your mind A. That is because of some better Principles which they hold and because they see not the contradiction and inconsistence B. You come near to this truth Indeed there are Principles better than either of your controverted Opinions common to both sides which may afford us great Consolation and which sound Christians live upon And I doubt your Disputes on both sides do more disturb than comfort most But this must be granted that Opinions are not true because they are comfortable nor all false that have any thing in them apt to trouble men who have the sinful matter of trouble in themselves no more than Physick is naught that maketh men sick We must take our Comforts on Gods terms The truth is your Doctrine seemeth more comfortable in the respects which you have named as to the assurance of present Justification and theirs more comfortable in another respect viz. as to the continuance of it when they have it But if this Doctrine were to be chosen by the comfortableness yea and usefulness of it there is a middle way of some Schoolmen which would be preferred before both That is that neither any of the Elect nor any that have attained to confirmation â—r a fixed degree of Grace do ever fall away But that there are some not-Elect who are sincere and justified but weak and mutable as Adam in Innocency and not confirmed who fall away and perish And this Vossius thinketh was Augustine's Opinion And Grotius in his excellent Epistle against Molin lately translated into English by Mr. Barksdale affirmeth it to be the common judgment of the Fathers which will be no small advantage to it with me And 1. This avoideth the uncomfortable Doctrine which you charge on them For this holdeth that a weak Christian may have the comfort of present Justification that is not certain to persevere nor that he is any better than some that fall away 2. And it avoideth the uncomfortableness which they charge on you viz. that no man can be assured of his Perseverance and Salvation For these hold that all the consâ—med may be assured of it And that all weak Christians may possibly attain to confirmation 3. And it only leaveth weak unconfirmed Christianâ— uncertain of Salvation which both sides are agreed in For they confess that weak Christians are seldom if ever sure of their present sincerity and Justification And you hold that they are uncertain to persevere And so both of you hold them to be uncertain of Salvation But proceed The fourth Crimination A. They do reproach the Holiness of Gods people and his â—mage and encourage most horrid wickedness while they make all the sâ—â— that ever was committed by any man after his Regeneration to be consistent with Holiness and Justification not only Noah 's Drunkenness Lot 's being Drunk and Incestuous two nights together David's hâ—rrid Murder and Adultery Peter 's denying and forswearing his Lord but for instance Solomon they say was a Saint and justified when he gave up himself to all manner of pleasure and denied himself nothing and Paul saith The carnal mind is enmity to God and if ye live after the flesh ye shall die when he clave in love to many Idolatrous women having seven hundred Wives and three hundred Coâ—cubins and his Wives turned away his Heart after other gods and his Heart was not perfect with the Lord but he went after Ashtoreth the Goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the abomination of the Amorites and built an High Place for Chemoth the abomination of Moab and for Molech the abomination of Ammon and likewise did he for all his strange Wives which burnt Incense and sacrificed to their gods his Heart was turned from the Lord that appeared to him twice 1 King 11. 1 to 12. All this say the Calvinists you may do and yet be Saints and justified and saved * Bradwardine li. 3. c. 27. having maintained that all things come to pass by necessity and cap. 29. p. 734. answering the Objection that this will make men cast all their sin on God and be ungodly answereth that it will do so by none but the Reprobate and confesseth that so one of his Monastery did argue and turned thereupon to a wicked life but that he cannot help that for he cannot predestinate men that are reprobated All this may stand with Gods Image and true Holiness B. As to all the rest except Solomon the sin being one or two particular Acts contrary to the main bent and scope of their lives which were holy you seem 1. To deny an evident truth viz. that the habitual love of God was not extirpated by those Sins Can you think that habitually though the act was hindred Noah Lot David Peter did not then love God and Holiness better than sinful Pleasures And the Papists confess that Sin is not mortal that is an evidence of spiritual death till it conquer the habit of the love of God 2. You seem to take your offence at the Mercy of God himself because he will not disown men for such a particular sin contrary to their general will and life As if you provoked him to deal hardlier also with yourself lest he deal too easily or mercifully with others 3. But they are in these resolved that no man hath true Grace that loveth not God and Holiness above the World and sinful Pleasure And they and you are agreed in this And in the hypothesis if you can make them believe that any of these lost that predominant habitual love they would grant that they fell from saving Grace So that thus far you agree 4. And as for Solomon's case it is too hard for us all Some think that he had but common Grace till that Repentance which he published in Eccles And that so much might produce his Proverbs which say they were but spoken by him and written long after by others as some by Hezekiah's men Others think that he did but tolerate his Wives Idolatry and that he aggravated his own sensuality in hyperbolical words and so that his sin did stand with true Grace Others think that he fell into a state of damnation in which had he died he had been damned but yet neither totally from all feminal Grace nor finally and that others may do the like In a word the case is too hard for us But our comfort lieth not in being sure what condition Solomon was in either first or last And also as Means and Grace are greater under the Gospel than they were to Solomon and Life and Immortality more brought to light so more spirituality and heavenliness is now required of us than was then of them As long as Christ hath fullier described to us the title-conditions of Salvation we have better means to judge of our states than the deciding of these Difficulties about Solomon would be A. This is true but nothing to the purpose we prove by Solomon that a man may fall from Grace B.
it he could never have the thing promised for that were to have God and not to have him nor yet his necessary disposition for fruition for without holiness he is not a capable disposed recipient of Salvation The rest of his arguments run all upon this error as iâ— love and holiness were only the means and not the end and Salvation given SECT XVI Of assurance of Pardon Justification and Salvation And whether it be Faith 224. The Faith by which we are justified is not a believing that â—â—â—â— justified but a believing that we may be justified Not a believing tâ—â— Christ is ours more than other mens or that we shall be saved but â— believing in Christ that he may be ours and we may be saved by him 225. There is assurance in this Faith not assurance that we are sâ—cere or shall be saved But assurance that Gods Promises and all â—â— Words are true and that he will perform them and that Christ â—â— the Saviour of the world and that the love of God is our End â—â—â—â— Happiness and that all this is offered to us in Christ even Pardon â—â—â— Life as well as others which offer Faith accepteth truly But the Believer is oft uncertain of the sincerity of his own belief and so of â—â— Salvation 226. How much certainty we have of Divine Revelation and Scripture verity I have so fully opened in many Tractates and lastly in oâ—â— I know that the learned Conciliator Guiliel Forbes doth confidently charge them as guilty of confusion who place Faith in more faculties than one and that call it Fiducia But I doubt not but the error is his own which tendeth to confusion by not distinguishing a meer physical act from a moral or political which is made up of many physical acts And if he or Bishop Gror. Downame Camero or any that go that way had been put to tell what one physical act they will confine Christian justifying Faith to they would have â—ound themselves in confusion To say It is assent denieth not but that it must be an assent to many verities And this assent signifieth at once a belief that God is true and that this is his word and that this word is true He that saith It is a belief of the assertion for the oredibility of the Asâ—ertor can scarce prove that he nameth but one Act And I know no such assent which â—â—â—â— bit essentially contain a trusting to the word of the Assertor or Testifier called Fiducâ—a Can you believe a â—aâ—â— â—oâ—â—â—â— be true because he is credible and not trust his credibility so far as believing him importeth It is a contradiction Fâ—â—â— eredentis is nothing but a trusting to the Fides dicentis and they are Relatives as Act and Object Though I grant that â—â—â—â— is also a quietting applicatory Trust or Fiducia which is but the exercise of Faith as supposing me to see my 〈…〉 Promise which cometh after our first believing in which we see but our receptive capacity that the Promise 〈…〉 with the rest of Mankind and the thing promised is offered to me called The certainty of Christianity without Popery that I will not here repeat it further than to say that it is not a perfect apprehension which we call our certainty nor yet an uneffectual doubtful one But such â—â—â— as will carry a man on confidence of Gods Word to a holy life and â—â— the forsaking of all other hopes even life it self for the hopes which â—â— given us by Christ which yet may have several degrees in several persons But objective certainty which is the evidence of verity is mâ—â—â— full than our subjective certainty for want of our due receptivity â—â— us and is still the same in it self though not equally brought or reveaâ—â— to all 227. Even doubting of the truth of the Scripture and Christianity may stand with saving Faith and Salvation when it is not predominant nor so great as to keep us from the said forsaking all for Christ and Heaven 228. Doubting of mans own Salvation is not always from weakness of Faith directly much less is it the want of Faith it self â—oâ— sometime a man may doubt meerly as doubting of the sincerity of â—â— own Faith and not at all doubting of the truth of the Word of God But when it is the doubting whether the promises be sure which makeâ— a man doubt whether he shall be saved this doubting is the debility â—â— Faith 229. The same may be said of dispair That dispair is from the weakness or want of Faith which cometh from an unbelief of the truth of the Promise And that also is pernicious dispair which from what Cause soever is so great as to take men off the use of necessary means to attain Salvation But that dispair which cometh from overmuch self-condemning and a conceit that a mans heart is false and not that Gods Promise is false may stand with true Faith and Salvation if it be not so great as to take him off the use of necessary means 230. No man ordinarily can be assured of his Salvation or Justification without extraordinary Revelation but by being assured first of the â—ruth of Gods Promise and of his own sincerity in believing For his assurance is of the conclusion of this argument Whosoever sincerely believeth and repenteth is justified But I sincerely believe and repent â—herefore I am justified And the weakness of the apprehension of either of the premises is ever in the conclusion which always followeth partem debiliorem 231. There are therefore but two sorts of men who can believe that they are justified by a Faith properly called Divine that is which is a belief of Gods Word herein 1. Those that God revealeth it to by proâ—hetical or extraordinary Revelation if there be any such 2. Those who are more certain of their own sincere Faith than they are that Gods Word it self is true if any such there be in the world For with all others the certainty of the sincerity of their own Faith being weakest â—he conclusion followeth it 232. If any man can possibly doubt more of the truth of Gods Word â—han of the soundness of his own Faith though that mans Faith may be called Divine it is no honour to it because it hath so much doubting of Gods Word mixed with belief And it 's like his greater assurance of his belief of it is but his error or infirmity 233. Ordinarily therefore no Christians can believe fide Divina that they are justified and shall be saved that is this is no Word of God but a conclusion of which one of the premises only and that the stronger is Gods Word 234. To say that he that believeth shall be saved is equivalent to this I shall be saved is not true nor reasonable seeing I believe is not Gods Word nor so certain as Gods Word And one of the premises is not equal to both 245. When they say That it 's all one when I am sure that
become parties in such daring medlings with the Consuming Fire Notes on some passages of Mr. Peter Sterries Book of Free-will § 1. IT is long since I heard much of the name and fame of Mr. Peter Sterry long Chaplain to Robert Lord Brook and after to Oliver Cromwel when he was Protector as then called His common fame was that his Preaching was such as none or few could understand which incensed my desire to have heard him of which I still mist though I oft attempted it But now since his death while my Book is in the Press unfinished a posthumous tractate of his cometh forth of Free-will upon perusal of which I find in him the same notions for so far as he meddleth with the same subjects as in Sr. H. Vane and somewhat of what Dr. Gibbon seemeth to deliver in his Scheme but all handled with much more strength of parts and raptures of highest devotion and great candour towards all others than I expected His Preface is a most excellent Perswasive to Universal Charity Love was never more extolled than throughout his Book Doubtless his head was strong his wit admirably pregnant his searching studies hard and sublime and I think his Heart replenished with holy Love to God and great charity moderation and peaceableness toward men In so much that I heartily repent that I so far believed fame as to think somewhat hardlier or less charitably of him and his few adherents than I now hope they did deserve Hasty judging and believing fame is a cause of unspeakable hurt to the world and injury to our brethren § 2. But I find that it is no wonder that he was understood by few For 1. His sublime and philosophical notions met not with many Auditors so well studied in those things as to be capable of understanding them It is a great inconvenience to men of extraordinary discoveries and sublimity that they must speak to very few 2. And though he cloud not his matter with so many self-made names and notions as Behmen Paraâ—elsus Wigelius and some others yet those few that he hath do somewhat obscure it 3. But above all the excessive pregnancy of his wit produceth so great a superabundance of Metaphors or Allegories that about the description of Christ especially they make up almost all his style so that to any ordinary Reader his matter is not so much cloathed in Metaphors as drowned buried or lost And though I confess my wit being to his but as a barren Desart to a florid Meadow may be apt to undervalue that which it attaineth not yet I do approve of my present judgement in thinking that seeing all metaphorical terms are ambiguous he that excessively useth them befriendeth not the Truth and the hearers intellect but while he is too much a Rhetorician he is too little a good Logician aâ—d as he is hardly understood by others I should fear lest he feduce his own understanding and can scarce have clear mental conceptions of that matter which he utters by a torrent of ambiguous Metaphors if he think as he speaketh and his words be the direct expressions of his mind I had rather be instructed in the words of the most barbarous Schoolman adapted to the matter than to be put to save my self from the temptation of equivocations in every sentence which I hear and to search after that Truth which is known only naked under so florid a disguise and paint § 3. But I cannot deny that though my temptations before were very great to doubt whether the Doctrine of Universally-necessary Predetermination as delivered by Bradwardine the Dominicans Dr. Twisse Rutherford and Hobbes were indeed to be rejected the Reading of Mr. Sterry increased my temptation not by any new strength of argument which he hath brought but by the power of his pious florid Oratory by which while he entitleth God to the necessitating causation of all sin and misery he seemeth to put so honourable and lovely a cloathing on them from their relative order to God to the Universe and to their End as that I felt my hard thoughts of both to abate and I was tempted to think of them as part of the amiable consequents of the Divine Love and of the Harmâ—nious order caused by the manifold wisdom of God § 4. And by this I see of how great importance it is in the world not only what Doctrine is taught and with what proof but who speaketh it and in what manner For as I found the same things reverenced in Dr. Twisse and Rutherford which were not so in Alvarez or Jansenius or Thom. White so I found the same Doctrine of Predetermining Necessitation almost commonly brought into greater dislike by Hobbes and Benedictus Spinosa's owning it and applying it to it s too obvious uses than all In Tract Polit. Theol. argumentations had ever before brought it And I see it as likely to recover its honour by the pious and florid dress put upon it by Mr. Sterry as if some new demonstrations for it were found out § 5. If I should recite Mr. Sterries mind in his own Metaphors the Reader may not understand it If I Epitomize him and change his words some may say that I misunderstand and wrong him But I will not do it willingly and if I do it necessarily his stile is my excuse He that would be seen must come into the light § 6. The summ of that which I am now concerned in in Mr. Sterry's Treatise is That the Freedom of all things is to act according to their natures and so is that of the will of man and that in God and man Necessity and Liberty concurr and that whatever we do or will we do or will it necessarily as being moved to it by the first causâ— and a chained connexion of necessitating causes by which all things in the world are carryed on That a will not determined by God but left to a self-determination without Gods predetermining causality is not to be asserted as contrary to Gods Goodness Wisdom power c. That sin is a privation formally and all that is positive in it is directly and not by accident of Gods positive causation else with the Manichees we must hold two first causes And that the formal privation is from the wiâ—lidrawing of necessary Divine causation of the contrary and God is the Negative necessitating cause of it Even as he causeth Light by the shining of the Sun and causeth darkness by its setting or not â—hining or as he causeth substances and shadows Life and death And that all sin thus as necessarily followeth Gods not giving the contrary or his leaving the defectible Creature to itself as the darkness folâ—oweth the Lights removal And this was the entrance of sin into the world the Woman being Necessarily deceived necessarily sinned and all good and evil is thus as to necessity equally to be resolved into Gods causing and not causing Will what he will cause cannot but be and what
tempted to doubt of the certainty of this or that Book words or reading it followeth not that he must therefore doubt of the Christian Faith 11. A thousand Texts of Scripture may be not known and understood by one that is Justified but all the Baptismal Articles and Covenant must be understood competently by all that will be saved 12. Those Church-Tyrants Dogmatists or superstitious ones who deny the sufficiency of this Test and Symbol made by Christ and his Spirit to its proper use to be the Symbol of such as in Love and Communion we are to take for Christians do subvert the summ of Christs Gospel and Law and do worse than they that add to or alter the lesser parts of the Word of God 13. Therefore our further Additional Confessions must be only to other subordinate ends As 1. To satisfie other Churches that doubt of our right understanding the faith 2. To be an enumeration of Verities which Preachers shall not have leave to preach against though they subscribe them not 14. Object Hereticks may profess the Baptismal Creed Answ 1. And Hereticks may profess any words that you can impose on them taking them in their own sense All the Councils are not large enough to keep out subscribing Hereticks We must not make new Symbols Rules and Laws as oft as Knaves will falsly profess or break the old ones there being none that may not be falsly professed and violated 2. Many subscribe to the whole Scriptures that yet are Hereticks 3. Church Governours are for this to cast out those or punish them who preach teach and live contrary to the certain and sufficient Rule which they profess Judicatures are not to make new Laws but to punish men for breaking Laws A heart-Heretick-only is no Heretick in foro Ecclesiae He that teacheth Heresie must be proved so to do and judged upon proof which may be done without new additional Symbols Rules or Laws of faith So that all this contradicts not the sufficiency of the Baptismal Creed as the Symbol of Christian Love Communion and Concord I thought meet to add this more fully to what I said in the Epistle to convince men of the true terms of Union and of the heinous sin of all the sorts of Adding and Corrupting overdoers that divide us THE PREFACE AGAINST CLERGIE MENS Contentions AND Church-distracting Controversies THAT the Churches of Christ are dolefully tempted and distracted by Divisions no man will deny that knoweth them That the Clergie is not only greatly culpable herein but the chief cause cannot be hid But which part of the Clergie it is and what be their dividing Errors and Crimes and how they should be cured is indeed easie for the truly faithful and impartial Spectators to perceive but exceeding hard as experience tells us to make the Guilty throughly know and harder to do much effectually for the cure For the error and sin which is the true cause is its own defence and repelleth and frustrateth the Remedies And so each party layeth it from themselves on others and hate all that accuse them while they are the sharpest and perhaps most unjust accusers of the rest I shall here freely tell the Reader the History of my own Conceptions of these matters and then my present thoughts of the Causes of all these Calamities and the Cure I. I was born and bred of Parents piously affected but of no such knowledge or acquaintance as might engage them in any Controversies or disaffect them to the present Government of the Church or cause them to scruple Conformity to its Doctrine Worship or Discipline In this way I was bred my self but taught by my Parents and God himself to make conscience of sin and to fear God and to discern between the Godly and the notoriously wicked For which my Parents and I were commonly derided as Puritans the Spirit of the Vulgar being commonly then fired with hatred and scorn of serious godliness and using that name as their instrument of reproach which was first forged against the Nonconformists only And the Clergie where I lived being mostly only Readers of the Liturgie and some others that rather countenanced than reproved this course I soon confined my Reverence to a very few among them that were Learned and Godly but Conformists and for going out of my Parish to hear them my reproach increased About eighteen or nineteen years of age I fell acquainted with some persons half Conformists and half Non-conformists who for fear of severities against private Meetings met with great secresie only to repeat the publick Sermons and Pray and by Pious Conference edifie each other Their Spirits and Practice was so savoury to me that it kindled in me a distaste of the Prelates as Persecutors who troubled and ruined such persons while ignorant Drunkards and Worldlings were tolerated in so many Churches yea and countenanced for crying down such persons and crying up Bishops Liturgie and Conformity Before I was aware my affections began to solicite my understanding to judge of the Things and Causes by the Persons where the difference was very great But yet my first Teachers kept my judgement for Conformity as Lawful though not Desirable had we Liberty till I was ordained But soon after a new acquaintance provoked me to a deeper study of the whole Controversie than I had undertaken before which left me perswaded that the use of Liturgie and Ceremonies was lawful in that case of necessity except the Baptismal use of the Cross and the subscription to all things c. But in 1640. the Oath called Et Caetera being offered the Ministry forced me to a yet more searching Study of the case of our Diocesane Prelacie which else I had never been like to have gainsaid At a meeting of Ministers to debate the case it fell to Mr. Christopher Cartwrights lot and mine to be the Disputers and the issue of all that and my studies was that I setled in the approbation of the Episcopacy asserted by Ignatius yea and Cyprian but such a dissent from the English frame as I have given account of in my Disputations of Church Government My genius was inquisitive and earnestly desirous to know the truth my helps for Piety were greater than my helps for Learning of which I had not much besides Books sickness helpt my seriousness keeping me still in expectation of death All my reverenced acquaintance save one cryed down Arminianism as the Pelagian Heresie and the Enemy of Grace I quickly plunged my self into the study of Dr. Twisse and Amesius and Camero and Pemble and others on that subject By which my mind was setled in prejudice against Arminianism without a clear understanding of the case whereupon I felt presently in my mind a judgement of those that were for Arminianism as bad or dangerous adversaries to the Church and specially of the then ruling Bishops which yet I think I had not-entertained had I not taken them withal for the great Persecutors of Godly able
more of the world to Quietness and Concord had not Satan the great enemy of Love and Peace seduced them to that Instrumental Means and way which will never consist with Concord It is that which Christ and his Apostles have done very much to prevent but the Devil even with all the sorts fore-mentioned hath much prevailed against their precepts The Grand case of the Christian World is WHAT IS THE TRUE CENTER and RULE OF CONCORD Could they find out this it would hold men of various tempers to it I. Christ first laid down the Description and Measure of Christianity in the Baptismal Covenant and ordained that all should be accounted Christians in foro Ecclesiae who by Baptism were solemnly devoted to him in a professed Belief and Covenant Dedication and Vow to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost These he would have called Christians or his Disciples and this is their Christening and so ever called in the Church 2. And next he made it his new that is Last and Great Command that All his Disciples should Love each other and live in eminent Unity and Peace which he accordingly wrought them to by the first pouring out of his Spirit Act. 2. 3. 4. II. The Apostles founding the Church in this Baptismal Vow or Covenant and mutual Love exhorted accordingly all the Baptized to Love each other and to Receive even the weak in faith but not to doubtful disputations Rom. 14. 15. Oft vehemently charging them to be of one mind and live in Love and peace and to beware of them as not serving Christ but their own bellies who were for Divisions 1 Cor. 1. 10 11. Rom. 16. 17. And though they came with pretences of ORDER WISDOM or PIETY such Good words and fair speeches were noted to be engines to deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 17. And whereas the objection seemed unanswerable How can they so agree who are of several judgements about Good and Evil Paul often warneth them to hold fast the form of sound words and summeth up as 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3 4. the Articles of their faith and chargeth them that so far as they had attained they should walk by the same rule and mind the same things and if in any thing they were otherwise minded stay till God revealed the matter to them Phil. 3. He oft chargeth them to be of one mind and judgement thus far and to live in Love and Peace and to do nothing by strife and vain glory but in honour to preferr others to themselves and not to strive about words that profit not nor about unnecessary Questions seeing such disputings and strivings gender to ungodliness and fret like a Canker and pervert the hearers minds Yea he directeth the Pastors to edifie souls rather by a Teaching than a disputing way and to convince gainsayers by meek instructing opposers to see if thus God will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth for the Minister or servant of the Lord must not strive Love is their work to be effected in others and Love must be their Principle and Love must be their mode and means even Loving others as themselves Oft are they called by Christ and his Apostles from masterly opinions aspirings and endeavours and to be as little Children and the servants of all and as stewards of Gods mysteries and helpers not Lords of the Churches faith and not to domineer over the flock of Christ but to oversee them not by constraint but voluntarily And what cannot be done by Light and Love is not to be done by them at all The Magistrate and not they must use the Sword but not to make men believers for he cannot And though Vossius and others have rendred Reasons enough to perswade us that the story of the twelve Apostles making each one an Article of the Creed is not credible nor that they shaped it in every word to the present form yet it is to me a certainty that the Apostles made and used the Creed for sense and substance as the very summary and test of Christianity long before any Book of the New Testament was written about twelve years and almost sixty six before the whole For 1. It is certain that all Christians were Baptized 2. It is certain that they then professed to Believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and to Covenant accordingly renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil 3. It is certain that the Apostles and Pastors laboured to make men understand what they did and would not delude them by taking the bare saying of these three words 4. And it is certain that the Pastors altered not the Christian faith but taught the same for substance to all that were baptized 5. And it is certain that should men have taken much liberty to use new words or forms at Baptism in opening the faith it might easily have corrupted the faith and introduced a new doctrine 6. And it is certain by Church History that though some variety of little words was used yet this same Creed for substance except the two or three clauses mentioned by Usher and Vossius was commonly used at Baptism from the dayes of the Apostles 7. And we find yet that this Creed is nothing else but the explication of the three Baptismal Articles of which see Sandford and Parker two Learned Non-conformists in their very Learned Treat de Descensu Christi at large 8. And it is certain that if the Apostles did take this course so many years before they wrote any of the New Testament they did this as well as that by the Holy Ghost and so that the Holy Ghost seconding Christs own Baptismal Law or Instituted test did make the Creed to be the summary of the Christian Belief twelve years before we had any Book of the New Testament and about sixty six as is said before we had them all And then it will appear what is Gods appointed test of Christianity Communion and special Love All which considered though I think it is the truth which I long ago wrote against a Treatise of a Learned man Mr. Ashwell in the Append. to the second Edition of my Reformed Pastor yet I publish my Repentance that ever I wrote it as fearing lest it occasioned the turning of mens minds from this great truth which he and I agreed in and which I find few consider as it deserveth But the Gnosticks began the corrupting game and by pretences of higher knowledge spoiled men by vain Philosophy which engaged the Apostles to cry them down and to warn all Christians to take heed of being so spoiled and to vilifie arbitrary Philosophical notions tricks and vain janglings as likely to draw them from the simplicity of Christianity And the certain truth is that he knoweth neither the Interest nor the Ignorance and weakness of man nor the nature of Knowledge who doth not know that the frailty and employments of mankind are such as that there never
ab objecto denominata 3. And his efficient Volition and Power is terminated on objects in time without mutation in God 4. And N. B. that God doth suspend his own Possible Volitions in many cases As he doth Not will to make more Worlds more Men more Suns more Laws c. than de facto he will make 5. And it is no more defectiveness in God to suspend a Volition for a time than thus to do it for ever 6. And it is no more Dependence on the Creature to Terminate his Volition only on a qualified subject performing the Condition than to terminate his Efficient Power and will on such or such a qualified subject As e. g. He terminateth his Omnipotent Concurse for Generation only on the materia seminalis recte disposita He concurreth to burn by fire c. And if his Acts effectively Transient may be terminated only and temporarily on disposed objects If he did so in acts Objectively Transient and did freely not-will the damnation of man till he had actually sinned but suspended his will freely till then and then de novo terminated it on the said qualified object I see no shew of Dependence or Mutability For I oft cleared it before that the termination of Gods Knowledge Will or Power on any particular Object is in him no addition to its estence And doing it de novo is no change in him but in the Creature only no more than it would be a change in the Sun or its active Emanations if a thousand new creatures newly receive its Influx and are moved by it variously according to their several Conditions Yet I have before given reasons why incipere jam praedestinare is more incongruous language 358. I put in this only to deprecate the blind uncharitable censures of dissenters in this point who think that Gods Volitions are New and Conditional and suspended quoad actum hunc ad hoc objectum and cry out It is blasphemy and maketh God mutable and dependent I am against their opinion as well as you as to Conditional Acts But false charges prove you not to have more truth but less love and sobriety than others 359. XI The next distinction of Gods Will is into Effectual and Uneffectual And here he that would see a great deal said on the question Whether God have any uneffectual Will and whether mans will can frustrate it may see too much in a multitude of Schoolmen on 1 Sent. q. 45. 46. Some answer as D'Orbellis c. that the Voluntas Beneplaciti is Aq. a. 1. Scot. q. un Durand q. 1. Bonav art 1. Greg. Arim. q. un ar 3. Pennot l. 4. c. 22. Alvar. de Aux disp 32. Ruiz de Volunt disp 18. Gran. de Vol. Dei Tract 4. disp 3. Suar. l. 4. de Pradest c. 8. Gr. Val. disp 1. q. 19. p. 6. Cajct Nazar Ban. Zum Navar. Gonzal Molin Vasqu c. in 1. p. q. 19. ar 6. Ripa Arrub. Fasol ibid. Nic. D'Orbel 1. d. 46. and many other Scotists c. ever effectual but not the Vol. signi which yet seeing he well explaineth to be only the making of Duty he might well have said is still effectual to its proper primary effect Greg. Arimin and many others distinguish of the will of Complacency and Displicency and that Prosecutionis fugae and say the latter is effectual and not the former which others say of the Absolute Will as distinct from the Conditional The plain truth I have oft opened before Gods Will is the first Efficient the chief Dirigent and the Final Cause in which the three Principles Power Wisdom and Goodness are eminet 1. His efficient will is ever effectual and never frustrate Whatsoever pleased the Lord to do that he did in Heaven and in Earth in the Sea and in the depths Psal 135. 6. And who hath resisted this his will Rom. 9. 19. 2. His Directing will is ever effectual as to the making of the Law or Rule and of Due or Right thereby For so far it is efficient of that effect But it is too oft violated by our sin 3. His final will or Complacency is Gods being pleased with the Being or Action or relation of the Creature and supposing it is not efficient and therefore not effectual And I know no need of more upon this question 360. XII The last now to be named is The Antecedent and Consequent will This also is handled by many Schoolmen and much used by the Jesuits and Arminians To pass by others Pennottus handleth it propugn l. 4. c. 21. having first shewed c. 20. p. 225. that Chrysostom and Damascene first used it His explicatory Propositions are 1. Vol. Antec Chrys in Eph. Hom. 1. Damasâ— fid Orthod l. 2. c. 29. cont Manich. ad â—â—nem Cons non est in Deo respectu omnium Volitorum sed solum respectu â—orum quae aliquo modo pendent ex lib. arbitrio creaturae 2. Voluntas antecedens est illa qua Deus vult hominis salutem quantum in ipso est qua illum ad salutem ordinat media ad salutem necessaria praeparat quibus nisi per ipsum hominem steterit salutem assequatur 3. Non semper Voluntas antecedens Consequens circa objecta contraria versantur sed potest idem objectum esse Volitum à Deo Voluntate tum antecedente tum consequente 4. Voluntas antecedens in Deo est Voluntas beneplaciti non solum voluntas signi 5. Voluntas antecedens est formaliter Alliaco Camerac 1. q. 14. D. E. tells you the sense of Thom. Scotus Ockam Gregor of this distinction and that of Scotus and Ockam is to the same purpose with what I here say of it including that antecedent Grace which they call sufficient which God giveth to perswade men to consent The Schoolmen are disagreed of the sense of this distinction and not understanding it contend about it See Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 19. §. 2 3 4 5. p. 195 196 c. proprie in Deo existens non solum per metaphoram ad eum modum quo Voluntas signi 361. I tell you their sense that I may the better open the plain truth to you which is as followeth 1. This distinction of Vol. antec cons is not applyed to God as he is our Creator or End nor as he is meer Proprietor or Benefactor but only as he is Rector or Moral Ruler of man 2. As Government hath an Antecedent and Consequent part viz. Legislation and Judgement with Execution so Gods Antecedent will is nothing but his Legal will or his Will as Rector signified by his Laws And his Consequent will is his Judicial will or expressed in Judgement One Antecedent to Mans part obedience or disobedience and the other Consequent to it 3. It is most certain that God willeth Antecedently all that is in his Law that is that all that believe and repent shall be saved And that
willing â—is at all And we have hitherto thought that Gods holy Wisdom and will is the Cause of his holy Law and much more against sin than mans is And that God willeth not and causeth not the sin of man And is it now come to â—his that sin is contrary indeed to our right reason but not to Gods because â—e is no subject You may next say that Holiness is meet for man but not â—or God 618. Pag. 197. Again he is at it Bonum esse ut sint mala Quia bonum est ut Deus finem sibi praefixum assequatur At hoc sine interventâ— mali peccati nullo modo potest Repl. 1. It is not per peccatum ut medium though not sine peccatâ— 2. Interventus therefore implyeth a falshood For in esse cognito sin is antecedent or presupposed to the way of glorifying Justice and Mercy upon sinners sinners are the object And consequently you must take it as before proved for antecedent to the Volition or simultaneous 619. He urgeth Oportet haereses esse ut qui probati sunt manifesti fiant Answ That neither meaneth that men ought to be Hereticks nor yet that God loveth willeth or approveth that there be heresies But only 1. God decreeth to manifest the difference between the sound Christians and the rest 2. And he foreseeth that there will be heresies 3. Therefore he decreeth to try them by the occasion of those heresies which he foreseeth and hateth The same is the case of all tryal by persecutions And God willeth not the sin of active perâ—ecution but only the effect or passive part So that the oportet by your own confession of it signifieth no more than a Logical necessitas consequentiae which â—ore-knowledge without Volition will inferr 620. He addeth Obj. It sufficeth that God permit sin and not will it Resp But either the existency of sin infallibly followeth the Permission of it or not If not Gods Intention may be frustrate If yea What matter is it whether God will that sin shall be he permitting or sâ— permit it as that infallibly it will be so we obtain either of these it 's all one to our cause of predestination Repl. 1. If it be all one take up with that agreement and make â—â— further difference with them that grant you enough 2. In case of veâ—â—ment Inclination to a sin it would follow upon Gods total permission but God never totally permitteth sin But in other cases it will not follow that is It is not a good consequence that This or that sin will be done because God doth no more to hinder it than that which sometime hindereth it not And yet Gods Intention is not frustrate For â—â— will infallibly come to pass from its proper cause which God foreknoweth And the consequence is good from his fore-knowledge And is not that all one as to the certainty of Gods intentions 3. You phrase it as if sin followed Gods permission as a deficient cause or as that which cannot be otherwise unless God do more to hinder it and so weâ—â— necessary thence necessitate consequentis or as others call it necessitate â—â—tecedente which is false and oft denyed by your self 4. The very truth is Permission is a word of so great ambiguity and laxity as relating to so many sorts of Impedition that it is but delusory withâ—â— much distinguishing to say sin will or will not follow it If you restraâ— it to a non efficaciter impedire as is usual it taketh not away the ambâ—guity much For still the question is What must make it effectual unless you call any impedition effectual meerly ab eventu whatsoever it be â—â— it self 621. He saith that the Universe would not be perfect if there werâ— perfect holiness and no sin and so no pardon or punishment But â—â— giveth us no proof but confident assertion at all I need not say thâ— It would be more perfect if there were no sin It sufficeth me to say thaâ— It would be as perfect And so that it is not Necessary to the World perfection that there be sin or Hell God could have freely willed the contrary And Gods Goodness could have been as fully manifested if iâ— had so pleased him and his Holiness too without sin or Hell It 's unpleasing to me that this good man pleadeth so hard against a necessity of Christs satisfaction for sin in another digression and yet pleadeth as hard for a necessity of sin As if it were more necessary to Gods Glory than Christ 622. It is very observable in all this controversie that he asserteth pag. 198. That it 's past all controversie that neither God nor the most sinful creature do will any thing but as Good And that no man can be instigated to malice or evil but only to the Act which is evil because he that is instigated is instigated to do something But to the evil of an act no efficiency is necessary but deficience only How far this is true or false I have opened before I here only note that he confesseth that he that causeth the Act of sin which he saith God doth more than man causeth all that is causable 623. Yet p. 199. he saith Sin is of man only as the cause when he professeth that man doth nothing but what God doth to cause it yea as the first total cause and that as to Deficiency man can do no more than he doth without predetermination which if God withhold man can no more help it than make a World So that all the mysterie of his language is this that because man is under a Law and God is not therefore man doing the same act as moved by God must be called the only cause of sin because it is no sin in God But if we spake as plain men ought to do should it not rather be thus exprest by you God is the chief cause of sin in man but not in himself 624. Pag. 200 201. he hath the same over and over again that Non abhorret à recta ratione Dei velle peccatum fieri ab hominibus Quod ex se habet quod conducibile est ad â—onum tanquam Materia scilicet non tantum idonea sed necessaria exercendae divinae justitiae misericordiae and that this manifestation conjunct with sin is Deo multò appetibilius than that Good which sin depriveth us of that is Holiness Because this Holiness is only the Creatures Good and the other is the Creators Good Answ But as the assertion is all false so the reason is vain For if he distinguish the Creator and Creature as subjects he is quite mistaken For both is the Creatures good and neither the Creators For to manifest Justice and Mercy is not Gods Essence as in it self but his Work of Punishment and Mercy And the glory of this is but the resplendent excellency of it as it is the appearance or Image of God And all this is in the Creatures
delusion to pretend that you are accused for making God a sinner We charge no such thing on you But only for making him the chief insuperable cause of all the sins of men and Devils 655. Pag. 400. he plainly professeth that the Will as a physical agent is the cause of the act as physical and as under a Law and that act is against the Law so he is the cause of the Malitia actûs and culpablo So that God causing by his own confession both Act and Law there is no modest subtersuge left for his not openly professing that he asserteth God to be the cause of all sin the principal cause both as to matter and form 656. The rest of that Disputation striketh me with such horror in the reading that I confess I have not the patience to proceed any further â—n it nor shall further thus exercise my Readers patience The case is plain Either Hobbs or Free-will permitted must carry the cause in the case of sin There is no middle way He that will read Ruiz and Rutherfords answer impartially needeth no more of mine for the confutation of his vain responses 657. But cap. 29. p. 484. he falleth also on our most Learned and Judicious Dr. Field because in his lib. 3. c. 3. of the Church he contradicteth his opinion and it must move just indignation in the Reader that he addeth idque probare conatur contra reformatas Ecclesias Unworthy injury to the Reformed Churches more than to the worthy Dr. Field How falsly are they interessed in your unhappy cause See the Synod of Dort where there is not a word for it Is one Twiss with his Rutherford or Maccovius or a few such the Reformed Churches Let the Reader peruse the Articles of the Churches of England Scotland France and all the rest and see where he can find your Doctrine of Predetermination unto sin Even Jansenius himself is against it among the Papists when his Dominican Predecessors are the Fathers of it Nothing more common with English Divines than as you did before your self to explicate Gods causing the acts of sinners by the similitude of the Riders spurring a halting Horse or the Suns making a Dunghill stink which only speak the cause which we call universal and is the very thing which we assert And it is most unsavourily done to get into the Chair and magisterially say Fieldus vir alioqui doctus in his controversiis minime se versatâ—â— esse prodit Zumelem * * * Zumel in Disp 1. Thom. de Voluntat hom lib. arb pag. 219 220. Quod Dâ—â—s non sit causa peccati though he speak cautesously and as in other mens names yet concludeth plainly that God is but the Causa Universalis of sin and that man is the specifying determining cause even que universalem determinat ad speciem concursus actus ipsius sive solum determinet eam formaliter ad speciem c. Yet this is a high Thomist and defender of absolute grace non satis intelligit quippe non satis gâ—â—rus controversiarum Arminianarum scripsit dum aulam Arminiâ—â— plus aequo faventem haberent †††Thus magisterially did good Dr. Twisse censure Junius and Vossius his Son-in-law as men unskilled in Scholastick Divinity who were both most excellent men and hit upon the reconciling truth above most in their age Junius his Discourse of predetermination is one of the first that ever I found that excellency in and with his Irenicon is most worthy of great esteem But how easie is it for a man to overvalue himself and contemn another I highly value the piety in Mr. â—â—therfords Letters I am no fit arbiter ingeniorum But when I hear other men say that one Field was more Judicious than many Rutherfords I câ—â—fess by reading their several writings I find no temptation to deny it And why should Field and consequently Davenant Usher Carlton Mâ—ton Hall the Synod of Dort and I think the far greatest part of Protestants I verily think fifty if not an hundred for one who are against you be made odious by the supposition of being not far enough from Arminians rather than Maceovius Twisse and Rutherford take it for a disgrace to hold the same opinions against Gods Holiness which the Dâ—â—nican Fryars hold who have been the bloody Masters of the Inquisition and murdered so many thousand Protestants or Waldenses and Alligenses And that which he saith of Fields writing when the Court favoured Arminianism is notoriously false and such insinuations unworthy of so good a man as the speaker Fields Works were printed singly before they were printed together in Folio And his fifth Book was printed Aâ—no 1610. and the words cited are in the third printed before And the Synod of Dort was called An. 1618. and sate 1619. also And King James was a zealous suppressor of Arminianism and sent five or six Divines thither to that end And long after in King Charles his dayes Pet. Heylin in the life of Archbishop Laud will tell you that the Arminiâ—â— Bishops then were but five Neale Laud Buckeridge Corbet and Howsâ—â— to whom Learned Montague was after added So that they durst not trust their Cause with a Convocation Field then shall be a most Judicion worthy Divine when partiality hath said its worst 658. And what is his error Why he saith that it 's a contradiction to say that God causeth the Act in all its state which is the Materialâ— peccati and causeth not the formale which is inseparable A foul error indeed to tell you that he that causeth the subjectum fundamentâ—â— rationem fundandi terminum causeth the relation and that he that maketh an European white and an African black causeth the dissimilitâ—de and so doth he that maketh the straight Rule and the crooked line thâ— forbidding Law and the forbidden act 659. Were it not that the necessity requireth such work because such Books are in mens hands I should think I had injured the Reader by thâ—â— much For my work is not to confute Books but to assert sure reconciling truths Otherwise the confutation of the rest of that Book for Gods willing and causing all forbidden acts in their full state and the existence of sin is most easily answered SECT XX. The old Reconciling Doctrine of Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius And first Prosper ad Gallorum Qu. 660. IT is a strange thing to me that when Pelagius Julian Faustus c. thought Augustine a Novelist and as Usher asserteth would have fastned the title of Predestination-Hereticks on his followers and almost all confess that Augustine was if not the first yet the most notable publick Vindicator of absolute Predestination and Grace yet the Judgement of Austin with his Disciples Prosper and Fulgentius doth not serve turn to quiet if not to end these controversies among those who profess to be their followers when as they have so copiously and plainly written upon the
justifie us but condemn us nor Moses's neither nor any but the Law of Grace Your foundation is unsound 2. The imputing of Christ's Suffering is not Gods Language but your own and may be well or ill understood 3. If the Law have nothing against us it hath no Sin of Omission against us Therefore not our omission of Love and Obedience And then we are reputed such as had perfect Love and Obedience 4. But indeed it is not so By the deeds of the Law no Flesh can be justified The Law still hath this against us that we have sinned which he that denieth is called a Lyar 1 Joh. 1. The Reatus Culpae in se or the Reality of this that we have sinned is impossible to be done away But the Reatus poenae culpae ut ad poenam is done away But not by the Law but by the Redeemer and new Covenant The Law doth not say We are sinless or deservers of life But the Gospel saith We are pardoned and adopted and sanctified through Christ's perfect meritorious Righteousness § 31. M. S. Else Sin and Punishment should be the cause of life for Sin is the cause of Suffering and that of Pardon An. This is the grossest passage in this Book A palpable fallacy You may as well say that Lazarus's dying and being buried were the causes of his reviving because antecedent evils from which he was revived Or that the Jews killing Christ were the causes of his Resurrection Or that Peter's cutting off Malchus Ear was the cause that Christ cured him Or that Peter's denying Christ was the cause that Christ pardoned him Sin deserveth Punishment but Punishment as such deserveth not Pardon or Life They in Hell deserve not Heaven If God had threatened but a temporal Punishment As a years sickness c. this had not deserved the following impunity or peace but only interrupted peace the Sin deserving this and no more A Malefactor's scourging deserveth not his after peace And Christ's Suffering merited not our Pardon as reputed our suffering nor meerly as suffering For had we suffered we had not been pardoned But the voluntary Suffering of so glorious and innocent a Person to demonstrate Justice deserved our impunity and more because God would have it so and it was a means most apt for this excellent end to save lost man and to vindicate and glorifie the Wisdom Truth and Justice of the Universal King and to demonstrate the Goodness and Love of our great Benefactor But sufferings as such do merâ—â— nothing even Christs own Sufferings merit but as they are the fruits of Obedience and voluntary consent on the foresaid accounts much less do the sufferings of the Sinner merit For he is supposed involuntary in them and it is God the Judge that is the Author of them as such § 32. M. S. Else the Law should be laid by and life given without it An. The root of all your Error is That God giveth us life by the Law of Innocency or Works and that we are justified by that Lawâ— which is not true God laid none of it by but man by sin made the promissory part which gave life on condition of perfect Obedience and Innocency to be impossible or null It ceased cessante capacitate subditorum by mans mutation and not by Gods But the preceptive part remaineth still as far as it reacheth materially the state of Sinners But man having made it impossible to be justified by the deeds of the Law God made us a new Law or Covenant according to which he judgeth Sinners and by which he first giveth Righteousness and then according to it sentenceth men as Righteous § 33. M. S. Justification of the Posterity of Adam should have been the same for substance as of Believers by Christ Adam's one Act should have confirmed all his Posterity in him as a publick Person The Covenant of Works and of Grace agree in justifying by imputed Righteousness but out of a Head by Generation the other by a divine Person An. This is presumptuous adding to Gods Word in the very substance of the Covenants yea and a flat contradiction of it 1. What Scripture telleth us That all Adam's Posterity should have been confirmed in immutable Holiness if he had obeyed 2. What Scripture saith That one Act should have done this 3. What Scripture saith That his Righteousness should have been imputed to all his Posterity and they all accounted to have fulfilled the Law in him The Scripture tells us nothing of Gods purpose to make so suddain a change of his Law as if he made it but for one man yea for oâ—â— Act and then would make another to Rule the World by ever after The Law said in sense Obey perfectly and live Sin and die Now if the Condition had been performed by one Act or one man for all the World that ever should come of him to the last and they all be born in the fixed possession of the Reward then the Law which giveth that Reward still but conditionally hath no more place As in Hell God doth not say to the damned Obey and live so neither doth he say to them in immutable Glory I give you immutable Glory if you will obey The means cease so far as the end is either attained or desperately lost He that saith Run well and you shall have the prize Fight well and you shall be crowned Overcome and I will give you a Kingdom will not say the same to them when after running fighting overcoming they have received the Prize the Crown the Kingdom though possibly they may have the continuance on condition still if that continuance was not also promised on the first condition alone So that you feign Gods Law to be incredibly mutable if God said by it to Adam Obey in one Act oâ— obey thy self and thou and all thy Posterity for that shall have the Reward For then he can never be supposed to say the same again to Adam or to any man And yet you think you stand so much for the â—mmutability of that Law as that we must all be justified by it to the â—nd Nay it seemeth that after one Act of Obedience all the World should have been under no Covenant any more or no promissory conditional Law but only fixed by necessitating Light and Love as those in Glory â—re For when this Condition was fully performed this Law or Covenant as conditional must needs cease And you imagine not I suppose at least mention not any other conditional Covenant that should â—ucceed it And necessitation is not a Moral Law suited to such as you call cause consilio in this life You would make all the World after one â—ct to be if not lawless yet Comprehensors and not Viators Professors of life eternal and not seekers in a life of trial But I find not but that all Adam's Posterity should have been born and â—ived under the same Law that he was made under And all of them â—hould
optimum omnium qui uâ—quam extiterunt Estque hoc ipsâ—us peculiaâ—e eâ—coâ—â—â— quod ita prâ—dicetur citra exceptionem â—llam praedicatur Mer. Causabon Praef. in Vers Angl. ut citat per Gataker what is said But the question whether any or how many are actuaâ—â—y saved doth depend on the resolution of the question whether any of them are truly sanctified that is do truly love God and Holiness abâ—â—â— the Pleasures Profits and Honours of this world For nothing is moâ—â— certain in Gods Word than that all that do so shall be saved For a â—â—â— to live in Hell with the predominant love of God is as great a contradiction as for a man to be sick in health and both in the greater degree God cannot damn or forsake a Soul that loveth him and is holy in sensu composito 88. And whether any or how many without the Christian Church do truly love God is a question which dependeth as to probability upon the foresaid grounds but as to the certainty of the fact upon that heart-knowledge of other men which belongeth to God only 1. How can I that live in an obscure corner of England know whether any love God in Siam China Japon or Persia or at the Antipodes 2. If I were with them all and acquainted with every person in the world I could have but a probability of the affirmative of any one because I am not acquainted with the heart But when the Scripture assureth us that it is the Law of Grace and not only that of Innocency which all the world is governed by and shall be judged by and so that their Sanctification and Salvation is possible there is so great a probability that this Covenant and the mercies of it are not in vain to all of them that are under it alone and that the thing that is possible to so many millions doth come to pass with some that an impartial considerer of Gods Nature and Government may easily see what to think most probable 89. Those therefore that teach the Church that it is a certain truth that no one in the world Infant or Aged is saved from Hell fire but Christians only and that this is not only certain to such great understandings as their own but must be so to all true Christians do but discover that they over-value their own understandings and that siding hath contracted their thoughts and charity into a sinful narrowness and that the Opinions of men counted Orthodox prevaileth more with them than the evidence of truth and I think that they are to be numbred with those that by over-doing do dangerously undermine the Christian Faith 90. The Texts urged by them for this pretended certainty are all abused some of these ways 1. Either some one difficult Text is expounded contrary to the current of the whole Scripture 2. Or the words that are spoken only of privative Unbelievers who hear the Gospel are expounded of negative not-Believers who never heard it nor could do 3. Or that which is said against Unbelievers in general is exâ—pounded as against the non-Believers of the Articles of the Christian Faith which are superadded since Christ's Incarnation in special As if all the Apostles before they believed Christ's Sacrifice Resurrection Ascension c. were Infidels in a state of damnation 4. Or else they suppose without proof that the Spirit and Grace of Christ can extend it self to none that know him not as incarnate crucified risen glorified c. and so that the Apostles had no Grace till the Resurrection Some such fallacy is in all these particular textual arguments easily discernable 91. Were it not evident in Scripture that the world is under the Law of Grace as the norma officii judicii as it is yet could no man truly say that he is certain that no one of them should be saved For if they were all under the Law of Innocency yet there is this great difference between it and the Law of Grace that whereas the sentence of the latter is peremptory excluding all hope of Dispensation and Pardon to the final Rejecters of its Grace for ever yet the former was a Law whose penalty was remissible and it did not pass a peremptory sentence of dispair Though it gave no hope of Pardon yet it took not away the hopes of it that is It had a threatening-dispensable as Dr. Twisse and many other say Without a Saviour had God so pleased And as others say Through the virtue of Christ's Sacrifice even to them that know him not For the commination of that Law which threatened not the death of a Surety but of the Sinner was actually dispensed with in our Justification And what God can do they ought not to say that they are certain that he never will do it unless he had first said so himself 92. If in all Humane Judgments Nature dictateth that in doubtful cases the Judge should rather propend to the better interpretation and favourable Judgment why should it not be so in our judgment of God and man The Nature of God is infinitely good He hath proclaimed his Name as aforesaid even in the terrours of Mount Sinai to be a God gracious merciful long-suffering pardoning c. He hath protested or sworn that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked â—â—â—â— rather that he repent and live and so that he first seeketh the Glory of his Mercy and exerciseth justice in mans destruction but as his second work He that saved no man but Christ himself glorified upon the terms of Innocency but all by Grace and never else took one Soul to Heaven who had not first deserved Hell doth surely first seek the Glory of his Grace And we know that 1. All Judea was a small Country like England An inconsiderable point or spot of the Earth as to its magnitude 2. That most of the worlds duration in likelihood was over as Bishop Usher reckons 4000 years before Christ's death and the second Edition of the Covenant So that if none but Jews were ☞ saved all that while the number was comparatively next to none 3. That no man that I know of hath presumed to say that before Moses time none but the Seed of Abraham were saved 4. That the Covenant made by Moses at Mount Sinai and the inclosure of the Jews was no casting off the rest of the world into a worse condition than they were before 5. That none yet have presumed to say they are certain that all the Seed of Keturah of Ishmael of Esau were damned much less that Sem and all his Subjects Japheth and all his Subjects and Posterity till then or that Job and his Friends and Melchizedec and all his Subjects were certainly damned 6. That the Jews themselves were for the most part so wicked that seeing few even of that little Country were saved if you are sure that no others were saved they were but a few in the world indeed 7. That the Apostles
instrumentally giving 4. Right to Impunity and Glory by Justification and Adoption conjunct the thing given which Right is our very Righteousness against â—his Accusation that is a relation whence the other relation of just and â—ustifiable resulteth For if you will not here see relations resulting from â—elations pretend not to true accurateness in your search 166. These four Causes now were enough to constitute and so prove â—s righteous against the Charge of being damnandi if we were questionaâ—le no further But the turning point of the day is yet behind 1. Our â—llegation of Justification by Christ and the Covenant may be denied â—t may be said by the Accuser that the Covenant justifieth none but â—enitent Believers and giveth plenary Right to Glory to none but saints â—nd persevering Conquerors and that we are none such Against this Acâ—usation we must be justified or perish else all the rest will be unâ—ffectual And here to say that it is true I died an impeninent Person â—n Insidel Hypocrite or Ungodly but Christ was a penitent Believer for Of our own personal performance or righteousness how far necessary to our Justification â—e or sincere and holy for me or that he died to pardon this all this will â—e false and vain Christ's Merits and Satisfaction is not the Righteousness it self which must justifie us against this Accusation But our own â—ersonal Faith Repentance sincere Holiness and Perseverance purchased â—y Christ and wrought by the Spirit in us but thence our own acts Mr. W. Thomas of Ubley in his Book against Speed the Quaker saith pag. 42. part 2. This is an old Popish trick to make much of the Doctrine of the St. James in a mistaken interpretation and to lay aside the Doctrine of St. Paul Rom. 3. 28. when they should joyn both together and ascribe to Faith the justification of men as sinners and to work their justification as Believers This is sound and needeth but fuller explication â—e that cannot truly say The Accusation is false I am a true Penitent â—anctified persevering Believer must be condemned and perish Thus â—aith and Repentance are our Righteousness by which we must thus far â—e justified 167. But this is but a particular mediate subservient Righteousness â—nd part of our Justification subordinate to Christs Merits 168. Yet this being the Condition on our part for our Participation â—n all the free Gifts of the Covenant Scripture useth to describe Gods â—udgment as enquiring after this The great thing to be glorified in â—udgment is Gods Love Wisdom Justice and Truth and Christ's great Merits and performance in our Redemption But the great thing questioâ—ed accused tried and judged will be our performance of the Covenant of Grace as to our conditions The day is not to try God whether he be â—ust or Christ whether his Merits and Satisfaction were sufficient and whether he have done his part But to try man whether 1. He have â—rue Right to Impunity and Glory 2. Whether he have performed the Condition on which the Covenant giveth that Right and be indeed the â—rue Receiver of it The Devils hope cannot lie at all in proving Christ or the Covenant faulty or defective on their part but in proving â—s to be none of the persons that have Right This therefore is the Righteousness mentioned Matth. 25. and of Faith imputed Rom. 4 c. â—nd else-where 169. But if we will speak of Righteousness and Justification entirely â—s that which containeth all its Causes we must set all the five forementioned together giving each one its proper place and no one the â—lace or office of the rest And give leave to the self-conceited pievish â—gnorant blindly to revile you for saying that you joyn your Faith and Holiness to make one Righteousness with that of Christ as if it were not sufficient And tell him that Christ's Righteousness is not ours absolutely in it self but to and in the proper effects And that it is perfect as to its â—roper ends And that he never intended it to this end to be instead of Faith and Holiness in us nor to make them needless to our Salvation 170. No man must ascribe any thing to his own Faith or Holiness iâ— the least degree which is proper to 1. Gods Mercy or Grace 2. To Christ or his Righteousness or Merits 3. Or to the Covenant not any thing but its proper part And that must be granted it 171. It is a vain Fiction in them that think our Right to Justificatioâ— or Impunity and our Right to Salvation have not the same causes and conditions but that our own Repentance and Obedience is a condition of our Right to Salvation but not to Impunity or forgiveness Whereas ouâ— very Justification is a justifying of our Right to Salvation and the same Covenant giveth them conjunctly on the same conditions 172. But our Right to both as begun hath less for the condition thâ—â— our Right to them as continued and perfected For our believing consent to the Baptismal-Covenant putteth us into immediate Right to all the benefits of the Covenant which we are then capable of but not to all that we shall be made further capable of hereafter we are pardoned and should be glorified if we presently died But as we have more Grace to receive so we have more Duty to perform as a means yea a condition of obtaining it 173. This over-lookt by many is much to be considered both as to the case of Infants baptized and the Adult Many wonder that the What right the Covenant giveth to the after-helps and degrees of Grace Children of godly Parents prove oft so bad as if by the Baptismal-Covenant they had received nothing from God But the Synod of Dort Art 1. § 17. well concludeth that godly Parents have no cause to doubt of the Election or Salvation of their Children dying in Infancy they being holy and in the same Covenant with their Parents But the continuance of Gods Grace hath a continued condition and means to be used on our part The condition which the Covenant requireth to an Infants first Justification is that he be the Child of a true Believer by him dedicated to God And as the first Condition is to be found in the Parent or Owner so must the Condition of continued Grace as long as the Child continueth an Infant And that is the continuance of the Parents Faith and his faithful performance of his promise made to educate his Child in the way of God But if the Parents should presently both turn Infidels and so educate their Child and give him up as the Jâ—â—izaries are to an Infidel to educate I know God may nevertheless give him Grace above his Promise if he please for a Benefactor as such is free but I know of no assurance of it by Promise For in Baptism both Parties were obliged for the future and not one only And if when the Child cometh to the use of Reason he wilfully
As the Angels rejoyce at a Sinners Conversion and therefoâ—â— know it so the notifying of Gods acceptance and pardon to the Angelâ— may be called some sort of sentential Justification 215. And the notifying our constitutive Righteousness to our Consciences is some kind of sentential Justification 216. But this Justification called in foro conscientiae is not the Justification by Faith so much spoken of in Scripture For that ever goeâ—â— before this A man is ever made just before he can be esteemed judged or known to be so And this in conscience is an uncertain mâ—â—â—ble thing according to the weakness of the man And oft he that â—â— just before God doth most doubt of it and condemn himself This justification may cease when we sleep or think of other things and may rise and fall daily if not be often lost And it is not of that grand importance to our Salvation as justification by Faith is 1 Cor. 4. 4. SECT XV. Of initial executive Pardon or Justification 217. But the most notable justification by way of sentence is 1. By Gods initial Executions here 2. By the publick Sentence and Executiâ—â— at the Day of Judgment 218. God speaking not by Voice that is called his Sentence which dâ—cisively declareth his Judgment But the Execution most notably declareth that Therefore though they be two things with men and sometimes with God yet Sentence being oft passed principally by Execution they are then both one 219. In this sense to sanctifie a man is to justifie him executively and so sententially For executive Justification and Pardon is the actual Impâ—â—ity removing of deserved Punishment and actual giving possession of Life and Salvation which constitutive Justification gave us Right to And as our privation of the Spirit and Holiness and to be left in sin is a great punishment so to have the Spirit and Holiness given us is executive See my Epist before Mr. Hotchâ—â— Book Of Forgiveness and his Book Pardon and Justification And so will Glorification much more 220. Executive Pardon and Justification therefore though the last of three sorts is the noblest as supposing both the other and being their end and the perfecting of the whole work 221. Non-punire is not always Pardon because it may respect an innoâ—ent and uncapable Object But the Rulers non-punire sontem is pardon â— what degree soever But a non-punire as the execution of an Act of â—blivion or Gift of Right to Impunity is the fullest executive â—â—rdon 222. The same must be said of nolle punire which is no pardon as â—â— the Innocent nor to a fore-seen Guilt not yet existent no more than â—â— a stone But when the person becometh guilty and obliged to suffer â—â—en Gods nolle punire becometh de novo a pardon denominatione extrinâ—ca without any change in God 223. For God perfectly to forgive sin while any sin remaineth in the More of that imperfection of Pardon against Ockam and others â—oul epecially habitual is a contradiction For sin it self though not â—â— sin nor as effected yet as permitted and not healed is the greatest â—unishment as was said And there is no perfect pardon of the punishâ—ent while such punishment is continued And Ockam's great subâ—lty failed when Quodlib 4. q. 1. he determined that per potentiam abâ—â—lutam Deus potest salvare hominem sine charitate creata unless he meant that he can charitatem dare aliter quam creando For to save a man withâ—ut Grace or Love is a contradiction His first Argument is God can do that immediately which he can do by â—â—y second Cause efficient or final * * * Can they tell us intelligibly how the sin of Unbelief and not-loving God and other privations can be really put away without the contrary quality or act Scotus with Rada other Scotists go the same way upon the same false suppositions And to confute one of them is to confute all And so the Papists that say Original Sin is forgiven in Baptism as to the whole calpability and penalty as Petavins in Elench Theriac Vincent-Lenis i. e. Fromondi p. 111. c. 2â— do grosly err For 1. It cannot be that the pravity of mans will should not be culpable 2. And the remaining of that pravity is it self a great punishment of the sin which procured it The truth is which should satisfie them that to the truly baptized or â—â—eartconsenters to Gods Covenant Original Sin and all sin is pardoned at to the great eternal pernicious punishment But not absolutely and perfectly pardoned yet as to all degrees of punishment Nor is all the â—â—â—pability ceased But Love or Grace given is an efficiâ—t or final second Cause Therefore God can save a man without it Ans The minor is your mistake Love here is Salvation it self begun â—â— this life and perfected in the next And to give it and not to give it â—re contradictions All the rest of his arguments go upon the same â—istake as if Love were but a meritorious cause of Salvation and not â—e thing it self And as erroneously Q. 4. he determineth that per potentiam absoluâ—m God can remittere peccanti culpam poenam sine infusione gratiae â—eatae unless he had put the question only de modo conferendi gratiam â—n alio modo sine infusione Deus illam potest efficere But who knoweth â—hat infusion is distinct from other Divine efficience Or unless he had â—poken only of Gods giving the jus ad rem non rem ipsam viz. Ipsam â—mpunitatem For undoubtedly the poena damni properly poena is â—he privation of the Souls rectitude health and happiness which all â—onsist in the love of God And to pardon a mans forfeiture of Happiness executively without giving him the happiness which he forfeited â—r to give man happiness without giving him love to God are both gross contradictions unless equivocally you meant making a man some other thing and giving him the happiness of that other thing His first argument here is Whomsoever God can by his absolute power â—ccept as worthy of life eternal without infused Grace to him he can forgive â—all sin without infused Grace But c. For proof he referreth us to that which I now confuted adding That God could accept a man in his pure naturals to life eternal I answer It is a fiction that ever man had such naturals made by God as were not indued with the principle and disposition of holy love the same thing which infused Grace first restoreth much more that Adam lived without the acting of this love But if it were so yet to accept man to life eternal is to accept him to the love of God so that if he did prove that a graceless man might be predestinated to Glory he did but prove that he is predestinated to perfect holiness and the love of God And though without this he may be predestinated or might have had a promise and right by promise yet without
remedy is as far off and cannot be made their own and applied If any would know the very moment in which a man that had contracted guilt by a hainous sin is actually absolved Cyprian seemeth to have determined it clearly in these words When I see thee sighing before the Lord I doubt not but the Holy Ghost is breathing on thee when I see thee weeping I perceive him pardoning The like you have Judic Theol. Bremens de persever ib. pag. 233. n. 9 10 11. vid. rejecta pag. 237. 267. The Brittish Divines in that Synod Judic de perseverant p. 188. begin with this explication that it is only the perseverance of the Adult Vid. Davenant and Ward de Grat. Baptismati that are actually Believers and not of Infants which is intended For some of them as Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward have written that an Infant state of Grace and title to Salvation may be fallen from and lost 268. They add ibid. p. 108. Thes 3. This perswasion of perseverance hath not that degree of certainty which always excludeth all fear of the contrary but is sometime lively sometime languid sometime as in greatest Temptations none The first debility ariseth from the fundamental dependance of this personal affiance which seemeth to come below the certainty of dogmatical Faith For the Articles of Faith do affect our assent as immediate and first principles But the truth of special Faith is not thence deduced as a necessary consequent but is only subjoyned by way of assumption Ergo the firmness of that conclusion which maketh this perswasion cannot be greater than that which is in the weaker of the premises But that sumption resteth on experimental signs weighed by mans private Conscience which being sometime doubted of whether they are true signs and sometimes hid by temptations that they cannot shine out to our comfort what wonder if Believers perswasion of their eternal Salvation be not always vegete and valide Besides that the very Principles of the Catholick-Faith though by revealed light clear in themselves yet being not known to us by certainty of evidence but only of Adhesion * * * Here I leave them with the School-men Adhesion as Durand confesseth supposeth or is strongest where there is evidence and such we have though not sensible ipsius rei yet veritatis testimâ—â—ii they beget not in us so firm an assent as mathematical demonstrations and common notions But in beholding them from the relicts of carnal diffidence some vapors as it were sometime arise by which the light of divine immutable verity seemeth to us to be resringed and to waver How much greater and daily is the errour of every Believer in the beholding of their own personal affiance 269. It is too certain by sad experience that a true Believer may lose much of the Grace which he once had and may die in a worse and weaker state 270. It is certain by Gods Word that the justified have need of warnings that they fall not away and of threatenings if they fall and Luk. 12. 4 5. Hâ—b 4. 1. 1 Cor. 9. 27. Heb. 12. 28 29. that they are obliged to fear it by a cautelous preventing fear that they may escape it 271. It is certain therefore that if the thing be denominated possible in relation to our own power it is not only possible that we should fall away but too certain that we should 272. But if the event be denominated possible or impossible in relation to Gods meer Decree or Fore-knowledge which as such do nihil They that are too favourable to the Dominicant predeterminants should remember how far their Doctrine of supernaturality of Grace hath carried them against all possibility of knowing not only our perseverance and Salvation but our present state of Grace For they say that nothing but Divine Revelation can assure any man that his acts are from a supernatural principle yea that only by the beatifical Vision which is by uncreated Species can the true difference between the acts of acquired and infused habits be known So Alvarez li. 6. disp 51. p. 232. Habitus virtutum Theologicalium solum divina revelatione cognoscuntur certo infallibiliter Immo Bannes addit quod non possunt â—videnter cognosci secundam suam ultimam differentiam per speciem aliquam creatam propter similitudinem quam habent actus charitatis infusae acquisitae non potest quis secusa divina revelatione cognoscere infallibiliter actum charitatis quem habet in via esse supernaturalem nec discernere certo utrum procedat effective ab habitu infuso vel acquisito aut a nuda potentia â— Besides Bannes he cites as his Consenters D. Toom p. 1. q. 62. a. 1. c. 1. d. 17. q. 1. a. 4. Sotus de Grat. li. 1. c. 22. corol 3. Cajet 22. q. 6. a. 1. And by this it appeareth that their very Doctrine of Infusion and Supernaturality in excess is the very ground of their denying all certainty of Justification and Salvation efficere ad extra without respect to his operative power so the Apostacy of the Elect is impossible logically or their perseverance necessary necessitate consequentiae in ordine probandi it being impossible that both these should be true Paul will apostatize and God decreeth the Paul shall not or fore-knoweth that he will not apostatize But posita nulla operatione divina ad extra it would be nevertheless possible in re in causis that such a one should fall away For all possibles are not futures Therefore as God may both fore-know and decree the nonfurity of a thing if a Negative needed a Decree and yet decree that it shall be possible So God may decree the futurity of a mans perseverance and yet decree that it shall be possible as to all Causes that â—e persevere not For he is supposed to decree only the determination of an undetermined Power but not antecedently to take it away and make it no free power 273. But if the Relation of possibility be denominated from Gods operative Grace effecting perseverance then God hath various Operations He can give his Grace by such an Omnipotent insuperable force as shall predetermine the faculty so far as antecedently to take away the moral power though not the natural ad contrarium And he can work in such a compliance with the liberty of the Will as shall only determine the power natural or moral to act and not antecedently take it away unless as determining it is a taking it away as to the contrary act at the same instant as every man taketh away his own power by acting when God operateth the first way antecedently taking away the power aâ— contrarium then the apostasie of a man is properly called Impossible in relation to the impotency of all other Causes to overcome God the cause of perseverance But when God only worketh the latter way not taking away the moral power ad contrarium but determining
these following evidences § 6. 1. In that he hath made so large provision of means and that in an admirable frame which is as it were a Moral world Which he would never do in vain nor if he ordinarily workt without them that work which he hath appointed them to do It is the reason of the Brittish Divines in their suffrages at Dort Had not God decreed to work Grace by means he could have done it with a fiat § 7. 2. The Glory of this Kingdom or Sapiential Rule which is so constantly and largely given him in the Scripture Psal 103. 10. and 145. and 119. throughout and Matth. 25. As the Ship master or Pilot is praised who by a Helm can turn about the Ship as he will Jam. 3. 4. § 8. 3. God worketh on all things according to their nature And this is suitable to the nature of man And the Causation is answerable to the effect And ORDER is a moral effect which needeth not a Creation but a moral ordering Causation § 9. 4. Experience telleth us that those prosper best in grace that most faithfully and diligently use the means And we never knew of any man 1 Tim. 4. 15. Prov. â— 20 21. 3. 5. 8. 13. 4. in the world that came to Actual knowledge faith or Love without means but all by the causality of them § 10. 5. We find that the greatest neglecters and despisers of means are every where most graceless and the worst of men § 11. 6. We have Ministers and people frequent and strict commands to use means most diligently constantly and carefully § 12. 7. We have abundance of promises of Gods blessing upon the Licet omnis causa secundâ— proprie dicta causet effectum ex natura rei tamen quod ipsa sit causa non est ex natura rei quia solum ex voluntate Dei Alliac in 4. q. 1. F. use of means Act. 26. 17. I send thee to open their eyes and turn them Rom. 10. How shall they hear without a Preacher c. Isa 55. 2 3. Hear and your souls shall live Matth. 28. 20. I am with you alwayes c. Luke 10. 16. He that heareth you heareth me Psal 19. 7 c. The Law of the Lord is pure Converting the soul 1 Pet. 1. It is the incorruptible Seed that regenerateth us Heb. 4. The word is powerful and a searcher of the heart c. § 13. 8. When God will save a people he sends them the Gospel and Amos 8. 11. Prov. 29. 1â— when he will forsake them he taketh it away § 14. 9. The Devil sheweth his malice to souls and grace by opposing the means depriving men of them or keeping them from them or from the faithful using of them § 15. But it is none of my meaning that the bare means of it self doth change the soul or that it is the principal cause But only that God operateth Moral effects by Moral means as he doth Natural by Natural means being still the prime Cause of all himself § 16. If we thus conjoyn all Causes and separate not what God hath conjoyned it will help us the better to escape errour in this matter But if men will dream that all the honour or action that is ascribed to second causes is a derogation from God and a dishonouring of him they forsake the truth and injure him § 17. For if this were true that to honour the means or acknowledge Though God be proxiâ—uâ—â— not as in loco in all his operations yet seeing he operateth by second causes he doth it according to them as all experience tells us Therefore to end these Controversies we should consider more how those causes operate second Causes and their aptitude and efficacy is to dishonour God then God should be the greatest dishonourer of himself by making and using such causes and means And so many Creatures as there be in the world so many dishonours are cast on God and the excellentest Creatures would dishonour him most which sottish conceit must needs be joyned with Manichaeism that an ill God was the Maker of the World God is Glorious in all his works and shineth to us in them all SECT V. Of the Causes of the different Effects of Grace and Means § 1. * * * Gerhard Tom. 2. de lib. aâ—b cap. 6. §. 1. supposeth that no cause of the efficacy of Grace is found in the will of man as being dead and vicious but yet that Grace doth not physically determine the will but so work as leaveth it a power to resist and that resistance is it that maketh the difference between man and man by making Grace uneffectual And Georg. Calixtus was of the same mind as you may see in his words de Minist Verbi p. 241. in Judic de Controvers num 33. See â—e Blank Thes de distinct Gratiâ— ALl that is Good in the Difference between man and man is Willed by God and Caused by him But nothing that is Morally Evil. § 2. As in Nature God seemeth to Cause Motion in genere by an equal universal Influx of the Sun which maketh no difference per se but per accidens But the wonderful variety of motions and effects is otherwise caused So it seemeth that Christ the Sun of Righteousness affordeth by his Means of Nature which he Politically manageth an indifferent influx or help for Action as Action to the souls of men which as Dr. Twisse frequently saith well is to be called Nature rather than Grace except as the repriving of Nature is Grace so far as it is meer Power to Act because it is equally indifferent to a good act as a bad and to do or not do § 3. The Power of Action as such being given by an equal Natural Universal Influx it is the ORDER of Actions where we must enquire of the difference and its Cause § 4. Action it self is not a proper substantial being but a Modus Rei But yet it is such a Mode as by the Cartesians leave requireth more Causation to it than a meer non agere doth But ORDO Actionum is but a modus modi § 5. ORDO is the beauty of the World and soul the genus of all Relation in fundamento and of all morality and worthy to have had a notable place in the predicaments And yet we know not what to call it whether any thing or nothing The ORDO Rerum is not Res And it is Rerum status which we better know in se than we know with what Logical Notion to cloth it § 6. This excellent Nothing is the summ of Morality in its form and the business of frail man on earth and much of the glory of the Church triumphant in Heaven It is Gods work and not ours to make new substances It is ours to keep ORDER in our selves as Gods work yea in the Actions which God by Nature enableth us to So vain a thing is man that
make this motion to be somewhat received before we act and yet nothing but our act which is absurd IV. Other Thomists hold that It is somewhat really distinct from our operations and that is Quoddam complementum virtutis activae quo actualiter agat And he that knoweth what predicament this complementum belongeth to and what it is let him take this opinion for more than a meer complement And here they tell you that they speak not of Gods simultaneous concurse for that Alvarez confesseth is nothing besides Gods essence and mans act But of his previous motion which he saith is somewhat more So Amesius Antisynod de Grat. c. 2. pag. 255. Satis esset apud omnes pios dicere Dei Velle sine ulla Impressione intercedente certe posse efficere ut Voluntas consentiat ipsius Vocationi I now meddle not with the truth of this and Twisses argument is easily answered But I intreat the Reader to note into what all our controversies are by these excellent men reduced who yet most aggravate them What now is the Gratia efficax ad credendum Nothing besides Gods esse but ipsa fides Is faith effective of it self No. Is Gods essential will effective of it Who ever denyed it What place is there for Controversies of sufficiency and efficacy when it is but Gods essence and the known effect of which they speak and hold not as Alvarez doth any motion or Impress made by God upon mind or will at all Gods will then is effectual quia vult effectum and it is virtually sufficient for whatever he willeth not but could will But then no man can possibly do any more good or less evil than he doth because no more or less is willed of God which volition is the first necessary Cause of all things And is not all their Volumes de Auxiliis Gratiae and the several sorts previous simultaneous operating co-operating c. meerly vain when there is no such thing as any Grace besides Gods meer will and the Act of man And yet Dr. Twisse elsewhere saith that Gods Decrees do nihil ponere in objecto As if they differed in the nature of motion And he saith that this is true both of supernatural acts which are from Infused habits as faith hope Love and of Imperfect supernaturals as fear of hell and attrition by which man is remotely prepared for Justification ◠which proceed not from supernatural habits but from the spirits special impulse not yet inhabiting but moving And Alvarez thus concludeth I. That which God doth in second causes by which these act is Aliquid habens esse quoddam incompletum per modum quò colores sunt in aere virtus artis in instrumento artificis It is Aliquid incompletum transiens cum ipsa operatione Are you ever the wiser for all this II. Hoc ens incompletum praevium actioni causae secundae producitur in illa effective à solo Deo nullo modo dependet efficienter ex influx◠ipsius causae secundae And therefore herein the will is passive though not in its own Act as he falsly affirmeth Luther to assert for what can act and not be active III. When second causes natural or supernatural have by their inherent form sufficient Active virtue per modum actus primi proportioned with the effect then Gods premotion is not a Quality but proprio vocabulo dicitur Motio Virtuosa by which the universal cause maketh the second actually operate according to its proper mode Therefore it is not a Habit or disposition or natural power IV. Yea in Imperfect supernatural acts as fear of hell which go before habits and by preventing grace are elevated to the acts it is not a Quality but Motio Dei virtuosa by which they are done and is of the same sort with that which causeth acts from habits V. This previous Motion is Really distinct from the operation of the second cause and is not our act it self but is immediately from God Which he useth many arguments to prove And can all this give any man a formal conception what it is which he calleth aliquid incompletum and Motio Virtuosa We know not what the Vis projectis impressa is in corporeals And can we tell how spirits and how the God of spirits maketh his Impressions or what the word Impression or Motion here signifieth We know that we know it not if we know what we know and know-not And why is it called Motio Virtuosa Virtus he maketh a quality It is no quality and yet Virtuosa Omnis motio est Actio Is it Actio Increata Then it is God himself which he denyeth and speaketh of somewhat between God and mans Act. Is it Actio creata Then it is a Modus Agentis for so is every Action as such as distinct from its effect in patiente And if so it cannot be modus Dei for then it is Ipse Deus And if it be modus hominis it is either homini◠agentis vel patientis If the first then it is mans Action If the second it is formally no action For modus patientis is passio though many would confound action and passion with saying after their Masters that Actio est in patiente which is equivocation So that the plain truth is that mans understanding can reach no further than to conceive 1. That our souls are the termini of Gods Volition and Active power 2. That though God act not on us by corporeal contact yet we must call our selves Patients and think of the Attingency of his Active essence with its effects by some Analogie of Corporeal attingency contact and impressed moving force But truly to know how God toucheth moveth operateth on any Creature and by what Impressions or what there is indeed between Gods essence and mans Act we know not at all And if Christ had never said Joh. 3. so is every one that is born of the spirit our own experience might have told us that we know it not Boldly then tell our Church-distracting wranglers that contend about the nature sufficiency efficacy resistibility of this Act of Grace that they know not the very subject of their disputes And shall we still fire the Church by striving about words that profit not but subvert the hearers and tend to the increase of ungodliness Yea and shall bold blind zeal use the Reverend names of God and his precious Truth to colour and countenance these pernicious contentions I grant that the nature of Grace and the concord of it with Free-will may be soberly treated of But when men have followed the controversie beyond the ken of humane understanding and there will proceed to build great Fabricks upon unknown suppositions and perversly contend for them against Love and peace they do but serve Satan against God under the colour of his sacred truth and name And I think it not amiss here to tell you what Alvarez saith to this Question de Aux l. 12. disp 118. p.
defectus talis potestatis non est aliud quam duritia malâ— voluntatis à qua suscepta recedere non posse non est aliud quam tenaciter nolle Nature teacheth all the world so much to difference between mans Voluntary and Involuntary Acts and Habits as to take the first to be directly laudable or culpable as being not only virtuous or vicious but in their relations to the Rule to be Virtue or Vice it self and the more men have of a vicious obstinacy and voluntariness in evil the more all mankâ—nd condemn and hate them Whereas involuntary necessity is every-where taken for a just excuse yea a necessit as volendi in a mad man or a phrenetick or melancholy person maketh them the objects of mens compassion And this Light and Law of humane nature is not to be rejected because it may seem hard to answer the sophisms of those that would confound these sorts of Power and Impotency § 13. Therefore of a man that is no otherwise unable to Love God e. g. but only because or in that directly or indirectly he will not that is is Dispositively Actually and Habitually Unwilling it is more proper and intelligible to say that he will not than that he cannot Though we may also say He cannot when we mean but that he will not But the most explicatory words are best § 14. No man-shall be able so far to accuse God and excuse himself justly at last as to say I was truly willing to have Christ and Life as offered me but I could not or I was truly willing to leave my sins and worâ—â—ly vanities and to live a holy life to God but I could not Yea Augustine and Twisse say more that no man can truly say I would believe but cannot which yet I think needeth some limiting explication § 15. Obj. But though all men Can have Christ or faith if they will yet the unregenerate are unable to be willing Answ By Unable you must 1. Either mean that they want the Natural Power or faculty of willing it 2. Or that they want some naturally necessary concause or object without which this faculty is no formal Power ad hoâ— 3. Or that the Will is not well Disposed so to Act. 1. The first no man will say that taketh an unbeliever for a Man 2. The second no man will say that will not by Hobbes his physical necessitation turn Religion into a name or nothing or the natural motâ—on of an Engine called Man 3. And the third which is the truth must be named as it is In Controversies which exercise so great animosities and â—â—â—â—al zeal as this doth in the Churches it is an injurious thing to use sedâ—â—ing improper names when the more plain and intelligible are at hand Hereafter speak plainly in your contendings and instead of Cannot say An unconverted man will not believe and his will is viciously undisposed to it yea ill-disposed against it Hold to this that we may understand each other or confess that you quarrel about a word § 16. Obj. The Scripture useth the word Cannot Can a Blackâ—ore change his skin c. Answ 1. The text may as fitly at least be translated Will a Blackmore change his skin c. Yet the word Cannot is brought in in the application for here it is all one That is the meaning is that some custome in sin doth cause such a setled Ill disposition or Habit as without special Grace is never overcome Which signifieth no more than a râ—â—ted wilfulness and Love of sin and enmity to Good 2. But the meaning is not to affirm these two sorts of Impotency to be of the same nature An Ethiopian cannot change his skin were he never so willing and he cannot be willing to change it without Grace But you cannot say that an accustomed sinner cannot learn to do good were he never so willing nor yet that he can be as easily willing as the Ethiopian nor as hardly made willing as the Leopard 3. Figurative speeches are frequent in Scripture and may alike be used by us in the like cases But in Controversies a trope is an equivocal till explained and must not be used without necessity and explication 4. Where the text once saith They could not believe or repent it saith many and many times They would not 5. The phrase They could not believe because Esaias saith c. Joh. 12. 39. notoriously speaketh but of an Impossibilitas Logica consequentiae and not of a physical disability in themselves though it intimateth a setled wilfulness 6. When it 's said Act. 4. 14. They could say nothing against it it signifieth not a want of physical power but mediate advantage It 's said of Christ Mark 1. 45. He could no more enter into the City 6. 5. He could there do no mighty work because of their unbelief 7. 24. He could not be hid Isa 5. 4. What could have been done more to my Vineyard Jer. 15. 1. My mind could not be towards this people Mark 3. 20. They could not so much as eat bread 1. Thes 3. 1. When we could no longer forbear c. 1 Joh. 3. 9. He cannot sin Heb. 9. 5. Of which we cannot now speak particularly Act. 4. 16. We cannot deny it And 19. 36. These things cannot be spoken against Joh. 7. 7. The world cannot hate you Luk. 11. 7. I cannot rise and give thee and yet he did Luk. 14. 20. I have marryed a wife therefore I cannot come Mar. 2. 19. They cannot fast Neh. 6. 3. I cannot come down So Gen. 34. 14. 44. 26. 2 Cor. 13. 8. Numb 22. 18. 24. 13. Jos 24. 19. 1 Sam. 25. 17. Psal 77. 4. and other places I think you will not say it is natural and utter disability that is here spoken of No nor of God when it is said that He cannot deny himself or Lye 2 Tim. 2. 13. Tit. 1. 2. We must therefore explain such doubtful words before we draw controverted conclusions from them as supposing them falsly to be univocal § 17. The same Natural faculty may by the Alteration of objects and means become formally a Power or no power ad hoc vel illud And when Nature made it a faculty Grace can make it a formal power to this or that without changing it in it self at all in many instances or cases § 18. Men have a power even moral to the use of many means which God hath appointed for the begetting of faith before they have a moral power to believe § 19. God hath appointed or commanded to all men the use of certain duties and means for their Recovery by faith and repentance unto God And there is no man that is not obliged to use such means nor any man that is to use them in despâ—ir of success The very command being some signification of Gods will that obedience shall not be in vain Whether the name of an Implicite Promise be apt for that command I leave to those
Cor. 7. Else were your Children unclean but now are they holy will soon be convinced that we are born under more guilt and punishment than what we derive from Adam 3. And even Adam's sin could not be or is not made ours immediately but as we derive it from our nearer Parents For our nature is no otherwise from him Why am I guilty of what Adam did but because I have a nature that was seminally in him And was it not proximately in my nearer Parents And can they convey their part of Adam's guilt and pravity to me and no other 4. And few sober men can deny but that the Children of some Gluttoâ—s Drunkards Fornicators c. derive extraordinary diseased and vitiously-inclined temperaments from their nearest Parents 5. And no peculiar reason can truly be given for our guilt or pravity from Adam which reacheth not to prove the derivation of the like from our nearer Parents save only 1. That Adam only was the Original 2. And in Adam we sinned under a Covenant that gave no pardon But now under a Covenant of Grace A. If this hold it will make easie the Doctrine of Original Sin which I confess to you that I have been inclined to doubt of by your Divines fastening all upon Gods Arbitrary Imputation rather than from the Childrens seminal in-being B. Doubtless they have much tempted Arminius Episcopius Arnoldus Corvinus Bishop Jer. Taylor and others to say so much against Original Sin as they have done by feigning an unproved arbitrary Covenant of God made with Adam and his Posterity which was no Law of Nature nor is made to any other since according to the change of the Covenant and by which God imputeth Adam's sin to us not because we were in his Loins for then it would extend to others but because it was his Will to do so As if it had been God and not Adam that defiled our Natures and made us all Sinners by an unnecessary if not ungrounded imputation By which also they have kept men from knowing their secondary birth-sin * Dr. Twisse frequently speaketh rightlier of the reason of the imputation of Adam's sin The Church of England prayeth not for the Dead but for the Living when it saith Remember not our Iniquity nor the Iniquity of our fore-Fathers And Nehemiah and Daniel were of the same mind A. But they say that then our Sins would increase as Ages go on and the last Age would be the most sinful B. Men will say almost any thing in their partiality while they look but on one side 1. The Covenant is now changed which men sin under Not so as not to extend to Children But it is now a pardoning Covenant And when the sins of the Fathers are pardoned to themselves they are pardoned to their Infants dedicated to God in the same Covenant even by the same 2. But where they are unpardoned there is a certain sort and degree of guilt increased on the Posterity and so no wonder if many Kingdoms of Heathens and Infidels feel it 3. But as it is not so much to have a nature essentially derived from Parents and to be seminally in them as it is to be a sinning person so the guilt proportionably differeth 4. And there is a pardon of some temporal punishments which God giveth some bad men in this life 5. And as to the punishment in Hell there is a certain degree that God will not exceed in hiâ— execution and that humane nature as it is is capable of no more And a man may have many Obligations to one and the same punishment as he may to the same duty and so a man is but hanged or put to death that hath deserved death seven times over among men For the ends of punishment set the bounds in all executions A. Well but what say you to the second The perishing state of Heathens B. II. I have said so much in the First Book that I must refer you thither Now only saying 1. That it is first to be considered what Law they are under 2. And next how they keep it 3. And then how they are judged by it 1. Undoubtedly all the World is now under the Law of Grace as to the essentials as it was made with all men in Adam and Noah though not as to the mutable part which bound men to expect a future Messiah That Law was made with all Mankind Gen. 3. 15. and is never repeâ—â—ed to Mankind The World was under it as to Obligation before Christ's Incarnation And Christ took no benefit from them which they had Clemens Alexandrinus and other Fathers erred not in this to much as some have charged them to do No man is now under the Covenant of Innocency alone 2. But how all men keep or break their proper Conditions of this Law of Grace as they are under it he that knoweth every man in the World and all their hearts and deeds can tell but not I. 3. And no doubt but they are judged as they kept or kept not the Conditions of that Law of Grace which they were under What difference there is 1. Between the Conditions to the Christian-Church now and the Jewish of old 2. And between the Conditions to the Jewish of old and the rest of the World I have shewed partly Lib. 1. But because many self-wise persons are bitterly censorious against me or any man that speaketh of any possibility of the Salvation of any save Jews formerly and Christians now I beseech the sober but to think of this one thing that Abraham thought there had been fifty righteous persons in Sodom even when God had told him how much worse it was than other places How many then proportionably did he think there was in Canaan and all other Countries of the World By which Abraham's judgment about the Salvation of others is manifest though he was mistaken in thinking Sodom better than it was And I desire to be a Son of Abraham and am not wiser than he A. This seemeth plain truth however the World take it And it is a wonder to me that any good man should take it ill to have so much of Gods certain Grace acknowledged But what say you to the third point The necessity hence of sinning B. I have answered it to you before I now add 1. It is not a physical necessity from the principles of Nature but a moral necessity from the pravity of Nature 2. It is not caused by God but by sinful man 3. It is not a necessity of committing all sin or every particular sin nor of omitting every duty 4. It is not an uncurable necessity 5. God of his free Grace hath provided the remedy himself and tendered it in some degrees to all 6. And he appointeth to all men certain duties and means to be used to this end which they can use 7. Therefore it is no necessity What cold comfort the Papists give to Infants and what insufficient Grace they have
by the habit of sensuality or the natural inclination to felicity as such which may bear down weaker particular habits or inclinations B. No doubt but the Will is quaedam natura and hath its natural inclination to good and felicity which is its pondus and radical disposition to its acts from which every act is caused that is done But I say not that ever it goeth contrary to these radical necessitating inclinations to goodness But de mediis it may have inferior particular habits which it oft goeth against C. That is because the Understanding conceiveth that another thing is best and so it is necessitated by the Understanding B. The Understanding guideth but doth not necessitate That we Will rightly is caused by the Understanding as that I hit the way is by my eye-sight but not that I exercise the Act it self Though we Will not without or against the last strongest dictate of the practical Intellect yet 1. Note that the Intellect hath divers perceptions at once which is not commonly noted It doth at once act a deep simple apprehension that e. g. bonum sensible is pleasant and good and amiable and that bonum spirituale which cometh into competition is yet better may be at the same time perceived with so low dull and weak an apprehension as that the Will may tenaciously so adhere to the first simple apprehension by a strong simple Volition as that the second weak comparate apprehension may not move it to Election 2. For we find that it is not the objective truth of an apprehension which turneth the Will without some answerable clearness and liveliness And as a Preacher that dreamingly speaketh of great things uncontroulably but coldly moveth not the hearers so is it with the Intellect it self And 3. The Will being principium exercitii can hinder the Understanding from perceiving truth by hindering it from thinking of the evidence 4. And the Will it self can suspend its own act contrary to the understandings fluggish dictate And not acting when it can towards God and true goodness is the beginning of all the disorders of the Soul C. But saith Camero c. the Will is appetitus rationalis And if it act against reason it acteth not as a Will And so also if it act without reason Therefore it cannot forbid the Intellect to think by nolition unless the Intellect first say Non cogitandum est Nor can it choose but velle cogitare if the Intellect say cogitandum est Otherwise the Will were a bruitish and not a rational appetite B. 1. The Will acteth by reason when it cleaveth to that good which is simply apprehended by the Intellect The simple apprehension goeth first e. g. That this Fruit offered Eve is good and desirable This is true and here the Will adhereth to it as good Then should the understanding think comparatively of a greater Good and say This is evil as forbidden and as it hindereth a greater Good And this it performeth not because the Will is here the beginner of the Sin not perhaps by a positive nolition or forbidding the Intellect the comparing Thought for that it doth not without shew of reason but by neglecting or omitting to excite the Understanding ad exercitium which it is brought to in Adam and Eve 1. By diversion being before taken up with the Creature 2. By voluntary neglect or sloth For the Will can omit its act without reason and yet be a rational appetite And the beginning of the Sin may be this omission of the Will or it s over tenacious adhering to sensible good apprehended truly by the Intellect 2. And we have not so much acquaintance with the faculties of our own Souls as to be sure that sense and passion and phantasie can do nothing immediately on the Will to help or hinder it We find that the Will easily followeth Passion and very hardly goeth against it 3. Nay we are not certain but there may be more bruitishness and less reason in many Sins than most imagine and that the violence of the sensitive appetite and passion may not prevail both with the Will to forbear the excitation of the Intellect and with the Intellect to omit its opposite Judgment though neither Will or Reason in the first instant give consent There are some also that think that we are scarce sure that the Will and the sensitive Appetite are two several faculties rather than one between two guides I say not as they But this I will say that I grow daily more confident that they that make the rational and sensitive Soul in man to be two and their Brethren that without all shew of proof magisterially face us down that the Soul at death puts off all sense because it exerciseth it not by the same Organs which were adapted to the Bodies use do both of them hainously wrong the Church and darken many Truths and open the way to Infidelity C. But you cannot lay the beginning of sin on the Wills omission to put the Intellect on the comparing thoughts for the Intellect can understand against our Wills as many know that which they had rather be ignorant of And therefore needs not the Will ad exercitium B. The Intellect may be forced But it is not so always Things sensible and near at hand may force the Intellect But things unseen and distant must be voluntarily thought on and studied or else they will not be understood C. If e. g. Eves Will had said to the Intellect Cogita Comparative either the Intellect must first have said to the Will Comparative cogitandum est or not If not then that Will would have been no rational Will If yea then the Will must have consented or else been unwilling against reason and so be bruitish still Therefore Sin must begin at the Intellect B. 1. The Intellect did not say Comparative cogitandum est not only because it was not commanded so to say by the Will but because the Will was so entangled before by the simple Love of the Creature as diverted the thoughts from the Creator 2. Suppose the Intellect did say coldly Comparative cogitandum est the Will did neglect it being not necessitated thereby and so the Intellect went no further C. If the Will do velle bonum qua bonum necessario it must needs necessarily velle bonum cognitum and so must follow the Intellect B. It doth necessarily velle bonum quando vult i. e. non malum but it doth not necessarily velle hoc vel illud bonum inter plurima Nay though the Intellect say nothing against it yea something for it the pre-engaged Will may neglect it And yet possibly Eves Intellect did perform one comparative act which occasioned her further sin viz. If thou turn thy thoughts towards Gods prohibition thou wilt lose the pleasant good before thee And this was true C. But if Eve's Will first over tenaciously stuck to the forbidden Creature when the Understanding never said It must do so In
have followed thereupon The just Extenuation of this last Controversie IN all these things following the parties are agreed for the most considerable 1. That Adam fell from true Righteousness and Holiness and lost the Spirit 2. That therefore we cannot argue from the Nature of Holiness alone to prove that it cannot be lost 3. That as the word Possible relateth to man's Power to do evil and omit good it is not only Possible to fall away but too easie yea it is not opus potentiae sed Impotentiae except as Natural Power is exercised in the meer Act with Moral Impotency 4. Yea without Gods preserving Grace it is not possible to persevere 5. God hath appointed us much duty to be done that we may not fall away And among the rest to discern and fear the danger of falling away and in that fear to depart from evil and temptations 6. God hath promised us Salvation on Condition that we persevere 7. God oft threatneth the faithful with damnation if they fall away and describeth to us the sin and misery of Apostates 8. The Justified may lose many degrees of true Grace and dye with far less than once they had and so become uncapable of that Greater Glory which they were morally capable of before 9. It 's too possible for them to fall into heinous sin They are not certain that they shall never commit Adultery Incest the Murther of Parents Wife or Children c. nor certain just how oft they may so fall or not 10. Such Sins make them so far morally uncapable of Glory as that See the Brittish Divines Suffrages at Dort of perseverance a sound Repentance for them and from them and a renewal of Faith are necessary to full right or moral capacity 11. God doth not decree any man's perseverance let him live never so securely negligently or vitiously For those that do so are faln already It is a contradiction to persevere in holiness and to live unholily But Gods Decree is ever entire that such a one shall fear danger fly temptations live holily in the use of means and therein persevere unto the end He never separated these in his Decrees 12. Except Hierome truly accuse Jovinian with it there is not that I know of any Father Christian or Heretick that hath written that Lege Vossi Histor Pelag de Perseverant no truly Justifyed persons fall finally away from Grace and perish for above a thousand years after Christ And it 's commonly granted that generally they held the contrary Even Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius not excepted 13. It is confessed to be a sad clog to the contrary opinion that it is held against the Judgment of the Universal Church for above a thousand years and so seemeth to bear the imputation of novelty and singularity Though that be not a sufficient confutation of it 14. It is confessed that the Greek and Roman Church the Lutherans and Arminians and most Anabaptists are against this Doctrine 15. It is confessed that all these Fathers and Churches of old and all these Churches and Christians of late are not void of the Christian comforts of the Gospel even of faith and hope of Glory 16. It is confessed that the Scripture hath many passages so much seeming to favour both the opinions as hath made the controversie thus difficult to so many Learned Godly Men And what the Scripture is it will be to the worlds end 17. It is confessed that none can be sure of Salvation or perseverance who are not first sure of their Sincerity and Justification 18. And to be uncertain whether one be a true believer and justified is more uncomfortable than to be sure of that and uncertain of his perseverance 19. No man can ordinarily be certain that he is Sanctified and Justified that is not certain of the truth of the Gospel and hath Grace somewhat strong and active not clouded by great Soul-wounding Sins nor frightful or melancholy passions nor any that through Ignorance is uncertain of the true Nature of the conditions of the Covenant of Grace 20. Certain experience of the defect of these qualifications and of mens own Consessions assureth us that not one of a multitude of the strict Religious sort have that which we call proper certainty of their Sincerity Justification and Salvation though they hold against the Arminians that certainty of perseverance must be asserted as that which may be attained by them that are first certain that they are in a state of life 21. Yet the fore-mentioned knowledge of Gods Mercy Christ's Love and Covenant with experience and many evidences of great probability may cause even such as are uncertain of their Justification to live in some good measure of true Christian peace though mixed with some doubts and fears Because their Probability is much greater than their cause of fear And much more may they do so that doubt only of their perseverance 22. It must be confessed that the Doctrine that none fall from Justification hath its temptation also to discomfort as in the two or three fore-mentioned particulars which I 'll not repeat 23. It is confessed that if God should condemn those whom he before Justified it would argue no change in Him or his Word but in them alone 24. It is confest that some Justified persons who live in as much sin as will stand with sincerity are at present unfit for assurance of perseverance and salvation For it would not stand with that humbling correction which they are then most fit for 25. Lastly it is confest that this point is no Article of our Creed nor is an agreement in it necessary to Church-communion or Christian Love but difference in it must be accounted tolerable In all this the moderate are commonly agreed On the other side 1. It is commonly granted that all that are elected to salvation shall persevere though how far that election is upon foresight they quarrel Cur ergo id quod Apostolis tunc fecit Christus non concedemus pro omnibus praedestinatis fecisse ut peculiari modo sua merita illis applicaret perseverantiam eis obtineret nam si multi sancti pro aliis orantes conversionem eorum perseverantiam impetrarunt cur dicemus Christum pro omnibus praedestinatis non orasse peculiari suâ oratione tantam gloriam gratiam illis obtinuisse Vasquez in 1 Tho. q. 23. a. 8. d. 94. c. 3. 2. It 's granted by all that not only such election but fore-knowledge of salvation and perseverance maketh it Logically Impossible quoad consequentiam not to persevere that is It Necessarily followeth God foreknoweth it Therefore it will come to pass 3. It is commonly granted that God forsaketh none till they forsake him 4. And that so great is his Goodness that no willing â—oul that solidly understandeth the Grounds of the Christian faith and hope and is in Love with God and Holiness and willing to use means and avoid temptations hath any
not L. I had rather they did differ less and if it be so I had rather know it than not But I would not hear that it is so when it is not R. Take heed that your heart deceive you not and that you be not averse to know the truth lest it should cross your own and other mens former censures Quest 2. If it prove true that the difference is less than most take it to be is he that falsly aggravateth it to the procuring of unjust odium or he that truly openeth and extenuateth it the more to be commended or approved L. If you have the Truth on your side no doubt but you do well because Love and Peace also are on your side and our fault is great that quarrel with you R. Quest 3. Do you think it is justice in any Papists to charge the crude unsound expressions of particular Writers on the Protestant party as their Doctrine as Mr. Parker Mr. Patrick Mr. Sherlock are blamed for doing by the Non-conformists or for us to do the same by them L. No but where their Doctors agree we may go further R. Quest 4. Do you think that the bare name of Merit is cause enough to accuâ—e any of false Doctrine who meaneth by it nothing that is unsound or that the name is reason enough for sharp accusations of such men L. I am willing to difference the controversie de nomine from that de re and not to make a greater matter of a name than there is cause But yet ill names do tend to introduce ill Doctrines R. Quest 5. Do you hold that well-doing hath any Reward from God L. It is not vain It hath that blessing freely given which is improperly called a Reward R. It is figuratively called Wages And yet this is the commonest Scripture title and cannot you bear with Gods Word But it is not improperly called Praemium a Reward that is A benefit given to one for well doing Indeed if with the new Atheistical Philosophers you take God but for a Physical Motor and his Government and Laws and Judgement to be all but Motion improperly and popularly so named then you may say the same of his Rewards and Punishments L. Well you know that Protestants deny not Reward R. Quest 6. Is not Reward formally Related to some well-doing as the moral aptitude of the Receiver L. Yes it is such a Relation formally R. Quest 7. Are not they then of your judgement as to the Matter who hold Merit in no other sense than as it is Rewardable well-doing or a Moral aptitude for Reward L. I deny not that with such I differ but in the Name R. Quest 8. Do not you know that it is the common usage of the word in Civil and Ecclesiastical Writers to take Meritum and Praemium so far for Relatives as that omne Praemium est meriti praemium though omne meritum be not Praemii meritum Reward and Rewardableness are thus meant as related It 's true that Meritum is sometime taken less properly for any Dueness â—s a man is said to Merit his Fathers Legacie that is hath right to it sometimes it is taken for any Moral Congruity sometimes in malam partem for Commerit of punishment and sometimes for a fault it self As Calvin noteth on the word But still every Reward is formally related to Merit or Rewardableness L. But not only our late Lectures against Popery but many Protestants say that It is not Merit unless there be an Equality of it in worth to the Reward And therefore their Arguments against Merit are as there 1. The Reward is meerly of Mercy and Grace therefore not of Merit 2. It is Gods Gift therefore not deserved 3. It is by Inheritance 4. We owe all to God and therefore cannot Merit 5. Our works are imperfect 6. We need pardon 7. Our works are not equal in Goodness and Value to eternal life 8. We cannot recompence God for what we have 9. We cannot profit God 10. Grace and debt are opposite 11. We may not Trust our works faith or love therefore they merit not So that the question is but of such a Merit as by equal worth maketh the Reward due in point of Justice R. All these reasons sufficiently confute Merit in point of Commutative Justice But they go upon a meer mistake as if this were the state of the controversie between us and the Roman Church or they took Merit in any such sense unless it be some rare ignorant fellow such as Romaeus seemeth by some words and some few others But do you grant that you differ but de nomine and not de re with those that take not Merit in any such sense but mean as you do de re ipsa L. That I must needs grant R. Before we proceed then let me briefly and plainly open the case 1. God standeth related to Man 1. As the Owner of us and all things 2. As our Rector by Laws 3. As our Benefactor 2. To Merit 1. Of a Proprietor or Owner must be giving him somewhat to his gain or pleasure for the worth of which he is bound by Commutative Justice to requite us 2. To Merit of a Ruler is to do that which he is bound to Reward in Distributive Justice to perform his Rewarding promises or at least for the Ends of Government 3. To merit of a meer Benefactor is no more than not to be uncapable of his Gift which is improperly called Merit 3. All our controversie is about the second God as our Governour ruleth us 1. At first by the Law of Innocency 2. By the Law of Grace and that 1. As delivered to the World in Adam and Noe 2. Or to the Jews with the addition of the Mosaical Law of Works 3. Or as delivered in the Gospel by Christ and his Spirit 4. To dream of that Merit from God as a proprietor in point of Commutative Justice which our Arguments militate against is tantum non madness and is not the Doctrine of the Church of Rome that I know of 5. To assert our Meriting of God as Rector by the Law of Innocency is dotage And I know none that hold that we do so by our selves though some hold that we do so per alium 6. Nor do any but Jews that I know of assert Merit after the Jewish Law of Works 7. But they that hold that Christ hath Merited and freely Given a Conditional pardon and right to life to all mankind even on condition of a penitent believing acceptance of the free gift and this by a Law of Grace which we must now be Ruled and Judged by do hold that this Law hath its Reward and mans acts accordingly their worth or Merit 8. This Merit in point of Distributive Justice is to be conceived of and defined according to the Regiment which it respecteth which is Gods Paternal Government of freely Redeemed sinners by a Law of Grace freely pardoning and saving them if they will
as those as that Accusations against adversaries are to be believed without proof on one side and not on the other Gods Rule against receiving evil reports will be cast out and Charity and Justice will be cast away and meer siding and saction will possess the place And then all the question will be Who are those Accusers that are to be believed And if you think that it is your Teachers the Papists that have many more will think that they have more reason to believe them And â—â— the Anabaptists will believe theirs and the Separatists theirs and the Quakers theirs and what falshood and evil will not then be believed against all parties and how odious will they appear to one another and consequently all Christians to Infidels and Heathens L. A man that is set upon a sodering design may palliate any Heresie in the world and put a fair sense on the foulest words but God hateth such cloaking of sin and complyance with it R. May not Papists Familists Seekers Quakers and all Sects say the same against Concord and Complyance with you I pray you tell me what you think of these following words before you know who wrote them and take heed what you say of them lest you strike you know not whom Quest How is Justification free seeing faith and repentance are required to it Answ There are two answers given One is from Augustines doctrine Epist 105. the summ is As Justification is taken inclusively taking in Faith and Repentance as its beginning it is free because faith is free But as it is taken narrowly for Justification following faith that is for Remission of sin and Reconciliation with God it is merited by faith But the other solution I more approve and it seemeth more agreeable to Scripture to wit that even Remission of sin it self and Reconciliation with God are given freely no Merit of ours going before and that neither by faith nor repentance we do merit the gift of this grace For understanding of which Note that Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to Remit or Reconcile but all the Vertue proceedeth from the object it self that is Christ whoâ—e Vertue and Merit God hath determined to apply to a sinner for his justification by faith in him And what I say of Faith I say of Repentance and other dispositions as in the example of them that looked to the Brazen Serpent who were healed by looking not that looking as it was an act of the eye had such a healing force but the efficaâ—y was from the Serpent which God had appointed for the Ioure So we say of Faith which hath not in its nature and from its entity any power to Remit and Reconcile but as the Vertue of Christ doth this in believers And so I answer that If Faith justified as an act and of it self Justification were not free But so it doth not but is a Mediâ—m by Gods good pleasure by which the Vertue of Christ Justifieth believers therefore faith or repentance make it not lâ—ss free â— g. I give a Beggar a gift He puts forth his hand and taketh it If one tell me Thou gavest it not freely because he took it or else had not had it it were a ridiculous objection For putting forth the hand doth not of it self bring him a gift else every time that he puts forth his hand it would bring in a gift But it is from the vertue and bounty of the giver So is it as to faith and the dispositions by which the vertue of Christ and the free mercy of God do give Remission and Reconciliation to believers and disposed persons so that it taketh not away Christs Merit nor maketh Grace less free that faith or these dispositions are asserted L. I know not how much men may mean worse than they speak but these words are such as the best Protestants use R. They are the words translated of the aforesaid Fr. Tolet a Jesuit and Cardinal on Rom. 3. pag. 157 158 159. But still remember that by Justification they mean the holy effect of the Spirit on the soul and indeed by Remission of sin they most commonly mean the destroying or mortifying sin within us and ceasing to commit the act And they are dark and confused in these matters L. But do not Papists hold forgiveness of deserved punishment R. Yes but they bring it in disorderly and on other occasions But if they did not how could they hold that any sin past from our childhood till Conversion is Remitted or pardoned For the Act is past as soon as done factum infectum fieri non potest and so such past sins can have no remission but forgiving the penalty and healing the effects And wrangling Papists consider not that this is the Remission that Protestants mean who call their kind of Remission by the name of mortification And so we endlesly quarrel about words through our unhappy imperfection in the art of speaking and words being arbitrary signs the world is come to no agreement of their sense L. You confess then their confused Doctrine and you cannot excuse many of their Doctors from gross error herein R. No nor many honest pious persons that go for Protestants What Papists have more plainly subverted the Gospel by their Doctrine on these subjects than many of those called Antinomians have done by the contrary extream And who can justifie all the sentences and phrases of many eminent Divines among us yea or of many of the most wise and accurate For when all are much ignorant who can say I do not err L. But undoubtedly you will be as bitterly censured for these your favourable interpretations of the Papists in the point of Merit as if you were half a Papist your self and were but such a Mongrel as Erasmus Wicelius Cassander or Grotius or as if your Conciliatory designs would carry you as far at last as Grotius Mileterius Baldwin or at least as Mountague Guil. Forbes and such others went And others will then say that you are justly served for writing so much against Grotius and his followers on this account as you have done of which Bishop Bramhall and his Epistoler have already told you R. Truth honesty and Gods approbation change not as mens interests minds or tongues do Time will come that Truth will be more regarded when Love and Peace are to be revived unless God will forsake this contentious and unrighteous World And I am so near so very near that World where there is nothing but Truth Love and Righteousness and where God is All and the Fulness and felicitating object of holy souls and where the censures of men are of no signification that I am utterly unexcusable if I should betray the Cause of Truth Love and Concord to avoid the obloquy of men who speak evil of the things which they never understood The Thirteenth Dayes CONFERENCE Of the great errours sin and danger which many Ignorant Professours fall
being superstitious by a great deal of self-made Duty and Sin only theirs and yours are not in the same things They say Touch not taste not handle not some things and you other things while you say that God hath forbidden forms of prayer and many lawful circumstances of Worship and other such like And I now intreat you and all the servants of Christ soberly to consider whether a wild injudicious calling sound Doctrine and Practices Antichristian and using that name as a bugbear for want of solid argument and an injudicious running from Papists into the contrary errors and extreams hath not brought on many the guilt and misery which in all the following particulars I shall open to you 1. Such men have corrupted the Gospel of Christ by bringing in many doctrinal errors and opening a door to the heretical to bring in more Almost all the Libertine Antinomian errors have come in by an injudicious opposition to Popery as if they were the Vindication of Election Free Grace Christs Righteousness Justification by faith Perseverance against mans Works and Merits And it is not to be denyed that the said Libertine Doctrines do more contradict the Doctrine of the Gospel even Christianity it self than the Doctrine of the Papists about the same subjects do I know this to be true who ever is offended at it Aquinas Scotus Gabriel Bellarmine Pererids Tolet yea Vasquez Suarez and Molina are not near so erroneous about Justification Grace Faith and good works as Richardson Randal Sympson Towne Crispe Saltmarsh and many such others are Yet how many Religious people have I known that have gloried in these errors as the sweet discoveries of free grace 2. Such erroneous extreams in opposition to Popery have greatly dishonoured the Reformers and Reformation When it cannot be denyed but such and such errors are found among them it maketh all the Reformation suspected as Illyricus his Doctrine of the substantiality of sin and the non-necessity of Good works to salvation and as Andr. Osianders Doctrine of Justification by Gods essential righteousness did and as many harsh passages in Piscator and Maccovins do to name no more besides those before named What a stir have our later Divines still with the Papists in defending some few harsh sayings of Luther Calvin and Beza about the Cause of sin and some such subjects But downright errors cannot be defended 3. Your injudicious opposition greatly hardneth the Papists and hindereth their conviction When they find some errours in your writings as that all are bound to believe that they are elected and Justified that this is the sense of the Article I believe the forgiveness of sin that this is sides divina that we are Reputed of God to have fulfilled all the Law of Innocency habitually and actually in and by Christ c. and then when they read that such men lay the great stress of the Reformation upon these as the very cause of our rejecting Rome and the artiouli stantisaut cadentis Ecclesiae what can more harden them to a confidence that we are hereticks and that they are in the right As I have known the persons that had been in danger of turning Papists if the errour of Transubstantiation and some few more had not been so palpable as to resolve them These men cannot be in the right even so many Papists were like to have turned Protestants had they not met with some notorious errours in such injudicious adversaries 4. Yea we too very well know that your extremities have occasioned divers Protestants to turn Papists Yea some Learned men and such as have zealously run through many Sects in opposition to Popery themselves And some of my acquaintance that went as far in the profession of Godliness as most that I have known They have been so confounded to find partly palpable errours taken for sound doctrine and sound doctrine railed at as Popery and partly to see the shameful diversity and contentions of all the Sects among themselves that it hath drawn them to think that there is no prosperity of the Church and Godliness to be expected but where there is unity and Concord and no Unity and Concord to be hoped for among Protestants And therefore they must return for it to Rome And Grotius professeth that it was this that moved him to go so far towards them as he did And I must needs say that I believe from my very heart that the shameful divisions contentions backbitings revilings censurings persecutions errours and scandals of Protestants among themselves is a far stronger temptation to turn men to Popery than any thing that is to be found among the Papists to turn men to it and that many are thus driven to it that would not have been drawn 5. And by calling good and lawful if not necessary things Antichristian and Popish you have made Religious people ridiculous and a scorn to many that have more wit than Conscience as if we were all such humorous Novices as would run mad by being frightned with the name of Antichrist And as they deride you for it as Fanatical so they the less fear Popery it self 6. And by these extremities you corrupt the peoples minds with a wrathful and contentious kind of Religion which â—s easily taken up in comparison of a holy and heavenly mind When you should kindle in them a zeal for Love and Good Works the mark of Gods peculiar people you are killing Love and kindling wrath Gunpowder may be set on fire without so much blowing of the coal Long experience assureth us that a siding angry contentious zeal is easily kindled but a lively faith a confirmed hope of Glory a Love to God and man needs more ado S. Stay a little in the midst of your reproofs Would you perswade us to a Union with Antichrist and to live in Love and Concord with the members of the Devil Are not the Papists such Have you no way to reconcile us to Rome but by pleading for Love and peace Must we not contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints and not be Lukewarm to the doctrines of Jezabel that seduceth the people of God to Idolatry P. 1. Were you perswadable I would perswade you not ignorantly to contradict the truth of God and call it Popery nor to set up certain false or incongruous notions and pretend them great and necessary verities nor to make a stir for some odd unsound opinions received upon trust from those that you thought best of and to buzz abroad suspicious of Popery against those that have more understanding and conscience than to imitate you nor to fly in the faces of Gods faithfullest servants much less to use your tongues to backbite them as if they were Antichristian because they are not as shamefully ignorant and deceived as you are And I would perswade you to study and digest well what you take the boldness to speak against and not to talk confidently and furiously against that which you never
to perswade men that we are not of the same body and to own a sinful dishonourable separation 17. And by all these means these Over-doers do greatly increase Atheism and Infidelity and prophaneness among us while their zeal against Truth and reproaches of sound doctrine do make men think that our Religion is nothing but proud humour and self-conceit and while they see us so boldly condemn almost all the world except our selves they will think that so few as we deserve not to be excepted 18. By this injurious extremity against the Papists we do but kindle in them a bitterer enmity to us and hatred of them breedeth hatred in them of us and so we set them on plotting revenge against us as implacable injurious enemies when we should deal soberly and righteously with all men and seek to win them by truth and gentleness 19. I And such dealings with them do draw Persecution on the Protestants that live under their Dominions and if we refuse to use them here as Christians no wonder if abroad they use not the Protestants as Men. 20. And by such great abuses of Reformation men hinder Reformation for the time to come and do their part to make it hopeless while they discourage such attempts by dishonouring the Reformation which is past Even as David George and Muntâ—er and the Munster Doâ—ages and Rebellions do hinder the â—eviving of Anabaptistry in the world and the shame of their old practices and successes is as a Grave stone upon the Sepuleher of their Cause so do these men do their part to make it with the whole Reformation that none hereafter may date to own or meddle with such work These that I have opened briefly to you are the real fruits of false injurious and ignorant zeal and over-doing against the Papists And if Popery revive it 's like to be by such men S. But Popery is an heinous evil and corrupt nature is so prone to evil thaâ— you need not thus disswade men from going too far from it or from over-doing against it no more than from being overmuch religious P. You may say the same as truly of the errors on the contrary extream All of them are evil and men are prone to evil But 1. Little know you how common it is in the world to spend mens zeal against the real or supposed evil of other mens Opinions and thereby to strengthen the mortal evil of their own carnal affections and passions and worldly lives and to take a zeal for Truth and Orthodoxness for real Holiness while usually such miss of Truth it self 2. And you know not the wiles of Satan how ordinarily he betrayeth a good Cause by the ill management of its most zealous friends and doth undo by over-doing When he will play the Devil indeed with Eve he will seem to be more than God himself for Knowledge of Good and Evil and for the advancement of mankind to be like God and God shall be accused by him as if he were untrue and envyed our perfection When he will play the Devil indeed with Christ he will seem to be more for valiantness and trusting God than Christ was and pleadeth Scripture for tempting God When he will play the Devil indeed in the Pharisees he will be stricter for the â—abbath and for Discipline in avoiding the company of the Publicans and sinners and stricter in fastings and dyet and other observations than Christ himself And he will be a zealous enemy to Blasphemy and a zealous Royalist for Caesar and a zealous honourer of the Temple and the Law when Christ or Paul or other Apostles are to be destroyed by it And when he will play the Devil in the Nicolaitans Simonians and Gnostick Hereticks he will seem to be for higher knowledge and greater liberty than the Apostles were And so when he would sow discord among Christians and would kill their Love and divide Christs Church and set them in a mental and oral War against each other he will aggravate the errors and faults of others and he will seem a more zealous friend of Truth and enemy to Popery Heresie Error Superstition false Worship or other faults than Christ is But he knoweth why S. But God telleth us himself that he is jealous about his Worship and hath in Scripture more severely executed his Justice upon the corrupters of his Worship than almost any other crime P. No doubt but God is jealous against Idolatry He that knoweth not the true God from Idols cannot honour him And he that worshippeth him not as a most Great and Holy God dishonoureth or blasphemeth him on pretence of worshipping him And to worship him by an Image is to perswade men that God is like that which that Image doth represent which is to deny him to be God And no doubt but the Jews great temptations to Idolatry from the Nations about them were to be oppugned by great severities of God And no doubt but Moses Law was to be honoured by Gods severe executions on the breakers of it But when you come to Christs preaching you find how oft he teacheth the Pharisees to go learn what that meaneth I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice When he conferreth with the Woman of Samaria John 4. she presently turneth from the doctrine of faith as Sectaries do among us to the Controversies of the times Our Fathers say In this Mountain and you say At Jerusalem men ought to worship But Christ calleth her off such low discourse and teacheth her to worship God as a Spirit in spirit and truth if ever she would be accepted of him S. But it is a time now when Popery is striving to rise again and how unseasonably would you abate mens zeal against it P. No more than he was against his Lawyers Zeal who grew hoarse with senseless bawling for him saying I am glad he hath lost his voice or else I might have lost my Cause I am so much against Popery that I wish it wiser and abler adversaries than self-conceited unstudied Zealots who will honour Popery by entitling it to the Truths of God and the Consent of the Antient or Universal Church or would make people believe that it consisteth in some good or indifferent things as in some Doctrines Forms or Government which others can see no harm in And so teach men to say If this be Popery we will rather be Papists than of them that rave as in their sleep against they know not what Could these men be perswaded to lay out their Zeal and diligence in propagating the practical knowledge of Christianity it self and let things alone which they understand not and SUSPEND TILL THEY HAVE THROUGHLY STUDIED or at least to forbear hindering wiser men and calumniating and backbiting those that would by wisdom defend that truth which by folly and rashness they go about to betray they might be meet for their share of that honour which now they forfeit S. You strive against Gods Judgements by which he
our tongues from accustomed vain words to restrain strong passions upon great provocations especially to forsake Sins of privation and omission such as are unbelief as mixed with a weak Faith and fears mixed with hopes and coldness of desire and prayer and sluggishness of labour and endeavour c. A man may be truly willing to be stronger in all Grace and to do all duty better and to forsake all such Sins as these when yet through the meer weakness of his Graces or Spiritual life he cannot so exactly watch nor so diligently labour nor so patiently hold out as the case requireth Though it be not a Physical but a Moral power which he wanteth and that culpably yet such Sins may more consist with true Grace than the former and therefore are called â—â—â—s of Infirmity 317. 13. When Ignorance of Truth Duty or Sin cometh from an â—willingness to know it or an unwillingness to use the known means â— help us to the knowledge of it the neglect of such an unknown â—ruth or Duty and the committing of such an unknown Sin is to be â—dged of according to the measure of the foresaid willingness or â—nwillingness 318. 14. For he is not sincerely willing to know a Truth to do a â—uty to forsake a Sin who is not willing to use the known necessary â—eaus appointed for these ends For he vilifieth God and Holiness who â—inketh them not worthy the seeking by such means To say would love God and please him and be saved if I could do it â—ith a wish or without these means is no saving desire 119. 15. And to desire to be delivered from Sin and to hate it â— Sin and yet to love it for the pleasure so much more as that the â—terest of God and Heaven in us is not strong enough to make us haâ—â—tually willing both to leave it and to avoid the temptations and â—se the pleasure but men had rather keep it than leave it on these â—rms this is no sincere repentance nor sign of a holy heart or life 320. 16. Even the Habit of a particular lesser Sin as of jeasting â—â—le words idle thoughts c. may be stronger than the contrary parâ—â—cular habit I think and thereby a man may habitually and actually live â—â—d die in the Sin and yet that habit not prevail against the radical â—â—bit of Holiness of Faith Hope Love and Obedience in the â—â—ain 321. 17. A present full Resolution against Sins that are Great and of â—ie desertion to a willing mind is essential to Repentance as is also a â—â—esent Resolution for great and necessary Duties and to forsake some â—â—aller Sins though it be necessary necessitate praecepti I think is not â—â—sential to saving Conversion and Repentance and necessary necessitate â—edii to Salvation 322. 18. He that committeth a Gross sin that is a Sin evidently â—reat and in the power of a willing mind to forbear so often as â—oth shew that habitually he more loveth it than hateth it and had â—ther keep it than leave it doth shew thereby that all his professed â—epentance for it is unsound and his heart unsanctified and that he â—ath yet no actual pardon from God 323. Therefore those among the Papists who absolve such from their â—ns who commit Fornication or Drunkenness once a month at least â—r once in many months or often and come between and say I Repent â—o but delude them For the nature of those Sins is such that he that â— converted to an habitual hatred of them more than he hath a love â—o them cannot return to them so oft And he that doth not so hate â—hem doth not truly repent And even their Hildebrand Greg. 7. â—â— a Council at Rome expresly saith that neither false Baptism nor false â—a feigned and unsound Repentance do put away Sin 324. 19. The chief tryal of a man's Holiness and Repentance is by â—he main scope and business of his life especially in the positive part â—nd next in the oppositive when a man is conscious that God and Hoâ—iness and Heaven are his great end which are dearer to him and more â—owerful with him than all things sensible and the interest of the flesh â—nd when he can and doth deliberately forsake all when they stand in â—pposition to or competition with God and Glory and so as to the course of his life doth live by Faith and not by sense this is the true evidence of true Conversion and no Sins are damning which consist with this 325. 20. But because the truth of this must be discerned not only by present Sense and Resolution but by practice to prove that Resolution true therefore no man can be certain of the sincerity of his own heart and resolutions and repentance but by the practice of willing universal obedience forsaking gross and wilful Sinning performing â—â—cessary duty striving to overcome infirmities and heartily desiring perfect Holiness upon terms of Mortification Self-denyal and diligâ—â— use of means 326. Therefore much sinning will at least breed much doubtfulness and uncertainty of Justification and Salvation and till it be forsaken no such certainty will be had SECT XXII Few certain of Salvation The Consequents of this in order to our Concord herein 327. I conclude therefore that certainty of Justification and sincerity is not the lot of the weakest or weaker sort of Christians but of the strong confirmed Christians only By weak Christians I mean not those that have weakest natural parts and common gifts as Learning Memory Utterance c. But those that have the weakest Faith Hope Love Humility c. For Grace is not certainly discernable 1. In the least degree 2. When it is little in action 3. When it is much clouded and oft I wonder that worthy Deodate and Tronchinus in their suffrages at Dort say pag. 49 50. Notitiam sensum certitudinem istius Decreti Deus electis in hac vita largitur modo mensura tempore quo ipsi placet Ncc ullus est electus qui aetate rationis capace non ante mortem certissiman istius decreti persuasionem per Spiritum Sanctum accipiat I hope they mean but an effect objectively certain The many Texts cited by them else prove it not conquered by its contrary But only when 1. It is strong and in a good degree 2. And much in act 3. And conquereth opposition 328. Therefore few Christians have Assurance at the first or of a considerable time because few are strong at first 329. Yea therefore few ever attain to certainty who are sincere because most are still weak and few come to strength and a great degree and to much activity and great conquest of all the contrary Sins of heart and life 330. This being the case about certainty of Justification as to the certainty of perseverance might a man judge by the conveniencies of the truth it would draw us to think that the middle way of the Dominicans and some others were the right viz. 1. That
the least degree or first of true saving Grace is sometimes lost finally and such perish But 2. That they who obtain confirming Grace by a greater degree do never lose it For so the Angels and Adam fell from the first degrees for want of Confirmation And many think though it is not proved that had they overcome in the first or some more tryal they should have had confirming Grace for a reward And the good Angels are confirmed whether by reward or meer gift or nature we know not 2. This would save Christians from that uncomfortable thought I must go further thâ—â— ever such and such a one did who fell away and had lived strictly and suffered patiently or else I cannot be saved For if this be true a man may be saved who goeth no further or not so far as some have done that sell away 3. This will keep men from security and presumption in a state of weakness and keep them in a necessary fear of falling away that they may avoid it 4. And yet it provideth a certainty of perseverance and Salvation for strong Christians who are and perhaps they only fit for it and capable of it 5. And it tendeth thereby to make men long for and press towards a strong confirmed state I only say that if this Doctrine be or were true it hath or would have these conveniencies 331. And I will boldly say that as I before said The weakest Christians are not ordinarily capable of present certainty of Salvation so the weakest or worst sort of true Christians are morally unfit for it 1. He that sinneth as much as ever will stand with Grace and as ever he dare for fear of losing all is under so great obligations and necessity to be humbled to fear to be penitent and deeply sensible of his great ingratitude that he is not fit for the joy of Assurance of Salvation and therefore not fit for assurance it self He that is certain to be saved must rationally be full of Joy which is unseasonable to one that must lye in the tears of deep humiliation 2. And such a one that loveth God and Christ and Goodness in the weakest measure consistent with Salvation must have all other Graces and comforts proportioned hereto or else there will be a monstrous inequality But certainty of Salvation is a degree of applicatory Hope quite above that very little Faith and Love and Obedience of such a one 3. And this certainty must be the effect and product of other Graces Faith and Love c. And a feeble Cause will not bring forth an effect so much stronger than it self 4. Gods Wisdom in Government will not encourage even a child in fits of contempt neglects or disobedience by such Assurance How can he more Reward and Encourage the best And if every true Christian should have certainty of Salvation when he sinneth as fouly as frequently as grosly and liveth as slothfully as ever will stand with sincerity it would tempt such to go on in Sin and be no better 5. God hath his castigatory punishments for sinful Children Even to death it self sometimes and much desertion And who should have such corrections but the worst of his Children But the certainty of their their Salvation useth not to suit with such correction and desertion or at least is forfeited in such a case Lastly experience telleth us that it is not Gods will that the worst of his Children no nor any but the better sort should have such Assurance For 1. De facto they have it not 2. And in the nature of the thing it is quite out of their reach SECT XXIII More necessary Concessions 332. But yet all this is not enough to prove that any of the justified do totally or finally fall away The controversie must not be decided by arguments from convenience but by Scripture assertion where the difficulty is very great because no small number of Texts seem to favour both the opinions the reconciling of which is not the work of every ordinary understanding Those that are brought for the certain Perseverance of all the justified may be seen in Zanchy's Disputes with Marbachius the first hot and high agitation of this controversie as a matter of great moment and necessary determination which I remember to have found among us And those on the other side Bertius Thompson and the Arminians commonly have collected My own opinion about it I have so largely shewed in a Book called My present Thoughts of Perseverance before-mentioned that I need not here again deliver it Though between that and this last opinion as wise a man as I may be in doubt when he hath done his best for a satisfactory resolution 333. I take Augustine's opinion so far as it is for Perseverance to be a certain Truth viz. That All the Elect shall certainly persevere and that the Grace of Perseverance is the consequent of Election and not Election the consequent of foreseen Perseverance unless you mean only that part of Election which determineth of Glorifying and exclude that which decreeth to give Perseverance But the difficulty is about the non-elect And it is most probable that where God decreeth Perseverance he decreeth to give Grace suitable thereto As when he decreeth the Immortality of the Soul he giveth it a Nature apt for Immortality And therefore that such have Confirming Grace But the controversie is whether all true Grace do so confirm 334. That an Argument cannot be fetcht for Perseverance from the meer Nature of the Grace received seemeth plain by Adam's fall and probable from the Angels 335. Some * * * Vid. Mr. George Walker of the Sabbath to avoid this deny Adam to have been Holy and suppose him only Innocent and Neutral and capable of Holiness worse than those Papists †††Petavius in Elench Ther. Vincent Lenâ—s c. 23. p. 97. Saith that Adam had 1. Exteriour Grace viz. his outward blessings 2. Interiour And that 1. Permanent which was Bona Voluntas vel Justitia Originalis ex omnium virtutum fidei spei Charitatis tum caeterarum quae in mente aut Voluntate resident concursu concentuque colleâ—ta 2. Transient that is Actual influx or inspirations But whereas he bitterly censureth Vincent for saying that Grace was in some respect natural it is but de nomine that he quarrelleth And it is as if we disputed whether Health and Food were natural to Adam They were not essential to his nature but the rectitude of it concreated with nature and given by the Creator for nature And yet of Grace because sine merito though not as now contra meritum God made all very good In illa â—um secerat qui fecerat rectum August ab ipso citat who feign his Holiness to be a supernatural addition to his natural state thereby preparing men to believe that man was not made Naturally with an Immortal Soul for Immortal happiness But 1. If Adam had an immediate Moral