Father when they have received it I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter even the Spirit of truth whom the World cannot receive When he prayes not for the world that he prayes for is the Spirit and the Spirit which works grace in the heart whereby we are sanctified and perseverance to bring us to glory is peculiar to those whom God does give to Christ and of whom Christ can say For they are thine and all mine are thine and thine are mine and I am glorified in them You may say on the one hand If it be no more which Christ hath purchased for Peter then for all then Peter might perish for all Christs Purhcase I answer you may say so and without ignominy to his Redemption provided you know also that the Election of God and Christs Prayer will provided for Peter that further which it provides not for all and Jesus Christ when he hath made his purchase is the Executor of Gods Election On the other hand it may be said But to what purpose is this Redemption universal when none but those that perform the condition are saved I answer it is therefore universal that none of those who performe the condition may misse of Salvation As also that though it be all one to him that does not perform the same in regard of the event as if he was not all Redeemed Yet it is not all one as to God and the Verity of Scripture and his Judgment according to it The Scripture sayes often Christ Dyed for All and that God will Judge the World according to this Gospel He that belives shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned the Foundation whereof is Christs Death which must reach so far as to make this good And who knows not that the very business of our whole Religion does depend upon the Establishment of the Verity of the Holy Scriptures I must confess I should most willingly hearken to any that could make Christs Death more Advantagious and when his purchase hath procured Faith and Repentance to no body but Remission and Salvation to All upon their Faith and Repentance if they are willing to say that there is sufficient Grace also purchased for the World that all and every one should Repent and Believe and apply that Redemption I am indifferent to the use of their Thoughts But if when I rather grant a universal Power arising from Christs purchase not as a direct fruite of his Death but as a consequential Event N.B. from the Abatement only of the terms that God is not wanting to any in necessariis and consequently that all men have sufficient Light Spirit Grace or Power to be saved if they will Yet so long as we cannot deny him but he may abound in gratuitis and to give the Will and Deed it self is more than to give Power as to have given to Adam the Ipsum velle had been more and a gratuitum wherein he might have abounded if he had pleased than in giving him only Posse velle I cannot see by any means but when Christs Death is made universal the Fathers Election must be left still Per modum decreti efficaciter operantis By way of a decree effectually operating free and absoute in regard to the condition of it's Application If all men have alike the Posse velle The Power to will and no more then must the reason Why one man Repents and is Saved and not another be resolved into his own self only and so may and must he say it is I I my self have made the difference when the Scripture does say Who is it O man that hath made thee to differ But if we allow as Redemption to be universal so a Posse velle from general I say not a Posse velle as to the Covenant of our Creation but as to the Terms of the Gospel And to the Elect the Ipsum velle from special Grace we shall neither have any thing to charge God nor give occasion to Mans boasting Neither shall the condition be held impossible nor when we have performed it shall we rob God of his Glory It is pleaded That unless Faith and Repentance does lie in every Man 's own Breast Christ's purchase of Pardon upon that Condition is but a Mock I answer To deny that to Believe and to Repent does lye in our Power were indeed to evacuate Christ's Death to All besides the Elect But to say that Faith and Repentance therefore does flow from our own Wills is another matter I must offer moreover If Christ had purchased Faith and Repentance for some which All have not the Reprobate might here have something to say That the Reason why he Repented not as the Elect did was because Christ purchased Repentance for the One and not for the Other But if Christ hath purchased nothing for One but what he hath purchased for All which directly is true then cannot the purchase of Christ be a Mock to any seeing some do reap a real Benefit by it and if others do not it must be their Own fault Indeed those Divines who confound the Blessings we have in Christ so as to make them All alike the direct Fruits of his Death with no difference must be under some manifest Prejudice here against St. Augushine and his Doctrine It stands not with reason that any thing which is part of Christ's Purchase should be peculiar for how then hath Christ dyed for All That which is of meer Favour is fit for the Elect that which is of Purchase should be universal or for All Mankind If that Grace then whereby we Believe and Repent is a Fruit flowing from Christ's Death no otherwise than the Covenant it self does these Divines alone must speak agreeably who will allow no other but that which they call sufficient putting all men into an aequi librium or equal Ballance between Choosing and Refusing and so leaving it upon their own Wills to make the Difference Who are saved and who are not saved But to what little purpose such Grace as this is distinguished at all from
the Grace of God is not given according to mans merit Another is that there is no man how great soever his righteousness be that lives without some sins The third is that men are born liable to the guilt of Adams first transgression De bon persev c. 2. The consequent of the second opinion that Election is ex praevisa fide of fore-seen faith is That although our good works are indeed the fruit onely oâ— Gods Spirit and to be ascribed to Gods grace yet must our frith upon which the Spirit or this grace is given or by which it is impetrated as that Father speaks be both in our own power and from our own will as being that and that alone in man that makes the difference between one and another or the reason why God should choose such a one to give him his grace and pass by the other And this doctrine with the Consequent of it must be acknowledged to be St. Augustine's in his first writings which he chose no doubt as the most moderate then in the Church which as we may judg by Prosper and Hilary's Epistles to him was never used to define election otherwise than secundum praescientiam according to foreknowledg till his dayes And this was the reason that those of Marsilia ad quorum authoritatem non sumus pares sayes one of those Epistles quia multum nos et vitae meritis antecellunt sacerdotis honore were so offended at that Father for his change And from hence does Arminius professe some-where Non stamus Augustino We stand not with Augustine for which this also as I remember is his reason Quia sibi ipse non stetit because he stood not to himself The Consequent of the other two doctrines which belong to Absolute election and come in this repect I have said bat to the same is on the contrary hand That neither our good works nor our faith it self nor indeed any good that is in man is of our selves but of the operation of God or of his Spirit who does at first excite our wills to Faith and a holy life by his continual assistance carry us on in perseverance unto the end that we may be saved so that the whole business of our salvation first and last must be ascribed to Him alone And if any ask the reason then why he gives not the same grace to others as to his Elect he shall find these words still in St. Augustine's mouth And who art thou that repliest agaâ—nst God May he not do what he will with his owne Hath not the Potter power over his clay O the depth of the knowledge and wisdome of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his wayes past finding out It were but jniury to quote a sentence or two out of the Father for this which is the designed contents of severall of his last books See de Praedestinatione gratia De correptione gratia De praedestinatione sanctoram De bono perseverantiae to name no more The great difficulty now in this Consequent of Election which appears does undoubtedly lye here If neither the faith nor good works of man do spring from his own free will but from the grace of God and Election then may the unbeliever and wicked excuse themselves and say It is not long of themselves that they believe not nor obey but the cause is in God who gives them not faith and obedience and they cannot help their own reprobation They will not say that Reprobation is any other than a negative decree which infuses no malice in them but it denyes them that grace which Election gives others and if it be not in their power to beleeve and repent without that grace How can they be condemned for their not beleeving and repenting This difficulty I am assured did stick so fast upon this Father in his first writings that I do hardly think him quite out of the gravell in any of his last Let us turn to his book De spiritu littera In his one and thirtieth Chapter he offers the question Whether faith be in mans power and determines that it is and must be so Upon this in his thirty third chapter he comes to another question which is put to the quick Whether the will whereby he believes be therefore of himself or of God If it be not of our selves sayes he but of Gods gift then may man say according to the objection proposed that he beleeved not because God gave him not the will If it be of our selves How can that text of the Apostle what hast thou O man thou didst not receive be true seeing this will to beleeve he hath of himself For the extricating us out of this distresse he yields to the first and seems convinced that faith must be both in our own power and of our selves for that reason Dicit Apostolus Idem Deus qui operatur omnia in omnibus nusquam autem dictum est Deus credit omnia in omnibus Quod ergo credimus nostrum est quod autem bonum operamur illius est qui credentibus dat Spiritum sanctum In his Exposition upon the Romans The Apostle sayes that God works all in all but never that he beleeves all in all That We beleeve therefore it is of our selves but that we do good works it is of him who gives his holy Spirit to them that beleeve To the last therefore he chooses to answer Liberum arbitrium naturaliter attributum a Creatore animae rationali illa media vis est quae vel intendi ad fidem vel inclinari ad infidelitatem potest Et idco nec istam voluntatem qua credit Deo dici potest homo habere quam non acceperit quandoquidem vocante Deo surgit de libero arbitrio quod naturaliter cum vocaretur accepit Vult autem omnes homines salvos fore in agnitionem veritatis venire non sic tamen ut eis adimat liberum arbitrium quo vel bene vel male utentes justissime judicentur The substance is that The will whereby we beleeve may be said to be received of God although it proceed from our selves because the faculty from whence it arises is received from him that is Because the nature we have is of our Creator the will which is of nature is of Him This does not satisfy me for these reasons 1. That which the Father sayes as to the voluntas qua credimus The will whereby we beleeve I take to be the same which Pelagius said as to the voluntas qua bene operamur The will whereby we doe good works But if this text and such as this be good against Pelagius they must be good against Augustine here that neither is our faith of our selves upon the same account The truth is The judgment of this Father while he wrot this book is this The Spirit is given to a man upon his beleeving This Spirit infuses grace charity or justification This
THE Middle-Way In One Paper of ELECTION REDEMPTION With Indifferency between the ARMINIAN CALVINIST By J H Doing nothing by Partiality 1 Tim. 5.21 LONDON Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Three Bibles in Cheap-side 1673. OF Election or Predestination THe designe of these Papers is to offer to such as will consider and can tend to receive or cultivate what is offered some Notices of truth which lye upon my mind about severall matters that by the Communication of the little light I have I may fetch in more to my own understanding from others and also by the Partiality that appeares so often in the doctrine of the Orthodox I may promote some generall kind of condescension in all persons to a more favourable opinion of one another the proper consciousness of our own most miserable palpable blindness in most things and several points of Religion wherein many times we are indeed but the more blind because wee think we see being enough methinks to make every mortall even with shame and confusion to be ready either to have a little higher estimation of his Brother that differ from him or a little less indignation at any such difference or distance in his way and judgment I will begin with these heads Of Election and of Redemption It is the generall opinion of Divines that God from all eternity fore knows all things and That there are a certain number of persons determined by Him that shall be infallibly brought to glory For declaring this Decree they do go severall wayes In the generall they may be reduced to two the way of Absolute and the way of Conditionall Election Of either way there are two sorts In the Conditional way The first sort do conceive that God foresees who they be that will live godlily and keep his commandements and them he chooses to salvation while those he foresees will be wicked he decrees to damnation Vnde Apostolus say they Quos praescivit hos praedestinavit From whence the Apostle Whom he did foreknow them he also did praedestinate The second sort perceiving this to be contrary to Scripture with makes Election to be of grace not of works do say thus That God foresees who they be will beleeve and so choosing them as being in Christ through faith decrees to give them grace which will lead them to salvation and those that he foresees will not believe he decrees to leave them as out of Christ to Condemnation Non elegit Deus opera cujusque in praescientia quoe ipse daturus est sed fidem elegit in praescientia ut quem sibi crediturum praescivit Ipsum elegerit ut Spiritum sanctum daret ut bona operando etiam vitam aeternam consequerentur God did not choose the works of any in his foresight which himself was to give but he chose faith in his foresight that whom he foreknew would beleeve he might choose them to give the holy Spirit unto that by doing good works they might obtain eternall salvation Augustine in libro expositionis quarundum propositionum ex epistola ad Romanos Again Quos Deus suos fidei opere futuros esse praenovit hos praedestin̄avit ad gloriam Those who God foreknew would become his through their beleeving he elected unto glory De praedestinatione Dei c. 5. The former opinion is the way of the Pelagian the latter of the Arminian Which yet I set not down after the more subtle times of Arminius himself but those of Augustine according to these cited passages the one of which he afterwards expresly retracted and the book it self out of which I fetch the other I beleeve either to be spurious or to have got abroad from him unawares before he had reveiwed it The Orthodox therefore such as we account the Synod of Dort do declare for the Absolute way in opposition to both these To wit that God without consideration either of mans faith or good works but meerly according to the counsell of his own will not rendring his reason to us hath determined to give that grace to some persons whereby they shall effectually be saved and to leave others to the freedome of their own wills that they may be judged at the last Day according to their deserts In this way there are likewise two sorts of Doctors The one teach that God looks on men without any consideration of sin at all in their state before the Fall in this decree of his grace to some and not to others The other teach that God looks indeed on men all alike without consideration of desert but not without consideration of sin to wit in their faln estate and so decrees his mercy to some and justice to others Note here that our Divines of the former sort do not say that God decrees damnation to any without consideration of sin nor salvation indeed without consideration of faith and repentance but Decree's the giving or not giving saving grace to keep them from sin and damnation to whom he pleases without any consideration in man whatsoever For Predestination say they being an immanent and eternall act of the Divine understanding will cannot be conceived as dependent upon any foreseen temporall acts of mans free-will Note also that St. Augustine who was the first set up for the Absolute way and yet not till his latter writings doth declare for the second sort of this way Caeteri autem ubi nisi in massa perditionis justo divino judicio relinquantur The rest that are not elect are left according to Gods just judgment in the masse of those that are faln unto perdition De bono perseverantiae c. 14. The one of these opinions is called the Supralapsarian doctrine the other the Sublapsarian Which are names indeed may make a rumbling to many that know not what they signify but so long as they come into one and the same Consequent which alone is to be regarded the difference is not of moment to disturb any And what is the Consequent then of these Doctrines which is fit to be enquired The Consequent of the first doctrine that Election is ex praevisis operibus of works foreseen must be this that the good life or good works of men therefore do arise from their own free wills and that the grace of God is given according to their merits This was the main opinion doubtless which the Church condemned in Pelagius From whence indeed those two other followed that Man may therefore choose whether he will ever commit any sin and That he must be free from original corruption Tria sunt quae maxime adversus eos catholica defendit ecclesia Vnum est Gratiam Dei non secundum merita dari quoniam Dei dona sunt Alterum est in quantacunque justitia sine qualibuscunque peccatis neminem vivere Tertium est nasci homines peccato primi homnis obnoxios There are three things especially which the Catholick Church defends against the Pelagians One is that
charity is that which disposes to good works Good works therefore he counts must be of grace and Gods spirit and to follow justification which is with him this infused grace But as for beleeving which is the first thing upon which the Spirit it self is given to infuse this grace from whence our good works doe spring this must arise he accounts from mans free will or else the fault will not be in himself which is the argument convinces him but it must lye on the will of God onely that he hath not the spirit and so no grace and so does not well and is not saved Whether this argument be irrefragable or no we shall see by what will follow 2. There are two questions raised together by the Apostle Who maketh thee to differ from another and What hast thou O man that thou didst not receive The chief difficulty lyes in answering the former question for by that is the second to be regulated Now if that we have from God is onely this middle faculty which we may use to beleeve or not Who is it makes the difference in one mans using it to faith and another's to infidelity That which is the less the Posse velle The power to will shall be of God that is of Nature and so of God but the Ipsum velle The will or willing it self which is the greater and which indeed saves us shall be of our selves 3. The Scripture is express concerning faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God If the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there referrs to the whole sentence we have other texts No man cometh to me that is beleeveth in me unless the Father draw him To you it is given not only to believe but to sufther for his name This is the work of God that you beleeve Who hath first given to him Of him and to him are all things I obtained mercy That I should be faithfull not Because I was faithfull But ye beleeve not because ye are not of my sheep Again As many as were ordained to salvation beleeved It seems here that the cause why some beleeve and some beleeve not is their being or not being of the number of those who are ordained to be of his flock The like text in reference to works as these to faith is that to the Ephesians He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy It is not therefore mans faith or holiness is the cause of Gods Election but it is Gods election is the cause of mans holiness and faith A prime and eternal cause say our Divines cannot depend upon the self same temporal effects which are thereby caused If therefore the Ordination of God be the cause from whence mans faith and holiness are derived his foreseen-faith or foreseen-works are not to be imagined antecedent causes merits conditions or motives unto the Divine Predestination 4. We have St. Augustine acknowledging himself to have bin herein in an errour So that these arguments must be no longer against Augustine but against those who have taken up that opinion he forsook In nullo gloriandum est dixit Cyprianus quoniam nostrum nihil sit Quod ut ostenderet adhibuit Apostolum Quid autem habes quod non accepisti Quo praecipue testimonio convict us sum cum errarem putans fidem qua in Deum exedimus non esse donum Dei sed a nobis esse in nobis per illam nos impetrare Dei dona quibus temperanter juste pie vivamus in hoc seculo Quem errorem nonnulla opuscula mea satis indicant It was the saying of blessed Cyprian that we may glory in nothing because that which is ours is nothing This he proved by the words of the Apostle By which testimony I was first convinced when I erred thinking that faith was of our selves and then good works obtained by it Which errour several of my former pieces do sufficiently shew De praedestinatione sanctor c. 3. I wish he had mentioned the book here which I am citing as he does one or two other that I might have known his solution to the difficulty which himself hath urged but left unanswered upon our hands To return then to the Father's question Whether the Voluntas qua credimus The will whereby we beleeve be of our selves or God's gift I must not choose the first with him in that book but the last according to other of his works Nevertheless we must carefully distinguish the two things whereof he hath made two questions Vtrum fides in nostra constituta sit potestate Whether faith be in our power in one chapter and Vtrum voluntas qua credimus donum sit Dei an ex libertate arbitrii Whether the will whereby we do beleeve be the gift of God or the effect of our own liberty in another I do apprehend here that both these two things are to be held That faith is in our power and That the will whereby we beleeve is not of our selves but of Gods grace or gift The holding both these is that which cuts the thread of all difficulties in this matter For the one That faith is in mans power we are beholding verily to that Father A thing is in a mans power which he may do if he will Hane dicimus potestatem ubi voluntati adiacet facultas faciendi When he accounts Faith then to be in mans power he understands this That he may beleeve if he will And this is a truth of great necessity yet hath difficulty But when he proceeds hereupon so farre as to make the will therefore whereby we beleeve to be of our selves it was a step which himself saw need to draw back There are many things that are possible which yet never shall be as this Father himself gives instances of upon another occasion in the first chapter of this book There are likewise many things which a man can do that yet he never will or is like to do without some speciall cause moving him to it Such is the business of mans Conversion There is no man we are to hold with him but he may beleeve I will adde repent and be saved if he will yet is this to be known and held also That there is no man for certain ever will unless it be from that one special cause which is Gods grace or the Spirit 's motion that works his heart thereunto Now then Shall a man remain an unbeleever and impenitent and perish the fault shall lye upon himself and God shall be just because we place faith in his own power He may believe and repent and be saved if he will If God would and he will not he may thank himself Again if he do believe and repent and is saved he shall have no cause to boast or glory in himself because that though he might believe and repent if he would yet would he never have repented while the world lasted