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
B. Great is this mystery of Godliness there is more in Christ than you take notice of even the Spirit which must work Grace in mens souls is two ways given first to Christ 1. In that as Administrator general the power of giving out the Spirit to mankind is now given to Him even in his humane Nature And he giveth it out in manner and measure suitable That Grace habitual is participatio naturae divinae and how and in what sense Vide Caceres sum Theol. 2. 2. cap. 1. And abundance of Jesuites and other School-men go as far in asserting its supernaturality and some in ascribing it to Christ as Protestants do But Vasquez and many go farther than many Protestants in supposing Christ the cause not only of Grace but of our Election to Grace And yet even there the difference is most if not only in words The Thomists maintain even that Christs humanity is the Instrument of the Deity in operating Grace in us which the cause of the Eucharist leadeth them to 1. To himself 2. To us 3. To his established means and Ordinances by which he worketh So that now the Spirit with its aid common or special is not given to any sinner immediately from God as Creator and as it was given to Adam before his fall but by the Mediation of Christ the Redeemer I mean not only the moritorious and procuring mediation but also the powerful conveying mediation Though God the Holy Ghost be still proximately the cause of Grace yet Christ as Mediator is made by office the Mediator and authorized giver of that Spirit and all its Grace and so the measurer and orderer of his helps and appointer of the conditions 2. And Christ is first filled with this Spirit personally himself that he may be a fit Head of vital Influence to all his Members who by the previous operations of his Spirit are drawn and united to him C. How prove you all this universal power in Christ B. You have heard the express proof And study further 1 John 5. 11 12. And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life and this life it in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life Rom. 8 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Mark that it is The Spirit of Christ John 15. 26. The Comforter or Advocate whom I will send to you from the Father John 16. 7. If I depart I will send him to you John 14. 26. The Comforter whom the Father will send in my name Gal. 4. 6. And because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father Gal. 2. 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me John 5. 21 22. The Son quickneth whom he will for the Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son 26. For as the Father hath life in himself so hath he given the Son to have life in himself And that you may see that he giveth the Spirit with and by means he saith Verse 24. Verily verily I say unto you He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life John 6. 27 32 33. Labour for that meat which endureth to everlasting life which the Son of man will give you For him hath God the Father seated that is openly owned as appointed to this Office He giveth life unto the world Whoso eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood hath eternal Life Dwelleth in me and I in him My Flesh is meat indeed As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me Verse 63. It is the Spirit that quickneth the Flesh profiteth nothing John 3. 34. God giveth not the Spirit to him by measure John 7. 39. This he spake of the Spirit which they that believe in him should receive John 1. 5. 4 5. Abide in me and I in you As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me I am the vine ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me or out of me ye can do nothing Matth. 28. 20. I am with you always to the end 1 Cor. 6. 17. He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit 2 Cor. 3. 17. The Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty Phil. 1. 19. Through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Col. 3. 3 4. For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God when Christ who is our life shall appear then shall ye also appear with him in glory Ephes 1. 22 23. And gave him to be head over all things to the Church which is his body the fulness of him that filleth all in all Do you need more to prove this great Office of Christ C. Here is more than I have well thought on But I find more to prove Christ the vital Head to his Church than to prove him the universal dispenser of all Grace whatever is given to the world B. Read them over again what would you have more than all Power all things all Judgment given or committed to him And to be by Office the Redeemer Saviour and light of the world coming as such even to them that neither comprehend him know him or receive him I add another Text Prov. 1. 20. to the end Wisdom crieth without she uttereth her voice How long ye simple ones will you love simplicity and the scorners delight in their scorning and fools hate knowledge Turn you at my reproof behold I will pour out my spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Because I have called and ye refused see the rest Ver. 32. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them And two things more I offer for your conviction 1. That to shew both his Power and that he will exercise it orderly by means Christ impowred his Apostles and Ministers under him to give the Spirit And if the extraordinary Gifts were given by the laying on of their hands no wonder if the ordinary were given by their Doctrine 2. That on this ground Christ shall be the universal Judge of all the world as he was the universal Law-giver and light to all But what need I more when it is his very Office as Christ as Prophet to be the universal Teacher by Spirit and Word and as Priest to sanctifie by Spirit and Word and as King to rule by Spirit and Word C. I am amazed to think how little we well understand of our very Fundamentals and Catechism which we teach the ignorant Methinks in this universal Light
better than themselves Look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus Who made himself of no reputation 1 Cor. 1. 10 11 12 13 14. Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement For it hath been declared to me of you brethren that there are contentions among you that every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas and I of Christ Is Christ divided Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized into the name of Paul I thank God that I baptized none of you c. 1 Cor. 3. 1 2 3 4. I could not speak to you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal as to babes in Christ For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions are ye not carnal and walk as men See Eph. 4. 1 c. after John 17. 20 21 22 23. I pray for them which shall believe on me that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in Thee that they also may be One in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me Matth. 5. 9. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God Rom. 12. 18. If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men 2 Cor. 12. 20 21. I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I would lest there be debates envyings wraths strifes backbitings whisperings swellings tumults Lest God will humble me among you and I shall bewail many c. Gal. 5. 19 20. The works of the flesh are manifest hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions heresies envyings 1 Cor. 14. 33. God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace as in all Churches of the Saints Acts 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Phil. 1. 15 16. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will The one preach Christ of contention not sincerely Rom. 16. 17 18. Now I beseech you brethren Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own bellies and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Luke 9. 55. Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of The Angelical Gospel of the Ends of Christs Incarnation Luke 2. 19. GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST ON EARTH PEACE GOOD WILL TO MEN or WELL-PLEASEDNESS IN MEN. John 20. 26. Peace be unto you Grace Mercy and Peace with all that are in Christ and Love Gal. 6. 16. Eph. 6. 23. 1 Pet. 1. 2. 5. 14. 2 Pet. 1. 2. 1 Thess 5. 13. 2 Cor. 13. 11. Finally brethren farewell be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind Live in Peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you Amen 1. Assert THe BAPTISMAL COVENANT expounded in the antient CREED is the summ and Symbol of Christianity by which Believers were to be distinguished from unbelievers and the outward Profession of it was mens Title to Church-communion and the Heart-consent was their Title-condition of Pardon and Salvation And to these ends it was made by Christ himself Matth. 28. 19 20. Mark 16. 16. 2. All that were baptized did profess to Believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and devoted themselves to him with profession of Repentance for former sins and renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh the World and the Devil professing to begin a new and holy life in hope of everlasting glory 3. This form of Baptismal Covenanting and Profession begun with Christianity and called our Christening or making us Christians hath been propagated and delivered down to us to this day by a full and certain tradition and testimony and less alterations than the holy Scriptures 4. The Apostles were never such formalists and friends to ignorance and hypocrisie as to encourage the baptized to take up with the saying I believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost without teaching them to understand what they said Therefore undoubtedly they expounded those three Articles And that exposition could be no other in sense than the Creed is And when Paul reciteth the Articles of Christ 1 Cor. 15. and mentioneth the Form of sound words we may be sure that they all gave the people one unchanged exposition as to the sense Christianity was one unchanged thing 5. Though I am not of their mind that think the twelve Apostles each one made an Article of the Creed or that they formed and tyed men to just the very same syllables and every word that is now in the Creed yet that they still kept to the same sense and words so expressing it as by their variation might not endanger the corrupting of the faith by a new sense is certain from the nature of the case and from the Agreement of all the antient Creeds which were ever professed at baptism from their dayes that cited by me Append. to the Reformed Pastor out of Irenaeus two out of Tertullian that of Marcellus in Epiphanius that expounded by Cyril that in Ruffinus the Nicene and all mentioned by Usher and Vossius agreeing thus far in sense And no one was baptized without the Creed professed 6. As Christ himself was the Author of the Baptismal Creed and Covenant so the Apostles were the Authors of that Exposition which they then used and taught the Church to use And they did that by the Holy Ghost as much as their inditing of the Scripture 7. Therefore the Church had a Summary and Symbol of Christianity as I said before about twelve years before any Book of the New Testament was written and about sixty six years before the whole was written And this of Gods own making which was ever agreed on when many Books of the New Testament were not yet agreed on 8. Therefore men were then to prove the truth of the Christian Religion by its proper Evidences and Miracles long before they were to prove that every word or any Book of the New Testament was the infallible perfect Word of God 9. Therefore we must still follow the same Method and take Christs Miracles to be primarily the proof of the Christian Religion long before the New Testament Books were written 10. Therefore if a man should be
the Synod of Dort and been as far from Tyranny as they should have been matters had never come so oft to Blood or Tumult among them as they have done nor Grotius and the Arminians had so much to say against them I will not meddle with the matters of this Island in our times seeing they sufficiently speak themselves But how cometh this Clergie Tyranny to be so common so long and so powerful in the World to make Parties and draw Princes into Wars 1. It must be remembred that true Godliness is not common in the World Too many take up Christianity as in the Eastern parts the posterity of the old famous Christians are now Mahometans 2. The Gospel and true Spirit of Christianity is contrary to the minds and worldly interests of carnal ambitious covetous voluptuous men So that they profess a Religion which their own hearts abhorr as to its serious practice 3. Every unrenewed man hath such a worldly fleshly nature and is voluptuous proud and covetous And none of them love to be reproved or crossed in their way 4. Church Honours Dignities and great Revenues and Clergie-ease in an idle life are a great bait or temptation to a carnal mind And the worse men are the more they will desire and seek Church preferments and make all the friends they can to get them And the more self-denying men will not do so but perhaps avoid them 5. The diligent seekers are liker to obtain and find than the neglecters and avoiders And so the Churches to be usually in the power of the worser sort of men and Religion to be under the Government of its enemies 6. Men in power and the Major Vote have great advantage to execute their own wills and to put Laws on others and bring them under what Characters they please and so to affix the names of Hereticks or Schismaticks on them if they fulfil not all their wills yea to silence them and suppress their Writings and make them to be little understood in the World yea or by their neighbours round about them 7. The Vulgar as they are for the Conquerour in the Wars so usually are for the upper and stronger side in peace that have Power to hurt them and have the Major Vote And also easily believe them and think men that suffer are like to be guilty of what they are accused 8. Godliness being against a worldly mind and interest and the Rabble usually for it hence ariseth a Conspiracy of carnal Clergie-men and the Rabble against those that are most seriously Godly as if they were their enemies and a surly proud intractable sort of people As Sulpitius Severus describeth Ithacius and his followers and even Mr. Hooker out of him Eccl. Pol. Praefat. 9. Such men in Power never want flatterers at their ears to praise all that they do and to exasperate them by slandering and reviling sufferers 10. The long possession since the dayes of Constantine of Great Places and Power by the Clergie within the Roman Empire now the Greek and Latine Churches doth seem to justifie mens Usurpations and Tyranny and make all dissenters seem singular and Schismatical which was and is the Papal strength against the Reformed 11. Too many of the Secular Rulers of the World have much of the same Spirit And find also their interests so twisted in shew with the Papal Clergies that they dare not cross them 12. The faults of those that suffer by them in doctrine and imprudent carriages use to give them great advantage and make all their odious characters and names of them believed and received as the case of the Waldenses and of the Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany too fully prove II. The second Rank of Church-disturbers are DOGMATISTS or men that profess exceeding zeal for ORTHODOX Opinions or Theological Knowledge And thus three instances tell us of the Cause of our Calamities 1. That of Gnostick and Heretical persons who account every new Conceit of theirs to be worthy the propagating even at the rate of Theological Wars and Church Confusions and cry out But the Truth and sell it not when it is some error of their own or some unprofitable or unnecessary notion 2. The case of the Romanists to say nothing of all the old contentious Bishops and Councils and the controversies about Persona and Hypostasis and about many words and forms of speech What do the Roman Councils for many hundred years last but on pretence of preserving the faith uncorrupted multiply divisions and new Articles of faith quoad nos And while they cry down most of Christs Church as Heretical or greatly erroneous they have run themselves into the grossest errors almost that humane nature is capable of even to the making it necessary to salvation to deny our own and all the sound mens senses in the World in the case of Transubstantiation 3. The case of the Schoolmen and such other Disputing Militant Theologues who have spun out the Doctrine of Christianity into so many Spiders Webs and filled the World with so many Volumes of Controversies as are so many Engines of contention hatred and division And I would our Protestant Churches Lutherans and Calvinists had not too great a number of such men as are far short of the Schoolmens subtilty but much exceed them in the enviousness of their zeal and the bitterness and revilings of their disputes more openly serving the Prince of hatred against the Cause of Love and Peace O how many famous Disputers in Schools Pulpit and Press do little know what Spirit they are of and what reward they must expect of Christ for making odious his Servants destroying Love and dividing his Kingdom How many such have their renown as little to their true comfort as Alexanders and Caesars for their bloody Wars But how cometh this Dogmatical Zeal so to prevail Consider 1. Nature it self is Delighted in Knowing much Else Satan had not made it Eves temptation Without Grace even Theological Speculations may be very pleasing to mens minds Morality and Holiness is principally seated in the Will 2. Satan hath here a far fairer bait than worldly Wealth and Pleasures and Honours to tempt men and steal away their hearts from that Love and Practice which is Holiness indeed All men are bound to Love Gods Word and his Truth must be precious to us all and now it is easie for the hypocritical Dogmatist to take up here and make himself a Religion of Zeal for those opinions which he entitleth God to And O that I could speak this loud enough to awaken the Learned World of Disputers to so much jealousie of their own hearts as is necessary to their own safety as well as to the Churches peace This thing called Orthodoxness Truth and Right-believing precious in it self if it be what it is called is made by Satan an ordinary means to deceive Learned men and keep them from a holy and heavenly mind and life when grosser cheats would be less effectual
will be an universal Concord in very MANY or UNCERTAIN UNNECESSARY things And O that I could write it on all mens hearts or doors at least that The Christian world will never have Concord but in a FEW CERTAIN NECESSARY things Therefore Paul said to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 11. 2 3. I am jealous of you with Godly jealousie For I have espoused you to one husband c. But I fear lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve though his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in or towards Christ O mark these words all ye contentious Church TYRANTS DOGMATISTS and SUPERSTITIOUS ones Read and study them well God laid down the terms of the Churches Concord in seven Unities 1. One Body or Church Catholick 2. One Spirit or Holy Ghost as the soul of that Church 3. One Hope or Heavenly felicity hoped for 4. One Lord of the Church our Head and Saviour 5. One Faith or Creed or Symbol of our belief and Belief thereof 6. One Baptismal Covenant 7. And one God and Father of us all who is above all through all and in us all Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. And it is the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace that on these terms we are charged to keep v. 2 3. with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love But now cometh the Serpent note 1. The author and by subtilty 2. Note the means even as he beguiled Eve 3. Note the precedent which was by promising her more knowledge and exaltation to be as God and he corrupteth mens minds 4. Mark the effect though it is knowledge and advancement of mind that he promiseth and pretendeth Even by drawing them as to higher POWER KNOWLEDGE or HOLINESS from the Christian simplicity 5. Mark what the Corruption of Religion is And what is this Christian SIMPLICITY which they forsake and how are they thus Corrupted from it I. The Church TYRANT departeth from the SIMPLICITY of Church Government first and will not hear Christs vehement charge Luk. 22. With you it shall not be so He cannot understand such Texts because he would not Hence how unlike is the Secular-Papal and Patriarchal state to the Ministry appointed and described by Christ To reduce them to that they think is to be enemies to the Church And do they not then take Christ for their Capital enemy because they are enemies to humility mortification and the Cross Phil. â— 18. To cross bearing not to cross making The Papists think that Greg the seventh that took down Princes was the most glorious instrument of the Churches exaltation And by turning all to corporeal Glory they lose hearts and destroy the souls whom they profess to save And having first corrupted GOVERNMENT from the Primitive simplicity and made Princes their Lictors as Grotius speaks in that excellent Epistle newly translated by Mr. Barksdale they next corrupt DOCTRINE and WORSHIP consequently For TYRANTS must have their Wills in every thing and numerous and needless Laws and Canons must be made to shew their power and fulfil their wills that they may be Law-givers and a Rule to all the World And when they have made a seeming Necessity of doing things unnecessary then to plead the Necessity which they have made is the summ of all their arguments And they that are against strict and precise adhering to the Scriptures or observance of Gods own commands are yet so strict for obedience to their proud imperious wills that they perswade themselves and others that without it there can be no order no unity no peace but rebellion and confusion And so they cry up Obedience Obedience that their Idol wills may be bowed to by all without controul And when they are meer Usurpers and use no Power given them by God they yet get the advantage of making all odious that obey them not in the least and greatest matters by the names of schism unruliness or such like O say the Papal Usurpers The Church must be obeyed or there will be no order Disobedience in small matters is no small sin when they have set up an Idol power against Christ as if to disobey him whose Laws they make void by their Traditions and Usurpations were a lesser fault And when they have departed as far from the Christian simplicity in Doctrine Government and Worship as their voluminous Councils and Decretals and Missals differ from the ancient simple Christianity and have made as many snares and engines to divide and tear the Church of Christ as there are noxious that I say not Needless Laws Canons and Decrees imposed as necessary to peace and concord then no mens mouths are more opened against schism when they have unavoidably caused it yea are the greatest schismaticks And no men call so loud for Unity and Concord as they that have first made it a thing impossible Let none think that I am speaking against any true Church-Government or faithful Pastors But I appeal to the Consciences of these Papal Tyrants 1. Whether it would not be far easier for Christians to Agree in A FEW PLAIN and NECESSARY things of Christs own Institution than in a multitude of humane decrees and articles composed in words more lyable to Controversie Will not more subscribe to the Creed than to all the Councils 2. Have they not room enough to shew their Power and work enough to do in seeing to the execution of Christs own Universal Laws and preserving meer Order and Decency in undetermined circumstances that all may be done to edification 3. Doth not every needless Oath and Subscription by which they would tye men faster to themselves in controvertible cases plainly tend to undermine themselves and keep up still a conscientious party against them For while men have nothing to do but live quietly under a Government they will be glad of peace But when they are put to Subscribe Declare Covenant and Swear that all this is good or lawful or that they will never be against it it sets men unavoidably on the deepest studies of the case and so all the people are set on trying and judging of that which else they would never have meddled with For what honest man will say swear or promise he knoweth not what Even as some crafty Rebels would undermine Princes by drawing them to put the controverted parts of their Prerogative into the Subjects Oaths that so they may make all the people Students and Judges of the cause and unavoidably make factions and dissenters that else would have lived quietly if they might so do the Papal Clergie ruine themselves by such over-doing impositions I remember Lampridius tells us that Alexander Severus that great enemy of injustice was so severe that he would have made a Law to regulate mens Apparel But Ulpian changed his mind by telling him that Many Laws cause Divisions and make occasions of disobedience They cry out There will be no order if Ministers and people be
God do intendere finem and what is his End The Order and Objects opened p. 57. Sect. 16. What Election and Reprobation are The order of the Decrees called Reprobation and of the Objects Of Negations of Decree p. 66. An Additional Explication of Divine Nolitions p. 76. Sect. 17. Whether God Will Decree or Cause Sin Five Acts of God in and about Sin What Sin is Many wayes God can cause the same thing that the sinner causeth and so fulfil his Decrees without Willing or Causing the Sin Objections answered God freely not idlely or impotently restraineth his own possible operations sometimes that he do not such or such an act at all and sometime that he do but so much towards it and no more Whether God be ever Causa partialis p. 84. Sect. 18. A Confutation of Dr. Twisses Digress 5. li. 2. sect 1. Vindic. Gratiae where he asserteth that God Willeth the existence of Sin and that sins are a medium sua natura summe unice conducibile to the Glorification of his Mercy and Justice p. 92. Sect. 19. The same Doctrine in Rutherford de Providentia confuted Whether things be good because God willeth them or willed by him because good resolved Whether there were eternal rationes boni mali Dr. Field vindicated p. 106. Sect. 20. The old Doctrine of Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius thought by some Jesuits too rigid but indeed Conciliatory for absolute Election to Faith and so to Salvation and for no reprobating Decree but only of Punishment for Sin foreseen but not decreed Prosper ad Cap. Gall. Sentent translated p. 115. Sect. 21. The summ of Prospers Answer to Vincent 16. Object p. 118. Sect. 22. Fulgentius words to the same sense p. 121. Sect. 23. The healing Doctrine and Concessions of many called Calvinists of the Synod of Dort Pet. Molinaeus c. p. 124. Sect. 24. And of Petr. á Sancto Joseph Suarez Ruiz c. on the other side especially Bellarmines at large and others p. 127. ERRATA PART 1. pag. 10. l. 38. in marg for Reason Being r. Relation being p. 24. l. 25. r. those Causes l. 26. r. first Case p. 27. l. 2. r. Of predetermination Reader Pain and Greater business forbad me to gather the Errata some are gathered by a Friend out of the first Book many more I must leave to your ingenuity I see in the Premonition p. 4. l. 22. for Mr. W. Mr. D. l. 47. for Armatus Annatus Also Dial. 11. p. 231. l. 30. r. refuse Dial. 13. p. 291. l. 13. for not r. done Catholick Theologie The First BOOK PACIFYING PRINCIPLES Collected from the common Notices of Nature the certain Oracles of GOD in the Holy Scriptures and the common Consent of Christians For the RECONCILING OF THE CHURCH-DIVIDING and DESTROYING CONTROVERSIES especially about PREDESTINATION PROVIDENCE GRACE and FREE-WILL REDEMPTION JUSTIFICATION FAITH MERIT WORKS CERTAINTY OF SALVATION PERSEVERANCE and many others In Three Parts I. Of Gods Nature Knowledge Decrees and Providence about Sin with Mans Free-will as the Objects of the former II. Of Gods GOVERNMENT and MORAL Works III. Of Gods Operations on Mans Soul By RICHARD BAXTER An earnest Desirer of the UNITY LOVE and PEACE of Christians For endeavouring of which he expecteth with resolved Patience still to undergo the Censures Slanders and Cruelties of IGNORANCE PRIDE and MALICE from all that are possessed by the Wisdom and Zeal which are from beneath Earthly Sensual and Devilish the Causes of Confusion and every evil work James 3. 14 15 16. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in S t. Pauls Church-yard MDCLXXV The First Part OF THE NATURE KNOWLEDGE WILL AND DECREES of GOD As far as is needful to the intended CONCILIATION and CONCORD SECT I. Of our Knowledge of God as here attainable THough it be about the Knowledge Will and Decrees of God that our Controversies are agitated yet because the consequent Verities are scarce ever well understood without the understanding of the Antecedents out of which the Consequents arise and without the just order place and respect which the later have unto the former and unless things be understood in their true Method I will therefore expose my self to the obloquy of those who will call it Over-doing so far as to premise somewhat of the Deity it self But not what is necessary to the full explication of the Divine Attributes as we are capable as must be in a Method of Theologie which I have attempted elsewhere but only so much as lyeth under our Controverted Subject And when I have done that I shall leave the rest Thes 1. To Know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent is Life Eternal * * * John 17. 3. Bradward l. 1. c. 11. p. 198. The first necessary incomplex Principle is God and the first complex simply is of God Deus est c. But yet it is not to us the primum cognitum 2. To †††Exodus 20. know GOD is to know his Being Nature and Relations For though those Relations that are to Man be not essential to his Divine Nature yet are they essentially contained in the signification of the name GOD as he is the object of our Faith and Religion For to be OUR GOD doth speak his Relations to us as well as his Nature As the name KING and FATHER doth among men 3. We neither have nor can have here in flesh any one proper formal Conception of the Divine Nature that is formally suited to the truth in the object But only Metaphorical or Analogical Conceptions borrowed from things better known 4. Yet nothing beyond sense at least is so certainly known as GOD so far as we can reach though nothing be less perfectly or more defectively known or less comprehended Even as we know nothing Visible more certainly than the Sun and yet comprehend nothing Visible less 5. It is not true which many great Metaphysicians assert that the Quiddity of God is totally unknown to us For then it could not be life eternal to know him nor would a meer Negative knowledge cause in us a sufficient Positive Love or Joy or Trust c. But to know that we cannot know him would but inferr that we cannot Love him For we Love not an unknown Good 6. Nor is it true that Pet. Hurtado de Mendoza in fine Disput and some others say that the Notions of Life and Intellect are all that we have of the Quiddity of God and that the Divine Will is not a Quidditative notion 7. God is here seen in the Glass of his Works with the Revelation of his Word and Spirit And from these works we must borrow our conceptions * * * The doubt is How Imperfect works can notifie the perfect God And the Schoolmen manage it as an insuperable difficulty Whether God could have made the World or any thing better than it is If you will pardon me for making
that easie which they make ineffable I answer Goodness is Primitive that is God or Derivative which only is in Creatures This last is formally Good as it is Related as Conform to Gods Will the Prime Good as its Rule To be à Deo Volitum is the formal notion of Created Good And so the world is perfect and can be no better because it is as God willeth it And yet God can make particular creatures better to themselves and to one another He can make any man more wise more holy c. But bonum sibi is no further properly bonum than it is Volitum à Deo Therefore God can make the world far otherwise than it is and yet then it would be no Better For still it would be but as God willed it to be So that the matter and private Goodness might alter but the true form of Goodness would be still just the same as now 8. Therefore though the Thing intended when we speak of God be transcendently and only in Him and not in the Creature yet the first use of the words is to signifie something in the Creature And therefore the Creature is the famosius analogatum though Nothing to God 9. In the use of these notions we must still profess that we apply them to God no farther than to signifie his perfections And all words must be as little as may be used of him in strict disputes which imply imperfection when better may be had But the highest are to be preferred 10. And we must still profess that we take none of these words to be formal proper univocal terms lest the concealed Metaphor or impropriety occasion false conceptions of God and unworthy of Him and also tempt men to run them further by false inferences 11. Gods Nature is most simple undivided And so must an adequate conception of Him be But Man can have no such conception of Him but must know what he can know of this One GOD by many partial inadequate conceptions 12. Yet must we be very careful that these inadequate analogical Conceptions be Orderly and not as I will not say how commonly it is done by some a confused heap For the Mind that so conceiveth of Him greatly injureth it self and Him and the Tongue and Pen that so describeth Him dishonoureth Him And though the Ignorant for whom Catechisms are written cannot lay together a full Scheme of the Divine Attributes in just method yet those few which they can understand and remember they would as well and better understand and remember in the true method were they taught it than in an heap For Method is a great help to understanding and memory We would not give a Prince his Titles so confusedly nor draw his Picture monstrously with the arms where the seet should be and the seet where the arms or the back before and the face behind unless we exposed him purposely to scorn Every man knoweth the difference between a Clock or Watch in order and the same in confused parcels on a heap and between an Army and a Rout c. Shall Order be the beauty of the World and every Creature in it and shall we deny it only to the God of Order I crave the pardon of Divines for intreating them to amend this in their Doctrine but especially in their Catechisms yea in their Understandings first SECT II. Of mans Soul as the Glass in which we must see God 13. THe principal Glass in which we must see God in his Nature among all his Creatures here is the Soul of man which is said to be made after the Image of God And which being our selves we can best perceive 14. The Soul of Man beareth Gods Image in three parts of it or respects 1. In its Nature it is the Image of the Divine Nature 2. In its Rectitude it is the Image of the Divine Holiness and perfection 3. In our Dominion over the inferiour Creatures and eminently in Superiours over Subjects it hath the Image of his Majesty and Supereminence 15. I We have no one adequate Conception of the Nature of our own souls but must think of them by partial inadequate Conceptions And that by many not feigned or forced but real and necessary Trinaries in Unity 16. And first the Three Inadequate Conceptions of its Being are the Generical the Differencial and the Proper-inseparable Accidental viz. that it is * * * 1. Substantialitas Generica is loco materia Aegid Rom. saith Quodl 1. q. 9. p. 18. Non est materia in Angelis bene tamen est aliquid loco materia quia non sunt Actus purus sed habent aliquam potentialitatem admixtam Unde in li. de Causis scribitur quod Intelligentia habtant suam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. suum materiale Et hoc forte volunt illi qui in Angelis Materiam ponunt Cum ipsi dicant materiam illam non esse ejusdem rationis cum materia corporalium Solùm ergo in verbis videntur discordare à nobis Quia nos ibi aliquod materiale ponimus N. B. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vita Proprietatibus suis praedita The first notion is substantia abstractè à forma concepta The second is the Conceptus formatis The third its Accidents not acquired but natural By LIFE I understand not Relatively only that it is the Life of the body or Compositum But essentially as in its nature it is Life it self or a Living substance formally as well as the Living Principle in the man The word Spirit as commonly used by us comprehendeth all this but what a Spirit is we know but by these partial Conceptions 17. To pass by the Three Vital Faculties Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective because I describe it but as the Speculum Deitatis 2. This One Formal Principle LIFE as it is mans soul must be it self known by us by these Three inadequate Conceptions as making up the Form of the soul 1. Vital Activity or Power 2. An Intellect 3. A Will. †††See Aureolus in 2. d. 9. that in separated substances Angels there is a Motive power beside the Intellect and Will with whom Suarez and many others do agree 18. 3. And the EXISTENCE of these Formal Principles cannot justly be understood by us but in these three gradual inadequate or partial Conceptions 1. As in Potentia-activa seu Virtute 2. As in Actu immanente 3. As in Actione transeunte Not as it is in Passo but as it is Status vel Modus Agentis 19. II. The Moral or Holy Image of God on the soul is the Holy Perfection or Qualification of these Faculties as they are In Virtute by Holy Dispositions As in Actu immanente by Holy Intrinsick Acts and Habits And as to Action ad extra by a Holy Rectitude And this Image consisteth in the souls Holy Vivacity or Activity and its Wisdom and Goodness or its Holy Liveliness Light and Love 20. III. The Image of Gods Majesty or
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
and effectual Rom. 9. 11. 15. 21 Joh. 10. 26. Rom. 6. 21. grace intending that it shall be effectual This he doth not for the Reprobate and besides this negation they know no act of Reprobation as opposite to Election And they say that the Gospel and grace are denyed to none but the unworthy sinners And that God damneth none nor destinateth none to damnation but out of the consideration of sin 674. The Hassian Divines ibid. Par. 2. pag. 34. say The just Judge God doth not for one cause Decree to punish and for another execute it on the guilty but both have the same cause that is both original and actual sin 675. The Helvetian Divines there say p. 37. § 12. Which is the Order and Number of Gods Decrees seeing Gods thoughts and wayes are not as ours and none of us are of his Council we leave to Him alone whose understanding is infinite 676. The Embdan Divines ibid. p. 75. say No one is predestinated by God to sin which they there prove 677. On the second Art the Brittish Divines say p. 78. God having Act. 10. 43. Rom. 3. 24 25. Maâ—k 16. 15 16. mercy on faln mankind sent his Son who gave himself a price of Redeâ—ption for the sins of the whole world Thes 4. In this Merit of Christs death is founded the Universal Gospel Promise Th. 5. In the Church where for this Gospel-promise salvation is offered Isa 59. ult 2 Cor. 3. 6. Tit. 2. 11. 2 Cor. 5. 19. Luk. 10. 9 11. Joh. 15. 22. Heb. 2. 3. 4. 3. 6. 4. Mat. 10. 15. to all there is that administration of Grace which is enough to convince all the impenitent and unbelieving that they perish and â—oâ—e the offered benefit by their voluntary fault and neglect or contempt of the Gospel 678. On the second Article p. 103 104 c. there is the suffrage of the famous Matthias Martinius in 26 Theses of universal Redemption and seven Theses of special Redemption and seventeen Errours rejected so sound so full so accurate that I know not whither to referr the Reader to see the whole controversie more shortly yet clearly and soundly opened And therefore intreat him to peruse it seeing I may not be so tedious as to transcribe it all and know not how to leave out any 679. To the same sence have Iselburge and Lud. Crocius adjoyned theâ— suffrages the last being both brief and full 680. The same Breme Divines say no more of Reprobation but these three Thes 1. That there is a Decree of preterition as to special saving Rom. 9. 12 19 c. Mat. 7. 21. Deut. 4. 34. grace 2. That none are condemned but justly for their sins 3. That others as unworthy are converted in Mercy And if others had said no more of this it had been never the worse And of Infants they say Of only Believers Infants who dye before they are capable of doctrine we determine that they are beloved of God Pâ—tavius chideth Gerson Biel Cajetan Catherinus for their found opinion of Infants salvation without Baptism and saved as holy by Covenant-relation which Baptism is a Confirmation of SECT XXIV On the other side 681. ON the other side read but Suarez and Ruiz to save me transcribing and see what they grant besides that Ariminens and many old Schoolmen go as far as the Synodists as the Dominicans do much further Petr. à S. Joseph Suav Concord writing for Scientia Media summeth up the difference between them and the Thomists that is the Arminians and Calvinists so briefly as is worth the reading In which he granteth 1. That God from eternity antecedently to any absolute foresight of merits or preparation in us did freely and of meer mercy elect all those to Glory that are saved But denyeth that God antecedently to the absolute foresight of sin did absolutely decree to exclude any from glory or to addict them to eternal punishment or that the Creation of Reprobates and all natural or supernatural good conferred on them are the effect of reprobation 2. He granteth that the Decree of Predestination is certain and immovable in three respects 1. In that just so many shall certainly be saved as God hath predestinated 2. In that the same species of men shall be saved whom God predestinated to glory so that both materially and formally the number of the predestinate is certain 3. In that by the force of Predestination anteceding all Merits * * * That is Rewardable actâ— of man yea and Causing them God giveth to the predestinate effectual helps of grace by which they shall infallibly come to glory And is not here a fair concession for peace And must not the remainâ—ing differences be only 1. About words 2. Or unsearchable Orders of Gods Decrees and Modes of operation Read him further and see 682. Dion Petavius the Jesuite is too large to transcribe Vol. 1. Theol. Dogm lib. 9. of Predestination is worth the reading especially to know what the Father 's held of Gods Decrees who generally agreed that God Which he largely sheweth in their own words better than any that ever I saw and may save the Reader much labour in the investigation of the sense of the Antients herein decreed none to Hell but upon foresight of their own sin Though he himself doth furiously rail at Calvin and Amyraldus yet he so far acquitteth all other Calvinists save Beza and Piscator and a few that he calleth meer fools that he saith They have all forsaken his opinion and instanceth in the whole Synod of Dort who he saith desert him And he professeth that Augustines judgement may safely be held which is it indeed that those now called Calvinists own except in the point of perseverance See his lib. 10. c. 1. 9 10 11. But what a plague livor and faction is to the Church and the owners souls let but these ugly words of his be witness lib. 10. cap. 14. p. 728. Calvinus nocentem nullum innocentes omnes damnari statuit When â—e had made Amyrald an impudent lyer for proving Calvin to think otherwise O take heed of the spirit of a Sect. 683. Suarez de Auxil l. 3. cap. 6. about sufficient and effectual grace See Zumel reciting the opinions of Molina Bellarmine and Suarez de Gratia efficaci Part â—â—â—â— pag. 50 51 c. into which all the other controversies fall confesseth that Sufficient grace is that quod satis est ad efficiendum supernaturalem actum quod tamen non facit non ex insufficientia auxilii sed ex libertate Voluntatis But effectual grace is called such not only ab eventu effectu sed etiam quia vires praebet efficacissimas Voluntati singularem vim habet ad agendum And is here no ground for Christian Concord in this point But of this subject I must speak more particularly in the Third Part. 684. Bellarmine himself hath enough I think to convince any man
or after the performance a proper Cause of Gods Will which pardoned us For Gods Will in it self can have no cause But they were Causes 1. Of the Thing willed and 2. Also of the extrinsecal denomination of Gods Will from the object and effect of which anon 41. Christ did not take upon him strictly and properly the Natural or Civil person of any Sinner much less of all the Elect or all Sinners But the person of a Mediator between God and Sinners Of which more afterwards 42. Christ was not our Delegate Deputy Minister or Instrument to do what he did in our names by representing our persons as a man's Servant payeth his Masters debt by his command or doth some work which he was to do by himself or by another Nor did God or his own consent put him into any such Instrumental Relation in our Civil persons 43. Yet did he in the person of a Mediator not only merit and suffer â—ro nobis nostro bono but also voluntarily as part of his Mediatoâ—ial work suffer the penalty nostro loco in our stead Not by a full â—epresentation of our persons nor as if we could hence truly say that we â—id in sensu Legis vel Civili Suffer in Christ or satisfie Gods Justice our selves by Christ nor that God or the Redeemer do reckon it to us or ever will to be a thing done by us in our own Civil person though â—y Christs Natural person nor will ever give us all the fruits of it on that reason and account as supposing us so by Christ to have satisfyed for or Redeemed our selves But he suffered in the stead and place of Sinners to satisfie Gods Wisdom Truth and Justice and to procure pardon and life for Sinners to be given out by himself on his terms and in his way 44. Much less did Christ in our persons and we in and by him in a civil sence become habitually holy and perfectly fulfill all righteousness Nor doth God ever repute us to have our selves in our own civil persons thus fulfilled the Law and been holy in and by Christ or will justifie us on such a supposition 45. Christ is said to be made sin for us in that he was made a Sacrifice for sin But never was a Sinner indeed or in Gods esteem For God judgeth not falsly Nor did he ever take to himself the Guilt of fact or fault in it self but the punishment and the guilt only in relation to punishment the Reatum poenae non culpae qua talis But if any will call the Reatum poenae by the name of Reatum eulpae quoad poenam tantum because of the relation and connotation I strive not against the Name so we agree of the thing But safest words are best especially seeing that obligatio ad poenam is it that is most usually and eminently called guilt But Christ never undertook to be reputed of God one that was truly and formally wicked or a sinner but only one that was a sponsor who consented to suffer for Sinners that they might be delivered And they are ill words of them that say Christ was by imputation the most wicked man the greatest Thief Adulterer Murderer or Sinner in the world Though such men may mean well it were better speak in the Scripture phrase and not so far overgoe it Had God imputed our sins so to him as to have esteemed him a Sinner or guilty of our habitual and actual sin as sin even our hatred of God and all our wickedness God must necessarily from the perfection of his Nature have hated him as a wicked enemy yea more than he hated any other man as being guilty of a world of wickedness Whereas God was still well pleased with him and never hated him 46. The satisfaction which Christ made to the justice of God was full and perfect and so was his merit by his perfect Righteousness 47. The perfection of Christ's satisfaction consisteth not in its being in stead of All the sufferings due to all for whom be dyed so that none should therefore be ever due to the persons themselves For death afflictions and the want of Grace and withholding of the Spirits further help c. must be suffered even by the Elect But it consisteth in its full sufficiency to those Ends for which it was designed by the Father and the Son 48. The very Nature and Reason of the satisfactoriness of Christ's â—â—â—ferings was not in Being the very same either in Kind or in Degree which were due to all for whom he suffered For they were not such Of which more afterwards 49. They could not be the same which was due by the Law For the Law made it due to the Sinner himself And anothers suffering for him fulfilleth not the Law which never said Either thou or another for the shalt dye But only satisfied the Law-giver as he is above his own Law and could dispense with it his Justice being satisfied and saved Dâ—â—alius solvit aliud solvitur 2. And sin it self though not as sin as â—â— before opened was the greatest part of the Sinners punishment To â—â— alienated from God and not to love him and delight in him but to be corrupted and deluded and tormented by concupiscence 3. And the immediate unavoidable consequents resulting from sin it self weâ—â— punishments which Christ did never undergo As to be Hateful or â—â— pleasing to God as contrary to his Holy nature to be related as Criminal to lose all Right to Gods favour and Kingdom c. 4. And noâ—â— of the further punishments which supposed real faultiness could fall â—â— Christ as the torment of an accusing Conscience for rejecting and offending God for casting away our own felicity and running into hell c. the sense of Gods hatred of us as real Sinners 5. Much less the deâ—â—tions of the Spirit of Holiness to be left without goodness in a state of sin and to hate God for his justice and holiness which will be the damneds case The blind zeal of them that think they wrong the sufferings of Christ if they make them not thus of the sâ—me kiâ—â— with all that we deserved doth lead them to the intollerable Blasphâ—ming of our Saviour which if understood they would themselves abhor 50. Nor could Christ's sufferings be equal in Degree intensively and extensively to all that was deserved by the world As is easily disâ—â—â—nible by perusing what is now said seeing our deserved suffering lay iâ— things of such a Nature as to be left in sin it self destitute of Godâ— Image and Love and Communion under his hatred tormented in Câ—â—science besides the everlasting torments of hell which are more thâ—â— these upon all the millions of Sinners which were redeemed 51. Yet did Christ suffer more in Soul than in Body being at the present deprived of that kind of sense of Gods Love and Joy therein which was no part of his holiness or perfection but no other and having oâ—
in his Gospel to have a Law The case is sad that any in opposition to others should run into such an Antinomian extream They are unlike to be good Preachers of Christ's Law who maintain that he hath no Law And there can be no sin against it nor expectation of being judged by it if he have none And he is no King and Ruler if he have no Law But yet let the Papists forbear iâ—â—â—ing and remember that the true meaning of most of them is no more than to assert what Suarez himself propugneth viz. that besides Revelations and the Duties thence naturally resulting by natural Law and the Sacraments Christ hath no other Laws And both Suarez and they are here to blame for the Papists that are by some accused for calling the Gospel a Law do also give too little honour to Christ's Laws It beseemeth none of them to use such ill Language what-ever they mean If they should say that the King is no Law-Giver and hath no Laws they would wrong him by that Language as denying his Royalty how well soever they should interpret it For the Legislative-Power is the principal essential part of Soveraignty But if any really deny Christ to be a Law-Giver and when he hath done reproacheth the Papists and Arminians for contradicting it it is but as the blind reproaching the purblind for seeing when they that give most to the Laws of Christ among these Contenders do give too little The Baptismal-Covenant is a Law as imposed and as imposing the Covenant-Duties and as determining the conditions of Life and Death according to which men must live and shall be judged yea it is the most famous Law which Conscience hath to do with Though it be a Covenant as consented to in the contract That Sinners have terms of Life and Death and offered Remedies against all their Guilt and greatest Punishments and Means prescribed and Duties commanded in order to their recovery when the Law of Innocency condemneth them especially the obeying of the Ministry and Word and Holy Spirit of Christ prescribing them his way of cure as their Physician all this is a Law of Grace even the Law of Liberty and the Law of the Spirit of Life which freeth us from the Law of Sin and Death Christ's Law consisteth of two parts as is said 1. The Law of Nature called by many moral as commanding the love of God and its attendent Duties not now to an innocent man but to a condemned-recovering Sinner as the health to which his Physician doth restore him 2. And the remedying Law which is more proper to the Redeemer called the Law of Faith which appointeth us the terms and means of our recovery which is 1. Supernatural as to the Revelation of the matter and reasons of it and the foundation of all in Christ's Work of Redemption and his Legislation 2. But as to the obligation or efficiency of mans duty it is both natural and supernatural at once that is when it is presupposed that Christ hath done suffered and offered to our acceptance all that is so asserted of him in the Gospel 1. Nature obligeth us to believe it upon evidence of credibility and to accept it and thankfully improve it 2. Christ as the Fathers Administrator and our King hath positively commanded us the same Were it not for wearying the Reader and my self I would here answer all that Suarez saith de Legib. li. 10. c. 2. to prove that no praeceptum positivum morale is added by Christ And I would easily prove that as some parts of Nature are unalterable and accordingly natural Duty so some things of Nature are mutable and so is that natural Duty which is founded on them And Christ hath by supernatural Performances and Revelations made such changes in the nature of things as inferreth new natural Obligations Were the Devils redeemed and Grace now offered them nature would make it their duty to accept it In sum it is a sufficient confutation of all Suarez's Reasons to say that they run upon this false supposition that Nature and supernatural Precept may not both oblige man to the same duty and that God cannot lay two Obligations on us to the same action For all that he laboureth is to prove that supposing the Revelation Nature bindeth us to believe all the Christian Articles to preach and hear and pray to God by Christ to love our Redeemer and be thankful c. and that the Gospel is thus fitted to lapsed Nature as the first Law was to innocent Nature All which I like very well and take it for a great honour to Christ and the Gospel that it is so suited to the natural necessity and state of fallen and miserable man and may be called the Law of sinful Nature But Suarez himself had before proved that Moses's Decalogue was both a Declaration of what Nature bound men to and yet also the matter of a new Precept of God And why could he not see the same of the Gospel it being so evident that it containeth Christ's Commands And the very sum of our Ministry is 1. To disciple and baptize all Nations c. 2. And then to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded And indeed Suarez confesseth p. 816. That Christ did by new commanding add new Obligations to the duties of Nature though he deny that Christ added any positive Precept as to the moral matter commanded by the Law of Nature And by this instance you may see how near some men agree that seem much to differ But as to them that insist on it that the Gospel and New Covenant are no Laws and that we have none from Christ but the Decalogue and Old Testament were I to write against them to purpose I would plentifully prove them Subverters of Christianity it self and give full evidence against them to any that believe the holy Scriptures And contrarily I would prove that there are no Divine Laws but what are truly the Laws of our Redeemer now in the world and that all Infidels are ruled and shall be judged by a Law of Grace though not of the last evangelical Edition and that he that feareth not breaking the Laws of Christ shall hear at last Those mine Enemies that would not that I should Reign over them bring them hither and slay them before me Luk. 19. 27. a a a That Christ is truly a King and so a Law-Giver and hath proper Laws and not only Doctrine and how great an injury some Protestants have doâ—e the Church by denying besides the Antinomians See Suarâ—z de Leg. l. 10. c. 1. whose proofs of the thing are unanswerable And I have long ago proved it in other Writings But Suarâ—z asserting that Christ's Law is only Moral and Ceremonial in the Sacraments and not judicial doth plainly confess that God never instituted the Papacy and their Discipline Yea he saith c. 2. p. 812. Christus in sua lâ—ge nihil de praecâ—ptis judicialibus statuit etiam
si in Ecclesia Christi ut talis est aliquae leges judiciales siâ—t necessariae ad politicum regimen Ecclesiasticum quod suo modo spirituale est nihilominus noluit Christus dominus per se ipsum illas leges ferre sed id Vicariis suis commisit potestatem ad illas ferendas eis tribuendo Et ideo illae Leges non sub Lege Divina sed sub canonica computantur Prâ—prie igitur loquendo de Lege divina nova in illa non inveniuntur praecepta judicialia So that Christ never made the Papacy nor any of its Laws But indeed he appointed Baptism as our Church-entrance and more than a Ceremony and the state of Câ—uâ—ch Officers and their work and discipline Mat. 18. And what his Spirit did in the Apostles he did in another sort than he doth by any ordinary Ministers that have but the Spirits ordinary help b b b Aquinas and many other Papists â—oyn with some late Secâ—aâ—ies and say that it 's the Spirits Operation on the Heart that is the Lex nova and that it is not written But he could not deny but that yet the Gospel is Lex nova Scripta But falsly de nomine taketh this but for the secondary sense of the lâ—x which is the first and that the obliging Law and the other the effects of it as various as persons are that have it and not the Rule of Obligation And else-where I have shewed also de Lege natura As to the question Whether Christ's Law be exterior insignis vocal and written or in the Heart by the Spirit Suarez truly saith That lex imperans is in signis in Scripture words but lex impellens is the Spirit which though here the chief yet is not properly but metaphorically called a Law pag. 819. li. 1. in principio Though he add that it was eight years before the Gospel was written by Matthew and longer by the rest and that all that time and since it is written in the Heart But memory may retain a vocal Law before the Heart by love and subjection do receive it 61. In this Law or Covenant is made a free universal Deed of Gift of Christ first and of Pardon Spirit and Glory in and by him to all Mankind without exception who will believingly accept it in its true nature as it is offered therein Or If they will so accept it as Believers 62. This Covenant is to be preached by Christ's Ministers and men invited to believe and consent And all that so do are to profess that consent by a solemn Covenant in their Baptism and so to give up themselves devotedly to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Devil Flesh and World 63. For Faith in God the Father is as essential a part of that Faith which we must profess in Baptism and is called commonly justifying as Faith in Christ is And so is Faith in the Holy Ghost in its place For it is not possible to believe in Christ without believing first in God to whom he is the way and with whom he is our Mediator nor to believe in him fully as Christ unless we believe in him as giving us the sanctifying Spirit 64. This Covenant is nevertheless free as to the donation of the Gifts for being conditional For the Condition is not the purchase procurement by efficient causality or any way a proper cause of the Gift as given but only a dispositive cause of our reception of it and of the Gift as received It is a removens prohibens The Condition as imposed and as the mode of the Promise is only a suspension of the Donation and Right till it be performed The Condition as performed is a removing the suspension And so it is a receiving cause which is but dispositio materiae receptivae of which more in due place 65. And the Gift is nevertheless free because the Condition is but such as is morally-antecedently necessary to the reception of free Gifts For though physical Donation oft make its own way and pre-require not such Conditions as these at least yet moral Donation by Deed of Gift supposeth that the person will receive it and despising or unthankful refusal or turning it against the Donor nullifieth such a Donation in the Civil Laws of men 66. And the Benefits are nevertheless conditionally given though the Spirit of Christ cause us to perform the Condition For they are called conditional from the mode or form of the Covenant which giveth men Right to Christ and Life expresly on condition of believing 67. Though this believing be sometimes described as the assent of the Intellect and sometimes as the consent of the Will and sometime as a practical affiance trusting Christ as a Saviour to save us with Soul and Body to the renouncing and letting go all other trust Yet when ever Justification and Life is promised to Faith all these three are the essential parts of it 68. The clearest discovery of the true nature of Gods Covenant with man and of that Faith by which we partake of the benefits of it is in Baptism it self which hath ever been the entrance of men into Gods Covenant as consented to and mutual and so into a visible state of Christianity and membership of Christ and the Catholick Church And therefore it is happy for us that Christ so expresly delivered the form of the Baptismal Covenant and the Universal Church hath so safely in her practice kept it 69. This Baptismal Covenant which is conditional and the consent to which doth make us Christians must be still distinguished from the Covenant between the Father and Christ or his Law of Redemption And God promiseth not to us all that he promiseth to Christ for us nor giveth all to us which he giveth to him 70. And it must be distinguished from Gods meer Predictions concerning his Elect that he will call them renew them and save them or if those Predictions run in the form of a Promise either as they are promises to Christ concerning the Elect or as promises to the Church in general how God will perfect it still they give no man a Law-Title or Right to any of the Benefits till he is a Believer They justifie and pardon no man And so they must not be confounded with the Baptismal Covenant which is Gods stated Instrument of Justification and of Government and the Law by which he will Judge us at the last 71. This Baptismal Covenant is the character and test by which we must judge who are Christians and members of the Catholick Church of Christ and not by their Subjection to a pretended vicarious universal Monarch And this is the character with consent to his relation there by which every mans fitness for membership in a particular Church must be judged of And not by other Covenants besides that consent and proofs of Conversion not here included And this containeth the true Characters by which every man may know himself
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
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
481. An Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratia pâ—ssit demonstrari naturali ratione vel cum Infallibilitate Praescientiae Providentiae praedestinationis Divinae Where he tells you that one opinion of some Catholicks is that It is certain by the doctrine of faith that man hath Free-will but it cannot be proved by natural reason The second opinion is contrary that It is not only evident to natural reason that man hath free-will but also the concord of it with the infallibility of Divine prescience and providence may easily and clearly be made out by Scientia Media which is the Jesuites way But the third opinion which he defendeth is that Free-will may be evidently known and proved by natural reason alone But how the actual use of it consisteth with the infallibility of the prescience providence and predestination of God and with the efficacy of the helps of grace cannot be perfectly known or comprehended by natural light alone and therefore the reason of it must be Believed and the understanding captivated to the obedience of Faith Where note 1. That though he say perfectè he proveth that it cannot be known by that which is below a perfect knowledge 2. And that he denyeth not only a practical saving knowledge but a proper theoretical or dogmatical knowledge For this he citeth those words of Cajetan at large in 1. p. q. 22. art 4. which many others cite and commend In ignorantia sola quietem invenio c. And there is no man besides Alvarez higher for the Dominicans way of Absolute predetermination than D. Bannes who is of Cajetans opinion in 1. p. q. 23. art 5. 2. 2. q. 10. art 1. Siquis non intelligit quomodo usus liberi arbitrii sit liber nihilominus sit effectus jam praedefinitus à Divina providentia oportet eum credere Primum omnium debuisset credere quod aiunt se non posse intelligere Credimus enim Catholicum mysterium Trinitatis etiamsi non intelligamus And Alvarez citeth Calvin lib. de aetern Dei praedest cont Pigh p. 136. saying Siquis hoc mentis suae captu superius esse excipiat idem de me fateor Sed quid mirum si modulum nostrum imcomprehensibilis immensa Dei majestas exsuperet Atqui tantum abest ut pro carnis ratione explicandum suscipiam sublime istud reconditúmque arcanum ut quod initio praefatus sum assiduè in memoriam redire velim desipere qui plus scire appetunt quà m Deus revelaverit Quare nos potiùs docta ignorantia delectet quam intemperans ebria plus quam Deus permittit curiositas What Augustine confesseth you may see a little in Alvar. ib. p. 482 483. but more in himself often What Suarez Hurtado Mendoz. and other the most subtil philosophical Divines confess commonly of the incomprehensibility of these things and the darkness and uncertainty of our conceptions I have elsewhere partly cited and any that readeth them may find Now all this being so notorious and their ignorance commonly confessed may I not confidently inferr 1. That then seeing all must be reconciled by Believing we must have nothing obtruded on us herein which is not to be proved by the Word of God What the Word saith of Predetermination of the manner of Gods operation on second causes and influx on souls and of the nature of his first effect or Vis Impressa c. we will receive But yet men must not snatch up a metaphorical expression in one or a few Texts and urge that against the frequent and plain expressions of the Scripture of the spirits Operation on souls Christ himself saith which is more than all forecited The wind bloweth where it listeth and ye hear the sound thereof but ye know not whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the spirit But as for the operations of God by the word preached and other means and the Holy Ghosts operation by and with those means and the Holy Ghosts indwelâ—â—ng and operating after in Believers these are frequently asserted in Gods Word And that all Christs members have his Spirit regenerating illuminating quickning sanctifying them both as he is in Covenant with them to be the sanctifier of their souls and as the Love of God and all his Graces are by him caused in us all this is sure But if men will go further with us and give us as many distinctions of Gods Grace as Alvarez doth and tell us that besides God himself one of them simultaneous operation is nothing but mans act and another previous motion is somewhat else but no man knoweth what but may be named motio Virtuosa though it be neither God nor a quality nor a humane act And then will dispute how much of this some thing this motio virtuosa will serve to such an effect and how much to another and how and by what reason it is efficacious and will build on his assertions such a systeme of consequents as shall make up the doctrines of a sect or party which shall set up with this stock to militate against the Love and unity of Christians this is the course that I oppugn Once more Let the Reader note that the waies of reconciling Grace and Free-will as Alvarez mentioneth them are these four I. The Jesuits way by scientia media which I need not recite to the Learned but think it meet to recite Alvarez words of their description of Grace Supponunt gratiam praevenientem excitantem esse formaliter actiones quasdam vitales quas Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur sine nobis inquam libere co-operantibus non tamen sine nobis vitaliter efficienter concurrentibus consistere in illustratione illuminatione Intellectus atque excitatione suasione voluntatis quae efficienter procedunt ab intellectu voluntate non quidem ut Libera sed ut Natura est quamvis antecedenter dependeant à Voluntate ut Liberum arbitrium est quatenus viz. ex ejus libertate fuit dependens quod homo compararet notitias mysteriorum fidei vel eorum quae facienda erant accedendo ad praedicatores vel alio modo eos propriâ industriâ acquirendo quibus notitiis Deus se insereret eas elevando suo speciali influxu ut supernaturales sint quales ad salutem oportet sic sortiantur naturam gratiae praevenientis Suppositâ ergo Illuminatione quâ Deus illuminat Intellectum proponit Voluntati bonum ut sibi conveniens affirmant quod statim absque ulla libertate oritur merè naturaliter in voluntate motus affectionis ad bonum sibi propositum quo motu allicitur quasi invitatur ad amandum illud bonum imperandum potentiis executivis ut illud exequantur ut v. g. ad imperandum intellectui ut assentiatur rebus fidei propositis explicatis In his ergo duobus motibus viz. in illustratione Intellectus affectione
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
is the natural consequent of it which is caused by the sinner himself As 1. That God doth not complacentially Love him which is no change in God whose Nature is to Love Good and Hate Evil but in the sinner himself who hath made himself uncapable 2. And that Gods Hatred is terminated on the sinner is his own doing Even as he that would open his naked breast to the scorching Sun or cold Frost is hurt by himself When God hateth a sinner and delighteth in a Saint there is no Diversity in Him but in Them 3. The loss of Right to Heaven and all Gods special benefits is their own work and not by any change in God God made a Deed of Gift of Heaven to the faithful And if they be unfaithful it is their own doing to cast away or refuse that right 4. Abundance of temporal mercies mens sins cast away For § 15. Sin doth here torment even mens bodies The slothful and the prodigal bring want upon themselves The glutton drunkard fornicator and the idle breed painful diseases in their own flesh And most men dyâ— by some sinfully contracted maladies § 16. Besides the Natural consequents and the natural effects on the Body there are natural calamitous effects of sin on the soul As 1. The consciousness of a mans sin called An evil Conscience 2. The shame that ariseth from the guilt 3. The Conscience and sense of Gods displeasure a tormenting thing 4. Sadness for our folly in hurting our selves 5. And fear of all the after miseries All hitherto mentioned men do themselves against themselves § 17. Yea more men themselves make other men their tormentors The angry stir up others to hurt them The offenders stir up Magistrates to punish them The fornicator chooseth a filthy disease under the name of a pleasure and kindleth a putrid fevor in his own soul The covetous and unjust make all men their enemies and so do many of the proud tyrannical and oppressours The froward will not give themselves rest in their own families but make Wives Husbands Children Servants and every thing to be their own vexation And O what work do bloody Tyrants by Wars and persecution make to themselves and others in the world and what Calamities doth miserable mankind bring by folly and wickedness on themselves § 18. In a word shall we not believe that there is a Hell and know much of the nature of it when we see a Hell already begun on earth and the whole world walloweth in folly filth impiety and woe As Heaven is known here by its first-fruits of the spirit so Hell may be I think more known by its beginning as more notorious Men are almost Devils already conceive them but all turned fully into Devils by themselves and not by God and you will know much of Hell § 19. And for the Life to come consider that God made mans soul Immortal before man made it sinful And who can expect that God should alter or destroy his work Live we must because we have Immortal souls And must not men look to Live as they are Such then as the wicked make themselves no wonder if they continue § 20. And then exceeding wickedness will make them Devils and all that they here initially brought on themselves will be there in eminency Their Minds will be blind as to Good and Evil though not as to meer notional Truth Their wills set against Gods will Their hatred of God and goodness increased Their Intellects memories and thoughts will be the treasury of pain Their wills and affections the seat of miseryâ— And their invigorated power will make all lively § 21. And a mind thus blinded cannot see God as Good but only as hurtful by Justice A Will that hath no Love to God and holiness can take no delight in them Heaven must be to them as a feast to a sick stomach They turn their own Hearts from God and Heaven and deprive themselves of all its joyes They hate the Heavenly society and so â—an be none of their companions in delight They deprive themselves of Innocency of Divine Love of the Grace of the Holy Ghost of part in Christ of peace of Conscience by wilful diversion opposition and incapacity as he that shuts his Windows against the Sun-light It is themselves that turn themselves thus out of Heaven § 22. And it will be their own Lusts that will tantalize or torment them For God did let them know that this world and its pleasure must soon forsake them They cannot expect that God should give them wealth meat drink and carnal pleasures after this life If they will needs contract a fleshly thirst God is not bound to follow them with satisfaction § 23. Even their malignity like Satans will be their torment filling them with envy at the felicity of the Saints or hatred of their holiness And when we are in Heaven Devils and devilish men will be in subjection to the Saints so low and base as will encrease their rage § 24. It is likely that their very nature or substance will be much more base than that of the Glorified as their place and condition will be For God is not bound to make them Naturally Glorious Devils dwell in the aire and earth And inhabitants use to be connatural to their Regions and Elements However it is a groundless fancy of too many that think that the sensitive faculties shall cease The Organs and manner or sorts of sensation may be altered But the soul will be still sensitive as well as rational notwithstanding their vain objection about bruits And therefore the condition they put themselves into will as necessarily give them sensible torment as poyson will in the stomach and as despairing men now torment and make away themselves § 25. At least when they have bodies they will have sense § 26. Devils and wicked men with them will objectively torment them § 27. I deny not but besides all these there may be punishments more efficiently from God But all this alone which sinners not only Deserve but Inflict upon themselves will make a Hell of unspeakable misery The Conclusion Summing up the several wayes of the Contenders I Shall conclude with a further Explication 1. What the Judgement of the Protestants was in the Synod of Dort about the nature of Grace besides what I have cited of theirs before 2. I shall give you some Animadversions on the Epilogue of Alvarez 3. And of the Jesuites way of Scientia Media 4. And of Aureolus and Durandus's way 5. And of the Scotists and Nominals Causa Partialis 6. I shall fullyer give you the summ and Consectaries of the Dominican Predetermination and the reasons which alienate me from their way 7. I shall Epitomize Jansenius with some Animadversions on his way 8. And summ up in few words what sober minds may rest in § 1. AND that you may see how little difference there is even in this point of Effectual Grace where all
the difference seemeth to be founded 1. See what the Brittish Divines say in the Synod of Dort de art 3. 4. suffrag p. 124. Th. 1. There are certain outward works ordinarily required of men before they are brought to the state of Regeneration Rom. 10. 14. Mat. 6. â—â— Act. 13. 46. Psa 58. 5. or Conversion which use to be sometime freely done by them and sometime freely omitted as to go to Church to hear the Preaching of the Word and such like Th. 2. There are certain inward effects which are excited in the hearts of those that are not yet justified previous to Conversion and Regeneration Act. 2. 37. by the virtue of the word and spirit such as are the knowledge of Gods will the sense of sin the fear of punishment the thoughts of deliverance some hope of pardon To the state of Justification Gods grace useth not to bring men by sudden Enthusiasm but prepared and fitted or disposed by many previous actings by the Ministry of the word As in natural Generation there are many previous dispositions 1 Cor. 4. 15. before the reception of the form so in the spiritual we come to the spiritual birth by many foregoing actings of Grace If God would immediately Regenerate and Justifie a wicked man not prepared by any knowledge any sorrow any desire any hope of pardon there were no need of the Ministry of man and the Word Preached to do it Th. 3. Those that God thus affecteth by his spirit by means of the Word them he truly and seriously calleth and inviteth to faith and conversion We must judge of the helps of Grace by the nature of the offered benefit and by Gods plain word and not by the abuse and event Seâ—ing the Gospel of its own nature calleth men to Repentance and Salvation seeing the excitements of grace tend to it we must not think that 2 Cor. 5. 20. 2 Cor. 6. â—â— Gal. 1. 6. Rev. 3. 2. God here doth any thing dissemblingly Nor can it be imagined that that calling by the word and spirit can make men unexcuseable which is given only to that end to make them unexcuseable Th. 4. Those whom he thus affecteth God forsaketh not nor ceaseth to promote them in the true way to conversion before he is forsaken by them by voluntary neglect or the repulse of this initial grace The talent of grace once given men of God is not taken away from any man till he bury it by his own fault Therefore we are oft warned in Mat. 2â— 2â— Scripture not to resist or quench the spirit nor to receive the grace Heb. 3. 7. Prov. 1. 24. 2 Chron. 24. 20. of God in vain nor to fall from God Yea it is plainly given as the reason of Gods forsaking men that they first forsake him Th. 5. Many lose these beginnings Mat. 13. 19. Heb. 6. 4. 2 Pet. 2. 21. Th. 6. The Elect do not so behave themselves under these preparatory workings but that for their negligence and resistance they might justly be forsaken of God But such is Gods special mercy to them that though Joh. 6. 37. â—er 14. 7. 32. 39. Phil. 1. 6. for a time they may repel or suffocate this exciting and illuminating grace yet God doth urge them again and again and ceaseth not to promove them till he fully subjugate them to his grace and place them in the state of regenerate sons Th. 7. All men resist Gods grace and God might justly forsake all Rom. 9. 18. 11. 35. Act. 28. 27. but doth not By all this it is evident that they took not man to be forsaken of God in the state of meer original sin or the corrupt mass but as a wilful resister and refuser of offered Grace and oft after the receiving of much preparing grace and that God forsaketh none till they forsake his grace 2. To the same sence our English Divines commonly tell us how ordinarily God prepareth men for conversion before he convert them and how far persons unconverted may go in common grace He that readeth Mr. Hooker of New England Mr. John Rogers his doctrine of faith Mr. Boltons instructions for comfort Mr. Meads Almost a Christian and abundance such will see that they were of the same mind 3. Hence it is plain that those persons that resisted this further work of grace and forsook God first had true Power to have done otherwise and could have gone further than they did without any other grace than they had Though quoad necessitatem sequentem vel consequentiae it might be inferred even from Gods prescience that it could not be 4. They here describe Gods effectual grace by moral titles of Gods urging them till they yield though as after they open it Gods renewing active influx maketh new creatures and is not a meer moral indetermining suasion leaving the will indifferent 5. The truth is as is aforesaid no mortal man can tell of any difference on Gods part between his common and special agency on souls but only on the part of the work done Nay it is against the doctrine of all â—orts of Divines both Papists and Protestants as to the generality that there is any difference at all For they all say that all Gods actions ad extra are noâ—hing but his essence viz. his essential knowledge will and power which is undividedly one as terminated effecting related and denominated variously E. g. by one Volition he willeth divers products but not by divers volitions See the Conclusion of the first Chapter ex parte sui either considered specifically or numerically but the specification and individuation is only in the effects and in Gods will as relatively denominated And if this be all mens doctrine what an unhappy case is the Church faln into that the very same men that say this should yet intolerably quarrel Whether this one Divine attingency or operation shall be called Creation infusion urgency excitation perswasion physical hyperphysical moral or what else when all are agreed that all are one and the same ex parte Dei And as to the effects I do my self think that a certain Impulse received on the soul is the first effect and the Act of man as faith is but a second and that of both Causes But we cannot tell well what that Impulse is And therefore must dispute in the dark about the differences of it And this is nothing to them that own nothing but Gods essence as the cause of our act as the first effect If their opinion hold true that as in Creation there was no mediate Impulse between the Creator and the Creature for there was no recipient so here there is no effect on the soul before the Act and habit of faith it self then what is that Grace whose Ratio efficaciae we can make a Controversie of Ad hominem at least I may say that it is common acts and habits overtopt by fleshly interest and concupiscence which
doctrine of faith and Law and promises of Christaâ—e the Means which the Spirit useth in operating our Faith Love and Obedience And it is not two Covenants that give these two but as soul and body make one man so the Word of Christ and his Spirit make up one total cause of our sanctification The Spirit causeth us to believe that which the Word revealeth and to love the good which it proposeth and to obey the Precepts of the Word Therefore the Gospel is Grace and the Spirit is Grace that is a free gift of God to miserable sinners for their recovery and inward holiness is the effect of both And to feign that all obedience as it is performed to Christs Law upon its proper motives is therefore not of the Spirit or is our own Righteousness opposed to Christs because our own reason and free-will is exercised in it is Phanaticism and subverteth the Gospel and the Prophetical and Kingly Office of Christ II. God never gave a Law no not to the Jews only to convince them that they could not keep it but to be the Rule of their obedience And the Just did keep it in sincerity But the Law of Moses as separated by the ignorant Jews from the promise and grace of Christ could not be kept by any to Justification To say that Christs Laws now have no higher end than to tell us that we cannot keep them is Antichristianity Are we commanded to repent believe love God only to tell us that we cannot do it It 's true that without the Spirits help we cannot But it 's as true that the Command is the Rule of our duty and all the Gospel and Covenant of Grace is the means of exciting us to our duty by which the Spirit worketh in us faith repentance love and obedience But saith Jansenius the Law of Christ is to humble men in the sense of their disability and drive them to seek to Christ for his grace I answer 1. Is not humbling men and driving them to Christ a good effect If so then his Law is the means of all that good 2. Were the Gospel and all the Apostles Epistles written only to drive men to Christ and not to edifie them and make them perfect to salvation Were not the Precepts of Love and Holiness means of working Love and Holiness in men Is not the Word the seed that begetteth men to eternal life and is not the receiving of this seed into good and honest hearts made by Christ the cause of holiness and salvation Were not the Disciples clean by the word that Christ spake to them and doth he not say that his Word was spirit and life as being the concause of the Spirits vivification He that never received more benefit by Christs Doctrine Law and Gospel than to be convinced that he cannot believe repent obey or love God hath not yet the benefit which they are principally intended for But suppose that by Law he had meant the meer penal part or threatning as some words would make a man suspect 1. It 's a strange description of a Law to exclude the precept and premiant part and include only the penal part which is the last and least 2. As it is the same Man that hath Love and Hatred Hope and Fear so it is the same Law of Christ which hath precept and prohibition promise and penalty And it is the same Holiness or New Creature which is a conformity to all together Of which more anon III. He can never prove that all unbelievers have no Power to â—â—e any means which tendeth to â—aith by a preparatory grace nor that the use of all such means is Impossible to them XIII His distinction of Natural and Moral Impotency is good But then that Moral Impotency it self must not be made the same with the Natural else there will be the same reason for excusing sin by it If mans Will had been made by God such as could not possibly love him or holiness it would not have left a man unexcusable in judgement that his enmity was Voluntary It is reason enough for a man to kill a â—oad or Serpent as malum sibi naturale because it is a hurtful creature But this is no Moral Evil in them nor is their death their punishment nor yet in any ravenous creature which preyeth on the rest that are innocent And so would it be with bad men if God had made them bad Indeed if Adam have made them all bad and God have given no Saviour Grace or Remedy they are conâ—emnable and unexcusable as they were virtually in Adam if judged only by the Law of Innocency as made to Adam But they are excuseable if judged by Christ by the Law of grace which condemneth no man meerly as not innocent or a sinner but as a rejecter of grace These things are so plain and weighty that Jaâ—senius should not joyn with the Antinomians in opposing them XIV While he confesseth that Christ so far dyed for all as to procure them all the mercy which he giveth them I have no further quarrel with him but to prove that a Condition pardon of sin and grant of Life eternal with much means and help to make men perform the Condition which is but a suitable Acceptance is indeed mercy XVI That Christs grace is Love or Complacency in good is a truth which I highly value but with all these exceptions to his doctrine 1. It is the Heart of the new Creature and that which must communicate it self to all the rest or else they are lifeless and unacceptable For the will is the man in Gods account And complacency or love or appetite is the first act of the will which is it that he calleth with Augustine Delectation Grace lyeth principally in a Placet But the man hath more parts than his Heart And all other parts of sanctification are graces of Christ in their several places and not love only 2. Though no man is to love himself as God nor instead of God nor above God nor as the noblest ultimate object of his love yet all men are necessitated by nature to love themselves and therefore to desire their own felicity in loving God next to God as the final object of that love And so our end is finis amantis vel amicitiae which includeth mutual complacency and union though not in equality And to such an end grace causeth us to use the means And Christ is proposed to us as our Saviour and all his grace as for our good and all Gods commands as necessary for our happiness and sin is described to us to be hated as our oâ—â— evil and destruction and against our good as well as against Gods will and honour And with us this is denyed scarcely by the Antinoâ—ians themselves Much less by any judicious Christians 3. It is past the reach of any of us to prove that our actual love is the first effect of the sanctifying Spirit on the soul
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
he will not cause cannot be And this is the beautiful variety and harmony in the Universe In God himself is nothing but perfection but the Greature being the shadowy Image of God defectibility and imperfection is essential to it so that he reduceth Morality to the frame and necessity of physical motion and maketh Moral Good and evil to be indeed as much natural good and evil and of the same kind except as in another subject as Summer and Winter heat and cold day and night health and sickness life and death animate and inanimate the unavoâ—dable diversifications of the will and work of God And that every permission of his will is accompanied with a positive volition of the thing permitted And yet that Will is not properly in God but so called after the manner of man That sin is considered as related to the Principle of action which is God and so it is good or as in the terminus Man and so it is horrid devilish odious evil as blindness death darkness caused all by Gods desertion or not operating otherwise than he doth § 7. To the quieting of the mind that cannot digest this but thinketh God is thus dishonoured being made more than Satan the cause of sin and misery for sin which the Scripture contradicteth and that man is excusable at the barr of Justice that could no more in innocency forbear to sin than to make a world To them that think it hard that no one in all the world could ever possibly do more or less Good or Evil than they do but that is all done by physical motion as in an Engine c. he hath a great deal to say and more than ever I elsewhere met with and with great modesty proposed § 8. As to the Law whose transgression is sin he supposeth that Whatsoever imposeth on us any thing to be done by us as an antecedent condition to any consequent good is the Law opposed to the Gospel Pag. 173. Yea that the proposal or pressing of any Truth or Goodness on us in a literal or moral way only or the word as written in Letters is the Law and the spirit operating the thing it self on the soul is the Gospel the first is the old Covenant and the second the New That the proper and next ends of the Law or letter are sin condemnation death and the Divine wrath To let in sin and heighten it that it might abound and to bring on us spiritual death These flow not from the Law of it self but by accident from the weakness of the flesh and creaâ—ure But both Law and sin are brought in ultimately for good viz. God having a design which he intended to enrich with the fullest the highest glories of his Godhead brings forth in the course of this design a dark scene of all evils sin death wrath The evil in this scene is carryed on to its utmost extent and height Thus the variety becomes more full in the whole design and the chief design is heightned in its greatest Glory God in his Infinite wisdom so bringeth in this scene of sin and evil that himself is perfectly pure and good in the contrivance and conduct of it He setteth up a Law good holy and spiritual but such that sin inevitably may take occasion from it through the frailty of the flesh and of the creature to spring up as an overflowing flood to display it self over all things in its fullest foulest birth This Law is to convince us of the frailty and mutability in mans primitive state c. viz. that he is a creature For Pag. 175 176. man is composed of the light of God and his own proper darkness These two the Schools call the Act and Potentiality the form and the matter being and not being which constitute every Creature The darkness or nothingness which is the Creatures own is the proper ground of sin The Law comes and distinguisheth the Light from the Darkness Pag. 177. so that to see sin is to see that we are Creatures God withholds his Pag. 178. Divine presence appearances and influences from man and so the darkness discovereth it self in man and predominateth and captivateth him entirely and becomes his choice and Lord. so that sin is but an Imperfect Creature and the Law to cause and shew it § 9. Pag. 113 114 c. He saith The Immediate cause of the first change made in the understanding at the fall was the Divine Glory withdrawing or withholding it self Darkness is the privation of Light Privations have no proper Causes but accidental only Thus the Divine Glory retiring from the understanding or ceasing to shine in it is by accident the cause of the darkness there as the Setting or departing of the Sun is the cause of Night which is not a blemish to the Sun but its glory that in its presence are all the beauties and joyes of light in its absence all the disagreeableness and melancholies of night and darkness Pag. 115. All evil is from the absence of God c. P. 117. The fault in man is the deficiency which ariseth from the defectibility or nothingness of the Creature in its shadowy state in the purity of its first Creation Pag. 122. The fall springs from the Harmony of the eternal design in the Divine mind being comprehended in it as a part of it § 10. And yet he makes man Guilty and unexcuseâ—ble and God just iâ— this because Guilt is but our being really bad And he that cannot deny himself to be bad is unexcuseable And the opening of this causeth shame And Justice is to Judge and use all creatures as they are § 11. To be short he maintaineth that man can have no freedom from necessitating predetermination If he should it would cross the nature of God of the creature of the soul and the unity and harmony of all things But that God causeth all sin negatively as necessarily as he causeth darkness or any natural privation But then he doth with a torrent of Rhetorick so Praise Gods design in it and the beauty and harmony of all things made up of good and evil unities varieties diversities and contrarieties and sheweth so largely the glory that cometh to God by sin and the good to the Universe and that it 's but our narrowness and weakness of sight that maketh us take it to be any other than a part of the glory of the universe though bad in and to the person that sinneth that I confess I never found my self more tempted to Love sin or to cease my hatred of it than by his florid Oratory § 12. And withall as he resolveth all the rest of Morality into Physical conceptions so he seemeth to judge suitably of Hell and of Redemption supposing that all this darkness that God brings on sinners is but to prepare for their resurrection to a life of unity and glory and that it shall go well with them in the end § 13. And as
scope of the Gospel must not be reduced to your feigned sense of one obscurer Text. 2. But doth the Text tell us that he died not for the world as it tells us that he prayed not for them Or doth it tell us that he died for no more than he then prayed for Or rather are not these your own Inventions 3. But where doth the Text say that Christ never prayed for any but the Elect yea or that he prayed not at all for the world though he put not up that particular prayer for the world Look on the Text and you will see that he speaketh there only of the Disciples that followed him on Earth And that he prayed not in that Petition for all his Elect only And therefore he after addeth vers 20. Neither pray 1 for these alone but for them also which shall believe in me through their word And what was the prayer That they may be one and kept from the evil of the world which is a blessing peculiar to his Disciples But it is manifest that Christ had other prayers for the world even for many ungodly men yea for Reprobates For 1. On the Cross he prayeth for his Persecutors Father forgive them And it is mens own invention to say that he meaneth none but the Elect We must not unnecessarily limit where the Word limiteth not And Stephen made Christ his Pattern And it is gross fiction to say that Stephen prayed for none but the Elect. C. Doth not Christ say That his Father heard him always and can you imagine that he prayed for that which God denied him B. 2. My next Answer should have prevented that Objection which is that what God giveth to the World for Christ's sake that Christ may well be said to pray for For it is the fruit of his Mediation But God giveth much Pardon and many Mercies to the World for Christ's sake 1. He giveth them an Act of Oblivion of conditional pardon of the eternal punishment which Christ purchased and therefore prayed for * Ambros de Paradis c. 8. Venerat Dominus Jesus omnes salvos sacere peccatores etiam circa impios ostendere suam debuit voluntatem ideo nec proditurum debuit praeterire ut adverterent omnes quod in electione etiam proditoris suâ— servandorum omnium insigne praetendit Quod in Deo fuit ostendit omnibus quod omnes voluit liberare Nec tamen dico quia praevaricationem nesciebat futuram immo quia sciebat assero Sed non ideo pertuntis proditoris invidiam in se debuit derivare ut ascriberetur Deo quod uterque sit lapsus Chrysost Tom. 3. hom 9. de land Pauli Ipse quidem vult omnes salves sieri at non omnium voluntas ejus voluntati obsequitur neque ab to aliquis cogitur unde ad Jerusalem c. Deus paratus est ad salvandum hominem non involuntarium neque non volentem 2. He giveth them much Actual pardon of temporal punishments for Christ's sake All the Life Health Time Gospel Means and Mercies which ever he giveth them are such as deserved full punishment would have deprived them of And therefore they are all acts of executive pardon of that punishment 3. And this very Chapter containeth a prayer for the World viz. vers 21 23. That the World may believe and know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them If you say that by the World here is meant only the Elect I answer 1. Your word is no Proof 2. That they are prayed for to believe and know c. is no proof For many did believe that God sent Christ that yet were not saved This soundeth but as a common Act of Faith 3. And note that here the world is contradistinguished not only from Apostles but those after-mentioned that should believe by their word and it is prayed That the world may know that God loveth those that believe in him which may extend both to the Conversion of such as then are unconverted and to the conviction of others such as are the common members of the visible Church at least As the Spirit is sent to convince the world of Sin and Righteousness and Judgment 4. And it is not to be granted you without proof that by the World is meant all Reprobates as such For Judas is before distinguished from the World as one given to Christ when yet he was a Reprobate But either it may be the World of present Unbelievers whom Christ prayeth for else-where though not there Or the World of final professed Infidels and Enemies of the Church as distinct from both Elect and Reprobate in the Church And several expressions of Christ's before of the Worlds hating and persecuting his Apostles seem not applicable to every Hypocrite who prophesieth and casteth out Devils in his Name and perhaps suffereth for his Truth and excellently defendeth it and hath some love to Believers The fifth Crimination C. They make Christ to merit only Pardon and Salvation to Believers but not to have purchased Faith it self for any man And by that way no one that he died for would be saved For Faith is the necessary Gift of God And if Christ purchased not that all the rest would be in vain B. 1. Let us not here confound the Controversie de nomine de re That Christ died to purchase the Act of Faith for us is no Scripture-phrase so far as I know If therefore it be only the phrase which they refuse you may well bear with them But as to the matter they do not deny any of these things 1. That Christ is the Author and Perfecter of our Faith as Faith signifieth the Christian Religion or the Objects and Doctrine of Faith 2. That our own actual and habitual Faith is the Gift of God Though the controversies about the manner of giving it are to be afterward decided 3. That all that Christ giveth his Sacrifice procured and therefore it procured Faith All this is commonly granted by most School-men Papists Lutherans and moderate Arminians But 2. It must be considered that Christ did not die to purchase Faith as immediately and on the same account as to satisfie for Sin and purchase us impunity or Redemption The proper direct reason of his Sufferings was to demonstrate the Justice of God against Sin instead of mans own suffering for it and thereby to procure Pardon We may well conceive Christ promising to the Father as it were I will suffer for Sinners that they may not suffer But you will hardly describe his Undertaking thus I will die if thou will give men Faith or I will give thee so much of my Blood for so much Faith But because he knew that without Grace no man would believe and accept his Gift therefore he whose Sufferings were primarily satisfaction for Sin were secondarily meritorious of the means to bring men to the intended â—nd that is of the Word and Spirit by which Christ causeth Sinners to
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
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
c. 30. Ipse est omnis boni principium causa sine ejus co-operatione auxilio impossibile est bonum velle vel facere In nobis autem est vel permanere in virtute sequi Deum vocantem vel recâ—dere a virtute quod est fieri in malitia se qui diabolum Idem ibid. to be no Grace if by it a man could forbear no sin nor do any good B. Quest 10. Cannot every man desire to be happy and to escape Hell C. Yes For all do it in some sort or other B. Quest. 11. Cannot some men without Holiness forbear Murder Treason Theft Adultery and pass by a Tavern-door when they go in C. Yes for we see many forbear such sins and therefore more might do it B. Quest 12. Cannot such a one go to a Sermon and read good Books when he goeth to a Tavern or a Play-house C. Hobbes will say no who thinks that every Volotion is necessitated as the motion of a Watch is by the Spring but so will not I. He cannot be willing to attend Gods Ordinances as the godly do but he can will to use them sometimes in his manner B. Quest 13. Cannot he by common Grace understand the meaning of the words heard or read and remember them C. Yes and be a famous Expositer and Preacher too B. Quest 14. Cannot a man by common Grace know that he is a Sinner and miserable by sin and that he needeth Mercy and a Saviour C. Yes or else he could not despair with Judas B. Quest 15. Cannot he think of his own sinful and miserable condition yea and think how to get out of it and be saved C. Yes dispairing men cannot forget it And a wicked Preacher for common ends can force his thoughts most of the year to meditate on Gods Word and holy things B. Quest 16. Can he not wish and desire that he had mercy and a Saviour and so much Grace as to keep him from Hell and so make him happy when he must go hence And can he not by some earnest prayers speak out these desires C. Yes All men have not saving Grace that go but so far B. Quest 17. Cannot a man by common Grace do all that which our Divines commonly say an Hypocrite may do or a half or almost Christian such as Mr. Perkins Bolton Rogers Hooker Mead Bifield and abundance more describe C. Yes they that have so much common Grace can go so far B. Quest. 18. Are not the best of these men by common Grace more prepared for Conversion than some others C. Yes else what good did that Grace do them and why should we write as Mr. Hooker of the Souls preparation for Christ and Christ told one Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God B. Quest 19. Doth God command all these men to use the means of their full Conversion and Salvation utterly in vain C. No it is not in vain if he bless them to whom he will B. Quest 20. Lastly Then tell me if you acknowledge all these CANS or Powers what is the power which you deny C. A power to things spiritually good B. Ambiguous words must not destroy Love and Churches What mean you by Spiritual C. That which is done by Gods Spirit to spiritual ends and in a spiritual manner B. Here are three things The Efficient the End the Manner 1. Is not the Spirit of God the Author of common Grace C. Yes that is not denied by any B. 2. If by a spiritual end you mean the foresaid saving of the Soul from Hell you confess common Grace may give it If you mean loving and intending God above all do not the Arminians say as well as you that none but the Regenerate can do it C. I confess they do Quum actus ille fidei non sit in potestate hominis naturalis carnalis animalis peccatoris eumque nemo praestare possit nisi per gratiam Dei omnis autem Gratia Dei secundum voluntatem Dei administretur voluntatem quam apud se ab aeterno habuit c. Armin. Disp Privat Thes 41. Sect. 1. p. 30â— Aegid Colum. Quodlib 2. qu. 29. pag. 121. Cum bona habeant duplex esse scil Naturale supernaturale Dicendum est quod sine gratia habituali possimus bona agere quoad esse naturale non quod supernaturale Secundum sanctorum sententiam etsi sine Gratia possimus facere bona non tamen bene neâ— mereri per illa c. B. 3. What mean you by a spiritual manner If you mean it of doing all from that love to God and intention of that end the answer is the same C. Man can do nothing of himself without God B. Did ever man in his wits think otherwise Was it ever a controversie whether we have any power that is not both given and still maintained by God All the question is but how God giveth it and not whether we have it without him One thinketh that he giveth more by the way of Nature than others do And another thinks that he giveth more by the way of common Grace than others do Mistake not your self you ascribe no more to God than any even Pelagian doth but only he ascribeth more to God by the way of natural conveyance than you do I only except the Dominican Predeterminants that ascribe all mans circumstantiated Volitions to God Lay therefore the controversie where it is C. But we can do nothing without Christ and Grace B. I am more for that than you are I doubt you think that we can do the works of Nature without Christ For I find that many of you will not have so much as Magistracy to depend upon him derivatively But all things are now delivered into his hands and Nature is reprived and continued by some degree of Grace that is of Mercy contrary to Merit But tell me do men do that without Christ which they do by his common Grace C. The words signifie Joh. 15. Out of me ye can do nothing B. And do you differ about that Do not you before confess how far men out of Christ as to regeneration may go Come to the point and tell me where you differ C. We differ here that they think that God hath promised saving Grace to men prepared by common Grace and we say No. B. Very good Is all come but to this Tell me what is this to the question of mans power or impotency This is only about Gods Word Quest 1. Do you not believe that God hath made it the duty of all the Unregenerate to desire and beg and seek his special regenerating Grace and use means to get it and avoid impediments C. Yes it is their duty otherwise the omission of it were not their Sin B. Quest. 2. Hath God commanded them to do all this in vain C. I told you that it is not in vain if he convert but some few of them B. My question was not whether
Grat. Univers p. 113. saith Sed non quemadmodum Pomificii alii qui eorum sententiam vel sequuntur vel interpolant nobis imponunt ita ut plane negemus sufficientis Gratiae phrasin posse usurpari aut dicamus nullam esse sufficientem ullo modo quae efficax non sit vel nullam esse efficacem quae ad conversionem salutem non sit efficax Id tantum dicimus non dari omnibus talem Gratiam sufficientem quae ita moveat omnium hominum voluntates ut sit in potestate electionis motioni aut obtemperare aut resâ—agari adeoque nullum esse qui per talem gratiam non possit ad salutem pervenire Deumque id velle omnibus intendere You see that he will own no more but the denial of a universal sufficient Grace for Salvation intended of God to all men And you your selves confess 1. That God intendeth not Salvation for all men unless conditionally if they believe and repent which from eternity he knew before he made them that they would not 2. And that all men have not sufficient Grace to Salvation no nor to believe but only to make them better and bring them nearer it and prepare them for it which some call Grace mediately sufficient to Salvation but that 's an improper Speech as long as for want of their Obedience they never attain to much that is absolutely necessary For my part I doubt not to assert 1. That no man in the World hath Grace sufficient for Salvation that is Glorification an hour before he dieth For he cannot be saved without more that is without the Grace of perseverance to the end But every believing Penitent hath Grace sufficient and effectual to give him a present Right to Salvation And 2. I add that there is no such thing as Grace sufficient to Salvation which is not effectual and doth not save Seeing all that persevere in holiness are saved and they that do not have not Grace sufficient that is necessary to Salvation 3. And I add that no man hath Grace sufficient to give him a Right to Christ and Pardon and Salvation which is not effectual and doth not procure it For every penitent true Believer hath that Right to Christ Pardon and Life And he that is not a penitent Believer hath not Grace sufficient to obtain that Right A. Yes if he have sufficient to help him to believe B. Not so unless he actually believe For is not Faith in act somewhat more than power to believe When you confess that men are damned that have the Power but not that have the Act. A. Yes but man causeth the Act oft when God hath given only the Power and necessary concurse to the production of the Act. B. Corvinus and others of you ordinarily confess that Faith it self is the Gift of God and that Faith is more than a power to believe And we denominate Gods Grace by the various effects Therefore I may say that a man that hath Grace sufficient to believe yet hath not Grace sufficient to Justification till he have 1. The Grace of Faith 2. And so the Grace of the moral donation of the Covenant which is the justifying pardoning Instrument A. You seem then to deny sufficient Grace your self B. I assert 1. That godly men have power or sufficient Grace to many acts of Faith Love and Duty which they never do 2. And that all men by common Grace or sufficient are able to do better than they do in preparation for special Grace 3. And that they are bound so to do in order to their Salvation And so that all men have some helps and Grace in its kind sufficient to enable them to seek Salvation and that God will not forsake them till they forsake him * But I am not able to prove what Vasqu asserteth in 1. Tho. q. 23. disp 98. c. 4. Nunquam occurrere nobis obligationem praecepti aut tentationem sine sufficienti cogitatione qua hanc vincere illud observare possimus Loquor de praeceptâ— affirmativâ— cui non solum tempuâ— adest quo solet obligare sed etiam cujus obligatio memoriae occurrit And he addeth a great untruth Nam si nulla illius in mentem subiret cogitatio nulla nobis ejus obligatio inâ—umberet unless by sufficient Grace he meant meer natural power and by cogitation the natural power of cogitation this is odious As if a man were bound by no. Law of God or Man if he could but make himself ignorant contemptuous and wicked enough never so much as to think of iâ— A. But doth not your Church of England Art 13. say Works done before the Grace of Christ and the Inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God forasmuch as they spring noâ— of Faith in Jesu Christ neither do they make men meet to receive Grace or as the School Authors say deserve Grace of congruity yea rather for that they are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done we doubt not but they have the nature of sin B. This Article is intended against merit of congruity in the works of wicked men And it is certain that all their works are sin in that they are in defectiveness of ends and manner and in perverseness the violations of the Law of God as to pray to God only to be saved from Hell without love to God and Holiness or hatred of Sin to give Alms for the same ends c. where the love of God the true end is left out the action must needs be sin But we say not that it is only sin or totally sin It is good and pleasing to God secundum quid though not simpliciter And such Actions as are sin by deficiency may have a tendeney to better Actions and so to Salvation by that good that is in them He that in meer love to his own Soul will pray hear meditate avoid sin c. is in a likelier way to Grace and Life than he that will do none of this And 2. The Authors of the Artiâ—le by merit of congruity meant somewhat more than preparation for Conversion For no English Divines I think have denied that 3. And by Works done they meant such as the Papists taught men too much to trust in as giving Alms building Hospitals going on Pilgrimages c. which went under the notion of Sacrifices and Oblations under the old Law when God said He abhorâ—d the Sacrifice of the Wicked and bid them be readier to hear than to offer the Sacrifice of Fools But it is not I think Soul-humbling Repentance Confession begging for Grace considering their Ways hearing the Word c. though but such as preparatory Grace may do which they meant by Works 4. And that is not done without Grace and the Spirit of Christ which is done but by his common Grace And yet I could wish the Article had been better worded But if you will see the consent of an
of common Grace 2. And Reason as specially illuminated and the Will as freed from Sin are special Grace But now you see the injury of your Charge will you search and fear lest even by contending it 's you that have run into worser than the Error which you declaim against as other mens Is it not you that call a great deal of Gods Grace by the name of Nature yea sometimes of Wrath and as I before evinced deny much common Grace to be any Grace at all And who wrongeth God more He that honoureth his Works of Nature with an undue title of Grace or he that utterly dishonoureth his Grace and saith that it is no Grace The third Crimination C. They make Grace to be but a moral Operation or swasion and seem to deny that physical operation which is eminently Grace or at least take it to be but a physical use of moral means And indeed I doubt whether some of them confess any other Grace than the Gospel and other means of Grace And so the Spirit must work only on the Preacher or on the sound of words if he work not immediately and physically on the heart * The untruth of this common Charge appeareth in the following citations Vocatio ista tum externa est tum interna externa per ministerium hominum verbum proponentium Interna per operationem spiritus sancti illuminantis cor afficientis ut attendatur iis quae dicuntur fidesque verbâ— adhibeatur ex utriusque concursu efficacitas vocationis existit I st a distributio non est generis in speciâ—s sed totius in partes hoc est totalis â—ocationis in partiales actiâ—nes c. Armin Disput Privat Thes 42. Sect. 10 11. Remonst Synod art 3. 4. p. 15 c. Si quaeratur ex nobis an Dei convertentis actio tantum moralis sit suadendo proponendo inviâ—ando Respondemus Plusquam moralem esse si excitantem spectemus gratiam dicimus in ipsam voluntatem quoque potentiam supernaturalem insundi distinctam ab illuminatione si vero co-operantem dicimus cam physicam vocari posse realem ac propriam habere efficientiam Note here their plain profession of physical and infused Grace Si quaeratur an praeter mentis illustrationem â—ffectuum excitationem voluntatis invitationem nihil faciat Gratia per modum principii vel antecedenter ad conversionem Respondemus facere Id. ibid. B. Still I fear that you are guilty of striving about words to no profit but subversion of the peoples Charity 1. Moral hath usually three different senses 1. Moral is as much as Reputative As he that concealeth or encourageth a Traytor or Murderer or defendeth not the assaulted is ex lege morum reputed and judged as guilty of the Treason or Murder And thus causa moralis is usually but causa ex lege morum reputata 2. Moral is oft taken for Ethical or that which is ex genere moris either Good or Evil Virtue or Vice which contain all morality 3. Moral is oft opposed to meerly natural forced bruitish c. and meaneth the action of a free Agent as such In which of these senses or what other do you take it C. I mean the first that God doth but operate ut causa moralis per modum proponentis objectum which Dr. Twisse saith is but in genere causae finalis and so is but operatio metaphorica B. It 's pity that Christ's Disciples must be troubled with such uncertain arbitrary notions without necessity But what remedy 1. I know no Law that forbiddeth me to dissent from Dr. Twisse or you in Logick or Physicks I do not believe that objectum qua tale is causa finalis And no wonder For 2. I hold that to be no proper cause which you call commonly causa finalis And instead of advancing each Object to the dignity of a final cause I take down the final cause to the order or rank of the prime Object of Volition or Intention To be optimum is the Ratio objectiva primaria it being most suitable to the Will To be medium ad optimum is the Ratio objectiva secundaria Bonum qua tale non agit in voluntatem sed voluntas in bonum cognitum Though the cognitio boni doth dirigere voluntatem When it is commonly said Ob finem amatum volo medium the preposition deceiveth us as if the causalitas sinis were upon the Will But it meaneth no more but that the Aptitude of the means ad finem is the Ratio bonitatis and so the Ratio objectiva medii I will or choose it because it is apt or conducible to the end or chief object that is That it is Goodness for which I will it Which speaketh no more but Rationem objectivam 3. And all objects of the intellect and will are causes indeed of the act in specie but what causes Receptive and Terminative such as we must call Material so far as an act may be said to have matter of which more anon And if the object be no other than a material or receptive cause constituting the act in specie then the proposer of the object who operateth but in subservience to it can be no other than a preparer and offerer of the matter But how great a hand this receptive cause hath in the mutations and diversities in the world is little considered by the most 2. But I pray you tell me How many and whom do you find that hold that God doth no more but proponere objectum I remember none C. What say they less when they call it Moral suasion when suadere is but proponere objectum B. So then your accusations are your own Inferences and not their words But do they not commonly tell you of an inward suasion by the Spirit and Conscience as well as an outward by the word C. Yes they do so but that inward is but suasion still B. But are you sure that by suasion they mean nothing but proposing the Object to the Intellect and by it the Will C. What else can they mean if they speak congruously B. As far as I can understand them they mostly differ not from the Synodists at all in their meaning much less do the School-men and Lâ—therans who use not the word suasion so much as they For the thing that they mean is 1. That Gods Spirit worketh on the Intellect by objective means though not only propounding that object but also assisting and exciting the mind 2 That by the apprehension of the Intellect the wills object is offered to it And as Camero copiously pleadeth the act of the will is ever excited by the act of the Intellect Or indeed the object is so aptly presented as that the will shall or may either by Natural or Gracious Inclination excite it self supposing Gods assistance But that the will is not moved to any but an Apprehended Good 3. And that God doth this work on the will in
And the sum of his opinion about the nature and cause of our holy actions is 1. That Gods universal influx or causation is necessary on our will to make them acts 2. That Free-Will is the cause that they are these particular acts about this object rather than another 3. That Gods particular or special influx of Grace is the cause that they are supernatural acts And that preventing Grace doth give men good thoughts and the first motion of the affections before deliberation and choice or liberty as Vasquez also saith which seemeth the same with the Doctrine of Ockam Buridane and the rest of the Nominals who call it Complacency as antecedent to Election yea and Intention To be pleased with the thing simply on the first apprehension they call a necessary natural act Though the Scotists say that quoad exercitium actus vel libertatem contradictionis even that is free And it seems the same which Augustine and Jansenius call primam aelectationem But converting Grace it self Molina takes to be a habit wrought by Gods special help in and with the word or means His words are of men that are hearing Gods Word or thinking on it Influit Deuâ— in â—easdem notitias inâ—luxâ— quodam particulari ac supernaturali quo cognitionem illam adjuvat tum ut res melius dilucidius expendatur peâ—etret â—umâ—etiam ut notitia illa jam limites notitia supernaturalis ad finem supernaturalom in suo ordine attingat Inde oritur in voluntate motus affectionis c. Yet no Jesuite is supposed to go further from the Calvinists than this man In truth I cannot perceive but that Jesuites Arminians Lutherans and all such are willing to ascribe as much to Gods Grace as they think consistent with mans Free-will and Gods not being the cause of sin which is the same thing that the Calvinists also endeavour thoughâ—hey seem not to hit on the same names and notions to do the thing desired save themselves and those that hear them 1. Tim. 4. 16. And that he that converts a sinner doth save a soul from death James 6. ult And that the word is the immortal incorruptible seed by which we are begotten again and which remaineth in us Are you now in doubt of this C. It is one thing for God to work with the Word and another thing to work by the Word The first we confess But if God work by the Word then he must operate first on the Word which is the Preachers act and so by that Word on the soul and not immediately Therefore I rather think that the word is a concomitant than an instrumental cause B. 1. You wrong your self and Christ in that you will not believe him John 3. that we mortals know not the way and manner of the Spirits accesses and operations on the soul any more than the cause of the wind whose sound we hear Do you not know that you do not know how Gods Spirit moveth our intellect and wills and how he maketh use of instruments except secundum quid in some particles revealed 2. An hundred Texts of Scripture which I omit lest I be tedious tell us that the Word is a means or subordinate cause to God of his informing and reforming operations on mens souls And it 's dangerous to dream of any second cause that is so concomitant as to be but co-ordinate with the first cause and not subordinate to it And the word is not only subordinate to God as Instituter by Legislation and Declaration but also to God as efficient operator 3. God can work two ways by the Word which are within our reach besides others 1. As it is the act of the speaker by exciting and illuminating him 2. As it is the species as they call it received by the senses and imagination which God can by his power set home to the attainment of the due effect 4. And yet I know not any or many of your Adversaries that deny that besides this Divine operation by the VVord God hath another immediately on the soul exciting it to operate upon the VVord as the vis plastica vitalis materna operatur in semen jam receptum But I will here forbear to trouble you with the physical difficulties whether the VVord heard be only objectum intellectus or also causa efficiens as light is both to the eye And whether it be operative on the intellect or only terminative with other such like C. Well I must grant you that all Infused Faith as to the act is Acquired But all Acquired Faith not Infused but infusion is added to our own endeavours like the creation of the humane soul B. I am glad that we are got so far on towards peace But Quest. 4. What mean you by Infusion Is it not a Metaphor C. Yes and we mean that immediate perswasion of God which you even confess to be besides his operation by the Word and by our Cogitations Even a Creation of an act or habit B. Quest. 5. Is it the name Infusion or the thing that you plead for C. The name though I confess Metaphors must not be used unnecessarily in Disputes is yet convenient but that I leave indifferent B. Quest 6. Do you not think that the act of Faith is the act of mans own Intellect and Will or Soul and that immediately C. Yes that cannot be denied B. If so then when you say that our act is Infused I hope you will confess the term to be none of the plainest and you only mean that Gods Grace doth so operate on the faculty as to excite it so to act and consequently that the thing first and properly infused is not the act of Faith it self but the vis impressa facultatem before described by which the act is caused And so in a secondary sense the act may be called Infused but not most immediately C. I confess it is the habit which we commonly take to be Infused and therefore we use to distinguish habitus infusos ab habitibus acquisitis rather than actus infusos ab actibus acquisitis B. Is that Habit before the Act or after it C. You know that it is a Controversie among our selves Mr. Pemble saith it is before and the common opinion is that it is after the first special Act. B. 1. I once received that from Mr. Pemble ignorantly But that cometh to us by not distinguishing the vis impressa or first received influx of the spirit from a Habit when as Amesius well saith it is fitter called semen fidei vel dispositio quaedam than a Habit of Faith For 1. no man can prove such an antecedent habit and therefore none should assert it 2. The true nature of a Habit consisteth in a promptitude to perform that special act with facility But that we should have such a promptitude and facility not only while we are Infant Christians but no Christians as having not yet believed in Christ is not probable according to our
life to conquer temptation and keep us in clear and sure obedience in a Holy fruitful life or else it will not be certainly discerned from dead opinion 4. It must not be clouded and blotted by great and powerful habits of sin within or acts of sin without For these will many ways hinder assurance And how few have all these Necessaries to make up an ascertaining evidence 4. And it must be one that knoweth how by self examination to discern all this to be certainly in themselves That frequently and skilfully thinketh on the matter 5. And it must be one that is not under the power either of Melancholy or other distracting passions or Temptations 6. And one that knoweth the true difference between a Mortal sin inconsistent with Justification and a meer infirmity 7. And one that knoweth the true nature of that Repentance which is necessary after sinning And alas how few be they that have all these qualifications C. The Spirit of God can give them certainty without all this ado B. What he can do is little to our case but what he will do If you once take that course to teach men to look for assurance of their Salvation or Sanctification without certain finding that Sanctification in themselves you will make sad work in the Church of God For nothing is more certain than that without Regeneration Conversion and Holiness none shall see God And that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ which must be known by his fruits he is none of his Joh. 3. 3. 5. Math. 18. 3. Heb. 12. 14. Rom. 8. 9 13. Gal. 5. 21. And that it is he that repenteth and believeth that shall be saved And to be sure that a man is sanctified and not to be sure that he hath the Graces of Sanctification is a contradiction to be sure and not sure of the same thing And to say you are sure of Heaven without Holiness is to say that you are sure that Gods Word is false C. But the witness of the Spirit certifieth us of all B. True And what is that As your Reason witnesseth or evidenceth that you are a man and your Life witnesseth that you are an Animal so the Spirit witnesseth that you are one of Christs that is the sanctifying illuminating quickening work of the Spirit For the Having of the Spirit is your witness And to have the Spirit is to have Holiness which is his work which also the Spirit to compleat his witness helpeth us both to Act increase discern and take comfort in Q. 5. And I next then ask you whether he that will have certainty of Salvation must not also have beyond a strong opinion a certainty that this Doctrine of certain perseverance is true C. Yes No doubt of it B. And are the generality of Professors certain of it when not only the Greeks and Romans but also all the Lutherans and Arminians and most Anabaptists utterly deny it I grant that men may be confident in the opinion which they are educated or faln into But are the unlearned certain when most of the Learned are confident of the contrary Following our Leaders eagerly is not certainty C. It 's granted you B. Q. 6. I ask then seeing so exceeding few of your own side are truly certain of their Salvation who never receive the Arminians opinion whether that be it that hindereth their certainty II. And now let us try in what Measure their Doctrine hindreth comfort Q. 1. Do you not think that many of those of your own side have much comfort though they attain not to assurance C. Yes Experience tells it us B. Q. 2. Do you not think that some yea many of the old Christians for a thousand years after Christ had comfort who yet were not of your opinion of Perseverance All the Martyrs and great Sufferers for Christ and the excellent Pastors were not comfortless C. That cannot be denyed B. Q. 3. Do you think that none of the Nations of Greeks Armineans Lutherans nor any of the Anabaptists of their mind do live in the comfortable hopes of Heaven C. Yes No doubt but many do B. Why then you see that comfort may be had without certainty of Salvation But I proceed to the Nature of the Case it self Q. 4. Would not your life be uncomfortable if you fore-knew that you should commit Murther Adultery Incest deny Christ c. kill your own Father Mother Wife or Child and lye as long as David did in your Sin much more to sin as Solomon did C. Yes I must needs be less comfortable in such a prospect B. Q. 5. Would it not much grieve you if you knew that you should fall from the Degree of Grace received to the very least that is consistent with sincerity C. It must needs be my grief but yet such as would consist with greater comfort because it consisteth with Salvation B. Q. 6. Are you certain that these two last Cases to commit such heinous sins and to fall so far from Grace may not be your Case C. No I cannot be sure of it because it may stand with Grace B. Q. 7. Tell me then what is it that now keepeth you from those sorrows which would befall you if such a thing should be C. The great hope that I have that it will never be B. What are the Reasons of those your hopes C. 1. Because I know that God is Good and merciful in himself 2. And he dealeth with man upon terms of Grace 3. And he hath given me experience of his mercy to my self 4. And I have his general promises that He will not fail me nor forsake me which though they assure me not that I shall not so fall yet they assure me that â—e will not so far forsake me without some heinous neglect of his Grace 5. And I feel in my self a present detestation of such heinous sins and a fixed Judgment and Resolution against them And though I have not power of my self to avoid mutation and back-sliding yet I have reason to trust him for the keeping of this Grace who freely gave it me And the truth is though man be mutable he is not apt to fear the change of his own mind when he is conscious that it is resolved on sound and unquestionable reason 6. And it is not nothing that I have been kept from all such sin till now 7. And that it is a rare thing for any faithful person so to fall And why should I fear that which not one of a multitude ever falleth into B. And why may not all these reasons comfort others that are uncertain of their Perseverance in a state of Grace Allowing but the difference of the degrees of the dangers Q. 8. Do you think that your Wife or Children are certain that you will not Murther them C. No they cannot be certain B. Q. 9. Would it not make their lives sorrowful if they knew that you would do it C. Yes no doubt B. Q. 10.
Justification Quest 2. Shew me how many of these six hundred Texts do not speak of such Inherent or Performed personal Righteousness as is distinct from such as you describe in your sense of Imputation Try whether one of twenty or forty or an hundred have such a sence Lib. Not if such false teachers as you must be the expositor of them P. Let us try some of them and be you the expositor 1 Joh. â— 29. every one which doth Righteousness is born of God 1 Joh. 3. 7 10. he That personal Righteousness is necessary that doth Righteousness is righteous Whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God Lib. You choose out those texts which countenance your own ends P. My question is but Whether Gods word talk of any Righteousness which consisteth in any thing that is in or of our selves Lib. Yes that cannot be denyed But not in order to our Justification P. Of the use we must speak â—non Quest 3. I next ask you then Wâ—â—â—ther all these texts be not True and whether we may not speak 〈…〉 Lib. Yes We question not the Truth but the meaning of the 〈…〉 P. Quest 4. Is this Righteousness aâ— such in that 〈…〉 have it abominable to God Doth not God command it and requireâ—â— to obey his Laws sincerely And doth he hate the obedience of his â—â—â—â— Is not Holiness his Nature and Image in us And doth he hate his Image and the Divine Nature Is it not the mark of a Malignant to be a Hater of Holiness yea of the Devil himself And can you think that God â—â—â—â— Hater of Holiness What I he that hath said Be holy for I am â—â—â—â— and Without Holiness none shall see God Lib. If you were not an unholy deociver you would not intimate by such questions as if I took God to be a Hater of Holiness P. Is it not Holiness which the Scripture and we mean by Inherent Righteousness Lib. But God hateth it not as Holiness but as mixt with sin P. Do you Believe and Love God sincerely and Love the Godly or not Lib. Better than such as you do or else wo to me P. And doth God Hate all your Faith and Love because it is mixt with sin If he do What difference between it and wickedness or between you and a wicked man God can but hate what they do and doth he so by all that you do also Why then may not your Neighbours imitate God and hate all that you do why may they not then deride and persecute you for that which is hateful to God For shame never more blame then your scorners or persecutors Lib. I do not say that God hateth my Faith Love Humility and patience as such but as mixt with sin Therefore properly it is sin that God hateth and not my Faith and Love it self P. And is all come to this What mean you then to rail at us that say the same We all say that God hateth our sin and the faulty imperfection of our holiness and obedience and what say you more Lib. But you say not that God hateth your Righteousness for the sin that cleaveth to it though not for it self as we do Your Goodness is like an Apple faln into the dirt or poysoned and you are for wiping it and keeping it but God and wise men abhor it for the filth and cast it away P. Then it seems you cast away all Love to God and man all faith all honesty and obedience chastity and temperance because sin cleaveth to it Lib. By casting it away I do not mean giving over to Love God and obey him and turning wickedly to the contrary but I mean that I count it dung in order to my Justification P. I perceive by Teaching me you are but Learning to speak your self I further ask you Doth not God Love the Faith Love Obedience and Holiness of his servants notwithstanding all their faults and imperfections Joh. 16. 27. The Father himself loveth you because you have Loved me and believed c. 2 Cor. 9. 7. God loveth a cheerful giver Psal 11. 7. The righteous Lord Loveth righteousness with many the like passages Doth he not Love his Image Lib. That is because we are in Christ and our persons and graces and duties are accepted all in him being perfumed with his righteousness and all our sins and imperfections pardoned and covered thereby And as our Graces are the works of the holy Ghost and not primarily as ours P. Are you come so far already All this is held not only by us but by the Papists also You confess then that for the merits of Christs Righteousness our sins are pardoned and not only our persons but our faith Love and obedience accepted and loved though culpably imperfect and mixt with sin And so all your noise is come to nothing and you say as we II. But having found that we must have Inherent Righteousness let us Of Reward and Worâ—thiness or Merit next consider What use we may make of it and how far it may and must be valued and trusted to And Quest 1. Tell me whether God hath made any promise of a Reward to it or not Turn to the word Reward in your Concordance if you remember not the Texts and see Lib. Your Legal principles and spirits makes the Scripture a snare and a stumbling block to you as Christ himself is When God talketh of Reward metaphorically you take it properly as if we could merit any thing of God P. I only ask you Whether God hath promised us a Reward Lib. Yes But it is a Reward properly to Christ by whose grace we live and not to our selves P. When Christ saith Great is your Reward in Heaven and your father shall reward you openly Matth. 5. 12. 6. 4 6. and you shall not lose your reward and Heb. 11. 26. he had an eye to the recompence of reward and Heb. 11. 6. God is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him c. is the meaning Great is Christs Reward in Heaven and God will reward Christ openly and is a Rewarder of Christ only as diligently seeking him c. Lib. You would make me ridiculous I mean that it is for Christs Merits or Righteousness which he did himself and not for any thing in us or done by us that we are rewarded P. Say you so Doth diligent seeking him Heb. 11. 6. and praying and giving alms in secret Matth. 6. 1 2 3 4. and suffering for Christ Matth. 5. 11 12. and feeding visiting c. Christ in his members Matth. 25. c. mean only that which Christ did and not we Is it Christs prayers and almes and charity and sufferings that the text meaneth Look over many such texts and judge Lib. Still you would make my words contemptible It is our duties that are rewarded but it is not for themselves or any worth that is in them but for the merits of Christ only P. If God have no respect
that we are commanded not only Thankfully to Accept but Thankfully to obey our Lord Redeemer and Saviour Lib. No. P. Quest 3. Date you deny that life or death eternal dependeth on this as a Condition or Moral means and that we shall be judged according to it Lib. No. I deny it not P. Quest 4. Is it not a Law that thus commandeth us and by which we must be judged Lib. Yes If it were no Law there were no duty and sin in belief and unbelief P. Quest 5. Is not a man so far just and justifyable by that Law as he keepeth it and justifyable against the charge of being one that must be Damned by producing the Condition of pardon and life performed Lib. Yes I deny it not P. Quest 6. And doth not the same Law virtually justifie the performer now whom it will justifie as the Rule of Judgement at last Lib. Yes no doubt P. Quest 7. And is not the Name of Righteousness many score times given in Scripture to our own actions done by Grace and measured by the New Covenant Lib. Yes I cannot deny it P. Why then while you deny neither Name nor Thing what wrangle you about And let me plainly tell you that such men as you by indiscreet ever-doing are not the least of Satans instruments to bring the Gospel under scandal and harden the world in Infidelity and the scorn of Christ while you would so describe the Christian Religion as if this were the very heart and summ of it Believe that all the Elect have fulfilled perfectly all Gods Law by another and that Christ did it as personating each of them and therefore no crime of their own is imputable to them nor any kind or degree of Goodness or Righteousness in and of themselves is at least required of God as any means or condition of their present or future justification by their Judge or as having any hand therein As if God were become indifferent what we all are so that Christ be but Righteous for us when as it was Christs grand design to restore lapsed man to God which he doth not only by Relative benefits but by Renewing them to his Image in love and holy obedience Lib. Have you not lately and oft been told that holiness and obedience are necessary now but it is to other Ends than to justifie us as for Cratitude c. P. 1. We easily grant it is for other Ends than Christs Merits were and not to justifie us as they do nor in that Causality They are not to purchase for us a free gift of pardon and life nor the Holy Ghost c. as Christ did 2. But again tell me Hath not Christ a Law that commandeth our obedience to those ends as Gratitude which you mention And is not the keeping that Law a thing that the same Law will so far justifie us for Yea a Condition that life dependeth on And if the Cause in Judgement be Have you kept it or not must you not in that be accordingly Justified or Condemned Give over cavilling against plain necessary truth Lib. By this you will fall in with the Papists who take Justification to be partly by Christs Righteousness and partly by our own and partly in pardon and partly in faith and holiness P. Tell not me of the Names of Papists or any to frighten me from plain Scripture truth 1. Why may not I rather say Why go you from all the antient Writers and Churches even Augustine himself by your new and contrary opinion Was true Justification unknown for so many hundred years after the Apostles 2. The most zealous Antipapists do confess that some Texts of Scripture do so take the word Justification And multitudes of Texts so take the words Righteous and Righteousness And he that will impartially consider them may find that more Texts than are by us so confessed do by Justifying mean Making us Just and so Accounting us on all these causes conjunct 1. As being Redeemed by Christs Merits 2. And freely pardoned 3. And having Right to life 4. And renewed to Gods love and Image 5. And so justifyable at the Bar of Grace by the Law of faith and liberty 3. And the reality of all the Matter of this Doctrine is past doubt if the Controversie de nomine Justificationis were not so decided CHAP. IV. Whether the Gospel be a Law of Christ Lib. III. YOu bring in your doctrine of personal Righteousness to Justification by feigning Christ to have made a new Law whereas the Gospel is but a Doctrine History and Promise and not a Law and so no Rule of Righteousness and Judgement And this many Protestants have asserted P. I have read some such sayings in some men And some I think meant no more but that Christ did only expound and not add to the Law of Nature called by them the Moral Law And these I have excused for their unhappy kind of expression But for the rest that mean as the words sound universally they subvert Christianity and as the Arrians denyed Christs Godhead so do they his Office and Government and are somewhat worse than the Quakers who say that the Spirit within us is the Law and Rule of Christ which is better than none I pray answer me Quest 1. Is Christ the King and Ruler of the Church Lib. Yes P. Quest 2. Is not Legislation the first and principal part of Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 3. Do not they then that deny Christs Legislation deny his Government Lib. Yes P. Quest 4. Is it not essential to Christ as Christ the name signifying Relatively his Office to be King Lib. Yes P. Quest 5. Do they not then by this deny Christ to be Christ Lib. No for they confess that he hath a Law but not that he made any since his birth P. We grant 1. That the Law of Nature now is His Law 2. And that the first Edition of the Law of Grace to Adam after the fall was his Law 3. And Moses Law was partly his But you will not say that we are under this last nor I hope that he hath no other than the two first Lib. Why what other can you prove P. It is the Name or the Thing that you deny for you use to confound the cases 1. Whether the name be fit judge by these Texts Gal. 6. 2. Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ James 1. 25. The perfect Law of Liberty Rom. 8. 2. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus c. Rom. 3. 27. Boasting is excluded By what Law Of Works Nay but by the Law of faith Mic. 4. 2. For the Law shall go out of Zion c. So Isa 2. 3. 8. 16 20. 42. 41. The Isles shall wait for his Law 1 Cor. 9. 21. We are under the Law to Christ Heb. 8. 10 16. I will put my Laws into their minds and hearts James 4. 12. There is one Law-giver c. Isa 33.
from their lawfuiler imployments that they may hear in season and call Martha to choose Maries part and those that say They cannot come because of their Oxen Farms and Business to change that mind Lib. Yes no doubt of it Zaccheus must be in Christs way P. Quest 4. Must we not perswade them to take heed how and what they hear and to set their hearts to all Gods Words and to see that they despise not him that speaketh but he that hath ears to hear let him hear and to consider of the truth and weight of all and to search the Scriptures to see whether the things be so Lib. I deny none of this P. Quest 5. May we not perswade them to come and talk and reason the case with Friends or Ministers that we may convince them Lib. Yes no doubt as well as to hear in publick P. Quest 6. May we not Catechise them and teach them the Principles of Christianity that they may understand them Lib. Yes as to the Matter but to teach them your forms of Questions and Answers is but formality and deceit P. What May we not teach them the words of Christ and Scripture How shall the matter be understood without words And what better words than the words of Scripture Lib. But a Form of the same words is but formality P. Hath God forbid us to use the same Are Children and ignorant people fit to understand the mysteries of God if you speak them every time in new or other words or can they so remember them And when the use of words is to signifie Things and the Matter is one and the same for we have but one God and Christ and Gospel what wild work will you make of it if you speak the same things every time in other words Are all those words equally fit to signifie the same Things Certainly some particular words are more fitted to each matter than other And should not the fittest be most used Doth not Christ deliver us a form of Baptism and a form of the administration of his last Supper and a form of Prayer Are there not forms prescribed in Gods Word of the Priests Benediction and what the people shall say when they offer Sacrifice Are not all the Psalms forms of Prayer and Praise and were indeed the Liturgie of the Jews Doth not Joel put a form of prayer into the mouths of Penitents Doth not Paul teach us to use Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord Eph. 5. 19. Doubtless it is not only Davids Psalms that are meant by these three words but Hymns and Songs fitted to Gospel Worship And if you would have none of them premeditated nor be twice the same words you would soon make your self ridiculous to the world If you say that this Precept was for them that could do so being filled with the Spirit I answer 1. It 's true that they had their extraordinary endowments which made a difference in the manner as also in Praying and Preaching But shall we dream that therefore the same duties belong not to us to be performed in the best manner that we can 2. A man may from the Spirit pour out his soul to God in forms of Prayer and Praise though the words were premeditated In a word if you would have all forms of Creeds Prayer Praise and administration of Sacraments and Catechisms cast away you are an enemy to Gods true Worship and the safety and edification of the Church yea you must cast away all the Scriptures which are Gods form of instruction recorded for the Churches use to the end of the World Quest 6. But I further ask you May we not perswade bad men to examine themselves and to find know and confess that they are bad and ungodly and to lament it Lib. Yes that cannot be denyed P. Quest 7. And may we not perswade them to believe that there is a God and that the Scripture is his Word and true and that Christ is the Messias Lib. Yes the Devils believe all this P. Quest 8. And may we not exhort them to Repent and Turn to God and so to believe in Christ as to receive him and give up themselves unto him Lib. Yes you may exhort them but they cannot do it of themselves P. Must we exhort them to nothing but what they can do of themselves Quest 9. Is not Exhortation Gods means to bring them to Repentance and Faith in Christ Lib. Yes I deny none of this But that which you abuse men by 1. Is bidding the ungodly pray when the prayers of the wicked are abominable to God And 2. In that you do not first call them to believe and come to Christ before they do any other duty P. 1. You granted me before that hearing and considering and searching the Scripture and other things named are to be done before Believing in Christ by those that are yet unbelievers He that believeth that there is a God must behave himself accordingly in obeying God 2. Men that believe in Christ but by Assent that he is truly the Christ and the Gospel true and that there is a life to come surely if they love themselves must do somewhat in order to a fuller Justifying Belief 3. And are you so much against the very Law of Nature worse than the Seamen that bid Jonas call upon his God worse than the Ninevites and than almost all mankind as that you would have no men pray but godly men Did not Peter bid Simon Magus repent and pray Acts 8. And doth not God command the wicked Isa 55. to seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near Should no graceless man ask Wisdom of God who giveth liberally to all men and upbraideth not James 1. and giveth his Spirit to them that ask it Must they not pray for Grace Faith and Repentance that want them 4. But yet let me remember you that we use not to exhort men to draw nigh to God with the lips alone nor to pray without Desire For Praying is but Desiring and presenting that Desire to God And when we bid men pray for Grace we bid them desire it And so bid them Repent and Pray Believe and Pray for Praying is a Returning act And if we may not call them to pray we may not call them to Turn to God Mr. Eliot in New England teacheth the Indians another lesson whose great work is to call them to pray and the title that his Converts have is the Praying Indians Lib. But without faith it is impossible to please God or do any thing which is not abominable to him P. 1. But it is not impossible for one to have a common and temporary faith and another a saving faith 2. And one that believeth that God is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him and this not savingly may yet less displease God and be less abominable than
as those as that Accusations against adversaries are to be believed without proof on one side and not on the other Gods Rule against receiving evil reports will be cast out and Charity and Justice will be cast away and meer siding and saction will possess the place And then all the question will be Who are those Accusers that are to be believed And if you think that it is your Teachers the Papists that have many more will think that they have more reason to believe them And â—â— the Anabaptists will believe theirs and the Separatists theirs and the Quakers theirs and what falshood and evil will not then be believed against all parties and how odious will they appear to one another and consequently all Christians to Infidels and Heathens L. A man that is set upon a sodering design may palliate any Heresie in the world and put a fair sense on the foulest words but God hateth such cloaking of sin and complyance with it R. May not Papists Familists Seekers Quakers and all Sects say the same against Concord and Complyance with you I pray you tell me what you think of these following words before you know who wrote them and take heed what you say of them lest you strike you know not whom Quest How is Justification free seeing faith and repentance are required to it Answ There are two answers given One is from Augustines doctrine Epist 105. the summ is As Justification is taken inclusively taking in Faith and Repentance as its beginning it is free because faith is free But as it is taken narrowly for Justification following faith that is for Remission of sin and Reconciliation with God it is merited by faith But the other solution I more approve and it seemeth more agreeable to Scripture to wit that even Remission of sin it self and Reconciliation with God are given freely no Merit of ours going before and that neither by faith nor repentance we do merit the gift of this grace For understanding of which Note that Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to Remit or Reconcile but all the Vertue proceedeth from the object it self that is Christ whoâ—e Vertue and Merit God hath determined to apply to a sinner for his justification by faith in him And what I say of Faith I say of Repentance and other dispositions as in the example of them that looked to the Brazen Serpent who were healed by looking not that looking as it was an act of the eye had such a healing force but the efficaâ—y was from the Serpent which God had appointed for the Ioure So we say of Faith which hath not in its nature and from its entity any power to Remit and Reconcile but as the Vertue of Christ doth this in believers And so I answer that If Faith justified as an act and of it self Justification were not free But so it doth not but is a Mediâ—m by Gods good pleasure by which the Vertue of Christ Justifieth believers therefore faith or repentance make it not lâ—ss free â— g. I give a Beggar a gift He puts forth his hand and taketh it If one tell me Thou gavest it not freely because he took it or else had not had it it were a ridiculous objection For putting forth the hand doth not of it self bring him a gift else every time that he puts forth his hand it would bring in a gift But it is from the vertue and bounty of the giver So is it as to faith and the dispositions by which the vertue of Christ and the free mercy of God do give Remission and Reconciliation to believers and disposed persons so that it taketh not away Christs Merit nor maketh Grace less free that faith or these dispositions are asserted L. I know not how much men may mean worse than they speak but these words are such as the best Protestants use R. They are the words translated of the aforesaid Fr. Tolet a Jesuit and Cardinal on Rom. 3. pag. 157 158 159. But still remember that by Justification they mean the holy effect of the Spirit on the soul and indeed by Remission of sin they most commonly mean the destroying or mortifying sin within us and ceasing to commit the act And they are dark and confused in these matters L. But do not Papists hold forgiveness of deserved punishment R. Yes but they bring it in disorderly and on other occasions But if they did not how could they hold that any sin past from our childhood till Conversion is Remitted or pardoned For the Act is past as soon as done factum infectum fieri non potest and so such past sins can have no remission but forgiving the penalty and healing the effects And wrangling Papists consider not that this is the Remission that Protestants mean who call their kind of Remission by the name of mortification And so we endlesly quarrel about words through our unhappy imperfection in the art of speaking and words being arbitrary signs the world is come to no agreement of their sense L. You confess then their confused Doctrine and you cannot excuse many of their Doctors from gross error herein R. No nor many honest pious persons that go for Protestants What Papists have more plainly subverted the Gospel by their Doctrine on these subjects than many of those called Antinomians have done by the contrary extream And who can justifie all the sentences and phrases of many eminent Divines among us yea or of many of the most wise and accurate For when all are much ignorant who can say I do not err L. But undoubtedly you will be as bitterly censured for these your favourable interpretations of the Papists in the point of Merit as if you were half a Papist your self and were but such a Mongrel as Erasmus Wicelius Cassander or Grotius or as if your Conciliatory designs would carry you as far at last as Grotius Mileterius Baldwin or at least as Mountague Guil. Forbes and such others went And others will then say that you are justly served for writing so much against Grotius and his followers on this account as you have done of which Bishop Bramhall and his Epistoler have already told you R. Truth honesty and Gods approbation change not as mens interests minds or tongues do Time will come that Truth will be more regarded when Love and Peace are to be revived unless God will forsake this contentious and unrighteous World And I am so near so very near that World where there is nothing but Truth Love and Righteousness and where God is All and the Fulness and felicitating object of holy souls and where the censures of men are of no signification that I am utterly unexcusable if I should betray the Cause of Truth Love and Concord to avoid the obloquy of men who speak evil of the things which they never understood The Thirteenth Dayes CONFERENCE Of the great errours sin and danger which many Ignorant Professours fall
to sin entertained we must go as far from sin as we can But poor deceived souls run into it under the conceit of going far enough from it and sometimes into greater than they avoid S. What sin have such Protestants run into in their opposition to Popery P. I will tell you some I. In Doctrine and II. In the consequentâ— and practice I. It is more than one injudicious Protestant Divine that hath printed such unfound Opinions as these in opposition to Popery for want of judgement 1. While they plead against the Romish false Tradition they have weakned faith by denying that necessary use of Historical Tradition of Scripture which Christianity doth suppose As others have denyed the necessary use of Reason unto faith 2. They have wronged the Church by undervaluing the Tradition of the Creed and the Essentials of Christianity by many means besides the Scriptures 3. They have much wronged the Protestant Cause by denying the perpetual Visibility of the Church and almost given it away as I have shewed against Johnson 4. And their dâ—nyal of its Universality and confining it long to the Waldenses and such others is an exceeding injury to the Church and Truth 5. And so is some mens over-doing as for the Scripture who teach men that they can be no surer of Christianity as delivered many years in Baptism before any of the New Testament was written than they are that there is no one error in all the Bible by the carelesness of the Scribes and Printers nor any humane frailty in the phrase 6. And also their feigning the Scripture perfection to consist in its being a particular determiner of all those circumstances of which it is only a general rule 7. And those that make every form of prayer or Ceremony to be Antichristian 8. And those that make Justifying faith to be a certainty or full perswasion that we are elected and pardoned and shall be saved 9. And those that say that To believe that I am justified is to believe Gods Word or â—ides divina either as most say because one of the premises is in Scripture or as excellent Chamier saith because the Witness of the Spirit is Gods Word 10. And those that say All that have true faith are sure they have such as Keckerman and too many others 11. Those that deny Christ to have made any Law 12. And those also that assert Imputation of Christs Righteousness in that sense which I have proved to subvert the Gospel 13. And those that deny Faith it self to be Imputed for righteousness 14. And those that deny that there is any personal Evangelical Righteousness in our selves that is any way necessary to our Justification 15. And those that lay all the stress of Faiths Justifying us on the notion of Instrumental efficiency 16. And those that say we are Justified by no act of faith but its receiving Christs Righteousness and all other acts of faith are the Worâ—s by which none is justified 17. And those that say that Evangelical obedience is not meritorious as it signifieth only Rewardable in point of Paternal Evangelical Governing Justice and as all the antient Fathers used that word because we merit not by Commutation 18. And those that say that man hath no free-will at all of any sort to spiritual good 19. And those that say that Christ was in Gods reputation the greatest sinner or wicked man Adulterer Murderer hater of God in all the world 20. And those that say that he suffered in soul Pain altogether of the same kind with those that the damned suffer in Hâ—â— 21. And those that in opposition to the Popish Government Confession Austerities and several acts of Worship do run into the conâ—rary extream against due Government Confession Austerities c. And those that from dark uncertainty or à minus notiâ— do gather many conclusions against known truth I pass by such as the Antinomians who as I have proved subveâ—t the Gospel it self by running into the contrary extream from Popeâ—â—â— S. You are as â—ad as Parker or the Debate-maker that thâ—s lâ—y sâ—â—ndal on the Reformers themselves If these were their faults you â—â—â—â— cover them and not open them This had been enough for â— Romish Râ—bshakeh P. You know not what it is that you say This is to aâ—hoâ—â—â—â—â—â—tance and to preferr the honour of man before the honour of God yea to let the shame be cast on Gods Word and Religion lest the erroâ— of â—â—â—â— be shamed But all men are lyars that is fallible and God is â—â—â—â— He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy but he that hideth it shall not prosper Are there not with you even with you also saith the Prophet sins against the Lord our God Why hath God recorded in Scripture the faults of so many of his servants and fomeâ— them to such open Confessions Did Paul wrong Peter and â—â—â—â— Gal. â— or the Ministry when he said All seek their own thingâ— and noâ—e the things of Jesus Christ or did the Evangelists wrong all â—he Disciples by saying that They all forsook him and fled or James all Câ—â—stians saying In many things we offend â—ll I think the Prouâ— Impeâ—itence of many Professors that will not confess sin nor endure to be â—â—led to it lest Religion be dishonoured is that great dishonour to Religion which God hath been long punishing us for When such evils have â—â—â—â— held and done as our age hath known either it must be said that they are not evil or that they are If we deny it and say they are God â—â—â—â— and mâ—ns duty we feign God and Scripture and Religion to be for all that evil which is to blaspheme If we say It is evil we must saâ—â— that we are the guilty causes of it God will teach Ministers and Professors instead of Pharisaical self-justification to take open shame to themselves that he and Religion may be vindicated before he will deliver us from shame and sorrow And he that will save his honour against this shame shall lose it and he that will thus lose it and cast it away shall most effectually recover it S. I think you would fain perswade us that Protestants are as bad as Papists and perswade us into the Roman Tents P. That is but your pievish inference But little do you know how much of Popery it self you have while you think that you hate it more than I. S. You would make me believe any thing if you make me think that I have more of Popery than you P. 1. Do not you agree with them in consining the Catholick Church to one Sect or Party only They to their Sect and You to yours 2. Do you not agree with them in your vehement condemnation of dissenters only they excommunicate and burn them and you deny them your communion and reproach them But their charity extendeth much further than yours and you condemn more dissenters than they do 3. Do you not agree with them in
against those things which their ignorance misrepresenteth to themselves And so Gods ordinances are made a snare to souls which are appointed for their salvation and the man that can kindle in his hearers a transporting passion against this or that opinion or form as Popish is cryed up for an excellent preacher and seemeth to edifie the people while he destroveth them 11. And by this means you seem to justifie the Papists lyes and calumnies against the Protestants by doing as they do They belye Luther Zuinglius Calvin Beza c. with just such intentions and such a kind of zeal as some over doing Sectaries belye them And is it bad in them and good in you 12. You teach the people a dangerous and perverse way of reasoning à minùs notis which will let in almost any errours From a dark text in the Revelations or Daniel or from the supposition that the Pope is the Antichrist and all Papists have received the mark of the beast you gather conclusions against the notorious duties of Love and peace which the light of nature doth commend to all Not that I am perswading you that the Pope is not Antichrist but that all things be received but according to their proper degree of evidence S. Now you open your self indeed All that revolt to Popery begin there with questioning whether the Pope be the Antichrist and telling men of the darkness of the Book of Revelations P. I tell you I will abate no certainty that you have but increase my own and yours if I could but I would not have any falsly to pretend that they are certainer of any thing than they are And no certainty can go beyond the ascertaining evidence And if all Scriptures be equally plain St. Peter was deceived that tells us of many things hard to be understood which the unlearned wrest as other Scriptures to their own destruction And if the Revelations be not one of the hardest I crave your answer to these questions 1. Why are five Expositors usually of four opinions in the expounding of it when it is those that have spent much of their lives in studying it as Napier Brightman c. who are the Expositors 2. Why will none of you that find it so easie at last write one certain Commentary which may assure which of all the former if any one of them was in the right 3. Why did Calvin take it to be too hard for him and durst not venture to expound it 4. And if you take it to be so necessary as you pretend tell me whether it was so necessary and so taken by all those Churches that for a long time received it not as Canonical Scripture Surely they were saved without believing it Though no doubt but the book of Revelation is a great mercy to the Church and all men should understand as much of it as they can But all that I blame you for here is the perverting of the order of proof in arguing à minùs notis 13. And these over-doers that run things into the contrary extreams do most injuriously weaken the Protestant cause by disabling themselves and all men of their principles to defend it and arming the Papists against it by their errors When it cometh to an open dispute by Word or Writing one of these mens errors is like a wound that lets out blood and spirits and puts words of triumph into the adversaries mouth A cunning Papist will presently drive the ignorant disputant to resolve his cause into his mistake and then will open the falshood of that and thence inferr the falshood of all the rest And what an injury is that to the souls of the auditors who may be betrayed by it and to the cause it self For instance If one of our over-doers hold that we are reputed to have kept all the Law of Innocency and merited salvation our selves by Christ or that no act of faith is Justifying but the accepting of his righteousness or that faith Justifieth only as the efficient instrumental cause or that we have no righteousness which hath any thing to do in our Justification but only Christs imputed Merits or that mans faith Love or obedience are not rewardable c. how easily will a Papist open the falshood of such an opinion to the hearers and then tell them that they may see by this who is in the right And alas what work would one Learned Papist make in London by publick disputing if we had no wiser men to deal with him than these over-doers They may call Truth and Sobriety Antichristian and talk nonsence as against Popery successfully to their own party but I hope never to see the cause managed by their publick disputes lest half the Congregation turn Papists on it at once If Chillingworth had not been abler to confute a Papist than those that used to calumniate him as Popish or Socinian he had done less service of that kind than he did 14. And it is an odious injury that these Over-doers do to the ancient and the universal Church while in many cases they ignorantly or wilfully reproach and condemn them as if they were all the favourers of Popery and call their ancient doctrine and practice Antichristian Some of them ignorantly falsifie the Fathers doctrine and upon trust from their Leaders aver◠that they held that which they plainly contradict and that which they held indeed they cry out against as Popery Such an instance we have newly in a Souldier Major Danvers an Anabaptist which I have detected And will Christ take it well to have almost all his Church condemned as Antichristian 15. And hereby what an honour is done to Popery and what a dishonour to the Reformed Churches when it shall be concluded that all the Churches heretofore even next after the age of the Apostles and almost all the present Churches were and are against the doctrine of the Protestants and on the Papists side And yet how many do us this injury and the Roman Church this honour About the nature of Justifying faith and its office to Justification and about the nature of Justification it self and Imputation of Righteousness and free-will and mans Works and Merits and about assurance of salvation and perseverance how many do call that Popery which the whole current of Greek and Latine Fathers do assert and all the ancient Churches owned and most of all the present Churches in the world And those that call all forms of prayer Popery or the English Liturgie at least when almost all the Christian world have forms and most such as are much worse do but tell men that the Christian world is on the side that they oppose and against their way 16. And it is a crime of infamy to be taken for Separatists from the universal Church And in doctrines and forms of Worship not only to avoid what we take to have been a common weakness but also to condemn them as Antichristian or as holding pernicious errours is but
to perswade men that we are not of the same body and to own a sinful dishonourable separation 17. And by all these means these Over-doers do greatly increase Atheism and Infidelity and prophaneness among us while their zeal against Truth and reproaches of sound doctrine do make men think that our Religion is nothing but proud humour and self-conceit and while they see us so boldly condemn almost all the world except our selves they will think that so few as we deserve not to be excepted 18. By this injurious extremity against the Papists we do but kindle in them a bitterer enmity to us and hatred of them breedeth hatred in them of us and so we set them on plotting revenge against us as implacable injurious enemies when we should deal soberly and righteously with all men and seek to win them by truth and gentleness 19. I And such dealings with them do draw Persecution on the Protestants that live under their Dominions and if we refuse to use them here as Christians no wonder if abroad they use not the Protestants as Men. 20. And by such great abuses of Reformation men hinder Reformation for the time to come and do their part to make it hopeless while they discourage such attempts by dishonouring the Reformation which is past Even as David George and Muntâ—er and the Munster Doâ—ages and Rebellions do hinder the â—eviving of Anabaptistry in the world and the shame of their old practices and successes is as a Grave stone upon the Sepuleher of their Cause so do these men do their part to make it with the whole Reformation that none hereafter may date to own or meddle with such work These that I have opened briefly to you are the real fruits of false injurious and ignorant zeal and over-doing against the Papists And if Popery revive it 's like to be by such men S. But Popery is an heinous evil and corrupt nature is so prone to evil thaâ— you need not thus disswade men from going too far from it or from over-doing against it no more than from being overmuch religious P. You may say the same as truly of the errors on the contrary extream All of them are evil and men are prone to evil But 1. Little know you how common it is in the world to spend mens zeal against the real or supposed evil of other mens Opinions and thereby to strengthen the mortal evil of their own carnal affections and passions and worldly lives and to take a zeal for Truth and Orthodoxness for real Holiness while usually such miss of Truth it self 2. And you know not the wiles of Satan how ordinarily he betrayeth a good Cause by the ill management of its most zealous friends and doth undo by over-doing When he will play the Devil indeed with Eve he will seem to be more than God himself for Knowledge of Good and Evil and for the advancement of mankind to be like God and God shall be accused by him as if he were untrue and envyed our perfection When he will play the Devil indeed with Christ he will seem to be more for valiantness and trusting God than Christ was and pleadeth Scripture for tempting God When he will play the Devil indeed in the Pharisees he will be stricter for the â—abbath and for Discipline in avoiding the company of the Publicans and sinners and stricter in fastings and dyet and other observations than Christ himself And he will be a zealous enemy to Blasphemy and a zealous Royalist for Caesar and a zealous honourer of the Temple and the Law when Christ or Paul or other Apostles are to be destroyed by it And when he will play the Devil in the Nicolaitans Simonians and Gnostick Hereticks he will seem to be for higher knowledge and greater liberty than the Apostles were And so when he would sow discord among Christians and would kill their Love and divide Christs Church and set them in a mental and oral War against each other he will aggravate the errors and faults of others and he will seem a more zealous friend of Truth and enemy to Popery Heresie Error Superstition false Worship or other faults than Christ is But he knoweth why S. But God telleth us himself that he is jealous about his Worship and hath in Scripture more severely executed his Justice upon the corrupters of his Worship than almost any other crime P. No doubt but God is jealous against Idolatry He that knoweth not the true God from Idols cannot honour him And he that worshippeth him not as a most Great and Holy God dishonoureth or blasphemeth him on pretence of worshipping him And to worship him by an Image is to perswade men that God is like that which that Image doth represent which is to deny him to be God And no doubt but the Jews great temptations to Idolatry from the Nations about them were to be oppugned by great severities of God And no doubt but Moses Law was to be honoured by Gods severe executions on the breakers of it But when you come to Christs preaching you find how oft he teacheth the Pharisees to go learn what that meaneth I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice When he conferreth with the Woman of Samaria John 4. she presently turneth from the doctrine of faith as Sectaries do among us to the Controversies of the times Our Fathers say In this Mountain and you say At Jerusalem men ought to worship But Christ calleth her off such low discourse and teacheth her to worship God as a Spirit in spirit and truth if ever she would be accepted of him S. But it is a time now when Popery is striving to rise again and how unseasonably would you abate mens zeal against it P. No more than he was against his Lawyers Zeal who grew hoarse with senseless bawling for him saying I am glad he hath lost his voice or else I might have lost my Cause I am so much against Popery that I wish it wiser and abler adversaries than self-conceited unstudied Zealots who will honour Popery by entitling it to the Truths of God and the Consent of the Antient or Universal Church or would make people believe that it consisteth in some good or indifferent things as in some Doctrines Forms or Government which others can see no harm in And so teach men to say If this be Popery we will rather be Papists than of them that rave as in their sleep against they know not what Could these men be perswaded to lay out their Zeal and diligence in propagating the practical knowledge of Christianity it self and let things alone which they understand not and SUSPEND TILL THEY HAVE THROUGHLY STUDIED or at least to forbear hindering wiser men and calumniating and backbiting those that would by wisdom defend that truth which by folly and rashness they go about to betray they might be meet for their share of that honour which now they forfeit S. You strive against Gods Judgements by which he