OF All those weighty parcells of Gospell truth which the Arminians have chosen to oppose there is not any about which they so much delight to try and exercise the strength of fleshly reasonings as that of Gods eternall decree of Reprobation partly because the Scripture doth not so abound in the delivery of this Doctrine as of some others lying in a more immediate subserviency to the obedience and consolation of the Saints though it be sufficiently revealed in them to the quieting of their spirits who have learned to captivate their understandings to the obedience of Faith and partly because they apprehend the Truth thereof to be more exposed to the riotous opposition of mens tumultating carnall Affections whose help and assistance they by all meanes court and solicite in their contests against it Thus the Author of the Book entituled Gods love to Mankind being desired to render a reason of the change his Faith in passing over to the Tents of the Arminians he drawes forth only this one poynt to make shew of for the hinge of his alteration Many Learned men know with what applause that Book of his was received and divulged by that whole Generation which had then wrapped up the ball of the Errors promoted by it in the gilded covering of Preferment and carried it away before them They being by providence removed from that station and conjunction unto Power whence they had their effectual influence on the Earth God foresaw if he may be allowed to foresee what reinforcement upon other hands their Abominations would receive and therefore in his tender love made provision for his Church before hand as by others so in especiall by the renowned Author of this Treatise whose paines herein intended by him for the conviction of them with whom after much forbearance God intended to take another course are now seasonably brought to light to stop the mouthes of another Generation risen up in their steed enemies of Gods Soverainty and Grace untill He shall be pleased to deale otherwise with them God is not moâ—â—ed that which men sow they shall reap It is well known what spheare this Learned Author moved in how farre elevated above any possibility of my reaching the least esteeme to him or his labours This being desiâ—ed by my worthy and Learned friend the Publisher to expresse my thâ—ughts upon its perusall I shall take the boldnesse to say that this Treaâ—ise of our Author comes not any whit behind the choycest of thosâ— other eminent Workes of his wherein in this cause of God he faithfullâ— served his Generation I doubt not but it will appeare to the Readeâ— that he hath dealt with the Adversaries of the Truth in their chiefest â—olds advantages and strengths putting them to shame in the calumnyes and lyes which they make their refuge IOHN OWEN Vicecan Oxon. The Riches of Gods Love unto the Vessells of Mercy CONSISTENT WITH His Absolute Hatred or Reprobation Of the Vessells of Wrath. OR AN ANSWER UNTO A BOOK ENTITULED Gods Love unto Mankind Manifested by Disproving His Absolute Decree for their Damnation IN TWO BOOKES The First being a Refutation of the said Booke As it was Presented in Manuscript by Mr HORD unto Sir NATH RICH. The Second being an Examination of certain Passages inserted into M. HORDS Discourse formerly Answered by an Author that conceales his Name but was supposed to be Mr MASON Rector of Andrews-Undershaft in London By that Great and Famous Light of Gods Church WILLIAM TWISSE D. D. And Prolocutor of the late Assembly of DIVINES Whereunto are annexed Two Tractates of the same Author in Answer unto D. H. The one concerning Gods Decrees Definite or Indefinite The other about the object of Predestination TOGETHER WITH A Vindication of D. TWISSE from the exceptions of M r JOHN GOODWIN In his Redemption Redeemed By HENRY JEANES Minister of God's Word In CHEDZOY Rom. 9. 20. O Man who art thou that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made mee thus v. 21. Hath not the Potter power over the clay of the same Lump to make one vessell to honour and another unto dishonour OXFORD Printed by L. L. and H. H. Printers to the University for Tho Robinson Anno Salutis M. DC LIII TO THE WORSHIPFULL And his Honoured Uncle MICHAEL OLDISWORTH Esquire And a Member of the PARLIAMENT Of the Common-wealth of ENGLAND SIR I Have often heard you professe a deep dislike of the unnaturall vanity of the English Nation in preferring strangers in all callings above such of their own Country men as farre surpassed them And of this unjust partiality no profession hath tasted in a greater measure than that of Divinity for of our Ministers such whom God hath best fitted with parts and Learning for the discussing of controversies have been so undervalued in comparison of some Forraine Divines whose Learning was little better than systematicall as that they languished in their private studies and had dyed in obscurity unlesse the fame of their great abilities had been eccho'd over unto us by the generall applause of all Christendome Nay this sometimes hath not awakened us unto a due estimation of them D r Ames was looked upon abroad as one that amongst Protestant writers had few either superiors or equalls for subtilty in Logick and Scholasticall Divinity and yet he dyed an exile from his Native Soyle so that his Tombe might have had that inscription upon it which Scipio by his will appoynted to be on his Ingrata Patria ne ossa mea quidem habes Unthankfull Country thou hast not so much as my Bones Of how great reputation this our Author was beyond the Seas I had rather you should heare from the able and judicious Rivet than by mee who am censured by some who I am sure much overvalue their own judgements to have too high and admiring thoughts of him Rivet in his Epistle prefixed unto a late Book of D. Twisses against Arminius and Corvinus c. will assure you that The most Learned men in the whole Christian World even those who are of the adverse party doe confesse that there was nothing yet extant more accurate exact and full touching the Arminian Controversies than what was written by D. Twisse As also That he if any one hath so cleared and vindicated the Orthodoxe cause from objected absurdities and the calumnies of adversaries as that out of his labours not only the Learned but also those who are least versed in controversies may find enough whereby to disentangle themselves from the snares of Opposites Indeed there is none almost that hath Written against Arminianisme since the Publishing of any thing of D r Twisses on that Subject but have made very honourable mention of him and have acknowledged him to be the mightiest man in these Controversies that this Age hath afforded And yet this Worthy and able Combatant for the Truth and Cause of God was here at home designed unto Ruine as
be made after Gods image Gen. 1. 27. Nor when they are regenerated to be renewed after the same image Col. 3. 10. And to be made partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. That Picture cannot be the picture of such a man which doth not in its parts and lineaments clearly resemble him nor can we be truly the image of God in respect of our graces if in these graces there be not a resemblance of Gods Attributes 3. We may not safely imitate God as we are commanded Be you perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Math. 5. 48. and be ye holy as I am holy Nor when we shew forth mercy justice and truth in our actions can we be properly said to imitate God if these be one thing in God and in men another These two things being thus premised viz. that Gods mercy justice and truth are three of his chief Attributes in the exercise of which he takes himselfe to be much glorified and that we are to measure these Attributes by the same vertues in ourselves I come to the proofe of my second reason against absolute reprobation which is that it opposeth some of Gods principall Attributes particularly his justice mercy and truth TWISSE Consideration I Cannot but wonder at the performances of the true Author of this Discourse in comparing that which goes before with that which comes after His poverty of argumentation out of Scripture and the exuberancy of his discourse following Before he was in some straits but now he seems to have gotten Sea roome enough yet this is my comfort I seem to perceive out of what chimney all this smoak proceeds and to be as well acquainted with the spirit that breatheth here as if I were at his elbow while he penned it Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae such like are Doctor Jacksons discourses and him I have known of old and his Ephestion also I professe willingly of Scholar acquaintance they were my greatest and dearest But seeing it hath pleased God to put such a difference between us I would have both them and the World know I doe as little regard them as feare them Arminius himselfe is never more plausible then in such like extravagant discourses as a positive Theologue But these inspirations were never derived from him they are flowers of another garden These have been shapen in a more Philosophicall brain whereof some having gotten the reputation give Oracles therehence first to forme interpretations of Scriptures in congruity to these Theorems as the true Author blusheth not to professe which when he hath perswaded the World of I see no cause to the contrary but he may adventure a degree farther and perswade the burning of the Bible so farre as it concerneth the Doctrine of Predestination and Reprobation Grace and Free-will and content themselves with these magisteriall precepts as most sufficient and soveraigne for the endoctrinations of the Christian World in these poynts But he might have spared his pains in proving this consequence that if our Doctrine of Reprobation be contradictory to Gods principall attributes it cannot be true I say he might have spared the proofe hereof for all that he brings in proofe of this is but darknesse in comparison of the domesticall light and selfe-evidence which this consequence carryeth with it His premises here and discourse thereof is like unto the Turkes parly before the encounter when he challenged any one of Scanderbegs army to a single combate For as that parley was meerely complementall and to no purpose save only as he might conceit to abate the fervor of his opposite who longed to be dealing with him so this introduction I find to be of no Scholasticall use in the world but meerely Politick to work some impression upon the readers affections where by it may come to passe that when he reads of Gods mercy and justice as here it is set forth he may be the more enclined to judge thereof according to the genius of human mercy and justice Yet I am content to give my selfe to be wrought upon by these pretty contemplations as farre as I shall be convicted of any truth and sobriety in them though I willingly professe I am very suspicious for I love to betray my infirmities that there is little or no truth and sobriety at all in them 1. Now because he hopes to hatch much advantage unto his cause out of these attributes and to that purpose he sitts very long upon them though his market may be never the better for all that He tells us these are Gods chief attributes and as it appeareth by that which followeth his practice is to disparage his power which I call the Lords Soveraignty in comparison to these Now it seems they are chiefe indeed in his opinion for the furthering of his cause but as for any absolute chiefty they have in God I am not as yet acquainted therewith what I may be by this Authors performances I know not yet in the next page save one he professeth expressely That all Gods excellencies are infinitely good and one is not greater then another wherein I doe much approve his judgement as savouring of more depth then this which yet I think not that he who pretends to be the Author of this discourse in respect of his minority should be likely to broach as for other respects of principality I shall be ready to take notice of them in due place But when he saith God is most glorified in the manifestation of mercy justice and truth it is a very odde phrase For it is one thing to be glorious another thing to be glorified dare he deny that God is as glorious in his power and soveraignty as in his mercy justice and truth As for the glorifying of him that depends upon the will of the creature It may be some are more thankfull unto God for blessing them with health and riches and honour and preferment then for bestowing his Gospell upon them but will it follow herehence that his goodnesse in giving riches c. is more glorious then his goodnesse is seen in giving us his Word and Gospell We read that when God laid the foundations of the earth the Starres of the morning praised God together and all the children of God rejoyced Job 38. 7. did these Angells glorify God for his mercy justice and truth in the creating of them We read sometimes of Gods power sometimes of his wisdome manifested in the Creation as Jer. 10. 11. and 51. 11. and Psal 136. 5. Jer. 10. 12. c. But no where have I read that I can remember he made the World by his mercy justice or truth and Revel 4. 11. I find the glory of power given unto God in the creation by the 24 Elders but neither there nor any where else that I know is the glory of his mercy justice and truth given unto God therein Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honour and power for thou hast created all
that believeth and it is most true that in like manner Christ hath procured the salvation of every one that believes so that here is a truth to feed upon and they that oppose it are strengthned in their vaine confidence by a meere mist of confusion which they raise unto themselves and others that so they may set the better face upon that lye which they hold in their right hand wherewith they are so enamoured that they had rather forsake their own mercies then forgoe it And so I come to the third and last reason in generall drawn from Gods justice DISCOURSE SUBSECT III. THe third reason why absolute Reprobation infringeth Gods justice is because it will have him to punish men for the omission of an act which is made impossible unto them by his own decree not by that decree alone whereby he determined to give them no power to believe having lost it but by that decree also by which he purposeth that we should partake with Adam in his sinne and be stripped of all that supernaturall power which we had by Gods free grant bestowed upon us in Adam before the fall These are my reasons which move me to think that this absolute decree is repugnant to Gods justice TWISSE Consideration I Have already shewed how Gods decree and impossibility arising upon supposition thereof doth no way prejudice the liberty of the creature as by pregnant passages of the Scripture is made plaine unto us And as for the other decree here spoken of First it is untrue which he supposeth that God by a speciall decree decreed all mankind to be made partakers of Adams sinne and therein to be stripped of all supernaturall power which before the had by Gods free grant For if it were just with God to decree that Adams nature upon his sinning should be bereaved of all supernaturall power which formerly he enjoyed this and this alone should suffice to bereave all his posterity of supernaturall power to doe that which is good For seeing all his posterity did receive their natures from Adam after his fall they must therewithall necessarily receive their natures from him bereaved of all supernaturall power unto that which is good untill such time as God be pleased of his free grace to restore it by regeneration 2. Is it not good reason that God for Adams sinne should bereave us of all supernaturall power in Adam as of his meere grace he did adorne us all with supernaturall power in Adam 3. Notwithstanding this depravation of supernaturall power in Adam yet we acknowledge that neverthelesse whatsoever sinne a man commits he committeth freely and the Schoole hath taught it before us Aquin. p. 1. q. 23. art 3. ad 3. licet aliquis non possit gratiam adipisci qui reprobatur a Deo tamen quòd in hoc peccatum vel illud labatur ex ejus libero arbitrio contingit undè merito sibi imputatur in culpam DISCOURSE SUBSECT IV. TWo things are usually answered First that there are many things delivered for truths in Scripture among which this is one which are above the reach of humane capacity and therefore are we quietly to submit as to other revealed truths so to this and not to be so bold as to examine the justice of this decree or any thing else in it by our shallow and erring understandings But this answer takes not away the arguments for I have these things to reply 1. That though there be diverse things revealed in Gods word which are above reason viz. That there are three Persons and one God and that Christ was borne of a Virgin that the world was made of nothing that the dead shall be raised c. to all which we must captivate our understandings and yeeld a firme assent propter authoritatem dicentis yet there is nothing revealed therein abhorring from and odious to sound and right reason for it cannot be that the most excellent gifts of God Faith and Reason Nature and Scripture should overthrow one another and that the wise God who is the fountain of all right reason should discover any thing to us in his word or enjoyne us any thing to be believed which is vere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly and properly unreasonable Our faith is an act of our service of God and Gods service is cultus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service Rom. 12. 2. and Gods word is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 milk reasonable and without guile they are so called no doubt to shew that there is a sweet harmony between faith and reason things revealed and mens understandings though there be a disproportion yet there is no contradiction between them 2. That therefore all those Doctrines which are adverse and repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles are not to be taken for doctrines of Scripture but devices of men corrupting Scripture by false glosses and interpretations and consequently that this absolute reprobation of so many millions of miserable men out of Gods only will and pleasure because it is most irkesome to the eares and understandings of all sorts of men best and worst that stand indifferent to the entertainment of any truths that may appeare to be so is no doctrine of the Text no part of the word of God 3. That howbeit some things in Scripture which are peculiar to the Gospell are above our understandings and must without hesitation be believed yet there are many things there which have their foundation in nature and may be apprehended by the light of nature and demonstrated by reason and among these things the justice of Gods waies is one as I have shewed before out of Isaiah 5. 3. and Ezek. 18. and it is but a meer evasion when the absolute decree is proved by sound reasons to be unjust to say reason is blind and must not be judge but the Scripture only for God offers the justice of his waies to the tryall of reason TWISSE Consideration THis Author seems to swell in the conceit of his rationall performances as if never any fly sitting upon a cart-wheele in a Sommers day had made such a dust as he had made And fashioning to himselfe a victorious conquest as if all his adversaries were but Pigmies to this Anakim glad to runne into corners or into Acorn-cups to hide themselves there For his reasons like some hobgoblins doe so fright them more then all the spirits that stand by the naked man in the book of Moones And therefore all the help they have if we believe this Pyrgopolinices is to charme them by saying that many things are delivered in Scripture which are above the reach of humane capacity among which this is one c. And I take this to be sound For otherwise why should the Doctrine of Godlinesse be called a mystery of Godlinesse And the Schooles teach that Fides est assensus inevidens and Cajetan who was no gras-hopper as great an Anakim as this Author or
to permit him to sinne in what kind or degree soever to expose him to any degree of condemnation or as if the Creator hath not power to doe what he will with his creature any more than an Usurer hath over his poore brother or Saul over David or the like Thus the consideration of his third reason I have brought to an end I come to the Fourth DISCOURSE The Fourth Reason It is prejudiciall to Piety SECT I. MY Fourth Generall against absolute reprobation is It is a hinderance of Piety it serveth to discourage holinesse and encourage prophanenesse It makes Ministers negligent in Preaching Praying and every duty else that tends to the eternall good of their People It makes people carelesse also of hearing reading praying instructing their families examining their consciences fasting and mourning for their sinnes and all other godly exercises In a word it cuts asuder in my opinion the very sinewes of religion and pulls away the strongest inducements to an holy life Therefore it is no true and wholsome doctrine That it doth so it will appeare these two waies that follow 1. It takes away Hope and Feare Hope of attaining any good by Godlinesse Feare of sustaining any hurt by wickednesse and so it takes away two principall props of Religion This reason may be resolved into two branches Hope and Feare uphold Godlinesse Were it not for these it would fall to ruine by these are men strongly led on to vertue and with-held from vice 1. Hope doth excitare stirre men up to beginne and corroborare strengthen in the doing of any good action begunne By this hope of heaven did our Saviour stirre up himselfe to endure the Crosle and despise the shame Heb. 12 By this he heartned his Disciples to doe and suffer for his sake Math. 5. 11. Abraham left his Country and kindred at Gods call because he looked for a Citty whose builder and maker was God Heb. 11. 8 9 10. Moses left all the pleasures and treasures of Aegypt and endured afflictions with the people of God because he saw him that was invisible v. 27. The Martyrs endured racks gibbets Lyons sword fire with a world of other torments because they looked for a better resurrection v. 35. Paul endeavours alwaies to keep a good conscience through the hope of a blessed resurrection Acts 24. 15. All the heroicall acts of active and passive obedience have sprung from the hope of a weight of glory Husbandmen Souldiers Merchants are all whetted on by hope to diligence in their callings as daily experience shewes Hope saith Aquinas confert ad operationem and he proveth it first by Scripture 1 Cor. 9. 10. He which Eareth and Thresheth must Eare and Thresh in hope And then by a twofold reason 1. From the Nature of hopes object Bonum arduum possible some excellent good attainable by industry Existimatio ardut excitat attentionem hope to get that by paines which is conceived to be a thing of worth stirres up to paines taking 2. From the effect of hope which is delectatio an inward pleasure which the party that lives under hope is affected with by his hope There is no man which hath an inward contentment and satisfaction of heart in the work that he hath to doe but goes on merrily The hope of Heaven therefore is a great encouragement to piety 2. The feare of Hell also is a strong curb to hold men in from Wickednesse and therefore saith one God hath planted in men a feare of vengeance that by it as the ship by the rudder the soule may be presently turn'd aside from any rocks or gulfes or quick-sands of sinne when it is neere them and so may steere its course another way For this cause feare of God and abstaining from evill are often joyned together in Scripture Job 1. 1. Exod. 1. 17. And the want of this feare is made the root of all licentiousnesse in sinning Gen. 20. 11. Nor doth feare only hinder a bad action but it promotes a good It hinders a bad action directly because it is fuga mali a flying from that evill of misery which is annexed to the evill of sinne and it promotes a good action accidentally because men think that they are never so safe from the mischiefe which they feare as when they are exercised in such imployments as tend to the getting of a contrary state Worke out your salvation saith the Apostle with feare and trembling implying that the working out of salvation goes not on handsomly except the fear of missing it be an ingredient to the work The second branch of this Reason is That by the absolute decree Feare and hope are taken away For hope is properly exercised about Bonum futurum possibile haberi some good thing that may be obtained not a good thing that must be obtained of necessity and the object of feare is malum possibile vitari an evill that may be escaped For metus est fuga mali feare is a flying from evill and therefore supposeth that the evill is avoydable for no man will fly from an evill that cannot be prevented but will yeild himselfe up to it as Caesar did to the murtherers in the Senate house Now by this decree Heaven and Hell are not objecta possibilia but necessaria Heaven shall unavoydably be obtained by those that are elected and Hell must as certainly be endured by those that in Gods eternall purpose are rejected For men have no power to alter their eternall states all men by this decree are precisely determined ad unum to one state to necessary salvation or necessary damnation without any power or liberty to choose whether And from hence the conclusion is cleere that the absolute decree takes away the chiefest inducements to holinesse and determents from wickednesse and consequently hinders a Godly life exceedingly TWISSE Consideration TRavailers report of the Territory of Venice that the farther they goe into it the stronger and stronger they find it But such is not the condition of this Authors discourse for the farther I wade into it the weaker and weaker it appeares And to this I answer first in generall That our Brittaine Divines make answer to the like crimination made against our Doctrine upon the 5. Article p. 168. according to the English translation of it saying Both Gods truth and mans experience easily wipe off this aspersion For this Christian perswasion of perseverance and salvation not only in respect of its own nature but also according to the very event in the Church doth by Gods blessing produce a quite contrary effect First in respect of the thing it selfe The certainty of the end doth not take away but establish the use of the meanes And the same holy men who upon sure grounds promise unto themselves both constancy in the way of this Pilgrimage and fruition of God in their everlasting home know also that these are not obtained without performance of the duties of holinesse and the avoydance of
no supernaturall act is or can be sinfull every sinfull act must needs be an act naturall and power either to doe or to abstaine from any naturall Act is not to be denied to any naturall man But it is impossible that any naturall man should abstaine from any sinne or doe any naturall good act so commonly accounted in a gratious manner untill grace comes so to season the heart of man as to love God even to the contempt of himselfe and out of his love to doe that good which he doth and to abstaine from that evill from which he abstaineth 2. But if the question be of the manner how this necessitie of sinning is brought upon the nature of man we say it is not by the pleasure of God But by the sinne of Adam according to that of the Apostle Rom 5. By one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne for man by reason of sinne was justly bereaved of the Spirit of God and begetting children in this Condition he begets them after his owne Image and likenesse that is bereaved of the Spirit of God And we hold it impossible for a man bereaved of God's Spirit either to doe that which is good or abstaine from doing that which is evill in a gratious manner 2. Secondly I come to the Synod of Valense when they say the wicked not perish because they could not doe good but because they would not These words may seeme to imply that even the wicked could doe good if they would and truely I see noe cause to deny this But that we may safely say with Austine that omnes possunt Deo credere ab amore rerum temporalium ad divina praecepta servanda se convertere si velint Believe God if they will and from the love of all things temporall convert themselves to the keeping of God's Commandements if they will for if a man would goe to Church but cannot because he is lame would read in God's word but cannot because he is blind These impotencies are naturall not morall but the impotency brought upon mankind by the sinne of Adam is morall not naturall Now morall impotency is found noe where but in the will or at least is chiefly there and secondly in the understanding also as touching knowledge practicall and accordingly when Scriptures testifie that they who are in the flesh cannot please God Rom 8 cannot repent Rom 24 connot believe Ioh 12. This impotency consist's cheifly in the corruption of their wills noted by the hardnesse of heart Rom 2. 4. Eph 4. 18. Againe I have already shewed out of Remigius that a wicked man can doe that which is good but by what meanes to wit by grace not otherwise The words are these Si dixisset generaliter nemo hominum sine Dei gratia libero bene uti potest arbitrio esset Catholicus had he said generaly not any man can use his free will without grace he were Catholique And pag. 36 the same Remigius hath these words In infidelibus ipsum liberum arbitrium ita per Adam damnatum perditum in operibus mortuis liberum esse potest in vivis non potest free will so damned and lost in Adam may be free in dead workes in living workes it cannot Yet pag. 174 thus he distinguisheth answerably to the passage alleaged by this Authour De reprobis nullum salvari ullatenus existimamus non quia non possunt homines de malo ad bonum commutari ac de malis ac pravis boni ac recti fieri sed quia in melius mutari noluerunt in pessimis operibus usque ad finem perseverare voluerunt And pag. 143. Florus of the Church of Lyons where Remigius was Byshop sets downe the same truth more at large thus Habet homo post illam damnationem liberum arbitrium quo voluntate propria inclinari potest inclinatur ad malum habet liberum arbitrium quo potest assurgere ad bonum ut autem assurgat ad bonum non est propriae virtutis sed gratiae Dei miserantis Nam qui mortuus est potest dici posse vivere non tamen sua virtute sed Dei Ita liberum arbitrium hominis semel sauciatum semel mortuum potest sanari non tamen sua virtute sed gratia miserantis Dei ideo omnes homines admonentur omnibus verbum praedicatur quia habent posse credere posse converti ad Deum ut verbo extrinsecus admonente intus Deo suscitante qui audiunt reviviscant Man hath after that damnation to wit such as followed after Adam's fall free will so that of his owne will he can be inclined and is inclined to evill he hath free will whereby he may rise unto a good condition but that he doth arise to that good condition is not in his owne power but of the grace of God compassionating him for of him also who is dead it may be said that he may live yet not by his owne power but by the power of God Soe man's free will also being once wounded once dead may be restored not by his owne power but by God's grace pitying him and therefore al men are admonished to all the word is preached because they have this that they may believe they may be converted unto God that by the word outwardly admonishing God inwardly raising they which heare may revive As touching the last condemning those who say that any should be so predestinated to evill by God that they cannot be otherwise this Authour would faine insinuate into his Reader an opinion That wicked men may change from evill to good of themselves But neither doth the Councill of Valens or Remigius a chiefe man therein intimate any such thing But only that it is in God's power by his grace to change them and so hath changed and will change the hearts of many namely of all his Elect but not of one other That the Remonstrants did not at that time desire that it should be talked of among the common people who might have stumbled at it but disputed of among'st the Judicious and Learned who as the threshing Oxen who are to beate the corne out of the Huske are to bolt out those truthes which are couched and hidden in the letter of the Scriptures That the doctrine which is loath to abide the triall even of learned men carrieth with it a shrewd suspicion of falshood the heathen Oratour shall witnesse for me who to Epicurus seeing that he would not publish his opinion to the simple people who might happily take offence at that answereth thus Declare thy opinion in the place of Judgment or if thou art affraid of the assembly there declare that in the Senate amongst those grave and judicious Persons Thou wilt never doe it and why but because it is a fowle and dishonest opinion True religion as Vives saith is not a thing guilded over but gold it selfe the more it is scraped and
on the part of Reprobates is not the damnation of them but the manifestation of his glory in the way of vindicative justice which in Scripture phrase is called the Declaration of his wrath For God made all things for himselfe even the wicked against the day of evill And to this end he doth not only permit them both to sinne and to persevere therein without repentance but also to damne them for their sinne And this worke of God namely the permission of sinne is as requisite for the manifestation of his mercy on the part of his Elect as for the Declaration of his wrath on the part of reprobates Yet who was ever found so absurd as to say that we make the sinfull actions of men to be the meanes which God useth to bring about the salvation of his Elect. So little cause have we to make use of this distinction as the action it selfe and the sinfullnesse thereof to shew in what sense it is a meanes which God useth whereby to bring about the damnation of man For we utterly deny sinne to be any such meanes of God but the permission thereof only is the meanes whereby to bring about not their damnation as this Authour suggesteth but the meanes together with the damnation for sinne whereby he bringeth to passe the declaration of his just wrath But men of this Authours spirit unlesse they be suffered to calumniate at pleasure and corrupt their opposites Tenet at pleasure they can say just nothing It is true actions deserve damnation only as they are transgressions of God's law but we deny that these transgressions are God's meanes but only the permission of them is his meanes and by permitting these transgressions as also by damning for them he brings to passe his glorious end to wit the declaration of his just wrath 3ly It is most untrue that God brings any man into a state of sinne He brings himselfe into it most freely God having no other hand in the sinne but as permitting it that is as not preserving from it Indeed if he did bring men into sinne and they not rather bring themselves thereinto he were the Authour of it But it is well knowne that sinne cannot transcend the region of acts naturall All acts supernaturall must needs be the worke of grace and truly good But every sinfull act is merely naturall never supernaturall Now never any of our Divines denyed a man liberty in his greatest corruption unto acts naturall the Devill himselfe hath liberty thus farre It is true originall sinne is brought upon all by the sinne of Adam For hereby the fountaine of humane nature became corrupted but in this very sin of Adam we had an hand if there be any truth in Scripture which testifies that In Adā we all have sinned This is the doctrin which the Author spights though he be more wise then to publish to the world his spleen against it And I have seen under his hand where he denies originall sinne to be veri nominis pecatum sinne truly so called And albeit M. Hoord makes a flourish in saying that God might justly damne all man-kind for the sinne of Adam and that also was this Authour's doctrine in the lectures which he read at Magdalen Hall yet I have good cause to doubt whether this be his opinion now and not rather the same with Pelagius his opinion saving the difference which Pelagius did put between not entering into the Kingdome of heaven and damnation As for all other sins which we call actuall they are as I said naturall only and not supernaturall and therefore no man wants liberty as to doe them so to abstaine from them Only he wants a morall and Spirituall liberty to abstaine from them in a gracious manner according to that of Aquinas Licet aliquis non possit gratiam adipisci qui reprobatur à Deo tamen quod in hoc peccatum vel illud labatur ex ejus libero arbitrio contingit Though a man who is reprobated of God cannot obtaine grace yet that he falleth into this or that sinne it comes to passe of his own free will It is true also even in God's providence concerning acts naturall there is a great mystery For as God foretold David that his neighbour should lye with his wives and though he sinned secretly yet the Lord would doe this openly So he foretold that upon that Altar which Ieroboam erected a child that should be borne of the house of David Iosiah by name should burne the Prophets bones And that Cyrus also should build him a Citty and let goe his captives Yet who doubts but that Cyrus did freely deliver the Jewes out of Babylon and Iosiah did as freely burne the Prophets bones upon the alter in Bethel as ever they did action in their lives So Absalom did as freely defile his Fathers Concubines Then againe we deny that the damnation of any man is the end that God intends but the manifestation of his own glory And therfore though he hath made the wicked against the day of evill yet both that and all things he hath made for himselfe And to this tends both the permission of sinne and the damnation of Reprobates for their sin And in no moment of nature are either of these intended before the other both being joyntly meanes for the procuring of another end And if permission of sinne were first in intention with God and then damnation as these men would have it it followeth evidently by the most generally received rules of Schooles that permission of sinne should be last in execution that is men should first be damned and afterwards permitted to fall into sinne This is the issue of these men's Orthodoxy and accurate Divinity Section 8. The will is determined to an Object two waies 1. By compulsion against the bent and inclination of it 2. By necessity according to the naturall desire and liking of it God's predestination say they de termineth the will to sinne this last way but not the first It forceth no man to doe that which he would not but carrieth him towards that which he would When men sin t is true they cannot choose And it is as true they will not choose It followeth not therefore from the grounds of their doctrine that God's decree is the cause of men's sins but their own wicked wills 1. The Ancients made no distinction between these two words Necessity and Compulsion but used them in this argument promiscuously and did deny that God did necessitate men to sinne least they should grant him hereby to be the Authour of sin as I have touched before and shall intimate againe afterward Nor did the School men put any difference between them as may appeare by the testimony of M. Calvin who speaking of the School-distinction of the will 's threefold liberty from necessity from sin from Misery saith This distinction I could willingly receive but that it confoundeth necessitie with coaction 2.
his will to be regusated thereby can the will be said to be the rule of justice to the will without contradiction The rule propounded was this God's will is the rule of all righteousnesse but the other rule is the rule corrupted by this Authour when he talks of a will as a rule of justice to the will 2. But whether things are therefore just because God wills them or that therefore God willeth them because they are just undoubtedly that which here is proposed is a truth namely that whatsoever the Scripture sets downe to be the will of God that must needs be just Neither have we any need to improve it any farther then thus For it is well known that our Divines in their doctrine of predestination and reprobation doe depend on nothing so much as the evidence of God's word As this Author throughout this discourse of his depends on nothing lesse And therefore he hath cast himselfe upon a strange practice in the former passage namely to evacuate all our reasons drawn out of the word of God to confirme our doctrine pleading that the interpretations we make of Scripture are all false because the contrary doctrine which he maintaines is justified before the tribunall of humane reason purged from prejudice and false principles corrupt affections and customes Which is as much as to professe in plaine termes that to find out the truth concerning the decrees of predestination and reprobation we must leave the oracles of God and hearken to the oracles of reason provided that it be purged from prejudice and false principles from corrupt affections and customes Now I had thought that the spirit of God alone could purge us from such prejudice and false principles corrupt affections and customes And that this spirit of God worketh only by the word herein which is called in Scripture the sword of the spirit Yet this Author tells us not where this reason thus purged is to be found save that in generall he saith that is just or unjust which is so esteemed in the judgment both of best and worst that stand indifferent to the entertainment of any truth as is to be seen in the former reason according to M. Hord's discourse Now who these best are but the Arminians in this Authours fancy the worst but Anabaptists or heathens or both I know not Sure we are none of them in his understanding purged from false principles and prejudice from corrupt affections and customes because we doe not stand indifferent to the entertainment of his tenets which he calls Truths 3. Where can he shew that I have made use of any such principles to answer any argument of his against us I doe not find that any where he can drive me to this though this be the Apostles course as we may see Ro 9. Is there any injustice with God God forbid how doth he prove it but thus because the Scripture attributes such a course to God I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy and I will have compassion on whome I will have compassion 4. But where hath he learnt to be so audacious as to say that Things are not therefore just because God wills them but that his justice is rather a rule of his will and works Before he told us that justice in man and God were of the same nature Now that justice which is the rule of our will is Justitia obligans justice binding us to doe this or that and is Gods justice obligatory likewise to bind him In making the world I doe not doubt but God did that which was just but was there any justice in God obliging him to the making of the world who seeth not what an Atheisticall conclusion followeth herehence namely that the world was from everlasting if not necessarily by necessity of nature yet necessarily by obligation of justice otherwise for an infinite space of time wherein the world was not made which must needs have been if the world were not from everlasting God had been and continued to be unjust The Schooles have taught me that there is a justice of condecency consequent to all the actions of God noe justice of obligation precedent to it And whereas St. Paul tells us that God works all things according to the counsell of his will both Alvarez and Suarez though School Divines of opposite families yet concurre in this that this Counsell is à libera voluntate acceptum accepted of Gods free will And it is observable that the Apostle calls it not the Counsell of his understanding but the counsell of his will And Vasquâ—z and Suarez both Jesuites but very opposite about the nature of justice in God yet both concurre that there is no justice in God towards his creature but upon supposition of the determination of God's will It is most true that supposing the end which God intends the wisedome of God directs in the right use of congruous meanes and no other justice then this his wisedome doth Aquinas acknowledge in the Divine nature And great is the wisedome which God manifests in the goverment of this world yet the same wisedome as great as it is doth not equall the infinite wisdome of God But of this I have disputed more at large in my Vindiciae Where this question is discussed Whether the will of God be circumscribed or regulated by justice To no parcell whereof doe I find the least savour of an answer in this Authour But let us examine how well he proves his own Tenet And that is first by the authority of Hierome in his preface to his commentaries on Hosea 2. By the authority of Zanchy whereto I answer 1. That if the interpretations of Scripture must be judged of before the Tribunall of reason purged from prejudice and false principles from corrupt affections and customes must not the opinions of such as Hierome and Zanchy be judged of before the same tribunall also 2ly touching Hierome himselfe 1. It is true Hierome in that preface understands that command given Hosea to be only in a Type and for the reason here mentioned but in his Commentary he interpreteth it secundum historiam litterally Neither was the Prophet as he saith to be blamed in this For he was not the worse but he made her the better Praesertim especially he was not to be blamed because he did this not luxuriously or lustfully or of his own will but in obedience to the command of God Now let the indifferent judge whether Hierome be not as much for us upon the text as for our adversary in the preface 2. Observe that Hierome is nothing for him in the preface For Hierome speakes there of God's will of command but we treate of God's will as it signifies not his command given to man but his own purpose and decree to doe this or that himselfe Judge of the extravagancy of this Author by this and whether his understanding be sufficiently purged from prejudice and false principles from
to avoid the wrath to come And lastly the Divell knowes his condition to be irrecoverable No man on earth knowes his estate to be so For albeit according to our doctrine a man may be assured of his election yet by our doctrine no man can be assured of his reprobation Adde this hereunto Although a man did know he were reprobated to damnation yet not knowing to what degree and measure of damnation he is ordained there is place to use his best endeavours in the way of civilitie and morality that his damnation may be the lesse In case he did know this also yet place still remaines to be as morall as he can For damnation joyned with a condition of better morallity is better then damnation joyned with a condition of lesse morality This may suffice as an answer to the other instances which are farre more wild then the first as touching the immortality of the soule which he saith is simply decreed and it is decreed to be immortall without any course to be taken by man to promote the immortality thereof But doe any of our Divines maintaine that God hath decreed our salvation in such sort as to be brought to passe without any course to be taken by men of ripe yeares to promote their salvation What proportion is there beetween immortality salvation God intends salvation to no man of ripe yeares but by way of reward of faith repentance obedience and good works Doth God bestow immortality upon the soule by way of reward Was not the soule of man immortall assoone as it was created Is such the salvation of Gods elect And what giddinesse possest the spirit of this Author when he discourseth of the vaine labour of any man that should use meanes that his soule should be annihilated Supposing that such meanes there are and may be used by the forme of his speech when he sayth that it is labour in vaine for any man to use such meanes As for that which followeth of the Sun and Moone An instance of the same nature hath been given in this very Section and an answer thereunto accommodated in my refutation of M Hords discourse which this Author could not be ignorant of as appeares by his altering and changing it almost throughout yet takes no notice thereof to reply thereunto but keeps himselfe as still as a sow in beanes thinking it his safest course to be silent The truth is God we say bestowing salvation and inflicting damnation proceeds according to a law which he hath given unto man but not so in the giving or denying grace not so in shewing mercy on some and hardning others but according to the meeâ—e pleasure of his will It were farre more congruous to accommodate the instances he gives to the divine proceedings in this particular But here he dares not budge least his Pelagian spirit should bee manifested to all the world in maintaining that not only in conterring salvation and inflicting damnation he proceeds according to mens works but also in giving and denying grace P. 96. Two lines are inserted a little above the Latine verses but of no moment distinct from the rest P. 97. Section the 4. of the crimination last save one where he saith that three things are usually answered to vindicate our opinion from this crimination but he conceales who they be that thus answer yet would not be thought to feigne it And the first of these is this That many of them which believe and defend this doctrine are holy and good men c. Now here comes in that which he inserts The like defence to this did the Epicures of old make in favour of their sensuall and swinish doctrine which was that happinesse consisted in pleasure They said that many of their Sect were honest men and so much Tully granted to be true but with exception still against their doctrine I take saith he Epicurus himselfe to be an honest man yea and many Epicures have been and are faithfull in freindship square and constant men in all conditions of life ordering themselves and their lives not by pleasure but by duty But saith he this proceeded not from the principles of their opinion but froÌ„ their own vertuous inclinations the force of honesty by their so doing appeared to be more prevailing in them then the force of pleasure which they pleaded for A little after he hath words to the same purpose As other mens doctrines are esteemed to be better then their deeds so these mens deeds seem to me to be better then their doctrine Like to this answer of Tully to the defenders of Epicurisme will I shape mine I nothing doubt but this Authour pleased himselfe well in this comparison and others likewise of his own sect For like lettice like lips yet all this is carried with a shew of charity in acknowledging the holinesse forsooth and goodnesse of their oposites but it ends in this comparison right Epicurus like whose morality forsooth was pleaded to countenance his sensuall and swinish doctrine But whatsoever our lifes be for testimony whereof we nothing desire to be beholding to the charity of our opposites Yet surely our doctrin concerning the absolutenes both of election grounded upon no other foundation then this that Grace is not conferred according unto workes as Austin testifies and of reprobation grounded accordingly upon no other foundation then this that grace is not denied according unto workes shall be found no swinish doctrine but the very truth of God And let them that oppose it looke well to their waies least they be not found goatish together with their doctrine at the day of judgment But how comes this Authour to be so stupid in reading Cicero and so little understanding him as in these words to conceive that he professeth himselfe to have a good opinion of Epicurus I confesse I marked it the more diligently because I remember well the comparison that Plutarch makes between the vertuous gloriation of Epaminondas his mother and the vile gloriation of Epicurus his mother professing she never saw an happier day then when she saw her Son Epicurus generating cum Cyzezena meretriculâ operis cum Polyano divisis unlesse this were the morality of her Son wherein shee gloried that he was not so jealous but that he could admit a corrivall in the satisfaction of his filthy lusts And indeed I had also observed other where that he was a very temperate man but to this end that he might take the greater pleasure in the flesh his senses being the more quick when they were not clogged and overcome with surfeit But come we to Cicero his judgment He takes notice that Epicurus was commended as Comis in amicitiis tuendis a man of a faire nature in maintaining freindship yet saith he though these things were true for I affirme nothing he was not acute enough I think this is spoken in reference to his doctrine nothing answerable to this commendation of him For he
decree which is to be called the decree of the means So that like as God doth not intend the creatures creation before he intends his damnation in the same respect he cannot be said to intend his damnation before he intends his creation or the permission of his sinne And this rightly considered sets an end unto all quarrell about the different consideration of Man in election and reprobation which yet is about a Schoole point only touching the right stateing of the end and the means and the right ordering of Gods decrees concerning them And doth it not set an end also to all aspersions of cruelty cast upon the holy providence of God from the guilt of which kind of blasphemies nothing can free them but confidence in their own way as if it were the way of truth and that by convincing evidence of holy Scripture Whereas it appears how little direction they take from the Word of God throughout for the shaping of their Tenent in this Yet neither is any such confidence able to free them from the guilt of such blasphemies which they utter well it may free them from the conscience of it yet if it doe that is more than I know And only to these two ends doth this aliene discourse of our different opinions thereabouts tend as I conceive namely to shew the difference of our Divines and to give vent to those aspersions of blasphemy on the first way as also to make way for a third in part which comes to be considered in the next Section in the manner how they fall upon the relation of the second way Yet Arminius in his Conference with Junius might have informed him of three opinions concerning the object of Predestination dividing the fruit of these into two The condition of man before the Fall being considerable two waies either as before the Fall but after Creation which they call the Masse created but not yet corrupted or as not before the Fall only but before the creation also which we commonly call the Masse not yet created or Mankind not yet created As touching the most harsh way of these three upon examination of Arminius his twenty arguments against it I find nothing worth the speaking of but meere suggestion of flesh and bloud which yet being duely pondered doe discover most shamefull nakednes His arguments against the making of Mankind not yet created the object of predestination I have proposed and answered in my Vindiciae gratiae Dei lib. 1. De Praedestin digress 5. if this Author hath any mind to be doing with them I shall be ready to consider what he saith as God shall give opportunity And in Junius you shall finde how he laboureth to reconcile them but very obscurely Piscator also sets hand to the same work and carryeth himselfe therein as his manner is very clearely by distinguishing three acts in Predestination The first whereof he will have to presuppose Mankind not created for it is the decree of creating man to different ends The second he will have to presuppose Mankind created but not corrupted for it is the decree of permitting Adam to fall and all Mankind in him The third and last he will have to presuppose Mankind both created and corrupted for it is the decree of raising some out of sin wherein they are conceived and borne and leaving some therein As for the Angells it is without question that election and reprobation divine had course concerning them as well as concerning mankind and as certain it is that no corrupt Masse could be the object of divine Predestination in their election and reprobation As for Arminius his ordering of Gods decrees in opposition to these waies taken by our Divines that he hath communicated unto us in the Declaration of his opinion before the States pag 47. where leaving out the decree of creating mankind in Adam and the decree of permitting all mankind to fall in Adam he takes into consideration only the divine decrees of saving sinfull man 1. The first whereof is Whereby he decreed to make his Sonne Christ a Mediator Redeemer Saviour Priest and King by his death to abolish sin by his obedience to obtain Salvation formerly lost and by his power to communicate it And this decree he saith is absolute 2. The second is Whereby he decreed to receive into grace such as believe and repent and those persevering unto the end to save in Christ for and by Christ but such as believe and repent not to leave under sin and wrath and to damne as aliene from Christ. Where observe 1. This decree of saving such as believe and repent he calleth a decree absolute yet this decree passeth upon no particular persons such a decree is reserved for the last place 2. God with him receives none into grace and favour unles they believe and repent Whereby it is manifest that with him faith and repentance are no fruits of Gods grace and favour for they must be performed before they are received into Gods grace and favour 3. The third is Where by he decreed sufficiently and efficaciously to administer the means which are necessary to faith and repentance This decree whether he conceives it to be absolute or no he doth not specify nor whether he decreed to administer them unto all nor by whom whether by men only or by men or Angells nor whether by means he understands the Gospel only and we have cause to doubt thereof And lastly which is most obscure he doth not explicate what he means by sufficient and efficacious administration Only he adds that in this administration he carries himselfe according 1. To his Wisdome which shewes what becomes his mercy andseverity and 2 ly to his Justice whereby he is ready to follow the prescript of his Wisdome 4. The fourth and last is Whereby he decreed to save and damne certain particular persons Now whereas our Divines generally what way soever they took had a care out of their Logick and Philosophy which they had by light of nature to order the decrees divine according to the common Rules of Art concerning intentions as they are found to be either of some end or of some means tending to an end this seems to have been no part of Arminius his care This order of his I have ransaked in my Vindiciae lib. 3. digress 2. And if this Author think good he may answer thereunto and doe his best to qualify the absurdities wherewith I charge that order of his But as touching the embracers of this first way whose names he expresseth he had need to prove it For divers think otherwise of Calvin and they represent their reasons for it out of his own words such as these De aeternâ Dei Praedestinatione pag. 970. speaking of Pighius Augustinum ridet saith he ejusque similes hoc est pios emnes qui deum imaginantur postquam universalem Generis humani Ruinam in personâ Adae praesciverit alios ad vitam alios ad interitum destinasse
shewed because both are eternall and the act of Gods will which is God himselfe and withall to devise a cause hereof is to cast our selves upon an unavoydable absurdity as namely to say That God did ordaine that upon the foresight of this or that in men he would ordaine some of them to solvation and others unto damnation And indeed the harshnesse of the Tenent consists chiefly in confounding these different considerations whereby a colour is cast as if we maintained that God did decree to damne men of his meere pleasure and not for sin 2. As touching the second which is this That the finall impenitency and damnation of reprobates are necessary and unavoydable by Gods absolute decree Here as it were to make weight impenitency and damnation are clapt together as unavoydable by Gods absolute decree whereas it is without all question that supposing impenitency to be finall damnation is unavoydable by the Law of God as who hath ordained that whosoever dies in impenitency shall be damned And as for impenitency doth this Author or any Arminian deny it to be a fruit of that originall corruption wherein all are borne I perswade my selfe they doe not Corvinus professeth of all That by the sinne of Adam they are conjecti in necessitatem peccandi Then againe doth he maintaine that any is able to cure this but God It seems he doth not by that which followeth where he signifieth that God in his opinion did not absolutely intend to leave men to that woefull estate wherein they were borne What then Will he have God bound to cure it in all If so then certainly he doth cure it in all For it were impossible God should not doe that whereunto he is obliged in the way of justice But nothing more manifest then that God doth not cure it in all therefore certainly he is not bound to cure it in all But I imagine he conceives that God is ready to cure it in all and it is mans fault that he doth not cure it in any As much as to say if man would doe somewhat which he may doe then God would give him repentance Here is good stuffe towards and undoubtedly this is the criticall point as touching the nature of efficacious grace Yet this I know full well how carefull the greatest Rabbies amongst the Arminians are to decline And will it not manifestly follow herehence that the grace of repentance is given secundum merita according to some good work of man that went before Which was condemned in the Synode of Palestine above 1200 years agoe Nay what will you say if their doctrine hereabouts in the issue thereof comes to this namely that God doth work in man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Velle credere modo Velit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Velle resipiscere modò Velit as I can shew it under the hand of one and I have cause to suspect that it comes also from another manner of hand then his with whom I have had to deale with And in this case it shall not be true that God shews mercy on whom he will in giving faith and repentance but rather he shall shew mercy on whom man will And like as when a question is made why such a man is rewarded by the Magistrate no wise man will answer because it is the pleasure of the Magistrate so to reward him but rather represent the cause on mans part why he was reward so if God shews mercy in giving repentance according to some preparation found in one man rather then in another it shall not be said that God hath mercy on whom he will but rather the reason on mans part is to be represented why God doth give him repentance Yet these Petitions he calls maxima gravamina on the part of Reprobation And will he not give us leave to propose in proportion hereunto our maxima gravamina as touching their opinion in point of election namely 1. That it is not the meer pleasure of God but the faith and repentance of a man foreseen that is the moving cause of divine election 2. And that every man hath power to believe and repent and no man hath more cause to be thankfull unto God for giving him any more grace to believe and repent in the way of grace preventing then he gives to reprobates I speak of reprobate men but for ought I yet know to the contrary I may as well deliver it of the reprobate Angells And as touching that which they call grace subsequent which is only Gods concurrence seeing God affords that to any sinfull act they may thank themselves rather then God for that like as for Gods concurrence unto any act of sinne These doctrines are no gravamina to the tender consciences of our Adversaries The doctrine opposite to this which here he dislikes must needs be this God hath not absolutely purposed from eternity of his meer will and pleasure but upon consideration of actuall continuance in sinne and unbeliefe to cast off men from grace and glory Now this actuall continuance in unbeliefe I presume must be finall and upon the consideration hereof God casts them off from grace but I pray from what grace surely from the grace of faith otherwise it stands not in any contradiction to our Tenent So that their doctrine in the issue comes to this Whom God foresees that they will not believe unto death he decrees that they shall not believe unto death and applied unto repentance thus Whom God foresees that they will not repent unto death he decreeth that they shall not repent unto death This is the sober and savoury doctrine of these impugners of the grace of God and yet they perceive not what a spirit of giddinesse possesseth them in this It is without question I think that God leaves many in that woefull estate which here is called corruption of nature no more without any specification wherein it consists the guilt whereof is eternall death and seeing that if he so leaves them it cannot be denied but that God intended so to leave them All the question is Whether God did absolutely intend to leave them Now had this Author as he professeth his dislike of Gods absolue intention hereof so dealt clearly and shewed how he did intend so to leave some as namely upon what condition or upon foresight whereof and withall given some proofe of his assertion his ingenuity had been commendable Yet we say that God did not at all intend to leave men in this state For the terme men in this place being indefinite it is capable of truth either way And this Author defines not whether he speaks of some or of all We willingly grant he doth not leave his elect in that woefull state but brings them out of it by faith and repentance which are expressely called the gifts of God in holy Scripture But as for Reprobates I doe not find he gives either faith or repentance unto them And Austin lib. 5. contra Julian
Deum out of God Therefore if any cause hereof be to be found it must be within God otherwise it must be confessed that all things became future by absolute necessity of nature If to help this they will devise something within the nature of God to be the cause hereof let them tell us what that is Not the Science of God for all confesse that secluding the divine will Gods knowledge is the cause of nothing If they say the will of God they concurre with us in embracing the same Opinion which they so much abhorre Nothing remaines to fly unto but the Essence of God If they plead that I demand whether the Essence of God working freely be the cause of the futurition of all things or as working necessarily If as working freely that is as much as to confesse in expresse termes that Gods will is the cause thereof But if they say the divine Essence is the cause hereof as working necessarily hence it followes that all things good and evill come from God as working by necessity of nature See I pray and consider the abominable and Atheisticall opinions that these Arminians doe improvidently cast themselves upon when they stretch their witts to overthrow Gods providence as it is carryed in the 11 th Article of Ireland which is this God from all Eternity did by his unchangeable Counsell ordaine whatsoever in time should come to passe yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures and neither the liberty nor contingency of second causes is taken away but established rather In the Conclusion that which he vaunts of as touching the Fathers is meer wind for he gives you nothing but his word for it which of what credit it deserves to be I leave to the indifferent to judge And as for the plucking up of the rootes of vertue which he fables of Consider I pray what Sect of Philosophers were ever known to be more vertuous then the Stoicks and how was Zeno himselfe honoured by the Athenians for his grave and vertuous conversation Hath not Erasmus delivered it as out of the mouth of Hierome that Secta Stoicorum was Secta simillima Christianae Yet I no where find that they brought in any necessity that was not subordinate to the Will of the supream God But these Arminians bring in a necessity of nature from without God to make him to doe this or that if he doth any thing or at least to make God himselfe a necessary Agent devoyd of all liberty and freedome contrary to that of Ambrose concerning the manner of Gods working namely that it is Nullo necessitatis obsequio but solo libertatis arbitrio But according to these Divines it must be quite contrary Nullo â—ibertatis arbitrio solo necessitatis obsequio And thus much as touching the first sort of this Authors Reasons which he accounts only Inducing I come to the other sort which he esteemes convincing THE SECOND PART OF THE FIRST BOOK Wherein are Examined those Arguments against the Absolutenesse of DIVINE REPROBATION WHICH M r HORD Took to be of a CONVINCING NATURE OXFORD Printed by Leonard Lichfield Printer to the Vniversity M. D. C. LIII The Second Part of this Discourse consisting of ARGUMENTS CONVINCING whereof there are Five sorts The First sort of Convincing Reasons Drawn from Scripture DISCOURSE SECT I. THOSE of the Second sort by which for the present I stand convinced that absolute reprobation is no part of Gods truth are drawn from these five following heads 1. Pregnant Testimonies of Scripture directly opposite unto it 2. Some principall attributes of God not compatible with it 3. The end of the Word and Sacraments with other excellent gifts of God to men quite thwarted by it 4. Holy and pious endeavours much hindered by it if not wholly subversed 5. The grounds of comfort whereby distressed consciences are to be relieved are all overthrown by it It it contrary to pregnant places of Scripture even in terminis as will appeare by these instances 1. Ezech. 33. 11. As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner but that the wicked turne from his waies and live And least men should say 't is true God wills not the death of a repenting sinner the Lord doth in another place of the same Prophet extend the proposition to them also that perish Ezech. 18. 32. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth In this Scripture we may note three things 1. Gods affection to men set forth 1. Negatively I have no pleasure in his death that dyeth 2. Affirmatively But that the wicked turne 2. The persons in whose destruction he delighteth not wicked men such as for the rejecting of grace dye and are damned If God have no pleasure in their death much lesse in the death of men either altogether innocent or tainted only with originall sinne 3. The truth of this affection as I live cupit sihi credi saith Tertullian Lib. de paenit cap. 4. God would faine have us to believe him when he saith I will not the death of him that dyeth and therefore he bindes his speech with an oath O beatos nos quorum causa Deus jurat O miserrimos si nec juranti Domino credimus Happy are we for whose sakes the Lord vouchsafeth to sweare but most unhappy if we believe him not when he swears Now if God delight not in the destruction of wicked men he did never out of his own pleasure take so many millions of men lying in the fall and seale them up by an absolute decree under invincible damnation for such a kind of decreeing men to everlasting death is quite opposite to a delight in mens eternall life TWISSE Consideration TO say that this or that opinion is untrue because it doth in terminis contradict places of Scripture is a very superficiary consideration yet it is not the first time that I have found it to drop from an Arminians penne But that it is a very superficiary consideration I prove thus For to deny God the Sonne to be equall to the Father is in terminis to contradict a pregnant place of Scripture Phil. 2. Where it is expressely said of God the Sonne that he thought it no robbery to be equall to the Father yet notwithstanding it is agreeable to that of our Saviour where he saith the Father is greater then I and so vice versâ In like manner to say that God cannot repent is in terminis to contradict pregnant places of Scripture again to say that God can repent is in terminis to contradict other as pregnant places of Scripture yet neither of these is unsound because each phrase is agreeable to Scripture in some place or other And the reason hereof is because in terminis only to contradict the Scripture is not to contradict the Scripture But when we contradict the meaning of Scripture then and not till then are we justly said to contradict
by a Syllogisme that would be as faulty in the matter thus God shewes patience to none but Reprobates they of whom God will have none to perish are such as towards whom God shewes patience therefore God will not have any Reprobate to perish And is not this a proper doctrine that God will not have any Reprobate to perish both for the overthrowing of Gods omnipotency for is it not a cleare case and undeniable that all Reprobates doe perish As also for the overthrowing of Gods immutability for can it be denied that when God damnes them he will have them to perish Which if before he would not can it be avoided but that Gods will must be changed And lastly for the bringing in of manifest contrariety into the will of God seeing they dare not deny that God did from everlasting ordaine every reprobate unto damnation I say they dare not deny this in plain termes though their carriage is such as if their meaning were that Gods will in decreeing their damnation is conditionall quoad actum volentis as touching the very act of willing whence it followeth that God shall not will their damnation untill their death in infidelity and impenitency for it is fit the condition should exist before the thing conditionated whose existence depends thereupon As for that he addes in the close If they doe perish it is their own fault and folly we make no question hereof though neverthelesse we may well maintain that it is Gods absolute pleasure not to take them off from their sinfull and foolish courses nor to set an end to these vitious courses of theirs which he could if it pleased him as well as he did set an end to the abominable courses of Manasses as also to the persecution and bloudy courses of Saul towards whom he did undoubtedly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and exercise much long suffering and patience though herein there is no difference between them and reprobates or very little according to that of Austin Istorum neminem non praedestinatorum adducit Deus ad salubrem spiritualemque paenitentiam quâ homo Deo reconciliatur in Christo sive illis ampliorem paenitentiam sive non imparem praebeat contrà Julian Pelagian lib. 5. cap. 4. I come to the last of this ranke DISCOURSE SECT VI. TO These testimonies I may adde those conditionall speeches if thou seek him he will be found of thee but if thou forsake him he will cast thee off for ever 1 Chron. 28. 9. If ye seek him he will be found of you but if you forsake him he will forsake you 2 Chron. 15. 2. If thou doe well shalt thou not be accepted but if thou dost ill sinne lies at the doore Gen. 4. 7. The just shall live by faith but if any man withdraw himselfe my soule non approbabit eum shall have no pleasure in him he shall be a Reprobate In all these and many other places it is cleare for ought I can see that God forsakes no man considered simply in the fall till by actuall sinnes and continuance in them he forsakes God Now if God reject no man from Salvation in time or in act and deed till he rejects God then surely he rejected no man in purpose and decree but such a one as he foresaw would reject and cast off him For Gods acts in time are regulated by his decrees before time Ephes 1. 11. God worketh all things saith the Apostle according to the counsell of his own will and therefore there must be an exact conformity between them as between regulam and regulatum the rule and the thing measured by the rule By whatsoever therefore God doth in the World we may know what he purposed to doe before the World and by his actuall casting men off when they grow rebellious and impenitent and not before we may certainly gather that he decreed to cast them off for their foreseen rebellion and impenitency and not before Besides it is all one in substance to cast a man off indeed and to entertain a resolution to doe it our velle and facere are all one in Gods account and the reason is because where there is a deliberate and setled will the deed will follow if nothing hinder much more is Gods will and deed all one seeing his will is omnipotent and irresistible and whatsoever he wills directly and absolutely is certainly done when the time comes All these plain Scriptures doth this opinion contradict in terminis and not only these but the whole course of Scriptures by which it is much safer for a man to frame his opinions then by a few places pickt up here and there and those obscure ones too What Saint Austin speaks in another place I may safely say in this numquid ideo negandum quod apertum est quia comprehendi non potest quod occultum est Shall we contradict plain places because we cannot comprehend the obscure Aug. de bono persever c. 14. Secundum plura saith Tertullian pauciora sunt intelligenda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ne unus sermo subvertat alios secundum omnes potius quam adversum omnes intelligendus erit A few testimonies must be expounded according to the whole course of Scriptures and not this according to a few testimonies This is my first reason TWISSE Consideration TO the places of Scripture here alleadged I give the interpretation to prevent the confusion of things that differ which all affect who preferre the darknesse of Errour before the light of truth for it is most advantageous to such to fish in troubled waters To the two first I say God is first sought of us before we find him as touching the obtaining of many blessings at the hands of God according to that Ezech. 36. 37. I will yet be sought of the house of Israel to performe it unto them But as touching the obtaining of an heart to seek him thus God is found of us before we seek him according to that Es 65. 1. I have been found of them that sought me not witnesse Saul marching with a commission from the Priests to Damascus to bind all that called on the name of Jesus To the third I answer by distinguishing acceptation as we distinguish love Love is either complacentiae or beneficentiae so acceptation is either unto reward or unto complacency Rewards alwaies follow our doing well but grace of doing well is alwaies a fruit of Gods favour towards us in Christ To the last the just shall live by faith But there is a grace of God preventing faith cur ille credat ille non credat what is the reason but the meere pleasure of God giving the grace of Faith to one and denying it to another according to that of the Apostle He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth They that withdraw themselves my soule shall have no pleasure in them The meaning is they shall feele the smart of his displeasure but before they withdrew
sinne so he never decreed to damne any man but for sinne But as touching the grace of regeneration the grace of faith and repentance in the granting and denying of this the Apostle plainly tells us he proceeds meerly according to the good pleasure of his will as when he saith The Lord hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth And here also God is as just in his decrees as in his executions For if it be just with him to give this grace to whom he will and deny it to whom he will it is as just with him to decree the giving of it to whom he will and the denying of it also to whom he will And why shall not the Lord take liberty to cure infidelity and hardnesse of heart in whom he will as he cured it in Manasses and Saul and leave it uncured in whom he will as he left it uncured in many a proud Pharisee and proud Philosopher notwithstanding all their Morality they boasted of Very seasonably he confesseth Gods will to be omnipotent and irrefistible when neverthelesse he makes him to will the salvation of all Reprobates though not one of them is saved But by that which followes by will omnipotent and irrefistible it seems he understandeth only will absolute which he distinguisheth from will conditionate which can be no other I suppose then this my will is that all and every one shall be saved in case he believe and repent Now seeing it is as true that 't is Gods will that they shall be damned in case they believe not and repent not let every sober man judge whether this deserve to be accounted a will of saving rather then a will of damning especially in case all men naturally are farre more prone to infidelity and impenitency then to faith and repentance As for a will conditionate in God like enough this Author carryeth it hand over head without distinction as he doth many other things besides whereas no such will is agreeable to the divine nature quoad actum volentis as touching the act of willing as both Bradwardine by clear reason and Piscator out of the word of God have demonstrated but only quoad res volitas as touching the things willed by him 4. I have shewed the poverty of his performances by the particular examination of every place alleadged by him and made it plain how he betraies his own nakednesse of interpretation of Scripture and of argumentation throughout and therewithall the vanity of this his boast that our doctrine of absolute reprobation doth contradict these plain Scriptures But he like a brave fellow well conceited of his atchievements and having thereby gotten some authority to himselfe is bold to give his word that it contradicts also the whole course of Scripture which I verily believe he is as well able to performe as he hath performed the former and very judiciously takes upon him to distinguish between the whole course of Scriptures and a few places pickt up here and there as if they were no part of the whole course of Scripture Belike by reason of their obscurity as he pretends no matter if they were expunged like as owles are offended with day-light Our Saviour tells us of some that loved darknesse rather then light because their deeds were evill None hate the light of Gods truth more then such as are possessed with errours as with familiar spirits especially when they have been found to play the Apostates from Gods truth Whether I have dashed my selfe upon the rocks of Austins censure by contradicting any Scripture that he hath brought or only his corrupt and vile interpretation and accommodation of them let the indifferent judge Yet what more plain then this Gods purpose of election is not of works especially compared with the manner how Saint Paul proves it What more plain then this God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth It is apparent he utterly declines the criticall point of these controversies which is as touching Gods giving grace even the grace of faith and repentance and of what spirit that savoureth let every one judge As for interpreting any place we doe not abridge his liberty in interpreting it after what manner he thinks good but we are ready to weigh it and if we find it too light to esteem of it as it deserves neither doe we refuse to take into consideration what he or any of his complices are pleased to insist upon DISCOURSE The Second sort of Arguments Convincing drawn from Gods Attributes SECT I. As touching the Generall SEcondly it fights with some principall Attributes of God therefore it cannot be true For God useth not to make decrees contrary to his own glorious nature and incompatible with those excellent Attributes by which he hath discovered part of himselfe to men Two things are here to be premised 1. That Gods chief Attributes are those perfections in the manifestation of which by acts conformable to them God is most glorified which are Mercy Justice Truth c. For God is more honoured by the exercise of these amongst men then by the putting forth of his unlimited power and Soveraignty as a King is more renowned among his Subjects for his clemency equity candid and faire dealing then for his Dominion and Authority or any thing that is done only for the manifestation thereof And there is good reason for it For 1. Power is no vertue but mercy justice and truth are acts of power are not Morally good of themselves but are made good or evill by their concomitants if they be accompanied with justice mercy c. they are good if otherwise they are naught For justum oportet esse quod laudem meretur 2. Power and Soveraignty may as well be shewed in barbarous and unjust actions as in their contraries Saul shewed his authority and power to the full in slaying the Lords Priests and Nebuchadnezzar in casting the three Children into the fiery furnace and Daniell into the Lyons Denne but no mercy nor justice nor any thing else that was good 2. The second thing that is to be preconsidered is that justice mercy and truth in God are the same in nature with those vertues in men though infinitely different in degree as light in the aire is the same with light in the Sunne in nature not in degrees and that which is just mercifull and upright in men is so in God too And by these vertues in our selves and such acts as are conformable to them tanquam ex pede Herculem we may safely measure the same in God For otherwise these things would follow 1. The common and received distinction of Divine Attributes into communicable and incommunicable would fall to the ground for against it this night be said that the mercy justice truth and other vertues that are in us are not Gods perfections in a lower degree communicated to us but things of a different nature 2. Men cannot be truly said to
understandings purged from prejudice and false principles 5. My fifth argument is this If sinne be the cause of Reprobation that is of the decree of damnation then either by necessity of nature or by the constitution of God not by necessity of nature as all that hitherto I have known confesse But I say neither can it be by the free constitution of God for mark what a notorious absurdity followeth hence and that unavoidably namely that God did ordaine that upon foresight of sinne he would ordaine them to damnation marke it well God did ordaine that he would ordaine or God did decree that he would decree In which words Gods eternall decree is made the object of Gods decree Whereas it is well known that the objects of Gods decrees are meerely things temporall and cannot be things eternall we truly say God did decree to create the World to preserve the World to redeeme us call us justify us sanctify and save us but it cannot be truly said that God did decree to decree or ordaine to ordaine for to decree is the act of Gods will and therefore it cannot be the object of the act of Gods will Yet these arguments I am not so enamoured with as to force the interpretations of Scripture to such a sense as is sutable hereunto presuming of the purity of my understanding as purged from prejudice and false principles I could willingly content my selfe with observation of the Apostles discourse in arguing to this effect Before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the elder shall serve the younger therefore the purpose of God according to election stands not of works In like manner may I discourse Before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it was said the elder shall serve the younger therefore the purpose of God concerning Reprobation stands not of works And like as hence it is inferred that therefore election stands not of good works so therehence may I inferre that therefore reprobation stands not of evill works 6. If sinne foreseen be the cause meritorious of reprobation then faith and repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto election For therefore evill works foreseen are made the meritorious cause of reprobation because evill works exsistent are the meritorious cause of damnation And if this be true then also because Faith and Repentance and good workes are the disposing causes unto salvation then by the same force of reason faith repentance and good workes foreseen must be the disposing cause unto election But faith repentance and good workes foreseen are not the disposing causes unto election as I prove thus 1. If they were then the purpose of God according to election should be of faith repentance and good works which is expressely denyed by the Apostle as touching the last part and may as evidently be proved to be denied by him in effect of the other parts also by the same force of argumentation which he useth as for example from this anticedent of the Apostles before the Children were borne or had done good or evill it no more evidently followeth that therefore the purpose of God according to election is not of workes than it followeth that the same purpose of God according to election is not of faith nor of repentance For before they were borne they were no more capable of faith or of repentance than of any other good works And undoubtedly faith and repentance are as good works as any other 2. If God doth absolutely work faith in some and not in others according to the meer pleasure of his will then it cannot be said that faith foreseen is the cause of any mans election For in this case faith is rather the means of salvation then salvation a means of faith and consequently the intention of salvation rather precedes the intention of faith than the intention of faith can be said to precede the intention of salvation And to this the Scripture accords Acts 1348. As many believed as were ordained to everlasting life making ordination to everlasting life the cause why men believed answerable hereunto is that Acts 2. last God added daily to the Church such as should be saved and that of Paul to Titus according to the faith of Gods elect So that according to Pauls phrase fides est electorum but according to the Arminians Doctrine the inverse hereof is a more proper and naturall predication as to say electio est fidelium But God doth absolutely work faith in some men according to the meer pleasure of his will denying the same grace to others which I prove 1. By Scripture Rom. 9. 18. God hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth compared with Rom. 11. 30. Yee in times past have not believed but now have obtained mercy where it appears by the Antithesis that to find mercy is to believe that is to obtain the grace of faith at the hands of God in Saint Pauls phrase 2. By cleare reason for if it be not the meer pleasure of Gods will that is the cause hereof then the cause hereof must be some good workes which he finds in some and not in others whence it manifestly followeth that God giveth grace according unto works which in the phrase of the ancients is according to merits and for 1200 years together this hath been reputed in the Church of God meere Pelagianisme 2. I further demand what that good worke is whereupon God workes it in one when he refuseth to worke it in another Here the answer I find given is this that God doth work in man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle credere modo velit Now of the absurdity hereof I appeale to the very light of nature and let all the books that ever were written on this argument be searched and let it be enquired whether ever any did expresse themselves in the manner of so palpable and grosse absurdity as wherein the act of willing is made the condition of it selfe whence it followeth evidently that it must be both before it selfe and after it selfe for the condition must allwaies exsist before the thing conditionated Yet they are driven upon these rocks of absurdities in spight of their teeth so shamefull is the issue of their discourses who in hatred of Gods truth revealed in Gods word and in a proud conceit of their own performances in the way of argumentation dare prescribe rules to all others how to carry themselves in the interpretation of Scriptures as namely to be so warie as that they doe not deliver any thing repugnant to understandings purged from prejudice and false principles as if the word of God supposed them that are admitted to the studying thereof to have their understandings already purged from prejudice and false principles not that it is given by God for this very end namely to purge our understandings for what is the illumination or opening of the eyes of the mind other than the purging of
am I private to their stirring up of themselves to forsake some pleasing sinnes which otherwise they would not part with and to doe some unpleasing duties which otherwise they would not doe But in generall I have read in Austin that God calleth some though Reprobates ut proficiant ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quo mitius puniantur But I can hardly believe that Herod was any one of them though he did many things at his admonition because I see a shamefull issue giving way to the cutting off Iohn Baptists head for the gratifying of a wanton damsell Now like as we say God doth signify his meaning to be that as many as believe and repent shall have their sinnes pardoned and their soules saved So if it can be proved that there is no such meaning in God then in my poore judgement it cannot be avoyded but that God must be found halting in his offers But for my part I acknowledge such a meaning in God neither have I to this houre found any one of our Divines either by word or writing to have denyed this to be the meaning of God and I wonder what this Author means after this manner to carry himselfe in the cloudes of generalities and whether it be through sillinesse or malitiousnesse I am to seeke but if I may be so bold as to guesse I think the root of all this his superficiary discourse is the confounding of absolute Reprobation with absolute Damnation and in like sort absolute election with salvation absolute for as for pardon of sinne and salvation we acknowledge them to be bestowed on men of ripe years conditionally and as God bestowes them so also he decreed to bestow them we say conditionally to wit in case they believe and repent but in case they believe and repent not damnation is their portion and that by the decree of God But as touching the gift of faith and repentance these we maintain to be given of God absolutely according to the meere pleasure of his will and accordingly denyed unto others as the Apostle signifieth saying He hath mercy on whom he will and whom he will he hardneth But this Author meddles not hither to with these gifts but keeps himselfe to the graces of pardon of sinne and of salvation which God bestowes conditionally and signifies his meaning to be to bestow them conditionally namely in case they believe and repent and not otherwise and such indeed we maintaine to have been his meaning and that from everlasting So that in all this there is no colour of imposture or simulation But in that which followeth he stealeth upon the grace of faith it selfe let us see how clearely and with what felicity he carryeth himselfe and whether it be not answerable to his former carriage which he continueth throughout Zanchy he saith tells us roundly that every man that is called is bound to think he is elected but why doth he not speake out and say that every one is bound in the opinion of Zanchy to believe that he is elected as formerly he related it I grant that to believe is to think for credere is defined to be cum assensione cogitare but thoughts he knows are very wild they have their course in dreames as a hungry man may dreame that he eateth and drinketh but when he awaketh his soule is empty And as for that doctrine of Zanchy I have already given a faire interpretation of it upon consideration that he speaks it of election not unto faith but unto salvation and seeing God hath manifested in his word his determination to give salvation to every one that believeth it followeth herehence that every one is bound to believe that as many as doe believe shall be saved and consequently every one that heareth the Gospell is bound to believe That God hath determined to bestow Salvation on him in case hee be found to believe The like construction may be given of Bucers Doctrine namely that God hath predestinated him to obtain Salvation in case he believe not otherwise For God hath not predestinated any man of ripe years to obtain Salvation whether he believe or not And seeing God hath plainly professed that whosoever believeth shall be saved Mar. 16. 16. If I doe not accordingly believe that God hath predestinated me to obtain salvation in case I doe believe I doe hereby make God to delude me in saying Whosoever believeth shall be saved And whereas this Author upon the back of this addeth that a man therefore that is not predestinate but an absolute reprobate when he is called to salvation is but deluded and that this is the necessary result of our speeches All the colour of this his inference depends meerely upon confusion of things that differ For he distinguisheth not between absolute predestination unto salvation and predestination unto salvation absolute likewise he distinguisheth not between absolute reprobation unto damnation and reprobation unto damnation absolute neither doth he distinguish between predestination unto faith and predestination unto salvation nor between reprobation from faith and reprobation unto damnation And the absolutenesse of predestination appears only in predestination unto faith not in predestination unto salvation For salvation being bestowed on none of ripe years but by way of reward of their faith repentance and good works hence it followes that God predestinates none unto salvation of ripe years but by way of reward of their obedience But as for predestination unto faith it is cleare that God purposeth absolutely to bestow faith on whom he will So on the other side damnation being inflicted on none but for sinne God hath destinated no man unto damnation but for sinne But as touching obduration like as God hardneth whom he will so he decreed to proceed herein to wit in hardening of men according to the meere pleasure of his will that is absolutely Now let us not suffer a cauteriate conscience to smother a plain truth with the confusion of those things which are to be distinguished Absolute is opposed to conditionate and this distinction applied to Gods will is to be understood not quoad actum volentis sed quoad res volitas as for example God decrees that a man shall be saved upon condition of faith this is called voluntas conditionata so oVssius expounds it Hist Pelag. lib. 7. p. 638. his words are these Aliqua vult cum conditione quae idcirco in effectum non prodeunt nisi conditione impletâ Some things God willeth with a condition which come not unto effect but upon the fulfilling of the condition this is plainly understood not of the act of willing but of the things willed which he calls aliqua and the instance he gives us is this quo modo omnes homines salvari vult sed per propter Christum fide apprehensum after which manner he will have all to be saved but by and for Christ apprehended by faith where faith is plainly made the condition of salvation not of
of a divine power supreame Now as God made himself known by his works so I nothing doubt but herewithall it was their duty to know him and according to their knowledge to serve him and glorifie him in acknowledgment of his glorious nature so farre as they took notice of it But as for a rule whereby they should worship him I know none that God had given them or that they could gather from contemplation of the creatures And surely the knowledge of God as a Creator only is nothing sufficient to salvation but the knowledge of him as a redeemer And therefore seeing the World by wisdome knew not God in the wisdome of God it pleased God by the foolishnesse of Preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1. 21. And the Gentiles are set forth unto us in Scripture as such who knew not God 1 Thes 4. 5. 2 Thes 1. 8. And had they means sufficient without and ability sufficient within to know him How could it be that none of them should know him Was it because they would not How absurd a conceit is this to every one that understands and considers common Principles of Philosophy namely that the things that are subject to our free-will are contingentia aequaliter as soon falling out one way as the other And it is well known not only what paines they have taken but also with what strange successe in searching after the nature of the first mover as appears by Aristotle in the 12 th of his Metaphysicks Yet did not he attain for ought ever I could find to the acknowledgement of his free agency in the making of the world and in the government thereof Yet were they inexcusable and thus farre their knowledge brought them Rom. 1. 20. in changing the glory of the incorruptible God to the similitude of the image of a corruptible man and of birds and of fourefooted beasts and of creeping things The other place is Acts 17. 26. That he takes to be more full for his purpose there the Apostle speaking in an University and which had been miserably corrupted with the Atheisticall doctrine of Aristotle concerning an eternity of the World and Gods working necessarily not freely tending to the quenching of that light of naturall instinct which is more or lesse found in all as touching the Divine providence yet the Apostle even amongst such makes bold to suppose the creation of the World by God and that therefore he is Lord of Heaven and Earth and also obtrudeth upon their naturall consciences that God it is who giveth life and breath and all things and that he of one bloud whom we know to be Adam made all mankind to dwell on all the face of the Earth that he hath assigned the seasons of the yeare and what are they but Spring Summer Autumne Winter depending upon the motions of the heaven above and the bounds of their habitations what is that but the severall habitable parts of the earth for the habitation of all creatures in whose Nostrills is the breath of life not that every man or Nation hath his place of habitation appoynted by God though this also be true but nothing agreeable to Arminian Divinity which like an East wind blasts the providence of God throughout this the Apostle doth not obtrude upon them but the former generalls only and all this God hath done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they should seeke the Lord now this may be understood two waies either de facto God did intend that this indeed should be done by them or ex officio that it should be their duty of this distinction this Author takes no notice but hand over head takes it in the first sense as it were in spight both of the Apostle saying Who hath resisted his will And of the Psalmist professing that what he willeth he hath done both in Heaven and Earth But indeed this is mans duty to endeavour to know him that made him to this purpose he hath indued him with an understanding heart The spirit of man being as the lampe of God which searcheth all inwardnesse But as for the words following if happily they might seeke after him and find him though he be not farre from every one of us so that though he be not farre from every one of us in as much as in him we live and move and have our being and though they should seeke after him yet upon an if the Apostle plainly puts the finding of him For albeit Durand professeth that by the very light of nature we may attaine to the knowledge of God touching these things that belong to the unity of his nature yet who ever amongst the Gentiles attained hereunto after all their search God hath set the World in mans heart saith Solomon yet can he not find out the worke that he hath wrought from the beginning to the end we are yet to seeke in the knowledge of the creature how much more in the knowledge of the Creator Yet what shall all such knowledge profit a man if he be ignorant in the knowledge of him as a redeemer I come to Prosper l. 2. De vocatione Gentium cap. 4. God hath so disposed of the World as that the reasonable creature by the contemplation of Gods workes and tast of so many blessings imbuerctur he doth not say might be drawne but imbueretur might be indued to wit with the knowledge of God in such sort as to move him ad cultum dilectionem Dei. And all here mentioned both as touching the knowledge of God and touching the service and love of him is but as the object of mans duty signifying what ought to be done by him not as the object of Gods decree as whereby he determined what should be done indeed by him For had he determined this who could have resisted him Shall we say that voluntatis omnipotentis effectus impeditur a voluntate creaturae as Austin expresseth the absurdity hereof As for that which followeth not in the same Chapter as this Author writes whether out of his own reading or mistaking anothers dictates I know not but in the chapter following to wit c. 2. the former place being indeed c. 1. according to my book not cap. 4. As this Author quotes it And it is a truth considered in generall for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to seeke the Lord God did move both Jewes and Gentiles the Jewes by his word over above his workes but the Gentiles only by his workes But the manner of the revelation made to the one and to the other was farre different as the same Author expresseth cap. 3. Aliter eos juvit quos ad cognoscendum se caeli terrae testimoniis conveniebat aliter illos quibus non solum elementorum famulatu sed etiam doctrina legis Prophetarum oraculis miraculorum signis Angelorum cooperationibus consulebat c. God he saith intended not to feed the Gentiles with outward and more common blessings
come and spoken to them they should not have had sinne but now they have no cloake for their sinne doe say it is evident that Christ in his Preaching did administer so much inward grace as was sufficient to convince those that rejected the Gospell of positive unbeliefe and so to render them obnoxious to just punishment and consequently say I so much as sufficed by their good husbandry to have converted and saved them For that grace leaves none inexcusable which is unsufficient to convert them I will conclude that which they say of this gratious intention of God in the Ministry of the Word with that speech of Prosper cited by them in the same place non omnes vocari ad gratiam eos quibus omnibus Evangelium praedicatur nonrecte dicitur etiamsi sint qui Evangelio non obaudiant They that say that all those to whom the Gospell is Preached even those that obay not the Gospell are not called to grace they say an untruth God looks for grapes sayth the text Isai 5. 2. What doth this imply but that it was Gods principall aime in the husbandry which he bestowed upon the Church of Israell that it should bring forth good fruit though in the end it did not How oft would I have gathered you sayth Christ to Jerusalem Math. 23. 37. and in John 5. 34. These things have I spoken to you that ye might be saved but ye will not come unto me that ye might have life v. 40. Intimating no lesse than this that it was his full intent by his preaching to gather and to save those very particular men that in the end were not gathered nor saved through their neglect or contempt of Christs Ministry TWISSE Consideration NO question but The word of God is the sword of the spirit Ephes 6. And the Law of the Lord is a perfect Law converting the Soule Psal 19. And it seemes to be delivered in opposition to the Book of the creatures as if he had said though The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy work yet this is the peculiar prerogative of the Book of Gods word and the Doctrine contained therein that it converteth the soule and upon this is grounded the great preferment of the Jews above the Gentiles chiefely that unto them were committed the Oracles of God Yet this Author is content to make no difference between the use and end of the Book of Creatures and the Book of Gods word but professeth the use and end of both to be the very same The passage alleadged out of the suffrages of the Brittain Divines is most aliene from the present purpose For the Thesis of theirs proceedeth of the administration of grace by the word not of regeneration but of conviction of all such who believe not and continue impenitent that through their own fault they perish for neglecting or contemning the Gospell In Ecclesia ubi juxta promissum hoc Evangelii salus omnibus offertur ea est administratio gratiae quae sufficit ad convincendos omnes impenitentes incredulos quod sua culpa voluntaria vel neglectu vel contemptu Evangelii perierint oblatum beneficium amiserint And in the explication of this Thesis they propose two things to be cleared 1. That some measure of grace is ordinarily administred in the Ministry of the Gospell aliquam mensuram gratiae ordinarie in Ministerio Evangelii administrari and for proofe hereof alone they alleadge this passage out of Isai 59. ult This is my covenant with them saith the Lord My spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth So that the word and spirit are joyned togeather alwaies but not alwaies to regenerate but either to regenerate and bring to obedience or to convict of disobedience And accordingly The Ministers of the New Testament are called Ministers not of the letter but of the spirit that is not of the Law the Ministry whereof is not the Ministry of the spirit but yet this is rightly to be understood to wit of the spirit of adoption for undoubtedly even the Ministry of the Law is the Ministry of the Spirit also but of the spirit of bondage to hold men under feare it is called the Ministry of condemnation and the reason hereof I conceive to be because God doth not concurre with the Ministry of the Law by the holy Spirit to worke any man to the performance of the condition of the Law which is exact and perfect obedience but thus he doth concurre with the Ministry of the Gospell namely by his spirit to work men to the performance of the condition thereof which is faith in Christ and true repentance therefore the letter to wit of the Law is called a killing letter but the Gospell is joyned with a quickning spirit and therefore Piscator conceives that the Gospell in this place is called by the name of the spirit Soe then the Gospell giveth life by the spirit which accompanyeth the Ministry thereof but to whom To all as this Author supposeth Nothing lesse the generall experience of the world doth manifest the untruth thereof But this Author is ready to suppose though not very forward to speake out in this that it would regenerate if men were not defective to them selves So then man must first performe some worke on his part and then the spirit of the Gospell doth regenerate them as much as to say the grace of regeneration is dispensed by God according to some work of man which in plain termes Pelagius durst not professe but joyned with others to anathematize it in the Synod of Palastine Yet this Doctrine is the very Helena wherewith the Arminians are enamored Now the Apostle professeth in plaine termes of himselfe and his fellow-labourers we are unto God the sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them which perish to the one we are the savour of death unto death and to the other a savour of life unto life So then it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 2. 11. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5. 19. And the seed of the new birth 1 Pet. 1. 23. As where by God regenerates man according to that of Saint Iames of his owne will hath he begotten us by the word of truth Iam. 1. 18. Not whereby man doth regenerate himselfe according to the Arminian tenet whose doctrine it is that God workes in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 velle credere and resipiscere modò velimus Now as God hath mercy on wom he will in converting his heart unto obedience of faith and repentance Rom. 9. 18. and 11. 30. So God regenerates whom he will So that we all grant that Gods word is by Gods appointment an instrument to make men new creatures But whom Not all indifferently but the elect of God called the sheepe of Christ Iohn 10. 16. Other sheepe have
instructer think that Christ was sent to merit faith and regeneration for all then either absolutely or conditionally if absolutely then all must believe de facto and be regenerated if conditionally then let them discover unto us this condition and avoyd direct Pelagianisme if they can 2. Indeed we think the word is not sent to all that perish we find it by manifest experience in reference to Ministry humane and if they have so strenuously rubd their own foreheads as to faine out of their own heads a Ministry Angelicall let them not expect that we should take their forgeries for Oracles Divine 3. It is not true that where it is sent among them that perish 't is sent only that they should slight it it may be sent as well ut proficiant ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quo mitius puniantur as for those that doe slight it and stumble at it being disobedient Saint Peter plainly saith that hereunto they were ordained Let them therefore cry downe Peter first and then we will take it in good part to be cryed downe also And if God sent his Sonne into the World to be crucified by some why might not he as well send the Preaching of Christ into the World to be slighted and despised by others and Saint Paul hath professed that the Preachers of it are unto God a sweet savour in Christ even in them that perish Yet we say not that this is the end why God sends it to any But we say God both sends it and permits many to slight it and to persevere in the contempt of it that he may manifest his glory in their just condemnation and declare thereby also the riches of his glory on the vessells of mercy whom he hath prepared unto glory by making it appeare what a mercifull difference God hath put between them and others To the particulars subordinate hereunto I answer distinctly thus 1. God deceives none in calling them to Salvation in the name of his Sonne by the preaching of his Word any more by our Doctrine than by the Doctrine of this Author for as he maintaines that God intends Salvation to all men no otherwise than in case they believe so doe we and as we maintaine that God doth fully intend to most the contrary but no otherwise than in case they believe not so doth he only as touching the obtaining of faith and regeneration here is the difference between us we maintaine with Saint Paul that God hath mercy on whom he will in bestowing the grace of faith and regeneration and hardeneth whom he will by denying of it soe doth not he and accordingly we say Christ merited faith and regeneration for his elect But the Remonstrants openly professe that he merited faith and regeneration for none at all Hereby let the indifferent judge which of us makes God the greatest deceiver they or we And the truth is this Author nor his instructer are willing to discover themselves in this poynt for feare least nothing should save them from breaking their necks but to be received upon the featherbed of Pelagianisme so fearfull a precipice is likely there to meet with them at the margent of this there stands a wild quotation thus Suffrag Britaine p. 43. as if the Author was loath his meaning should be found or it may be in transcribing the coppy sent him he did mistake But the Article upon which these Theses are dilivered he utterly leaves out like as in his former quotation of the sufferages But after much searching I guesse I find that which he refers unto on the 3. Article 3. Position which is pag 166. in Synod Dordare and in the English sufferages of our Divines of Great Britaine the position is this whome God doth thus prepare by his Spirit as was signifyed in the former position through the meanes of the word those doth he truly and seriously invite and call to faith and conversion I make no question but whatsoever God doth he doth truly and seriously And as for that sancta simulatio which this Author formerly upbraided our Divines with for attributing it unto God I have formerly discovered the false nature of that aspertion though he thought to walke in the clouds that his jugling might not be discovered The explicatiō of the position is added thus By the nature of the benefit offered and by the evident word of God we must judge of those helpes of graces which are bestowed on men and not by the abuse of them Therefore when the Gospell of its ' owne nature calls men unto repentance and Salvation when the incitements and Divine graces tend the same way wee must not thinke any thing is done fainedly by God this is proved too All these I willingly acknowledge neither doe I know any of our Divines that deny it and more particularly I am willing to particulate wherein I take it to consist God hereby doth signify that as many as believe shall be Saved and so I say he doth seriously intend as much as likewise that none shall be saved without faith likewise God doth signify that he is well pleased with faith and conversion in whomsoever he finds it and herein he deales most truly and seriously likewise hereby he signifies his own will to make it their duty to believe which also is most true and serious But none of all these I know full well will satisfy these with whom wee deale unlesse we acknowledge that God hath a kind of velleity also both of their conversion and salvation but let them shew me any passage out of these Suffrages where this is acknowledged They adde If God should not seriously invite all whom he vouchsafeth this gift of his Word and spirite to a serious conversion surely both God should deceive many whom he calls in his Sonnes name and the messengers of the Evangelicall promise might be accused of falsewitnesse and those which being called to conversion doe neglect to obey might be more excusable All this I willingly grant neither doe I know any Divine of ours that denyes it according to the three particulars formerly specifyed wherein I desired to explicate the truth and seriousnesse of all this though those worthy Divines of ours goe not so farre As for their last clause which is this For that calling by the Word and spirit cannot be thought to leave men unexcusable which is only exhibited to this end to make them unexcusable I willingly confesse I doe not sufficiently understand them in this For albeit I have already particulated divers things werein the seriousnesse of this Divine invitation doth consist neither doe I find any end of this Divine invitation mentioned at all by these our Divines whom from my heart I honour for their just desert yet to me it seemes most cleare that Revelation doth so necessarily take away excuse upon pretence of ignorance and admonition and invitation as necessarily takes away excuse upon pretence of not being admonished and invited that if God
manner to command Abraham to sacrifice his sonne but it was not Gods determination that Isaack should be sacrificed In like sort he commanded Pharaoh to let Israel goe but withall he told Moses he would harden Pharaohs heart that he should not let them goe for a long time 2. But in the accommodation of these distinctions unto thy selfe What ground hast thou to affirme that God willeth not thy salvation in particular If thou believest Gods word assureth thee thou shalt be saved if thou believest not yet thou maist believe and Gods word hath power to bring thee unto faith as formerly I have discoursed And as for the best of Gods Children who doe believe to the great comfort of their soules rejoycing with joy unspeakable and glorious 1 Pet. 1. They were sometimes in as uncomfortable a condition as thou now art And the rather I put thee upon this because I see he that takes upon him to comfort thee doth take a course rather to feed thy humour then to remove it in as much as he never enquires into the cause thereof For albeit he gave to understand he would apply his argument with as much art and cunning as could be yet it may be that was rather with respect to the advantage of his own cause then to thy consolation But let us see whether he mends it in the next Minister Christ came into the World to seeke and to save what was lost and is a propitiation not for our sinnes only i. e. the sinnes of a few particular men or the sinnes of all sorts of men but for the sinnes of the whole World therefore he came to save thee for thou wast lost and to be a propitiation for thy sinnes for thou art part of the whole World CONSIDERATION Still he continues to afford thee as much comfort as any Reprobate in the world and if thou desirest no more thou maist rest satisfied with this but withall I confesse he affords thee as much comfort as he can afford any of Gods elect for he maketh elect and Reprobate all alike in receiving comfort from Gods Word Christ came into the world to save that which was lost but unlesse he came to save all that is lost it will not follow that he came to save thee We know that pardon of sinne and salvation is procured by Christ for none but such as believe and therefore be not deceived without faith looke for neither by faith be assured of both and that thou art one of Gods elect and no Reprobate And observe well he tells thee nothing of Christ meriting faith and repentance this now a dayes is plainly denyed by the Remonstrants and this Authour is content to say nothing of it when he is put to it we know what must be the issue of it if he sayeth Christ hath merited faith and repentance for thee the meaning is but this Christ hath merited that if thou wilt believe thou shalt believe if thou wilt repent thou shalt repent And that Christ hath merited that God should bestow faith and repentance not on whom he will according to the meere pleasure of his will but according to mens workes The comfort that our doctrine ministers unto thee is this If thou dost believe in Christ thou maist be assured thou art an elect of God if thou dost not believe there is no cause why thou shouldest thinke thy selfe a Cast-away for albeit thou hast not faith to day yet thou maist have faith to morrow Give thy selfe to Gods Word and waite upon him in his ordinances thou maist be so wrought upon as that unbeliever was 1 Cor 14. Who is there represented falling downe on his face and confessing that God was in the Preacher of a truth And though at first thou attendest to it but in a carnall manner yet God may open thy heart as he opened the heart of Lidia and make thee attend unto it in a gracious manner Tempted The World as I have heard is taken two waies in Scripture Largely for all mankind and strictly for the elect or believers In this latter sense Christ dyed for the World Or if for all yet it was only dignitate pretii not voluntate propositi thus only for a few selected ones with whom it is not my lot to be numbred CONSIDERATION Suffer not thy selfe to be abused by them who pretending thy comfort yet seeke nothing lesse but only the promoting of their owne cause And observe how he takes notice of no other benefits of Christs death then such as belong unto men upon the condition of faith to wit pardon of sinne and Salvation in which case the mention of Gods elect comes in very unseasonably And thus is the love of God set forth unto us so God loved the world that he gave his only begotten Sonne that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And if it be not thy lot to be numbred amongst believers then we can give thee by Gods Word no assurance of thy Salvation But if thou art not a believer yet thou maist be in good time as formerly I have spoken more at large and therefore no reason to think thou art a Reprobate And if once thou dost believe in Christ our doctrine gives thee assurance of Justification Salvation and Election the Arminan doctrine doth not As for faith and repentance we say Christ hath merited them also but to be bestowed how According to mens workes say our Arminians though forraine Arminians professe plainly that Christ merited not faith and regeneration for any And if thou relishest this comfort be satisfied with it we say faith and repentance are bestowed absolutely according to the meere pleasure of Gods will and accordingly Christ merited them but not for all for then all should believe and repent and be saved but only for some and who can these be but Gods elect whence it followeth clearly that whosoever believes may by our doctrine be assured of his election not so by the doctrine of Arminians but if thou believest not thou art in no worse case then the best of Gods childern have been for there was a time when they believed not therefore thou hast no more cause to think thy selfe a cast-away then they had Minister God hath founded an universall Covenant with men upon the bloud of Christ and therefore he intended it should be shed for all men universally he hath made a promise of salvation to every one that will believe and excludes none that will not believe CONSIDERATION This I confesse is to administer as much comfort as is administred to any Reprobate but how can this qualify thy discomfort and discontent which riseth from this conceit that thou art a Reprobate And the truth is that by our Doctrine wee were all in a miserable case if Gods Covenant of grace extended no farther then this But hath not God promised to be our Lord and our God that sanctifyeth us to circumcise our hearts and the hearts
hell hath a being and by consequent something that is good If therefore God may take away a man's being that is innocent and turne him into nothing for his pleasure much more may he torment him in hell I am glad to see my name so often remembred by this Authour in his margent for a long time I desired to know his way by certaine evidence for I would not suffer my selfe to be carried away with rumours and withall I found some contradiction in the relations I received from different persons but at length I was so happy as to see it under his own hand and there to observe not his judgment only but the strength of his affections also Now let the Reader observe the cunning carriage of this Authour and how farre off it is from all ingenuitie For what I discourse being drawne thereunto by Arminius his excursions that this Authour obtrudes upon me as if the defence of the cause I tooke in hand had drawn me thereunto notwithstanding that I have professed the contrary For thus I write l. 1. pag. 1. De electione Sect 4. pag. 127. In the canvasing of this section Arminius runs out at large saving that most of these things which here he heapes up are aliena and nothing pertinent to the present purpose as pertaining rather to the decree of reprobation then to the decree of election And a little after I write thus Hence it is that Arminius expatiates and transfers his disputation from the point of election to the point of Reprobation too unseasonably Yet wisely affecting the incolumity of his wavering cause By that right saith he which God hath over his creature he cannot ordaine any man to the suffering of pain without the foresight of sinnne To wit that his cause might stand upright and that this examiner might omit nothing that tends to the making of his opinion plausible with his propitious reader it was needfull that he should make use of some such transition though never so unreasonable but seeing such are the wiles and artifices of our Adversaries to confound all Scholasticall method it shall not be unseasonable for me to weigh what he delivers as briefly as I can Therefore after I had refused Arminius on that point where he denyes that God can doe that injustice which he can doe by power after this manner I enter upon a new digression concerning this point Hitherto have I followed Arminius in his extravagants For M. Perkins hath not proceeded so farre as to affirme that God hath power to afflict an innocent creature neither hath his Adversaries objected any such thing unto him as justly inferred from ought delivered by him So that all such have well hardened their foreheads who faigne that our opinion cannot well subsist without the help of so horrid and so harsh an assertion to wit That it is better to be miserable then not to be at all It is true some may conceive that though this were a truth it were to be suppressed rather then affirmed by reason of the harshnesse of it Let every one consider aright that I undertake the defence of M. Perkins and it is he that hath uttered this harsh assertion namely That God can inflict hell paines without any demerit in the creature out of Cameracensis And it stood me upon to defend M. Perkins so farre as I had reason for it Now finding the maine argument whereby Arminius maintaines the contrary to that other yet more harsh proposition to be most unsound and even this assertion which sounds most harsh in the eares of many not only to be maintained by Austine himselfe and and divres Schoole-Divines but answered by many arguments the solution whereof was never expedited by any have I deserved so sharply to be censured for representing all this in the way of justifying M. Perkins whose defence I undertook against Arminius 1. My words are these translated God can annihilate the holiest creature which Arminius confesseth how much more is it in his power to afflict an innocent creature and that for ever considering that not only according to Schoole-divines but also according to Austine yea according to the truth it selfe it is more to be desired to have being under any pain then to have no being at all And afterwards I propose not one argument of mine own for the justifying of this but only represent the discourse of Austine hereupon as it is analized by Durandus that Schoole Divine Now why are not the School-men censured as men speaking unreasonably and against common sense Nay why is not Austine censured as one that had rather speak unreasonably and against common sense then lay downe the conclusion which he hath once undertaken to maintain as well as my selfe Yea and much more considering that the discourse proving this is Saint Austin's and had I not added on the by these four words etiam secundum ipsam veritatem there had been no place at all for any censure to be past upon me If a man finding himselfe convicted by Austin's discourse shall confesse that what he writes is true is it equity to censure him as one who had rather speak unreasonably and against common sense then lay down the conclusions which formerly he hath undertaken to maintain When in the mean time no censure is at all passed upon Austine who alone is the player of the game he that stands by professing only in his judgment he playes his game well 2. If Austine hath spoken unreasonably and against common sense how comes it to passe that this censurer hath not taken the paines to represent unto the world the unreasonablenesse of his argument This authour spends his mouth frankly in censuring but takes no paines to free his Reader from errour by solving arguments produced by Austin for the proofe of that wich this Authour conceives to be an errour 3. Nay he doth not so much as answer that one argument which here is proposed by me An argument which the Scoole-men use as sufficiently convincing the truth as Durandus and Ricardus Yet considering the unreasonable condition of such adversaries who take no course to convince or confute their opposites but imperiously to cry them down I have taken the paines to call to an account both Austin's arguments and others proposed by Schoole-Divines and to devise with my selfe what answer might be made unto them so to performe that for my adversaries which they shew no hart to performe for themselves and I was borne in hand that such a digression of mine should be extant long ere this 4 Yet by the way I wonder not a little that one thing is pretermitted For if I mistake not this very Authour is the man that heretofore hath been very full mouthed in censuring not so much the doctrine it selfe as a certain answer I made to an argument brought out of Scripture against it namely from those words of our Saviour It had been better for that man if he had never been
born My answer was that it was spoken according to the judgment of man though indeed erroneous and that after this manner phraseologies of Scripture doe proceed I there shewed Now this Authour hereupon spared not to professe that if this were true he would turne Atheist I wisht that Friend of mine to whom he spake this to perswade him the next time he met with him to enquire and consider well whether Maldonat the Jesuite doth not imbrace the same interpretation And indeed if such protestations would carry it this Authour would prove a very potent and formidable adversary I have seen the like under his own hand namely this As Plutarch said of the old heathens who sacrificed men that they might pacifie their gods that it had been better with Diagoras to say There is no god then to think that God is such a one that delights in the blood of men And hereupon he adds this Protestation I protest unto you I think it less dishonourable to the blessed Trinity to say with the Atheist there is no god then to feigne such a God as the decree of Reprobation maintained by the Contraremonstrants maketh him to be This man I find is resorted unto and consulted with by the Arminians as if his judgment were an oracle and I willingly confesse he deserves to be in some great place unto them and no place in my judgmentmore fit then to be unto the à protestationibus Yet I doe not prescribe but leave it to their discretion to prefer him as they think good but how comes it to passe that here he is silent in reviving the reproaches he cast upō my answer to the Scripture before mentioned Is it because Maldonat the Jesuite hath been since found by him to embrace the same interpretation And he is loath to fall so foule in censuring such as he is Yet here he falls foul on me for professing my approbation not of Schoole-men but of Austin's discourse This makes me call to mind what was delivered of him sometimes by a London Minister as that he should perswade a young Divine to study Bellarmine as also what censures others have passed upon some writings of his And it hath been my hap to see under his own hand such a counsaile as this givē to a friend of his These things have I represented unto you the rather because I would give you occasion to learne that in your younger dayes which I have learned by late and long experience in my selfe and that in these two things First in reading Bellarmine and other adversaies to our Church I have divers times noted such speeches in them as to my thinking involved contradiction or had shew of absurdity or might either give advantage to our selves or breed prejudice unto them but when afterward I came in cooler blood to weigh the words better and to consider the circumstances more narrowly I found that I did mistake their meaning and that an itching desire to find an advantage made me to take shadowes for substance And the like mistake in my selfe I observed when I read the fathers or the Scriptures ready to interpret every thing either in favour of mine own cause or in prejudice of the adversaries And concludes sententiously thus Nimirum ita est ingenium nostrum facile credimus quae nimium volumus If such be the genius of this Authour though he thinks not good to spare me for Austin's sake yet methinks he should spare me for Richardus sake or at the least for Maldonat's sake This calls to my remembrance an Epigramme which D. Hoskins my chamber-fellow in New-Colledge sometimes made upon the fleas that sore troubled him as he lay in his bed And the conclusion was thus But if ther 's nothing that can slack Your rage and your correction Yet ô remember you are black And spare me for complexion So we proceed Sect. 5. To the first part of this reply namely that it is more desirable to be in hell then to be nothing I oppose three things 1. The speech of our Saviour concerning Judas Woe be to that man by whom the Sonne of man is betraied it had been good for that man if he had never been born Two things especially are set forth in these words of our Saviour First the misery of Judas the betraier of the Lord. Woe be c. Secondly the greatnes of his misery It had been good c. It is as much as if the Lord had said Judas the traitour shall be damned and therefore so woefull will his condition be that it had been good and happy for him if he had never received a being good in earnest as the Interpreters doe generally expound it not in the opinion and esteem of weak minded faint-hearted-men only as some few understand it For first let it be granted that Scripture speaketh of things sometimes according to men's opinions yet without reason to fasten such an expostiō upon any Scripture is to doe as dunces doe in the Schooles who being not able to answer a place in Aristotle wherewith they are charged shift it off and say loquitur ex aliorum sententiâ he speaks according to the opinion of others 2. This scripture cannot in reason be thus expounded First because it is an argument and ground by which Christ declareth the truth and greatnesse of the misery of Judas Woe to the man c And why woe Because it had been good c. But it were no argument to shew his woefull estate by to say that it had been good for him that he had never been born in the opinion of men who mistake the case but not in truth 2. because this exposition would teach and encourage men to be Atheists and Epicures In the second of Wisdome we read how voluptuous men doe stirre up one another to enjoy the good things that are present to fill them selves with wine and ointments to leave some token of their jollity in every place and to practise all manner of wickednesse And what is their motive a false perswasion that their soules shall dye with their bodies and that they should have noe being after death If this conceit would flesh them thus in their opinions and voluptuous courses how freely and eagerly may we thinke would they pursue their carnall and sinfull delights if they could be but once perswaded that after all their pleasure they should be in better case then if they had noe being Secondly I oppose common consent Where shall wee pick out a man but will say if he speak from his heart that he were better to vanish into a thousand nothings then to be cast into hell What is the reason why men are so afraid of hell when they are touched to the quick with the conscience of their ungodly lives and the expectation of eternall vengeance that with Job they curse their birth day and wish an hundred times over that they had never been or might cease to be that so they might
willed by him but only on some things Divina volunt as non omnibus sed quibusdam necessitatem imponit And in the body of that question thus he writes The distinction of things necessary and contingent proceeds from the distinction of God's will For when a cause is effectuall and powerfull to worke the effect followeth the cause not only so farre as to be brought to passe but also as touching the manner of its coming to passe Therefore seing the will of God is most effectuall it not only followeth that those things come to passe which God will have come to passe but that they come to passe after the same manner also after which he will have them come to passe Now God will have some things come to passe necessarily and some things contingently that there may be an order in things for the perfection of the world And therefore for the producing of some effects he hath fitted causes necessary which cannot faile by which effects are brought forth necessarily And for the producing of other effects he hath fitted causes contingent such as may faile in working from which effects are brought to passe contingently So that upon suspicion that God doth will a thing that thing shall certainly and infallibly come to passe but how Not allwaies necessarily or contingently And that certaine and infallible eveniency of things is called also necessity in the Schooles but not necessity simply but only upon suspicion which may well consist with absolute contingency But to make the point yet more cleare Let us distinctly consider the things decreed For they that have an evill cause delight in confusion and feare nothing more then the light of distinction Now the things decreed by Reprobation are either deniall of Grace which is joyned with the permission of sinne Or damnation for sinne according to that on Aquinas Reprobation includes the will of permitting sinne inflicting damnation for sinne Now both the permission of sinne and damnation of God's part are his free acts and therefore come to passe freely But upon supposition that God will deny a man Grace it is impossible that such a man should have grace Secondly secluding grace there is noe actuall transgression for which a man is damned but may be avoided man having power for that naturally though naturally he have noe power to performe every good act The reason is because amongst good acts some are supernaturall as the acts of the three Theologicall vertues Faith Hope and Charity But noe sinfull act is supernaturall all such are naturall Now it is confest on all hands that notwithstanding man's corruption by reason of originall sinne yet he hath still power and free will to performe any naturall act and accordingly he hath free power to abstaine from it So that Iudas had free will to abstaine from betraying his Master After he had betrayed him he had free power to abstaine from destroying himselfe so that as these sinnes of his for which he was damned were avoidable by him in like manner his damnation for these sinnes was avoidable And allbeit God had determined that Iudas by Divine permission should betray his Master and destroy himselfe according to to that of Austin Iudas electus est ad prodendum sanguinem Domini Iudas was ordained to betray his master And that of the Apostles jointly Of a truth against thy holy Son Iesus both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and people of Israell were gathered to doe what thy hand and thy counsell had before determined to be done Acts 4. 28. Yet herehence it followes only that it was necessary to wit upon this supposition namely of the Divine ordinance that these things should come to passe namely both Iudas his betraying of Christ and Herods mocking of him and Pilates condemning him and the peoples crying out away with him together with their preferring of Barrabas a murtherer before him and the Souldiers crucifying him But how came it to passe Not necessarily but contingently that is in this Authours phrase evitably and avoidably inas much as it was joyned with an absolute possibility to come to passe otherwise Nor with a possibility only but with a free power in the agents to have forborne all these contumelious carriages of theirs towards the son of God For both Iudas had free will to abstaine from betraying him and Herod with his Herodians could have abstained from their contumelious handling of him and Pilate from condemning him and the Preists and people from conspiring against him and the Souldiers from crucifying him only they had no power to abstaine from all or any of these vile actions in an holy manner as no man else hath power to abstaine from any evill in a gracious manner without grace Yea without the Grace of regeneration which alone plants in us both faith in God and a love of God to the very contempt of our selves and no performance of any good or abstinence from any evill is acceptable with God unto eternall life unlesse it proceed from this faith and this love That which is here produced out of Marlorate is a strange speech and such as I never read or heard from any before and such as whereof I can give no tolerable construction And is it fit that every extravagant passage that is found in any Writer of ours should be brought forth to charge our doctrine with It were a fitter speech for a Papist who maintaining the absolutenesse of Reprobation doth withall maintaine an apostacy from grace which we do not If Marlorate had any such opiniō he sings therein to himself to his own Muses What Divine of ours maintains that God hath decreed to damne any man otherwaies then by way of punishment for sin continued in unto death without repentance Had he spoken of Good works morall only it is true any hypocrite is capable of them and none taste deeper of Damnation then hypocrites But as for the worke of true faith true repentance it is the generall profession of our Divines that as faith and the spirit of repentance once given never faile so they shall infallibly bring a man unto everlasting life and free him from condemnation But any thing serves this Authors turn to vent his stomack And I am perswaded there is not one more of all our Divines that he can shew to concurre with Marlorat in this And if there were is it fit their improvident inconsiderate expressions should be cast in their teeth that avouch them not but rather conceive them to be void of all sobriety Brentius apud Marloratum in illud Ioh. 15. 2. Omnem palmitem in me non ferentem fructum tollet c. Caeterum haec sententia occurrit curiositati carnis quae solet argutè magis quà m reverenter de praedestinatione disserere pro suo ingenio colligere nullum à Domino ad vitam aeternam electum posse damnari etiamsi pessimè vivat Nullum item à Domino
like all and every passage yet but few are the passages wherein I differ from his opinion I have been very sory to observe how by his doctrine in the point of reprobation he overthrowes his own Orthodox Doctrine in the point of Election I would he would answer Sylvester who hath replied to his admirable letters written to Monsieur Balzak I could be well content were I once free to supply what is wanting to Waleus his Apologie for him against Corvinus But to the point the passage here proposed by him is I willingly confesse somewhat harsh I will have this man hang'd and that I may hang him justly I will have him murther or steale But compare it with that of St. Paul formerly mentioned God suffers the vessells of wrath prepared to destruction that he may declare his wrath and make his power known And that of Eli's children They obeyed not the voice of their Father because the Lord would slay them And that Amaziah would not heare For it was of the Lord that he might deliver them into his hands because they sought the Gods of Edom. And that of Ieremiah Doubtlesse because the wrath of the Lord was against Ierusalem and Iuda till he had cast them out of his presence therefore Zedekiah rebelled against the King of Babel And observe how neare Mr. Moulin is to expose these holy passages of Scripture and the doctrine contained in them in like manner unto scorne ere he is aware And let him soberly consider and without any humour of complying with our Adversaries out of a desire to charme them who will not be charmed to what end God doth finally permit some to persevere in sinne and can he find any other but this for the manifestation of the glory of his vindicative justice in their condemnation And without any desire to charme I have shewed plainly that God doth not permit any man to sinne and finally to persevere in sin to the end that he may damnethem But that he both permits them finally in sin and damnes them for their sinne for the declaration of his wrath and power on them and also that he may declare the riches of his glory upon the vessells of his mercy whom he hath prepared unto glory If he put a difference between permission of sinne and a will that they shall sinne I would entreate him not to stumble at this For what difference between God's will to permit man to sinne and to will that man shall sin by his permission And the tragicall acts committed on the holy Son of God by Herod and Pilate the Gentiles and people of Israel the Apostles say not they were permitted by God but that they were predetermined by the hand and counsell of God Mr. Moulin's care is to avoid harsh expressions it is a commendable care For why should we causlesly expose the truth of God to be the worse thought of and provoke men to stumble at it by unnecessary harshnesse Yet I find the Scripture it selfe delivered by the holy Prophets and Apostles is nothing so scrupulous Malim dicere saith Mr. Moulin I had rather say Deum non decrevisse dare alicui gratiam quâ convertatur credat that God hath decreed not to give some one grace whereby to be converted and believe quâm dicere eum decrevisse ut homo sit incredulus impoenitens then to say God hath decreed that man should be incredulous and impenitent And he gives his reason thus Vox enim decernendi aptior est ad ea designanda quae Deus statuit facere quà m ea quibus statuit non mederi For to decree is fitter to denote such things as God hath purposed to doe then such things as he hath purposed not to cure And indeed the Ancients in this sense take the word predestination to be only of such things as God himselfe purposed to worke as Grace and Glory and the damnation of impenitent sinners But if God decrees not to cure impenitency and infidelity in some judge whether upon this ground it may not well be said that God decrees that the impenitency and infidelitie of some shall continue uncured And Mr. Monlin confesseth that God decreed that the Jewes should put Christ to death His words are these Deus vetuit homicidium idem tamen decrevitut Iudaei Christum morte afficerent God forbad murther yet he decreed that the Iewes should kill Christ Yet by the way consider God hath no need of the sinne of man that he may put him to death justly For undoubtedly God could annihilate any creature that he hath made the most holy Angells without any blemish to his justice Yea by power absolute he could cast the most innocent creature into hell fire and continue yet just still as formerly hath been shewed and Raynaudus justifies and represents variety of testimonies for this not only of School-divines one of whom professeth that it is concors omnium Theologorum sententia the common opinion of Divines but of the Ancient Fathers also And therefore though to strangle Virgins was not lawfull for Tiberius yet a greater more severe worke then this is lawfull for God Neither doth God cōmand any impure course to any but under pain of eternall damnatiō forbids it But as he hardened Pharaoh's heart that he should not let I srael goe so can he harden any man's heart to doe as foule a work as this And St. Paul testifies that he gave up the heathens to their hearts lusts unto uncleanes to defile their own bodies between themselves which turned the truth of God into a lie worshipped served the creature forsaking the Creatour who is blessed for ever amen For this cause God gave them up to vile affections for even the women did change the naturall use into that which is against nature And likewise the men left the naturall use of the women and burned in their lusts one toward another and man with man wrought filthinesse And this is noted by the Apostle to have been a work of judgment For it followes they received in themselves such recompence of their errours as was meet I grant Tiberius was the principall Authour of deflowring those Maides For he commanded it and that as I have shewed makes a man the Authour of a crime both out of School-divines and out of Oratours but God gave no such cōmand to these heathens thus to defile themselves And this Authour doubts not but God cooperates to the substance of every act notwithstanding the absoute dominion of the will over her actions for which he pleades And it cannot be denied unlesse the word of God be therewithall denied that in him we move as well as in him we live and have our being And though God gave not commandement to Absalom to defile his Fathers Concubines yet he tells David saying I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them to thy neigbour and he shall lie with thy wives in the
our answers thereunto which formerly were but two but now are inlarged with the addition of a third The first whereof is for the forme of it changed throughout The comparison of the waies of God with the mysterious attributes of God is changed not only as touching the forme but as touching the matter here is no pleading for a reasonable service of God as there was His making man's understanding purged from prejudice and false principles as it was proposed there purged from prejudices corrupt affections and customes as it is proposed to be the Tribunall according to whose judgment interpretations of Scripture concerning what is just in the courses of God must be allowed or disallowed I have sufficiently canvased there Let the Reader be pleased to turne to it and compare my answer to this Sub-section and observe how little spirit he had so much as to question against any one peece of my answer Here he addes a reason of his former uncouth paradoxe to wit that Iustice in men and God are for substance but one and the same thing though different in degree as the greater and lesser light I have sufficiently profligated this in the first Section concerning God's attributes For this very rule he premiseth in generall to the ensuing discourse of his most congruously wilde premises and grounds to wild discourses The difference he puts between the wayes of God the mysteries of godlinesse I have there also refuted shewing that albeit some wayes of God's justice are agreable to the judgment of man as these mentioned Es 5. and Ezek 18 yet all are not as there I shew at large And lastly because he likes rationall discourse so well I am contented to deale with him at his own weapon by six rationall demonstrations justifying the absolutenesse of God's decrees in answer whereunto he is content to carry himselfe very judiciously even as mute as a fish The second answer of ours which he brings in to reply upon is inserted a new that I come to consider in the next place as I find it set down pag. 10. 71. 72. It is answered that these decrees are set down in Scripture to be the will of God and therefore they must needs be just For God's will is the rule of all righteousnesse To this answer I have these things to reply 1. This rule in divinity is much abused by the maintainers of absolute reprobation and may not be admitted in their sense and meaning For God's will is not a rule of justice to himselfe as if things were therefore just because he willeth and worketh them but his justice rather is a rule of his will workes which are the expressions of his will He therefore maketh decrees and executeth them because they are agreable to that justice which dwells in the Divine nature as he maketh nothing which hath not potâ—nitam objectivam a power of being created without implying contradiction to himselfe or any thing in him So he willeth and doth nothing but that which may be willed and done salvá justitiâ— without wrong to his justice St. Hierome speaking of the Prophet Hoseas taking a wife of fornication Hos 1. 2. Saith it was done in typo typically not â—â—ally quia si siat turpissimii est because if it had been dâ—ne indeed it had been a most foule thing But thou wilt answer saith he Deo â—ubente nihil turpe est God commanding it nothing is dishonest Thus much we say saith the father that God commandeth nothing but what is honest but he doth not by commanding dishonest things make those things honest which are abominable plainly giving us to see what he thought viz that God doth not will a thing of make it good but willeth it because it is in it selfe good antecedently before the act of God's will about it And thus much doth Zanchy though a rigid maintainer of absolute reprobation not obscurely confesse in his treatise De naturá Dei where he letteth â—all such speeches as make God's justice antecedent to his will and therefore the rule of it rather then a thing regulated by it Neither can God will any thing saith he which is not just And againe The Princes pleasure hath the strength of a law is a Rule saith he among the Canonists But this is true where the King is just and a 〈◊〉 nothing but what is just In which words he plainly maketh the justice of the King amâ—â—edent to that will of his which must be a law Many more speeches he useth there to the same purpose God's will therefore is not a rule of justice to himselfe To whom then To us For by it we are first to â—quaâ—e all our thoughts words and deeds Secondly to examine them when they are spoken and done Primum in aliqâ—o 〈…〉 regula â—ostcricrum supremum inferiorum 2ly I reply that theâ—â— absolute accrces of mens inâ—vitable salvation and damnation are no parts of Gods revealed will The scriptures teache us no such matter And therefore to say that they are is but a mere begging of the question It hath alwaies been ordinary with false teachers to make Gods word a father to their false opinions that they may stand the faster and winne the greater credit The Papists ground their Transubstantiation the Lutherans their conâ—ubstantiation and obiquity upon the Scripture Hoc est corpus meuÌ„ This is my body And the defenders of absolute reprobation doe so too They make their cause to be Gods and entitle his word to it because they see it is the surest way to defend it being herein like to some contentious people who being in law and having a bad cause which they are like to loose they entitle the King to it that they may the better uphold it 3ly Absolute Reprobation can be no part of Gods revealed will The reason is because it is odious to right reason begetteth absurdities For nulla veritas parit absurda no truth begetteth absurdities Divers truths are revealed in Scripture which are above but not contrary to right reason whether they be matters of faith or life Faith and reason nature and Scripture are both Gods excellent gifts And therefore though there may be a disproportion yeâ— there can be no repugnancy between them The worship which God requireth is Cultus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable 〈◊〉 And the word of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 milke reasonable and without guile These things therefore being laid together it will appeare to be but a mere shift and evasion when absolute reprobation is prâ—ved to be unjust and therefore unworthy of God to say Gods will is the rule of justice this is part of Gods revealed will and therefore most just whatsoever reason may cavill and say to the contrary Doth not this Authour observe the contradictious nature of this proposition Gods will is a rule of justice to himselfe For a rule of justice to any one is a rule to
deniall under colour of the contrary a deniall joyned with a scoffe and derision as was that of the Jebusites who told David that he should not enter into the fort of Sion except he took away the blind and the lame Their meaning was they would never deliver it up unto him and because they thought it impossible for him to take away the blind and the lame they told him if he did so then they would yeeld it up It was an Ironicall scoffing denyall of his demand If the King should make an unrepealable law that no German should be made a Citizen of London or free Denizon of the kingdome then make a decree to give some bountifull gratuities but to the Citizens of London or to the subjects of the kingdome only to none but them And yet for all this should command it to be proclaimed that he will give them to the Germans upon concondition they will be made free men of London or be incorporated into the Kingdome would not any man say that the King in this case did dissemble and delude the poore Dutchmen And if any should say there would be no dissembling in it For if they would become Citizens or subjects they should have the promised gratuities a man might truely answer that therefore the King doth counterfeit and cousen them because he makes a tender of them upon a condition not possible by his own decree In like manner if God have made a decree that such men shall never believe and yet offer them heaven upon condition they will believe it may most truly be sayd that God doth not only deny them heaven but deny it with a bitter derision which is farre from that candor and goodnesse that dwelleth in him M. Hord's discourse at the first went no farther then to prove that In substance it is all one to offer a curtesie under a condition not possible and not to offer it at all Here this Author addes that it is in circumstance a greate deale worse For he saith it is a deniall joyned with a scoffe and derision as was that of the Iebusites In my answer to the former part in M. Hord I have shewed that the reason why Salvation is proposed in scripture to be obtaind upon a condition to be performed by man is because God intends to save those whom he doth save after a manner a greable to their reasonable natures Namely by instruction in a law of works in a law of faith by admonition and exhortation strengthned with promises to the obedient with threatnings to the disobedient And albeit men are not able to performe this obedience of themselves being disabled by that naturall corruption which they have drawn from the Loynes of our father in whom our natures received a mortall blow through his disobedience and became disabled to performe any thing acceptable in the sight of God for they that are in the flesh cannot please God therefore the Lord is ready according to the covenant of grace to circumcise the hearts of some namely of his Elect To love the Lord with all their hearts and with all their soules to put his spirit within them to cause them to walke in his statutes to keepe his judgments and doe them It is true this offer of salvation is proposed to all within the Church whether Elect or Reprobate and no marvaile For the Ministers of God's word are not acquainted with the counsells of God as touching the election or reprobation of any man in particular therefore they preach unto all but knowing full well that this their ministery shall be effectuall only to God's elect as touching their salvation Therefore as they indure all things for the elect sake So for the elects sake it is that they preach the whole counsell of God according as the Lord himselfe instructed Paul saying Feare not but speak hold not thy peace for I am with thee and none shall lay hold on thee for to hurt thee For I have much people in this City Who are this people but the Elect of God Yet God makes this use of preaching his word to all that hereby excuse is taken from thē For hereby it is made known unto them That a Prophet hath been among them As for the point of derision First this Authour prescribes unto God very demurely that he must not deride him Yet will he thinke it lawfull full for himselfe to mocke a dogge offering to give some what unto him when he meanes nothing lesse but man is growen so proud that he will take it in scorne to be mocked of any yea of God himselfe little thinking that he may well deserve to be derided and mocked Yet the Scripture may teach us this and that God will mocke some and therein deale with them according to their works Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out mine hand and none would regard But ye have despised all my counsell and would none of my correction I will also laugh at your destruction and mocke when your feare commeth Secondly I answer that man naturally is presumptuous of his own strength to believe to repent and shall God then be censured for mocking him when he calls upon him to believe to repent Dicere solet humana superbia si scissem fecissem sayth Austin This is the course of man's pride to say had I known it I had done it If they are sensible of this impotency can they not say with Austin Da Domine quod jubes jube quod vis Lord give what thou biddest and then bid what thou wilt Againe if God commands nothing but what he hath power to command as namely to believe what he saith and to doe what he injoynes why should this be censured mockery in reference to man's disability to performe it when this disability is brought upon him by the sinne of Adam in whom we all were and in him we have all sinned And which is more what meanes this Authour to carry the matter thus hand over head as to talke of an impossible condition without all distinction Dares he say that faith and repentance are possible by power of nature Or doth any of us deny it to be possible by grace If this be so it followeth that all the question between us should be drawen to this issue whether God gives the grace of faith and repentance unto all Yet indeed the truth herein deserves to be put out of all question it being apparent that Fides non est omnium all men doe not believe Nay it is called in Scripture the Faith of God's elect So that the question is about the nature of that grace without which faith and repentance cannot be performed Why doth not this Authour expresse his meaning in this and clearly professe what that grace is whereby the conditions of faith repentance are made conditions possible His subdolous carriage throughout in concealing his Tenet
the parts of it selfe 1. To the matter whereunto it is applyed For it is proposed in such a case as men could not obtaine a certaine incorporation though they much desired it Now such a thing is not incident to Reprobates namely that they cannot believe though they would For had they a will to believe undoubtedly that would be accepted of God Then 2 it is incongruous to the parts of the Simile it selfe For incorporation only is precluded unto Germans by the unrepealable law he feignes without common understanding For undoubtedly all lawes of men are repealable by the same authority whereby they are made And afterwards the condition of obtaining certaine bountifull gratuities by vertue of the foresaid incorporation is proposed most undecently not of their being incorporated into that society but of their will to be incorporated Now it is apparent that by the case feigned their incorporation only is precluded unto them not their will to be incorporated In the accommodation he saith God hath made a decree by our doctrin that such men shall never believe Now what one of our Divines can be produce to justifie this We say God hath decreed not to give them grace to work them unto faith but to leave them unto themselves And is not this Authour of the same opinion Nay doth he not extend it farther then we doe even to the Elect as well as Reprobates We say not so but that his elect he doth not leave unto themselves to worke out their faith if they can but workes them by his grace and holy Spirit thereunto Himselfe seemes to be conscious of the falshood of this his imputation dealing upon the point of God's justice Sub-sect 2. For having there proposed three causes why Reprobates cannot justly be bound to believe The second of them was this in M. Hord's discourse Because it is impossible that they should believe because God hath decreed they shall have no power to believe till their dying day This reason is changed in this Authour 's refining of that discourse as indeed all these reasons are changed by him more or lesse without replying upon ought that I have answered thereunto but only putting out or putting in at his pleasure to cast a shew that the former discourse of M. Hord's is not answered such is his subdolous cariage to undermine that truth which he is not able to oppose in a faire manner with any sound reason least of all by evidence of Scripture that flying in his face at every turne and therefore his best wisdome is to shut his eyes against it And here he sayth not in representing his second reason that God hath decreed they shall have no power to believe to their dying day but thus rather Because it is not God's unfeigned will they shall believe But now againe in this supplement of his he returnes to the first and saith that by our doctrine God hath made a decree that such men shall never believe Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo But I confesse it is an honour to God's truth that it cannot be opposed but in so vile a manner Yet I have already shewed that we deny not unto reprobates a power to believe if they will We deny not the ministery of the word unto them exhorting them to believe We deny not but that whosoever hath a will to believe or doth believe God must necessarily concurre to the producing of that will and that act of his All this we grant which is the uttermost whereunto this Authour comes but over and above we say that God doth not only give his elect a power to believe if they will and perswade them to believe but that also he works them to believe and not only concurres with them in producing gracious acts but makes them to concurre with him also this is the grace and this alone that he denies to reprobates Pag. 85. Treating of the use and end of God's gifts the Authour hath an addition of some seven lines concerning the Lord's supper but nothing at all to purpose Pag. 87. Of the fift Section next following The passages out of the suffrages of our Brittain Divines in the Synod of Dort quoted by M. Hord here they are expressed namely that there are certaine internall workes preparing a man to justification which by the power of the word and Spirit are wrought in the hearts of men not yet justified such as are the knowledge of God's will and sense of sinne feare of punishment Now I have shewed that these our Brittish Divines goe much farther and yet in their fift Article and fourth position they professe of all such as are none of Gods Elect that it is manifest they never really and truly attaine that change and renovation of the mind and affections which accompanieth justification nay nor that which doth immediately prepare and dispose unto justification And therefore the preparation that this Authour speaks of as out of them must needs be a remote preparation And withall they adde that They never seriously repent they are never affected with hearty sorrow for offending God for sinning neither doe they come to any humble contrition of heart nor conceive a firme resolution not to offend any more Now let every sober person judge whether God proceeding no farther with them then this can be said to intend their conversion and salvation The other position of theirs is this Those whom God by his word and Spirit affecteth after this manner those he truly and seriously calleth and inviteth unto conversion I make no question but whom God calleth he calleth seriously and whom he inviteth unto conversion that is as I take it unto repentance he inviteth truly seriously thereunto But that God intendeth either their conversion or salvation I utterly deny For did he intend it undoubtedly he would worke it For certainly this is in his power Faith is his gift and repentance is his gift and perseverance in both is his gift And unlesse he gives faith and repentance we hold it impossible that any man should believe or repent And what a monster is it in Divinity to maintaine that God's intentions are frustrated which cannot be maintained without denying God's omnipotency For no man's intentions are frustrated but because it lyeth not in his power to bring to passe the things intended by him Pag. 88. In the next section following is inserted a sentence of Prosper which no man denies It is this They that have despised God's inviting will shall feele his revenging will but it is rightly to be understood namely of despising his inviting will all along and finally Otherwise if they break of their contempt by repentance there is mercy enough in store with God to pardon them and his revengefull hand shall not be felt by them Pag. 89. And seventh section concerning the use and end of God's gifts divers passages of our Divines are mentioned shewing the end of God's providence in affording his word unto reprobates As first
you lived in those times you could easily have put an end to all this great altercation provided that they would have received that which you take here for a principle that fore-knowledge is not properly in God For if this be so then all disputation concerning the reconciling of Gods fore-knowledge with liberty and contingency is frivolous and to no purpose What anxious disputes have been amongst the Schoolemen for many hundred yeares continuance touching the manner or the ground of Gods foreknowing future contingents Bonaventure maintained that God did foreknow future contingents by the Idea's of them in his mind Aquinas made the ground of Gods foreknowing them to be their presence or existence in eternity Scotus his opinion was that God foreknows them by seeing the determination of his own will touching their coming to passe Other grounds of Gods foreknowledge of future contingents are assigned by others which you may find mentioned almost in every Schooleman Bellarm. l. 4. de grat libero Arbitrio and before him Occam and Ariminensis were of an opinion that the way or manner of Gods foreknowing future contingents is a poynt that is incomprehensible unexpressible in this life Were you called to be an Umpier between these great Schoolemen in this thorny and knotty Question you instead of unloosing or untying this Gordian knot would like another Alexander have cut it in pieces and have told them that they disputed like a company of Buzzards concerning the ground or manner of that which may in propriety of speech be denied of God Your opinion you see doth not so fully accord with ancient and Moderne Divinity as you pretend how dissonant it is from the truth will soon be manifested by bringing it unto the rule of Theologicall truth the Scriptures in which the infallible prediction of things to come doe clearly and abundantly witnesse that foreknowledge is properly in God for prediction presupposeth prescience it being utterly impossible to foretell infallibly what one doth not foreknow certainly Hereupon it was that Tertullian said Deum quot fecit Prophet as tot habere testes praescientiae suae lib. 2. contra Marcion c. 5. That God hath so many witnesses of his prescience as he hath made Prophets This infallible prediction of things to come is so proper peculiar unto God as that thereby he distinguisheth himselfe from all false Gods Esay 41. 21 22 23. Produce your cause saith the Lord unto the Idolls of the Gentiles bring forth your strong reasons saith the King of Jacob let them bring forth shew us what shall happen Let theÌ„ shew the former things what they he that we may consider them and know the latter end of them or declare us things for to â—ome shew the things that are to come hereafter that we may know that yee are Gods He that is God can shew the things that are to come hereafter and therefore he foreknowes them for that cannot be foretold which is not foreknown And that without a Metaphor or any other Trope From Scripture goe we to naturall reason and that will prove that foreknowledge agrees properly unto God Arguments of this sort may be drawn First from the nature of foreknowledge Secondly from severall attributes of God Thirdly from his actuall providence or efficiency First from the nature of foreknowledge Foreknowledge is a knowledge of things before their existence And in God there is a knowledge of things before their existence Thou understandest saith David my thoughts a farre off Psal 139. 2. This argument you may find in D. Twisse against Jackson p. 314. Till things doe coexist with God his knowledge of them saith he is foreknowledge of them as well as ours For it is before them and only before them for it is neither with them nor after them Not with them for then they should coexist with God and that from all eternity which is most untrue for if they did coexist with God then they did exist and that from all eternity which is most untrue much lesse is it after them for if so then their coexistence with God were past but we suppose it to be to come And impossible it is that the same things should at once be both past and also to come You have it also in Suarez in the place before quoted In omni etiam proprietate certissimum est scientiam Dei sicut Deum ipsum duratione antecedere omnium rerum creat arum existentiam It is most certain that the knowledge of God as well as God himselfe doth properly or in all propriety of speech antecede in duration the existence of all created things whatsoever and therefore it is properly foreknowledge Unto Suarez who is no enemy unto Arminianisme I shall adde D. Jackson a professed Arminian arguing after the like manner in his Treatise of the Divine essence and Attributes Sect. 2. Cap. 8. p. 105. If God saith he as all grant be before all worlds his knowledge being coeternall to his being must needs be before all worlds And Austin himselfe grants a scientia a science or knowledge in God most infallible of all things that have been are or shall be before they are were or could be for they could not be coeternall to him who is before all worlds the beginning of the World it selfe and of all things in it Now all knowledge of things not yet present but to come is foreknowledge to determine or decree things future is to predetermine or fore-decree them And seeing God from eternity hath both known and decreed the things that then were not he is said to have foreknown and fore-decreed them Secondly Arguments proving foreknowledge to be properly in God may be taken from Gods Attributes from his infinite perfection from his infinite happinesse or blessednesse from his unchangeablenesse First from his infinite perfection He is of all beings the best and most perfect Deus optimus maximus was a title that the ancient Romans by the light of nature gave him Nothing then can so much as be imagined to be better then God But 't is better to know things to come then to be ignorant of them And therefore we must either deny that there is a God or else ascribe unto him the knowledge of things to come This is Doctor Twisse his argument De scientiâ media pag. 246. Verum si Deus is sit quo nihil melius excogitari potest melius sit cognoscere futura quicquid co gnoscibile est quam ignorare videtur hinc sequi aut Deum prorsus negandum esse aut scientiam futurorum contingentium ei tribuendam Secondly from his infinite blessednesse or happinesse which is such as that he hath all things desireable But if he should not have knowne things to come he should be without a perfection desireable by every intelligent or rationall nature This was Bradwardines argument Si Deus quaedam vera nesciret posset desiderare velle scire illa omnis enim rationalis natura
Trent And againe in the next page 535. Neither doe I like saith he Cajetans interpretation after this manner when he saith Est sermo de voluntate signi qua Deus proponit omnibus homimbus praecepta salutis doctrinamque Evangelii and that for two reasons First because God doth not propose his Gospell to all Secondly if God should propose the Gospell to all and bid all men to believe this is no certaine signe that God will have them to believe like as it is no certain signe that God will give them grace to believe without which they cannot believe For it is manifest that God doth not give the grace of faith and repentance unto all that heare the Gospell nor to a major part of them but it is a signe I confesse that God will have it our duty to believe by commanding us to believe The interpretation of this place which D. Twisse sticks to is that of Austin that God will have some of all sorts or conditions to be saved and he makes it good from the coherence as here so in his consideration of the doctrine of the Synod of Arles and Dort c. p. 61. and p. 62 63 64. he gives a full and satisfactory answer unto that which you call more then a Topicke argument against this exposition unto which why you doe not reply I cannot but wonder but perhaps you never read it And yet againe 't is very strange that you who have searched so narrowly and throughly into these controversies as you professe should be unread in all the workes of him whom you confesse to be one of the greatest Patrons of the Adverse cause as you call it I will lay downe that which you call more then a Topicke argument and compare it with the objection of Tilenus and then put downe D. Twisse his answer unto Tilenus and referre it unto the Reader whether it doe not fully satisfy that which you suppose to be a demonstration M. GOODWIN pag. 104. IF it may be said that God will have all men to be saved because he will have some of all sorts to be saved it may more properly truly be said of him that he will have all men to be destroyed at least in their sense who hold an irreversible reprobation of persons personally considered from eternity because not simply some but a very great part of all sorts of men now extant in the world will in time perish and that according to the decree or will of God the tenour whereof is that all persons dying in impenitency and unbeleife shall perish yet the Scriptures doe no where say upon any such account as this either in terminis or in substance that God will have all men to perish and not to come to the knowledge of the truth which is somewhat more than a Topicke argument that God is not therefore said to will that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth only because he will have some some few of all sorts of men to be saved and to come to this knowledge but simply because his will is to have all men with out exception viz. as they are men and whilst they are yet capable of Repentance to be saved and in order thereunto to come to the knowledge of the saving truth i. e. The Gospell TILENVS NOW if this New Evangelist doe tell the Infidell that the passages of Scripture which say that God would have all men to be saved are to be understood of some of every Nation and condition the Infidell will reply that then the Scripture ought with much more reason to say that God would have all men to be damned because that in every Nation there are farre more of these than of them and how that in all reason the denomination should be taken from the greatest number DR TWISSE upon the Synod of Arles c. Pag. 62 63 64. I Deny that the Scripture ought with much more reason or with any reason to say that God would have all men to be damned although put the case that in every Nation condition there be more of these than of them and his reason drawne from the denomination to be taken from the major part is nothing to the present purpose For the question here about the interpretation of Saint Pauls phrase is only this whether the word All be to be interpreted of all sorts or of all and every one so that the rule of denomination taken from the major part is nothing pertinent to this The question being only whether genera singulorum or singula generum be here meant not whether some of all sorts or all and every one of all sorts Which being resolved and that hereby is meant genera singulorum it may be farther questioned whether genera singulorum doe imply every particular of these kinds or only some of them For it is well known that the phrase is indifferent to the one as well as the other and that genera singulorum are equally preserved entire in some particulars as in many or most or all Like as the Species of the Sunne is maintained exactly as well in that one Sunne which shines by day in the firmament as if there were twenty Sunnes Secondly though the reason here given from the denomination to be taken from the greater part were pertinent yet were it nothing pertinent to the Apostles purpose in this place to say that God would have all men to be damned For this were no agreeable reason to move them to pray for all for Kings and all that are in authority As if the Apostle should say thus I will have you to pray for all for God will have all to be damned for saith Austin if Gods Church knew who were predestinated to be sent into eternall fire with the Divell and his Angells they would no more pray for such than they would pray for the Divell himselfe So that this Author doth miserably overlash in this his subtilty and betraies more nakednesse than any sober and wise Infidell were like to doe Then againe the instances of Scripture are clearely against him For when every foure-footed beast as the Scripture speakes was seen by Peter in a vision in all likelyhood they were not the most part of every kind but the smallest rather of every kind and accordingly this Author might conclude that considering denominations are taken from the major part therefore it is rather to be said that every foure-footed beast was not seen by Peter for certainly the major part of every kind was not yet in this sense to speake of it in that case was nothing pertinent but rather contrariant to that which followeth Rise Peter kill and eate In like sort seeing in all likelihood more people staid at home both in Jerusalem and in Judea then were they who went out to John and according to this Authors rule it were more fit to say All Jerusalem and all Judea staid at home when John the
said to be God's indignation And if God leaves any man to his corruption and offers occasions and temptations from without which are naturally apt to actuate such corruptions and withall gives them over to the power of Satan what is to be expected but that they will breake forth into murther as in Senacherib's sons and the Jewes crucifying the Son of God into stealth sacrilegious as in Achan into adultery and that in an incestuous manner as we see in Absalom into insurrections an example whereof we have in the ten Tribes revolting from Rehoboam into treasons as Iudas betraying his own Master and into all manner of outragious villanies whereof the Scripture makes plentifull mention and of the providence of God therein As for God's determining to the act that is nothing at all materiall to the point in hand though this Authour in his crude conceits is much intoxicated therewith For as much as whether the wicked are exercised in actions good for the substance of them or in abstaining from that which is evill they never a whit the more either performe the one or abstaine from the other in a gracious manner and all for want of grace supernaturall which God is not bound to bestow on any All sides confesse that Divine concourse is necessary to every act as without which the creature cannot move For in God we move as well as in him we live and in him we have our being And about this concourse a question is made to wit Whether God's influence be only into the act and that upon condition modo nos velimus provided that we will is as absurd and contradictious a conceit as can be devised seing the greatest question is concerning the act of willing And is it possible that God shall worke this act upon condition that it be wrought by us why if it be wrought by us what need is there of God's working it Can the same act be the condition of it selfe and so both before and after it selfe To avoid this precipice others fly to God's prescience that at such an instant man will produce such an act of will provided that God will produce it which is worse then the former For hereby each Agent 's operation is made the condition of the other whence no operation at all can proceed Then againe a thing is fained to be foreseen by God as future which hath no cause of the futurition thereof being in it's own nature merely possible that is no more future indeed then not future And nothing but the will and decree of God can make it passe out of the condition of a thing merely possible into the condition of a thing future as is made manifest by invincible reason Therefore we say the influence of God necessarily required to every action is made into the will it selfe moving it agreably to the nature thereof to doe whatsoever it doth not voluntarily only but freely also taking liberty aright and as it ought to be taken that is in the choice of meanes tending to an end whether that end be a man's right end or no. For it is confessed by Moralists that the motion of the will towards it's congruous end is naturall and necessary not free But this brave Gentleman carrieth himselfe aloft and superciliously despising to enter into any of these lists of argumentation and as if the matter were conclusum contra Manichaeos confidently supposeth without all proofe that we maintaine that all humane actions come to passe by absolute necessity Whereas to the contrary 't is evident that nothing in the world hath it's existence by absolute necessity saving God alone 'T is true God's decree is unalterable and whatsoever comes to passe comes to passe by his will saith Austin and the Church of Ireland By the effectuall will of God saith Aquinas as which he makes the roote of all contingency And therefore as necessary causes worke necessarily by the will of God so by the same will of God doe contingent Agents worke contingently and free Agents worke voluntarily and freely And observe the immodesty of this Authour he tells us what Zeno's servant pleaded for himselfe with his Master but he doth not tell what Zeno answered him that he conceales it is enough for him to gull and cheate poore ignorants The Adrumetine Monks he saith were misled by Austin a vile imputation cast upon that man whose memory hath been alwaies honourable in the Church of God and the memoriall of his opposites rots Did Austin misleade them did he draw them into errour If they did mistake Austin shall it be true therefore to say they were misled by him How many mistake and misunderstand God's word what then shall we be so audacious and blasphemous as to say they are misled by the word of God Why may not such impudent persons proceed and say they are misled by the holy Ghost Then that which he saith of these Monks as misled by Austin it is a notorious untruth Cresconius and Felix that came over to Austin of their own heads to complaine of some in their Monastry laid to their charge indeed that they so taught grace that they denied freewill that this they pretended to have learned out of Austin's booke written to Sixtus the Presbyter But Austin was not hasty to believe this crimination And therefore he saith disjunctively of that Monke of whom they complained Aut librum meum non intelligit aut ipse non intelligitur either he understands not my booke or himselfe is not well understood by his brethren If the information were true then that Brother of whom they complained mistooke Austin For Austin doth not any where so maintaine grace as to deny free-will But if that Brother understood Austin aright in that foresaid booke of his then he maintained no such opinion as Cresconius and Felix laid to his charge but they rather misunderstood him And this appeared to be most true afterwards For Florus was the man whom Cresconius and Felix accused and whom Austin desired of Valentinus the father of them that he would send over unto him as Coccius acknowledgeth accordingly he was sent over to Austin as appeares in Austin's booke De corrept gratiâ cap. 1. With whom when Austin had conferred he found him most orthodoxe as himselfe professeth in the chapter mentioned and therein much rejoyced and withall signifieth to Valentinus that they deserved rather to be checked who misunderstood Florus And therefore when Austin in his Retractations comes to take notice of his booke De gratiâ libero arbitrio and the occasion of writing thereof he sets it downe not absolutely because of those who so doe maintaine grace as withall they deny free-will but with a disjunctive addition thus or because of those who thinke when grace is maintained therewithall that free-will is denied The first was delivered in reference to the crimination made before him by Cresconius and Felix against Florus but the latter was according to Austin's suspicion
at the first which proved afterwards to be a truth as appeares by the first chapter of Austin's booke de correptione gratiâ where Florus is justified and magnified by St. Austin and his criminators condemned And seing there were none such among the Monks of Adrumetum as the accusants pretended who so maintained grace as to deny free-will therefore that also must needs be false which followeth in this Authour when he saith that against them also St. Austin wrote his other booke De correptione gratiâ And the truth is the whole buisinesse was ended and the tumult appeased between those Adrumetine Monks before Florus came over as appeared by the relation made unto him by Florus concerning the amicable composition of all things there And Austin in this very passage which this Authour grates upon professeth that he writes not against them only he answereth such an objection For I conceive it to be no other more fully which was made by some of them formerly against Florus and the doctrine of Austin maintained by Florus The relation whereof was brought unto him by the same Florus as it seemes But of this more at large in my digression concerning the predestinarian heresy which I purpose to subjoine to this Austin saith indeed that Praedestinatio est gratiae praeparatio gratia verò ipsa donatio Predestination is the preparation of grace Grace the gift it selfe which was prepared not the bestowing of it How can it be Can a gift temporall be the bestowing of a thing eternall What entertainment Zeno's servant found at his Masters hands which this Authour conceales I have often shewed who taught no such doctrine as destiny as to free a knave from stripes who as so great a Philosopher had a better judgment in the nature of fate then his servant and himselfe so well thought of by the whole State of Athenians Yet was not Zeno so well instructed in the mystery of Divine providence as we are by the word of God even from the selling of Ioseph all along to the crucifying of the Son of God from thence to the Kings giving up their Kingdomes to the Beast which should come to passe in the latter part of the last times of the world But let him make himselfe mery with Zeno's servant who taken in a theevish fact was content to helpe himselfe with any pretence but Zeno we know did not approve of his appology but prepared a Rod for the knaves back in despite of that And as for the Monks the relation that here he makes is merely a fiction of his own braine without all ground Thus his foundation being ruined no marvaile if the house he builds thereon must needs totter and fall on his ownpate Sect 3. 2. Nor if this be true can sin be punished eternally or that tribunall be just on which the sentence of eternall fire shall be denounced against the wicked at the last day To this I have the fathers bearing witnesse generally and plainly Tertullian hath there words The recompence of God and evill can with no justice be given to him who is good or evill not freely but of necessity Saint Hierome saith where necessity domineers there is no place for retribution Epiphanius saith the stars which impose upon men a necessity of sinning may be punished with better justice then the men themselves We place mens nativities under no fatall constellâ—tions saith Saint Austin that we may free the will by which a man liveth either well or ill from all bands of necessity because of the righteous judgment of God Prosper speaking of the judgment of God by which he decreed to render unto every man according to his works saith this judgment would never be if men did sinne by the will and determination of God Fulgentius also saith the same It is great injustice in God to punish him whom he doth not find but make an offender This was Saint Peruards opinion too it is only a will free from compulsion and necessity saith he which maketh a creature capable of reward punishment Out of these restimonies laid together may be collected three things 1. That the Ancients did use to call a necssity of humane actions good or bad by the name of destiny from what externall cause soever this necessity did arise 2. That they did use these two words Necessity and Compulsion promiscuously and therefore thought that necessity as well as compulsion did take away the wills liberty 3. Which is for our present purpose that they believed and contended that the judgments of God on sinners could not be just if they were held by the Adamantine chaines of any absolute necessity under the power of their sins I will therefore conclude this Argument with the words of Epiphanius writing of the errour of the Pharisâ—es who beleived the immortality of the soule and the resurrection of the dead yet held that all things come to passe by necessity It is saith he a point of extreame ignorance or madnesse rather for him that confesseth the resurection of the dead and the great day appointed for the revelation of God's righteous judgment to say that there is any destiny any necessity in mens actions For how can the righteous judgment of God and destiny comply and stand together And let me adde how can the beliefe of this and true piety stand together For where this perswasion that mens sins are necessary and that therefore there can be no righteous judgment is rooted in religion will quickly be rooted out 4. It tendes to religions overthrow because it makes the whole circle of man's life but a mere destiny By it all our doings are God's ordinances all our imaginations branches of his predestination and all events in Kingdomes and commonweales the necessary issues of the divine decree All things whatsoever though they seem to doe somewhat yet by this opinion they doe indeed just nothing the best lawes restrain not one offender the sweetest rewards promote not one vertue the powerfull'st Sermons convert not one sinner the humblest devotions divert not one calamity the strongest endeavours in things of any nature whatsoever effect no more then would be done without them but the necessitating overruling decree of God doth all And if lawes doe nothing wherefore are they made If rules of religion doe nothing why are they prescribed If the wills of men doe nothing why are men encouraged to one thing scared from another ther and if good endeavours and onsets doe nothing being excited continued limited controlled and every way governed by an active absolute and Almighty decree to what purpose are they used Who seeth not plainly whither these things tend To nothing more then to the subversion of piety and pollicy religion lawes society and government This did the Romans see full well and therefore they banished Mathematicos the teachers abetters of destiny out of Rome These and the like inconveniencies which come from the uppper way did worke