ipsa Dei essentia quae est necessaria Alliac Camer in 1. q. 12. D. See in Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 24. how they are confounded about the ordering of Gods decrees as to the order of Intention and Execution His Solution supposeth that Unius objecti Volitio est ratio determinans ad aliorum volitionem When as ex paâ—te Dei there is but One Volition and that hath no cause and the Ratio is a deceiving ambiguous word and his Decrees are his Will and therefore are all but one 374. 4. They cannot deny but that all our conceptions of God are improper and analogical or metaphorical more or less and that what Knowledge and Will in God is formally no mortal knoweth And should we dispute then audaciously about this Order 375. 5. None can deny but that these Mysteries require the highest reverence and that it 's dreadful to take Gods Name in vain and dally with the Consuming fire And yet shall we presume 376. 6. They all confess that our Lord Jesus his Prophets Apostles or Scriptures lead them not this way and decide not these Controversies so as that they can stand to their decision alone 377. 7. They cannot deny but that desiring arrogantly to be as Gods in Knowledge was our first Parents sin that ruined them and us and that this was Satans first successful game And that our disease is like to be such as its original 378. 8. Lastly They cannot choose but know that it is the troubling of the Church with new Articles and new practices and leading them from the simplicity that is in Christ even as the Serpent beguiled Eve with the promise of more knowledge which hath been the great plague and divider of the Churches in all Ages though the Apostle foretold them that It was this that he feared of them And are we not self-condemned if after all this we will censure and reproach one another and foment divisions for that which most certainly no mortal understandeth 379. I. And first your very foundation is uncertain that God doth properly Intendere finem Nay it is certain that as Aquinas afore-cited Vasquâ—z saith that Gods own Goodness is not a final Cause of his Volition supposing that movere ad Electionem medii is final Causality Ruiz asserteth the contrary taking final Causality to be first esse primum objectum And thus men strive about artificial notions Vasq 1. d. 82. c. 1. Ruiz de Voâ— Dei d. 15. §. 1. p. 159. But that nothing is the Ratio Volendi but his own Goodness see Albert. 1. p. tr 20. q. 19. m. 1. a. 1. Alex. 1. p. q. 35. m. 3. Henric. quodl 4. q. 19. Gabr. 1. d. 14. q. 1. a. 2. Dried de Concord p. 1. c. 3. Vasq disp 82. Scotus 1. d. 44. Molin 1. q. 19. a. 5. saith though Vult hoc esse propter hoc non tamen propter hoc vult hoc He prescribeth Ends to Man and setteth Ends to Means which are fiâ—es operis But that he Intendeth an End Himself must be said very improperly or very uncertainly or not at all The truth is that we must say that God doth finem intendere because we must speak of him after the manner of men or not at all But it is not true in the same sense as we speak it of man and as the word properly signifieth but equivocally 380. For 1. To Intend an End is to make that End a Cause why we choose the means as most say But Gods Election or Actions have no Cause All deny that there is in God Cause and Effects or that propter hoc vult hoc 381. 2. In man to Intend an End doth imply that a man yet wanteth his end and that it is somewhat that he needeth or at least doth not yet obtain But God needeth nothing and hath no end that is desired or wanting nor but what he continually possesseth or enjoyeth as well now as hereafter 382. 3. We know no such thing as Intendere finem where the Act and the End are the same Intendere is not the same with Finis But in God they are the same He that is most simple hath no Intention which is not Himself and no End which is not Himself and so both are one 383. 4. Our Intendere finem is not the same really with Electio mediorum But God hath no Intention but what is really the same with Election though not denominatively connotatively and relatively 384. 5. Divines usually say that Nothing below God himself can be his End But where there is no means there is no End or intention of it But to God there is no Means He is not a Means of himself And no creature can be a means of him If we say that any thing can be a means ut Deus sit vel ut sit Maximus Sapientissimus Optimus it were no better than Blasphemy God then hath not an End like man 385. Yet necessity constraineth us to use the phrase but these things must still be understood when we use it 1. That no creature can be Gods End unless you will call an object as terminative an End or else an Effect 386. 2. That it is not Gods Essence and perfections that is an end as to any medium But it is his Will For his Free Will is the Beginning and the Complacency of that Will is the End of all things But if you call God his own Object and so call the final Object an End so we must consider God as Loving Himself and Himself is the End or final object of his own Love or Complacency and he himself as Loving himself is said to Act on that End or Object And indeed eternal self-knowledge and self-love which some of old ventured to call the second and third Persons are the Great Immanent Acts of the Divine Essence with the sibi vivere And it seemeth the chief Notion of Holiness in God that he Loveth Himself in primo instanti and that he is most Amiable to his Creatures in secundo instanti and that he is the Cause and End of all that is good in them Thus a final object of his own and our Love or Complacency God is past all doubt And secondarily his Will is pleased and fulfilled in all his works 387. 3. Yet by that Complacency we mean not that God is passive or receiveth any Delight from the Creature or hath any addition by it to his felicity But as he is a Communicative Good by way of Efficiency as the first efficient Cause so is he a felicitating Good to the Creature as its End and he is Love taking the creature into its nearest Communion with him which is his Complacency and the End of all things And hence it is that God is said when he had finished his works to Rest complacentially in all as very Good 388. 4. As the Complacency of Gods Will is his End in the formal notion so far as it may be said of God
proâ—â—de futuritiâ— quae ab aeterno fuisse dicitur vel nihil reale fuit vel fuit ipse Deus Quod est Causa cur res in tempore existat idem plane Causa est cur res ab aeterno extitura fuerit Sicut quod Causa est quod res aliquando fuit Causa est cur in aeternum dicetur praeterita Ad effectum futurum sufficit Causa futura sicut ad praeteritum sufficit Causa praeterita This is plain and easie truth to his Ends and saith It is not evil to me though it be to you I 'le â—â—â—ment you for doing it though it was by my Will and predetermination And what Justice should Kings rather imitate than Gods 6. Sin is not malum Deo so as to Hurt him or make him Guilty But it is so as to be a Violation of his Laws and a contempt and dishonour to his Wisdom Goodness Greatness Authority Justice Mercy Truth c. If all the World joyned in hating and blaspheming God that made them though you say that this is not malum Dei but malum nostri and therefore God may will it ut fiat as a desirable thing we cannot be content with such confusion Malum is either Physicum vel morale and either in aliquo or contra aliquem God is not capable 1. Of Physical Evil in himself and therefore we cannot hurt him 2. Nor of Moral Evil and therefore he can have no sin or malignity 3. But he is capable objectively of Injury we can wrong him when we cannot hurt him 4. And we are capable of being Reputativè vel moraliter Hurters and destroyers of God whom we cannot hurt Because the sinner doth it quantum in se and therefore is called an Enemy to God It is no thanks to the wicked that there is a God who would have none as to his Holiness and Justice if it were in his power Moreover God is Good and doth good And though he made Man freely yet supposing that he will make him Man a Rational free agent in his Image to Know and Love him it necessarily followeth that he must make him Holy God cannot make a man in the Image of the Devil and call it his own As Parents generate Children in their own likeness so God doth regenerate his own in his Image He that thought it a good argument What Communion hath light with darkness Christ with Belial c. would sure have taken our part in this that God cannot be the Author or Cause of the Image of the Devil and of the works of darkness 611. Therefore where he addeth that God Willeth Malum esse that sin be as the Matter of exercising his mercy and justice not as his sin but tantum vult fieri malum alterius I deny it with horror as a reproach of Gods holiness The terminus à quo is not the Materia misericordia vel justitiae exercendae God willeth the glory of his Mercy and Justice in pardoning and punishing foreseen presupposed sin But he willeth not the sin but only our deliverance from it or punishment for it Suppose per impossible that the King had power to restrain all men from offending him and yet saith I will do only what is Congruous to the Rational free nature of my subjects as such and not all that I can do and therefore will restrain them only by Laws except some few beloved ones but I will honour my Mercy and Justice on offenders Can you hence prove that he willeth decreeth or loveth ut appetibilia all the Treasons Rebellions Murders and Blasphemies that are committed It is not these that he willeth ut Materiam but deliverance from these as from the malum à quo If your prodigal Son be addicted to Robbing and you could lock him up but you resolve that you will try him once more and if he roâ— you will let him suffer imprisonment and come to the Gallows and then beg his Pardon that suffering may hereafter be his warning Here if you choose rightly it is not his Robbing that you will no not ut sit vel fiat for you had rather he would forbear But only his forsaking it and his suffering to that end on supposition that he rob again 612. Pag. 105. He saith that By the same reason as God might not will the being of sin by his permission he might not permit it Answ A raw unproved assertion God might not make an Indifferent free-will left to its own liberty with a thousand warnings and helps against sin unless he may also Desire them to sin Prove this else you say nothing 613. He addeth that sin be or exist is not only Bonum per accidens because God will make it the matter of glorifying his mercy and justice but it is ex natura sua quoddam ordinabile ad Gloriam Dei consequenter Bonum est ex natura sua in genere conducibilis Answ All unproved and false 1. Sin is not so much as Bonum per accidens 2. God doth not make it the Matter of glorifying himself but only glorifyeth his Mercy and Justice against it as the terminus à quo and not by it as the matter though it may be called an Occasion sine qua non as to this particular act and way of his said glorification 3. Much less is it conducible hereto which implyeth a Medium that hath some natural or moral causality 4. And least of all is it ex sua natura conducibile It is not sin but 1. Some effects or consequents of sin 2. Our deliverance from sin and the punishing of sin which are conducible to Gods glory 614. Next he insulteth over Aquinas twice as unhappy and vain in his censures with a Magna est Veritas praevalebit laborare potest vinci non potest And argueth that because ex permissione infallibiliter sequitur peccatum therefore to permit sin is the same as to will that sin shall be ipso permittente Answ 1. It 's pity that sin should have so good an Advocate and Gods Holiness so good an Adversary through mistake And that so unhappy a Cause should be managed so confidently and triumphantly though it 's well that it 's done so weakly 2. The falshood of his assertion about permission as general I have opened before 1. Three sorts of things may be said to be Not hindered which is all that Permission signifieth 1. Things bent to a certain motion 1. By Natural inclination as a Stone in the Air to descend 2. Or by Moral Vitiosity as the Will of a wicked man 2. Things meerly indifferent 1. Naturally as some think the Air is to motion 2. Morally as suppose a Will such to Good or Evil. 3. Things averse to that Motion as 1. Naturally a Stone to ascend 2. Morally as the will of an Angel or Saint to hate God or the will of a wicked man to Love him Also you must distinguish between Not-hindering at all and not hindering effectually And so
do Gods will and yet pray Let thy will be done are heard in that which is Gods will that the imitaters of the Devil be judged with the Devil For they that have despised Gods inviting will shall feel his revenging will SECT XXII The words of Fulgentius to the same sence 663. I Must crave of the Reader that he remember that my reciting the Judgement of these Fathers for the falling away and perishing of many that were in a state of Life is not at all as declaring my own judgement but Theirs none then that I read of thinking otherwise * * * Except Jovinian be truly accused by Hierome the brevity and obscurity of whose accusation and confutation leaveth us very uncertain what it was that Jovinian held But we are sure that the spirit oâ— uncharitableness and concention though in a good â—â—â—â— learnâ—d man had no â—â—all hand in the stigmâ—â—zing of him and Vigilantius as Hereticks I shall for the End sake be yet a little more â—edious in citing some of the sayings of Fulgentius Fulg. l. 1. de Verit. praedest cap. 6. To good men God giveth what good they have and keepeth it But to the wicked and ungodly God neither ever could prepare or give evil works which they should damnably serve nor did he ever put into them evil wills by which they should culpably will things unjust but he prepared for them the punishment of Hell that they might feel revenging justice in endless fire An evil will is not of God And therefore the just Judge doth punish it in men because the good Creator findeth not in it the order of his Creation And perseverance and contumacy in sin and pride because it is not of Gods giving is condemned by God revenging Et l. 1. ad Monim c. 26. He will punish in the wicked that they are bad which he gave not nor did he predestinate them to any iniquity and that they willed unjustly was none of his gift And because the persevering iniquity of an evil will ought not to remain unpunished he predestinated such to destruction because he prepared just punishment for them Observe that God predestinated wicked and ungodly men to just punishment not to any unjuâ—â— work to the penalty not to the fault to the punishment nâ—â— to the transgression to the destruction which the anger of a just judge requiteth sinners with not to that destruction or death by which the iniquity of sinners provoketh Gods wrath against them The Apostle calls them Vessels of wrath not Vessels of sin Cap. 27. The wicked are not predestinated to the first death of the soul but to the second death they are That which followeth the sentence of a just Judge not that which preceded in the evil concupiscence of the sinner Ibid. c. 23. It beseemeth believers to confess that the good and just God fore-knew indeed that men would sin for all things to come are known to him For they were not future if they were not in his fore-knowledge But not that he predestinated any to sin For if he predestinated man to any sin he would not punish man for sin For Gods predestination prepareth for men either the godly remission of their sins or the just punishment of them God therefore could never predestinate man to that which he had resolved both to forbid by his precept and to wash away by his mercy and punish by his justice God therefore predestinated to eternal punishment the wicked who he foreknew would persevere to the death in sin Wherein as his fore-knowledge of mans iniquity is not to be blamed so his predestinatioâ— of just revenge is to be praised That we may acknowledge that he predestinated not man to any sin whom he predestinated to be punished deservedly for sin And ad Monimum li. 1. pag. edit Basil 68. reciting Augustiâ—â—â— words he saith He taught that only pride was the cause of mans iniquity and that God predestinated not men to sin but to damnation and that they are not helped by God the cause is in themselves and not in God The same he reciteth again ex lib. 2. Aug. de baptis parvul that their wills be not helpt by grace the cause is in themselves and not in God The same he again repeateth pag. 69. 70 71 72. and that Augustine's mind was that good works God both fore-knew and predestinated But evil works that is sin he foreknew indeed but did not predestinate or decree For there is not Gods work but his judgement Therefore in sin Gods work is not because that sin should be done was not decreed by him But therefore there is his judgement because it is not left unrevenged that an evil man worketh without God working And ib. li. 1. pag. 15. That which is not in his work never was in predestination Therefore men are not predestinated to sin So p. 29. And p. 31. and forward And p. 29. No man justly sinneth though God justly permit him to sin For he is justly forsaken of God who forsaketh God And because man forsaking God sinneth God forsaking man keepeth justice 664. I am loth to weary the Reader with more Should I do the like by Augustines words it would be too wearisome His judgement is the very same as theirs I will only cite one passage out of him about mans Power to believe Tract 53. in Johan having shewed that God only foreknoweth mens sin and foretelleth it as the Jews but causeth it not he cometh to answer John 12. 39. They could not believe c. If they could not how was it their sin saying You hear the question brethren and see how deep it is But we answer as we can Why could they not believe If you ask me I quickly answer Because they would not For God foresaw their evil will and foretold it by the Prophet He blinded their eyes c. And I answer that their own wills deserved this also For God blindeth and hardeneth by forsaking and not helping which he may do by a judgement secret but not unjust This all religious piety ought to hold unshaken Far be it from us then to say that there is iniquity with God If he help he doth it mercifully if he help not he doth justly 665. By all this the Reader may see past all doubt that Augustine and his two disciples than whom none known to us in the whole world then went higher for Predestination and Grace did plainly take up with this that 1. GOD NEITHER CAUSED OR WILLED SIN no not ITS BEING or the forbidden ACT. 2. That OUR SIN was of OUR SELVES 3. That ALL GRACE and perserverance was OF GOD. 4. That ELECTION was ABSOLUTE of GOD's meer will and not upon his foreknowledge of any merits of mans 5. That God predestinated none to sin but predestinated men to Punishment ONLY ON THE FORESIGHT of their wilful sin 6. That he hardened men but by deserting them 7. That he never forsook them till they forsook him first
reject and resist Gods Grace and break his Covenant he forfeiteth Gods further Grace And I have noted 1. That most Children which I have seen very early wicked have been such whose Parents grosly neglected their Duty and Covenant as to a holy prudent careful Education of them as if God must needs save their Children because they were the Children of Believers who thus betrayed them 2. And those that were well educated by their Parents usually shew hopeful signs at first till their own lusts grow up and deceive and overthrow them The nature of the mutual Covenant and the sad experience of the case of many baptized Children maketh me incline to this Opinion which I do not peremptorily assert but humbly propose to better judgments with submission â—ut what-ever we say of the Parents I doubt not but to the person at age future benefits have future conditions 174. Though Gods Decree is that his Elect shall persevere yet I conceive with submission to better information that the Baptismal-Covenant as such doth not absolutely promise or give right to so much Grace as shall certainly cause the baptized to persevere that is all that are rightfully baptized even coram Deo as well as coram Ecclesia have not perseverance secured to them by baptism But only the Holy Ghost is given to them by Covenant to be their Sanctifier and carry on his work to their Salvation if they will use those means which God hath appointed and doth enable them to use in attendance on his Spirit Though Election infer the certainty of perseverance I never saw their assertions proved who say 1. That if Adam had once obeyed say some or overcome that one Temptation say others God promised confirmation to him and all his Posterity 2. That the Baptismal-Covenant promiseth confirmation and certain perseverance to all the baptized regenerate or justified What God doth I am not now questioning but what in that Covenant he promiseth to do 175. It is plain in the Scripture that when men are converted and baptized the particular helps of Grace are promised them upon further particular conditions And that the continuance of Pardon and Right to Life is promised them upon the continuance of their Faith and use of means And that actual Glorification is promised them on condition of overcoming and persevering And therefore that we must use and take all these as conditions 176. It is ordinary with some Writers and Preachers to tell men What must be in our selves that no part of their Righteousness is in themselves and with others that at least none which they are justified by in any part is in them and that it is all in Christ only And that nature is loth to yield to this but thinketh it a fine thing to have some little part of the honour to it self And as to the honour of a good Action if it be but 999 parts that it ascribeth to God and taketh one part of a thousand to our selves it is a dangerous arrogation we must have none This well explained may be made sound But thus grosly delivered it is but a popular cheat under the taking pretence of self-abasement and giving Christ all The Devil is as willing as any one that you should have nothing honourable or praise-worthy in you and be as vile as he can make you It is God who honoureth those that honour him and praiseth his Saints as the excellent on Earth and his Jewels and peculiar Treasure adorned with his own lovely Image and partakers of the Divine Nature and members of Christ as his own Flesh And it is Satan and wicked men that vilifie and dishonour them And I have oft lamented it that these very men that hold this kind of Doctrine of self-abasement as having no part of Righteousness nor share at all in any good work are yet too oft so proudly conceited of their own goodness even for holding that they have none for which they are praise-worthy as that their pride is no small trouble to the Churches and all about them 177. What-ever is of God is good and what-ever is good is laudable or praise-worthy and meriteth to be esteemed as it is 178. All the sanctified are inherently righteous But with an imperfect righteousness which will no further justifie them in Judgment save only against this Accusation that they are unholy 179. There is no Righteousness which will not justifie him that hath it in tantum so far as he is righteous For the contrary is a contradiction For to be just is to be justifiable He that gave but six pence to the poor is justifiable against this Accusation that he did not give it 181. All the Righteousness which formally justifieth us is our own or on our selves where it justifyeth us For to be made just or justified in the I would here cite the words of Bâ—za Paraeus Dr. Field Bonhaus Bâ—llinger Alberius Zanchy Aepinus Spangâ—â—bergius Brentius Coâ—fess Augustan c. Asserting that Justification is oft used as Sanctification in Scripture and that plenary Justification hath three parts 1. Pardon 2. Accepting us into favour and life 3. The gift of the Holy Ghost or inherent righteousness but that Guil. Forbes hath largely done it Consid Pacific 2 Thes 1. 9 10. first sence constitutively is nothing else but to be made such as are personally themselves just Pardon of sin is made our own Right to Christ and Glory is made our own Though Christ's Righteousness was the only meritorious cause of all this which therefore is and may be called our Material Righteousness as that which meriteth it is the matter 182. He that is no cause of any good work is no Christian but a damnable wretch and worse than any wicked man I know in the world And he that is a Cause of it must not be denyed falsly to be a cause of it Nor a Saint denyed to be a Saint upon a false pretence of selâ—denyal 183. As God is seen here in the Glass of his works so he is to be loved and praised as so appearing Therefore he that dishonoureth his work dishonoureth God and hindereth his due love and praise And his most lovely and honourable work on earth is his holy Image on his Saints And as Christ will come to be admired and glorified in them at last so God must be seen and glorified in them here in some degree And to deny the Glory of his Image is the malignants way of injuring him and that in which the worst will serve you He that will praise God as Creator and Redeemer must praise his works of Creation and Redemption And is it the way of praising him as our Sanctifyer to dispraise his work of Sanctification 184. Those poor Sinners of my acquaintance who lived in the grosseâ—â— sins against Conscience as Drunkenness Whoredom c. have been glad enough of such doctrine and forward enough to believe that there is nothing in man that in any part can justifie
are wrought by common grace and that it is special acts and habits overcoming the flesh and world which are wrought by special grace So that those firemen that are resolved that yet differ they will and implacably differ and their adversaries shall be enemies of Gods Grace whether they will or not are yet defective in that acuteness and pregnancy of wit which is necessary to pretend a real disagreement and are forced to say that they disagree when they have not wit enough to seem to prove it to any but those that take their cholerick zeal and reproach for proof For in this there is no difference among us 6. Obj. At least we can prove that we differ in this about the effects that one side make Gods gracious habits given to believers to be such as may be lost and dye and the other do not Answ That is no difference You still want wit to make differences though you want not will For both sides are agreed that perseverance ariseth not from the meer nature of the Habit of grace but from Gods superadded sustentation For Adam and the faln Angels had as is commonly held such kind of habitual grace as we though objectively differing 7. Seeing there is no difference on Gods part as they all conclude Resistible grace and irresistible sufficient and effectual can have no difference but in the very effect or event and the connotation of mans Power or impotency to the contrary I know as I have said that not only the Dominicans and Calvinists but Suarez and other Jesuits say that Effectual Grace is such ex parte principii as is forcibler for faith as the effect But they contradict themselves who confidently say that besides that effect it is nothing but Gods essence which hath no degrees or real differences And mans power of Resistance and frustration is none as to Gods will and essence but only as to the effect When he could have done otherwise 8. The same Vanity they declare in the question Whether the same degree of Divine Grace help or operation would Convert one man as doth another or would Convert as doth not Convert When they are agreed that the effect is not the same and that the cause hath no degrees of difference 9. And though it 's past mans understanding to comprehend how all the various effects in the world should be produced without the least diversity in the Cause Will or Action ex parte agentis and that Velle salvare Petrum velle damnare Judam should be perfectly the same Volition ex parte Volentis yet it is the liker to be true because man cannot comprehend it as long as he hath no evidence to prove that it is not true For God is incomprehensible 10. Seeing then that we must concent 1. That God Decreed to do all that he doth and properly and absolutely no more 2. And that Christs death is the cause of all that it effecteth and properly of no more Of which the conditional gift of pardon and life is part And so that all the Controversie 1. Of Decree 2. Of Redemption is resolved into that of the effects 3. And seeing all the effects are such whose difference we little differ about if at all and ex parte Dei agentis they agree that there is no difference where then is the Difference among all the contenders §. II. Alvarez his Epitome in Twenty Propositions considered BUt that all this may more plainly appear I will recite the Twenty Conclusions which Alvarez in his Epilogus giveth us as the summ of all his Book one hundred twenty one Disputations And I shall tell you how far they are all to be consented to * Thus Bradwardine concludeth his Book with thirty six errors and as many verities which he would have the Church especially that of Rome determine But leaving out the most unsavoury parts or expressions of his own judgement Whether God be the chief necessitating Cause of all sin is none of them I. Free-will in lapsed nature cannot without the help of grace do a moral work which by co-operation of the supernatural End shall be truly good and a work of Virtue so as that by the doer it be referred to God beloved simply above all as to the ultimate natural End Answ It is granted and more that though all natural men have one sort of Grace given them yet I think this cannot be done without special saving grace II. Man by the sole strength of nature cannot assent to all supernatural mysteries propounded and explained to him as revealed of God or because revealed of God so as the formal reason of his belief is Divine revelation Answ It 's true He must have commoner grace to believe them dogmatically and uneffectually and special saving grace to believe them practically and savingly III. Not only faith it self but also the first beginning of faith proceedeth from the help of grace and not from the strength of Nature only Answ Very true IV. The free-will of man in lapsed Nature cannot without the help of Grace Love God above all simply even as he is the author of Nature Answ It 's true V. Man in lapsed Nature without the help of Grace cannot fulfill all the precepts even of the Law of Nature nor overcome any great difficulty and temptation even for any little time which it is necessary to overcome for the keeping of that Law Answ True Therefore they have some Grace that do it VI. There is no Law nor ever was made by God of his giving the actual helps of preventing grace to them that do all that is in them by the sole faculty of nature nor hath Christ merited or would have any such Law Answ True For he giveth some common grace to all men antecedently without any condition on their part And though he give to those that use their common grace to the utmost or near it sufficient encouragement to go on and hope that such endeavour shall not be in vain as to the obtaining of peculiar grace yet de nomine vel definitione Whether this encouragement shall be called a Law or a Promise or neither we contend not VII God by his helping grace floweth into free-will by premoving it that it may co-operate and also truly-efficiently together with the same free-will causeth its pious operation Answ It 's true But all adjuvant grace produceth not the second effect which floweth from both Causes of which before and after VIII When God by his exciting Grace striketh and toucheth the hearts of men he doth not expect that the will by its innate liberty begin its motion by Consenting But God by adjuvant grace effecteth that it freely and infallibly Consent Answ It 's true of all that do consent But God hath a degree of exciting and adjuvant grace which are Necessary and give the posse Velle which cause not the act through mans defect And though God expect not that effect as one that is deceived
And who it is that erreth indeed the Light must discover and the studious impartial prepared Children of the Light must discern and the Father of Lights must finally judge Note that in the first part I speak as in the name of the Predeterminants till I come to the Questions and thence-forward I speak as in my own name which the Reader may easily perceive §. VII Of Jansenius his way of reconciling Grace and Free-will § 1. BUt after all these cometh Jansenius and justly blaming Philosophy as the great occasion of our heresies and errours which misled the Schoolmen Jesuites and others he goeth to Augustine alone as Lombard thought he had well done before him and disgraceth his cause by saying that Augustine first taught it to the Church as if Grace had been unknown by the former ages And because many will not be at the labour to know his mind by reading so big a volume I shall briefly select what concerneth the matter in hand and animadvert upon it 1. His first Tome describeth the Heresie of Pelagius wherein he proveth that Pelagius held all this that followeth concerning grace 1. The Remission of sins containing 1. Conversion to God 2. The abstersion of the blot and filth 3. Reconciliation or remission of Gods offence 4. And of the eternal punishment Jansenius Aug. To. 1. l. 5. c. 22. p. 126 127. 2. That Pelagius owned the Infusion of habitual grace And that God in Baptism did blot out all sins purge cleanse and expiate them save and renew the soul restore nature deliver from the body of this death and from the contracted custome of sinning He held that Grace doth Regenerate Illuminate cause Faith Justifie even Infants Sanctifie make us new Creatures incorporate us into Christ as his members give us the anointing of the Holy Ghost not only restoring us to the state that we were in in Adam but to a better and to be adopted sons of God and saved cap. 24. And 25. as to the Relative effects that Grace Reconcileth man to God maketh him an adopted Son of God and the Temple of the Holy Ghost an Heir of God and co-heir with Christ So that they acknowledge not only Habitual Infused Grace but more even in Baptism As also the Assisting motions of the spirit to good acts making them possible Also that after Pope Zozymus had condemned the Pelagians they went further and that their design was but to lay mens salvation or damnation on free-will lib. 6. c. 7. c. And when he cometh to characterize Pelagius he doth it as he doth elsewhere the Protestants and as Malignants do Religious persons by presumptions viz. that he was indeed as Augustine saith Temperate and of a good life but singular and very proud which he proveth by his opinion and because he was against Swearing and said that Gods servants mouths should vent no bitter thing but only that which is sweet and that Christians must be so patient as readily to let go what is taken from them and that gallantry and gay cloathing is contrary to God and that enemies must be loved as friends and yet not believed and that Riches must be forsaken c. as holding nothing mean and moderate that he affected novelty and yet his â—rrours were old coming from Origen â—uffinus Palladius Evagrius Jovinâ—an and the Philosophers that he affected fame admiration hypocrisie pretending to more holiness than others under the garb of poverty c. over-â—alued Reason Logick Syllogismes Philosophers c. All which I mention not to abate any mans dislike of any one errour of Pelagius but to shew that it is so usual for dissenters to make one another seem odious and to feign or aggravate faults and to vilifie or deny Gods grace in others that he that would not be tempted into malice uncharitableness and slander must take heed what he believeth even of men accounted most abominable hereticks Doubtless Pelagius his denying original sin and his laying too much on mans will and too little on grace are things to be detested II. Jansenius asserteth that the Angels and Adam had such Free-will as could obey or disobey and so could determine it self to good and persevere therein without any more grace than they had when they did it not And that by this Free-will some Angels stood and some fell and Adam fell when he might by it have stood and thereby fell from a nobler sort of Free-will which consisteth in a due subservience to God and fell to the Love of Himself not primarily of external things instead of God and to selfdependency and dominion De Grat. primi hom c. 6. p. 40 41 42. c. 7. Nos hic asserimus tanquam sine dubitatione verissimum juxta doctrinam sancti Augustini ecclesiae omnia hujusmodi opera adeoque ipsam fidem dilectionem Dei ab eo potuisse per arbitrii libertatem fieri sic ut ea non donaret ei gratia Dei vid. c. 7 8 c. The reason of this was sanitas Voluntatis Adami c. 9. III. Yet Grace was necessary to man and Angels both to perseverance and to every good act c. 10 11. And c. 12 13 c. this Grace necessary to all was not Habitual Grace for that they had nor general concurse which none denyed but it was Actual Adjuvant Roborating help But the Grace given to Angels and Adam was Adjutorium sine quo non giving the will power to determine it self but not Adjutorium quo which ever determineth it One giveth the Power and the other the Act. The same that is meant by the common distinction of Grace sufficient and effectual by the Dominicans Yet this Adjutorium sine quo non did with free will procure the Act in the standing Angels and Adam while he stood But that made it not Adjutorium quo because it is not so called efficax only ab eventu but because it so helpeth that illo praesente continuo fiat id propter quod datur illo absente nunquam fiat p. 63. c. 14 15. One is like Light and the visive faculty ad videndum the other ut ipsa visio such as all formal causes are and Gods simultaneous efficiency The difference is c. 15. that Adjutorium sine quo non doth but perfect the power and the chief honour belongeth to the will that useth it and could choose But contrarily the adjutorium quo is the principal cause of the Act and leaveth not the event to the will but useth it effectually to the act intended Therefore merit and perseverance in Innocency were no special gifts of God IV. That without or before faith no good work is done but lies and sins l. 3 4. c. 1. p. 223. no nor without true Godliness p. 261. passim To think that Infidels and ungodly have any true virtue is dotage c. 17. V. The first sin had no necessity being meer sin and no punishment and so easily avoidable and wholly voluntary Other sins
so doing it was not a Will but bruitish Appetite B. The Understanding said truly It is pleasant and Appetible and so the Will in its initial desire sinned not But that it looked no further and excited not the Intellect to remember and it self to desire more to please God was by an abuse of its power and liberty of self-determining and so the sensible good prevailed because the superior good was forgotten and neglected And the Will may thus suspend its act after an intellectual perception without being bruitish though it so â—ar disobey Reason its guide C. These things are exceeding intricate and difficult for all that you say B. They are so * The same I say of objective and intellectual necessitation of the Will saith H. Kipping truly Inst Philos Nat. li. 9. c. 10. pag. 416. Errant Scholae reformatâ— doctores qui asserunt voluntatem ad actum suum determinari a judicio intellectus ita ut voluntatic libertas nulla sit constricta vero sit ad intellectus ductum a quo semper determinatur Joh. Camero Mart. Schogkius Hornbeck Maccovius Heerbord Hos prolixe bene refellit Episcopius But forget not that the great difficulty is between us and the Hobbists or Infidels and Fatists and not between the true Christians among themselves as to our present Controversies I confess that the confuting of their Opinion that all Volitions are necessitated unavoidably by Gods Operation is a far harder work than the reconciling of the Lutherans and Calvinists who go upon no such Principles Tell me Is this it that you would come to or not If you once perswade me that God causeth all sinful Volitions as necessarily as he causeth a Tree to grow and that man can no more avoid them and that liberty of Will signifieth no more than velle or not nolens velle and so that God is the prime irresistible cause of all Sin as much as of all Good so far as it is capable of a Cause I must needs next believe 1. That God hateth not his own Work yea that he loveth it 2. That he hateth no man for it 3. That moral Good and Evil is nothing in man but such as obeying or disobeying proportionably in a Horse or Dog 4. Yea far less because man doth â—ut as my pen which writeth as I move it in respect to God But so is not my Horse or Dog to me 5. And how then to judge of all the Scripture the Ministry of the Incarnation and Death of Christ of the Duties of a Christian life of Hell c. it 's easie to perceive viz. That as God differenceth Men and Toads meerly because he will do so even so doth he the good and the bad in the World and that Sin is no evil any way but to our selves and that God is as much the cause of it as of Sickness and is as well pleased with the Worlds Infidelity and Impiety as with the Churches Sanctity And that he will no otherwise damn men for Sin than erbitarily to make such baser than others as Dogs are than men Benedictus Spinosa hath given you the Consectaries more at large O how heartlesly should I preach and pray how carelesly should I live if once you brought me to this Opinion that all sin is the unresistible Work of God so far as it is a work as much as holiness is C. If there be no middle between Free-will and this Impiety as I confess I cannot disprove your Consectaries it's time for us to turn our studies against the common Enemies of all Religion and Morality instead of contending with one another specially when they have so much to say B. And do you think they do well and friendly by the Church who take these mens part and own their Cause in the foundation and entangle poor Souls in such intricate difficulties when we that know not the least of Gods Creatures or the mysteries of any of his Works do little know all the quick and intricate actions of our own Souls In a word man hath more power to good than he useth and that power is called sufficient or necessary Grace to the act though there be many difficulties which no one of either side can resolve The second Crimination C. But I fear many of them with Pelagius by GRACE do mean nothing So Dr. Twisse frequently repeateth that meeâ— posse credere is but Nature and not Grace because it is equally a posse non credere But 1. A natural power reprieved by Grace and preserved and given for gracious ends 2. And many and great helps of Grace to excite and rectifie it may be called an effect of Grace but Nature it self at least when they speak of the Heathens who they say have some kind of Grace B. Turn your eyes a little from the name of Pelagius and every thing else that useth to blind Disputers with prejudice and partiality and then answer me these following questions Quest. 1. Do you think that Mercy contrary to sinful Commerit is not properly Grace C. I confess it is B. Quest. 2. Is not the whole frame of Humane Nature and our Utensils put into the hand and power of Christ the Redeemer to be managed by him to his Mediatory ends Joh. 17. 2. Math. 28. 19 20. Joh. 13. 3. Ephes 1. 22 23. Phil. 2. 7 8 9 10 11 12. For this end he died rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the Dead and Living Rom. 14. 9. Joh. 5. 22 23 24. The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all Judgment to the Son c. And is not the very reprieval of the World from deserved ruine and misery so many thousand years an Act of Grace and Nature now continued used and improved by Grace and so far may be said to be of Grace C. This is plain truth and must not be denied B. Quest 3. Is it not undeserved Mercy to all Mankind that ever since Adam's Sentence Gen. 3. 15. they are all ruled by a Law of Grace and not the Law of Innocency alone and by that Law of Grace must all be judged C. If you before evinced that any thing is truly mercy to the Reprobate I must confess it But I have not before so much thought of this what Law the World is under as the case deserveth But I remember Camero in the fragments of his dispute with Courcellaeus taken by Testardus though he deny not that the Covenant of Grace was made with all mankind in Adam and Noah yet saith That by or for their nearer Parents sins the Infants of Infidels are out of that Covenant B. 1. It 's well you note that it is not only Augustine Enchir. ad Laâ—rent and I that are for the Imputation of nearer Parents sin in some Vid. Pet. Martyr in Rom. 5. confessing Augustine's judgment sort as well as Adam's 2. He speaketh there of the Covenant as mutual and not as a Law or an offered Covenant or Divine
believe and accept the gift So that it is only Meriting under a Law made by a Governing Owner and Benefactor for the sapiential orderly disposal of a free Gift As a Father will teach a Child Obedience by telling him that he will give him Gold or Meat if he will thankfully accept it 9. It is not true therefore that it is only a free Gift For as it is a free Gift in regard of the Value and quoad rem so that Gift is a Reward in regard of the Order of Conveyance and tenour of the Donation and the moral capacity of the Receiver which men call Merit 10. That we cannot per impotentiam voluntariam moralem perform the Condition without Divine Grace is nothing against the Tenour of the Donation nor the nature of the Relation of a Reward 11. But Reward and Merit in this case are furthest from that of Commutation and leaveth least to man to boast of 12. Yet may he truly glory in the effects of Grace with thankfulness to God as Paul did 2 Cor. 1. 11 12. that in simplicity and godly sincerity c. and 2 Tim. 4. 8. that he had fought a good fight c. And he may justifie his sincerity with Job chap. 13. 15 16. And Christ will say Well done good and faithful servant c. Let him that glorieth glory in this that he knoweth me saith the Lord c. And Paul would rather dye than any should make his glorying void as to his free preaching the Gospel 13. And it is very false that in this sense a Christian is not bound to trust to his Faith Repentance Love Obedience only in their own place and office assigned them by God but no further As we may trust to the Bible Preacher Parents so to hearing reading praying c. for their proper part else we shall take them all to be in vain Are they Means or no Means If Means they must be judged and trusted as they are and no further And people are not to be frightned from necessary truth by putting an ill sense upon words 14. And though here be nothing of Commutative Justice yet there is that which Justifieth the name of Wages used analogically in the Scriptures Because Love in a Father maketh a Childs interest to be partly his own and the Pleasure of his Will is that to God who is Love it self and delighteth in his Childrens good which Profit is to a humane proprietor And now I will proceed with you in my Questions Quest 9. Do you think that Papists or Arminians do believe that either Man or Angel or Christ can merit of God by Profiting him in Commutative Justice Or that it is possible for any creature to have any Good which is not the free gift of God supposing man a free agent in his duty L. I have hitherto thought that they so judge Why else talk they of Merit of Congruity and Condignity and that say some ex dignitate yea and ex proportione operum R. It seemeth you think not that you hold all this your self Let us try 1. By Merit they still mean a subordinate Merit which supposeth the Benefit 1. To be Gods Gift 2. Merited by Christ L. How prove you that R. It is the express words of the Trent Council de Justif Can. 8 We are said to be Justified gratis because nothing that goeth before Justification whether it be Faith or Works doth merit the Grace it self of Justification For if it be Grace it is no more of Works else Grace is not Grace Can. 16. Though so much be given in Scripture to Good Works that Christ promiseth him that giveth but a Cup of cold Water to one of the least that he shall not lose his reward yet far be it from a Christian to trust or glory in himself and not in the Lord whose Goodness is so great to all men that he wills those things to be Their Merits which are His Gifts And Anath C. 26. they thus open their Doctrine of Merit If any say that the Righteous ought not to expect eternal retribution from God by his Mercy and Christs Merits for the good works done in God if by well doing and keeping God Commandments they persevere to the end let him be Anathema C. 31 32. If any say that a Justified mans good works are so Gods Gifts that they be not also the Justified mans good merits or that the Justified do not truly merit increase of grace and life eternal by the good works which are done by Gods Grace and Christs Merit of whom he is a living member c. Anath sit C. 16. To them therefore that do well to the end and hope in God Life eternal is to be proposed both as Grace mercifully promised to the Sons of God through Jesus Christ and as a Reward faithfully to be given by Gods own promise to their Works and Merits L. Yes this ridiculous Doctrine of our Meriting by Gods Grace and Christs Merits I have often read and heard of in them R. It is somewhat bold to deride that which Scripture Reason and all the antient Churches do accord in That Christ merited that we should subordinately merit that is be Rewardable as before explained hath no less consent And Contra Rationem nemo fobrius Contra Scripturam nemo Christianus Contra Ecclesiam nemo Catholicus L. But if the Council of Trent deny that Justification is at all merited what is meant by the Papists Merit of Congruity R. II. I think you hold not only as much of that as they but do you think it somewhat more 1. As much For 1. De nomine some of them deny that this is any merit at all as well as you And their Council asserteth it not that I see 2. De re They mean the same thing by Merit of Congruity which Mr. Rogers Bolton Hooker and the rest call Preparation for Christ or for Conversion And so the Council of Trent calls it Which maketh a man a more Congruous Receiver of Grace than the unprepared but doth not prove God obliged to give it him as a Reward And do not you hold all this de re 2. Yea and more For the Council of Trent taketh Justification for Remission of sin and sanctification together as after Faith And so hold that Faith it self doth not merit Justification But do not you hold more de re that Faith hath a flat promise of Justification which is true And so God hath as it were obliged his fidelity to give it which is it they mean by Merit L. But what is their Merit of Condignity then Is not that abominable R. III. 1. You know that the words Worthy and Worthiness are used in the Scripture Bear therefore with Scripture words 2. And de re they mean not all one thing or use not the same expressions at least Some and many with Scotâ—â— say that it is ex pacto from Gods Promise that the Merit and dueness do result or from Gods
Ministers and serious Christians not only for Ceremonies but for holy practices of life Being under these apprehensions when the Wars began though the Cause it self lay in Civil Controversies between King and Parliament yet the thoughts that the Church and Godliness it self was deeply in danger by Persecution and Arminianism did much more to byass me to the Parliaments side than the Civil interest which at the heart I little regarded At last after two years abode in a quiet Garrison upon the Invitation of some Orthodox Commanders in Fairfax's Army and by the Mission of an Assembly of Divines I went after Naseby Fight into that Army as the profest Antagonist of the Sectaries and Innovators who we all then too late saw designed those changes in the Church and State which they after made I there met with some Arminians and more Antinomians These printed and preached as the Doctrine of Free Grace that all men must presently believe that they are Elect and Justified and that Christ Repented and Believed for them as Saltmarsh writeth I had a little before engaged my self as a Disputer against Universal Redemption against two antient Ministers in Coventry Mr. Cradock and Mr. Diamond that were for it But these new notions called me to new thoughts which clearly shewed me the difference between Christs part and Mans the Covenant of Innocency with its required Righteousness and the Covenant of Grace with its required and imputed righteousness I had never read one Socinian nor much of any Arminians but I laid by prejudice and I went to the Scripture where its whole current but especially Matth. 25. did quickly satisfie me in the Doctrine of Justification and I remembred two or three things in Dr. Twisse whom I most esteemed which inclined me to moderation in the five Articles 1. That he every where professeth that Christ so far dyed for all as to purchase them Justification and Salvation conditionally to be given them if they believe 2. That he reduceth all the Decrees to two de fine de mediis as the healing way 3. That he professeth that Arminius and we and all the Schoolmen are agreed that there is no necessity consequentis laid on us by God in Predestination but only necessity consequentiae or Logical but in Election I shall here suspend 4. That the Ratio Reatus in our Original Sin is first founded in our Natural propagation from Adam and but secondarily from the positive Covenant of God 5. That Faith is but Causa dispositiva Justificationis and so is Repentance These and such things more I easilier received from him than I could have done from another But his Doctrine of Permission and Predetermination and Causa Mali quickly frightned me from assent And though Camero's moderation and great clearness took much with me I soon perceived that his Resolving the cause of sin into necessitating objects and temptations laid it as much on God in another way as the Predeterminants do And I found all godly mens Prayers and Sermons run quite in another strain when they chose not the Controversie as pre-engaged In this case I wrote my first Book called Aphorisms of Justification and the Covenants c. And being young and unexercised in writing and my thoughts yet undigested I put into it many uncautelous words as young Writers use to do though I think the main doctrine of it sound I intended it only against the Antinomians But it sounded as new and strange to many Upon whose dissent or doubtings I printed my desire of my friends Animadversions and my suspension of the Book as not owned by me nor any more to be printed till further considered and corrected Hereupon I had the great benefit of Animadversions from many whom I accounted the most judicious and worthy persons that I had heard of First my friend Mr. John Warren began next came Mr. G. Lawson's the most judicious Divine that ever I was acquainted with in my judgement yet living and from whom I learned more than from any man next came Mr. Christopher Cartwright's then of York the Author of the Rabbinical Comment on Gen. chap. 1 2 3. and of the Defence of King Charles against the Marquess of Worcester Answers and Rejoinders to these took me up much time next came a most judicious and friendly MS. from Dr. John Wallis and another from Mr. Tombes and somewhat I extorted from Mr. Burges the answers to which two last are published To all these Learned men I owe very great thanks and I never more owned or published my Aphorisms but the Cambridge Printer stole an Impression without my knowledge And though most of these differed as much from one another at least as from me yet the great Learning of their various Writings and the long Study which I was thereby engaged in in answering and rejoyning to the most was a greater advantage to me to receive accurate and digested conceptions on these subjects than private Students can expect My mind being thus many years immerst in studies of this nature and I having also long wearied my self in searching what Fathers and Schoolmen have said of such things before us and my Genius abhorring Confusion and Equivocals I came by many years longer study to perceive that most of the Doctrinal Controversies among Protestants that I say not in the Christian World are far more about equivocal words than matter and it wounded my soul to perceive what work both Tyrannical and unskilful Disputing Clergie-men had made these thirteen hundred years in the world And experience since the year 1643. till this year 1675. hath loudly called to me to Repent of my own prejudices sidings and censurings of causes and persons not understood and of all the miscarriages of my Ministry and life which have been thereby caused and to make it my chief work to call men that are within my hearing to more peaceable thoughts affections and practices And my endeavours have not been in vain in that the Ministers of the Countrey where I lived were very many of such a peaceable temper though since cast out and a great number more through the Land by Gods Grace rather than any endeavours of mine are so minded But the Sons of the Coal were exasperated the more against me and accounted him to be against every man that called all men to Love and Peace and was for no man as in a contrary way And now looking daily in this posture when God calleth me hence summoned by an incurable Disease to hasten all that ever I will do in this World being uncapable of prevailing with the present Church disturbers I do apply my self to posterity leaving them the sad warning of their Ancestors distractions as a Pillar of Salt and acquainting them what I have found to be the cause of our Calamities and therein they will find the Cure themselves II. I Have oft taken the boldness constrainedly to say that I doubt not but the Contentions of the Clergie have done far more
hurt to the Christian World than the most bloody Wars of Princes And I must reduce the Causes to these three Heads I. The Abuse of POWER II. Of WISDOM III. Of GOODNESS or of the Names of these the three great Principles of Humanity That is I. By Clergie TYRANNY II. By OPINIONISTS or Dogmatists III. By SUPERSTITION and HYPOCRISIE or PRACTICAL BLIND ZEAL But among all these sorts selfish PRIDE IGNORANCE and UNCHARITABLENESS or want of LOVE are the great effectual Causes And departing from CHRISTIAN SIMPLICITY in Doctrine Worship Church-government and Conversation is the grand instrumental means of most of our Schisms Distractions and Calamities I. Only by Pride cometh Contention Prov. 13. 10. The Church-TYRANT is Proud of his Superiority and Wealth The OPINIONIST is Proud of his supposed Knowledge and Theological Wisdom on which account the Gnosticks troubled the Church of old The HYPOCRITE and the honester ignorant Zealot is Proud of his supposed Holiness or Goodness And for an eminency and precedency and praise in each of these they all conspire while they disagree among themselves to trouble the Church of Christ In a word Selfishness Ignorance and want of Love are the Causes of mens personal ruine and damnation and the same are the Causes of the Churches divisions and all the miseries of the World II. And that IGNORANCE is a Common cause even in the Gnostick Dogmatists that cry down Ignorance Error and Heresie needs no other proof than the diversity of Opinions which such contend for Every side pretend that it is ORTHODOXNESS FAITH or the Great Truths of God which they defend And in one Countrey or with one Party one thing is Orthodoxness and the Truth and another thing in another Countrey or Party and another thing with a third c. And did they all but know what is Truth and the Will of God indeed they would cease their Contentions and all the Sects would meet in Unity III. And did men but LOVE their neighbours as themselves and were as easily perswaded to think well of and deal gently with their neighbours as themselves and as hardly drawn to condemn hate hurt or injure them I need not tell you how easily quickly and universally we should be healed But before I speak of the Instrumental Means I will fullier open the three forementioned Causes I. Religious Clergie-TYRANNY hath so notoriously so long and so greatly made havock both of Piety and Peace that he that is not an utter stranger to Church-History cannot be ignorant of it I need not tell any Learned man how many even moderate Papists much more Protestants have thought that Constantine and other Emperours that over-exalted the Clergie poured out Poyson into the Church making great preferments a bait to invite all the worst of men to be seekers and invaders of Church Offices and Power and to corrupt those that otherwise would have been useful men especially when Christians having first made them their Arbitrators in obedience to St. Pauls counsel they were made the Legal Judges of the Causes of all contentious Christians and so set up Secular Magistratical Courts I need not tell them what work almost every General Council as those of one Empire were called did make what work even the first at Nice had made had not Constantine burnt their Bills of accusation against each other and personally lamented their divisions and driven them on to peace what work was made in that at Chalcedon and that at Ephesus and so of others what a horrid scandal the case of John and Dioscorus was and the murder of Flavianus and many others nor yet how the controversies against the Nestorians Eutychians and Monothelites were managed I need not tell them how soon Victor began at Rome nor what Socrates and others say of Cyril and Theophilus at Alexandria nor yet how Nazianzene was used at Constantinople nor how copiously and vehemently he accuseth the Bishops and wisheth that there were no such inequalities among them as gave them advantage to do hurt nor what he saith against their Councils nor yet of the quarrels of Basil and Anthymius nor of Basils sharp complaints of the Roman and other Western Prelates I need not tell them of the Usage of Chrysostome even by such men as Theophilus Epiphanius and their partakers nor of the dividing of the Constantinopolitan Christians thereupon nor how the violent Prelates made Separatists and Non-conformists of Chrysostoms adherents by the name of Joannites and how unlikely that Schism was to have been healed had not wiser Bishops succeeded who restored Concord by honouring Chrysostoms Name and Bones and dealing kindly with his followers I need not tell them of the sad work made at Ariminum and Syrmium and oft at Rome Constantinople and every great Episcopal Seat nor of the bloodshed between Competitors at the Election of Damasus nor of the separation of St. Martin from the Synod of Bishops led by Ithacius and Idacius nor of the difference of him and Ambrose from the rest about the complyances with Maximus The World knoweth of the doleful Rupture that hath continued between the Roman and the Greek Church about a thousand years And of the many Schisms at Rome by various Anti-Popes even at once above forty years together And of the reason of the calling of the Councils of Constance and Basil to end them And how the King of Rome keeps up his Kingdom to this day what work he hath made with Frederick the Henries and other German Emperours what divisions this caused among the Clergie what blood he caused to be shed for Jerusalem and how many thousands of the Waldenses have at divers times been slaughtered what work the Inquisition hath made in Spain and Belgia and elsewhere and the flames of Persecution in England and almost in all Christian Lands what work the Holy League did make in France and the English Bishops in many a War with their Kings besides the case of Becket and such others By whose instigation two hundred thousand Protestants were lately murdered in Ireland and many again in Piedmont I say to tell such things as these to those that are acquainted with Church History is vain And I would those that yet think cruelty the best way to set up themselves or Religion if that must bear the name and to repress their adversaries or Schisms would but among many others read the Epistle of great Thuanus before his Works to Henry King of France But is it only the old Bishops Greeks and Papists that have made such havock in the Churches Even those that pretended to moderation did by the German Interim make many hundred Churches desolate And the ten years imprisonment of Caspar Peucer vid. Histor Carcer and the silencing of many and many faithful Ministers and the banishment of many doth shew with what Spirit many of the Lutherans carryed on their work And doubtless had the Calvinists in Belgia been as wise and peaceable as the English Delegates were at
God do intendere finem and what is his End The Order and Objects opened p. 57. Sect. 16. What Election and Reprobation are The order of the Decrees called Reprobation and of the Objects Of Negations of Decree p. 66. An Additional Explication of Divine Nolitions p. 76. Sect. 17. Whether God Will Decree or Cause Sin Five Acts of God in and about Sin What Sin is Many wayes God can cause the same thing that the sinner causeth and so fulfil his Decrees without Willing or Causing the Sin Objections answered God freely not idlely or impotently restraineth his own possible operations sometimes that he do not such or such an act at all and sometime that he do but so much towards it and no more Whether God be ever Causa partialis p. 84. Sect. 18. A Confutation of Dr. Twisses Digress 5. li. 2. sect 1. Vindic. Gratiae where he asserteth that God Willeth the existence of Sin and that sins are a medium sua natura summe unice conducibile to the Glorification of his Mercy and Justice p. 92. Sect. 19. The same Doctrine in Rutherford de Providentia confuted Whether things be good because God willeth them or willed by him because good resolved Whether there were eternal rationes boni mali Dr. Field vindicated p. 106. Sect. 20. The old Doctrine of Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius thought by some Jesuits too rigid but indeed Conciliatory for absolute Election to Faith and so to Salvation and for no reprobating Decree but only of Punishment for Sin foreseen but not decreed Prosper ad Cap. Gall. Sentent translated p. 115. Sect. 21. The summ of Prospers Answer to Vincent 16. Object p. 118. Sect. 22. Fulgentius words to the same sense p. 121. Sect. 23. The healing Doctrine and Concessions of many called Calvinists of the Synod of Dort Pet. Molinaeus c. p. 124. Sect. 24. And of Petr. á Sancto Joseph Suarez Ruiz c. on the other side especially Bellarmines at large and others p. 127. ERRATA PART 1. pag. 10. l. 38. in marg for Reason Being r. Relation being p. 24. l. 25. r. those Causes l. 26. r. first Case p. 27. l. 2. r. Of predetermination Reader Pain and Greater business forbad me to gather the Errata some are gathered by a Friend out of the first Book many more I must leave to your ingenuity I see in the Premonition p. 4. l. 22. for Mr. W. Mr. D. l. 47. for Armatus Annatus Also Dial. 11. p. 231. l. 30. r. refuse Dial. 13. p. 291. l. 13. for not r. done Catholick Theologie The First BOOK PACIFYING PRINCIPLES Collected from the common Notices of Nature the certain Oracles of GOD in the Holy Scriptures and the common Consent of Christians For the RECONCILING OF THE CHURCH-DIVIDING and DESTROYING CONTROVERSIES especially about PREDESTINATION PROVIDENCE GRACE and FREE-WILL REDEMPTION JUSTIFICATION FAITH MERIT WORKS CERTAINTY OF SALVATION PERSEVERANCE and many others In Three Parts I. Of Gods Nature Knowledge Decrees and Providence about Sin with Mans Free-will as the Objects of the former II. Of Gods GOVERNMENT and MORAL Works III. Of Gods Operations on Mans Soul By RICHARD BAXTER An earnest Desirer of the UNITY LOVE and PEACE of Christians For endeavouring of which he expecteth with resolved Patience still to undergo the Censures Slanders and Cruelties of IGNORANCE PRIDE and MALICE from all that are possessed by the Wisdom and Zeal which are from beneath Earthly Sensual and Devilish the Causes of Confusion and every evil work James 3. 14 15 16. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in S t. Pauls Church-yard MDCLXXV The First Part OF THE NATURE KNOWLEDGE WILL AND DECREES of GOD As far as is needful to the intended CONCILIATION and CONCORD SECT I. Of our Knowledge of God as here attainable THough it be about the Knowledge Will and Decrees of God that our Controversies are agitated yet because the consequent Verities are scarce ever well understood without the understanding of the Antecedents out of which the Consequents arise and without the just order place and respect which the later have unto the former and unless things be understood in their true Method I will therefore expose my self to the obloquy of those who will call it Over-doing so far as to premise somewhat of the Deity it self But not what is necessary to the full explication of the Divine Attributes as we are capable as must be in a Method of Theologie which I have attempted elsewhere but only so much as lyeth under our Controverted Subject And when I have done that I shall leave the rest Thes 1. To Know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent is Life Eternal * * * John 17. 3. Bradward l. 1. c. 11. p. 198. The first necessary incomplex Principle is God and the first complex simply is of God Deus est c. But yet it is not to us the primum cognitum 2. To †††Exodus 20. know GOD is to know his Being Nature and Relations For though those Relations that are to Man be not essential to his Divine Nature yet are they essentially contained in the signification of the name GOD as he is the object of our Faith and Religion For to be OUR GOD doth speak his Relations to us as well as his Nature As the name KING and FATHER doth among men 3. We neither have nor can have here in flesh any one proper formal Conception of the Divine Nature that is formally suited to the truth in the object But only Metaphorical or Analogical Conceptions borrowed from things better known 4. Yet nothing beyond sense at least is so certainly known as GOD so far as we can reach though nothing be less perfectly or more defectively known or less comprehended Even as we know nothing Visible more certainly than the Sun and yet comprehend nothing Visible less 5. It is not true which many great Metaphysicians assert that the Quiddity of God is totally unknown to us For then it could not be life eternal to know him nor would a meer Negative knowledge cause in us a sufficient Positive Love or Joy or Trust c. But to know that we cannot know him would but inferr that we cannot Love him For we Love not an unknown Good 6. Nor is it true that Pet. Hurtado de Mendoza in fine Disput and some others say that the Notions of Life and Intellect are all that we have of the Quiddity of God and that the Divine Will is not a Quidditative notion 7. God is here seen in the Glass of his Works with the Revelation of his Word and Spirit And from these works we must borrow our conceptions * * * The doubt is How Imperfect works can notifie the perfect God And the Schoolmen manage it as an insuperable difficulty Whether God could have made the World or any thing better than it is If you will pardon me for making
a Means 2. Making one little parcel of that means to be the end 3. Inserting two acts or parts only of that which they themselves confess to be but Means For what should the names of Salvation and Damnation do in the description of the end Are they any part of the end Why is not Redemption Justification Sanctification Preservation Resurrection c. as well put in Is he not Glorified in them as well as in final salvation or damnation Yea and in Creation and the frâ—me of nature too Yea why is not the glory of Angels and all the world put in as part of the same means to his end 406. If it be said that it is only Gods Glory of Mercy and Justice in menâ— salvation and damnation which is the end of Redemption Conversion Preaching Ordinances Sanctification Adoption c. 1. I deny it His Power Wisdom and Goodness and his forementioned subordinate attributes are thereby Glorified also 2. It is an injury to God unworthy of a Divine to make God to have as many distinct ultimate ends as they think there are particular aptitudes or tendencies in the means 407. For undoubtedly we must feign in God no more ultimate ends than one And undoubtedly the means consisting of innumerable parts make up one perfect whole in which Gods Glory shineth so as it doth not in any part alone And he that will cut Gods frame into scraps and shreds and set up the parts as so many wholes will more dishonour him than he that would so mangle a Picture or a Watch or Clock or House or the pipes of an Organ or the strings of a Lute and tell you of their beauty and Harmony only distinctly Well therefore did Dr. Twisse reduce all the Decrees de mediis to one But they are one in their apt composition for one end And the Glory of Sun and Stars and Angels and the whole Creation is a part and the Glory of our salvation and damnation is but another part 408. The order therefore of Gods Decrees in respect of the Execution is onâ—y fit for our debate Any farther than that we may moreover say that Gods will or Himself is all his ultimate end and his Glory shining in the perfection of his intire works is the perfect means And there is nothing else that we can reasonably controvert And about this our Controversie is next to none at all Here we may well enquire what is prius vel posterius quid superius quid inferius c. and that to our edification 409. Seeing then that we are agreed as is said with Aquinas that * * * Ruiz de Voâ—â—n Dei disp 15. §. 4. p. 163. prettily argueth that Si non potest dari ratio ipsius â—olitionis divinae sed solius denominations extrinseâ—ae resultantâ—s ab eâ—â—â—â—lis creatâ—â— sequitur â—anas esse plurimaâ— Thâ—oâ—ogorum de ordine dependâ—â—tia vel ratione diviâ—â—â—um volitionum post quam inter illos constat quem ordinem dependentiam vâ—l rationâ—m habeant externa objecta inter se The conscquent is true They are vain indeed though he deny it And all his reasons p. 161 162 c. to prove that dantur iâ— creatâ—â—a rationes finales moventes divinam voluntatem are but triflings with the ambiguities of the word Ratio and abuses of the word Causa having before confessed that there is no Real Cause And are there Causes that are not Real 1. We grant the Creature is an Object of Gods will and the object is bâ— some called the material cause of the act in â—â—â—â—â—â—â—â— numero 2. It is the Terminus and Recipient of the divine influx 3. It may therefore â—e causa materialâ—s of the diversity of the effects of Gods influx as Received in patiente ex diâ—ersitate dispositions 4. Our acts may be the effects of Gods Volitions 5. And may be second Causes of other effects 6. Those other effects may be said to be Gods nearer ends speaking of him after the manner of imperfect man 7. Where our acts are not causes they may be conditions sine quibus non of many of Gods acts quoad effectus as sin is of punishment at least 8. In all these respects Gods Volition which is One in itself may and must be denominated divers from the diversity of these effects and objects which therefore are the Ratio nominâ—â— And he that would prove any other Ratio or Cause of the first Cause the will of God or any of his acts as in himself must first renounce all natural and Scholastical Theologie at least He citeth Durand Major Richardus c. But Durandus 1. d. 41. q. 1. doth but say that Gods Acts are thus to be reckoned secundum rationem as likening Gods reasoning or thoughts to ours ut n. 7. and not â—uxta rei veritatem Richard is full for what I say 1. d. 45. Voluntas sive volens de Deo secundum essentiam dicitur non est aliud Velle aliud Esse But yet his Velle hoc speaketh not his esse quà esse and therefore he addeth that when God is said scire aut velle it is his Essence but to say Hoc aut illud scit aut vult is but to say Hoc aut illud est subjectum scientiae vel voluntatis quae ipse Deus est Et Voluntas Dei est prima summa Causa omnium cujus Causa non est quaerenda non est diversa Voluntas sed diversa locutio de ea in Scripturis And Richardus in loc p. 141. saith but this that Ipsius divini Velle nulla est ratio motiva cum realiter idem sit quod Deus Tamen Ordinationis quae est inter divinum velle ipsum volitum bene est ratio aliqua respectu alicujus voliti Which is no more than I have said And as to Major Ruiz did ill to cite him who there professeth that Predestination and Volition is but Relatio rationis denominatio extrinseca as to God And his ordo signorum in mente divina is but the Scotists assimilating Gods acts to mans Deus non propter hoc vult hoc sed vult hoc esse propter hoc that which we have to do is but to enquire 1. De re how one thing is a Cause or other means of another 2. And so how God Decreed it to work and be 410. And 1. It is agreed that the Creation was Gods first work that we know of or have any thing to do with This had as to the first part no Antecedent Object but produceth its effect which some call its object But the latter dayes works had an antecedent object and also a produced effect And accordingly God Decreed from Eternity that this should be his first work From whence by connotation that may be called his first Decree 411. That sin or the Permission of sin or other meer Negatives are not to have place among the asserted Means and Decrees I am anon in due place to
positivas causas To which what I have said is a sufficient answer And 1. Sometimes they have not but only the cessation of a causation 2. They never have a positive efficient of themselves for nothing is not made but only a positive remover of the cause of that which the subject is deprived of or an interposer or hinderer of the causation of it e. g. of Light or life And death hath no cause but that which ceaseth the causes of life Reprobation is commonly looked at in the two most notable parts as called 1. Gods Reprobating men to unbelief and impenitency 2. His Reprobating men to final damnation The last of these also is considered in the execution 1. As Privative 2. As Positive called Poena damni sensus And both especially the Privative part are considerable 1. As executed by man himself on himself freely 2. Or as executed by God Concerning each of these observe 512. 1. Not to Believe and Repent is no real entity And not to Give faith and Repentance as is said is no real entity And to Permit Infedelity and Impenitency is no real entity as is proved And not to Decree the Giving of saith and the hindering of unbelief is nothing And most clearly besides these four nothings nothing can be proved either existent or needful All that cometh to pass will come to pass without any more ado Therefore 513. As far as any mortal man can prove God hath no such Act of Reprobation at all as is 1. Either a Decree that a man shall not eventually Repent 2. Or a Decree not to give him Repentance 3. Or a Decree to Permit his Impenitence 4. Nor can we prove an after Volition of his own former non Volition which is asserted by Scotus But the three first we have great reason to lay by and so not only to say as Davenant that this part of Reprobation is an Act negative quoad objectum but that it is no Act and there is no other Reprobation as to this part save 1. Gods not decreeing to give faith 2. And his not giving it 514. 2. And as to Damnation so much of it as consisteth in sin it self God no otherwise causeth than as he doth all sin which is properly not at all It being but the Act as an act which he causeth as the Cause of Nature and not as sinfully qualified and so no more decreeth this than other sin 515. And most men little think how much of damnation lyeth in sin it self and the privative consequents which need no other cause 1. To be ignorant of God and Goodness 2. To be void of the Love of God and Holiness and Holy persons and all the Holy employment of Heaven 3. To be thereby void of all the Delights of Holy ones which consist in such Knowledge Love and Employment Praise Obedience and holy Communion 4. To be uncapable of the Reception of Divine complacency as he that maketh himself blind is uncapable of the light or he that maketh himself unlovely is uncapable of immediate Love 5. To be defiled and diseased with all kind of sinful lusts and malignity and made like the Devil 6. To have all sorts of Lusts in violence when they can have no fewel or satisfaction and so to be tormented with these lusts To have extream selfishness and Pride when they have cast themselves into the utmost shame and misery 7. To see that no Creature can deliver them and to despair of ever being better as having no hope from God or any other 8. To see or know that others enjoy the Glory and everlasting felicity which they have lost 9. To think how easily once they might have attained it and how it was offered freely to their choice 10. To think of all the solicitations of mercy that importuned them and all the time and means they had 11. To think for how base a vanity they lost it and that misery was their wilful choice 12. To be tormented with envy and malice against God that forsaketh them and against his Saints And to feel conscience awakened setting home all their former folly All this is nothing but sin and its own effects which hath no Causation at all from God but to continue the nature which he gave them and is not bound to destroy And how great a part of hell is this 516. Nay we know not how much sensible Pain may be the consequent of their own sin without any other Act of God than his common continuation of nature it self As a man that eateth Arsnick or unwholsome meat is tormented by it without any other act of God than as the universal Cause of Nature 517. All this much of Damnation then being meerly the work of the sinner himself so far as there is no Act of God in the execution so far no man can prove any Positive Act of Volition or Decree 518. But 1. As God in these is the universal cause of Nature and so of natural acts 2. And as in other instances he actually further punisheth them 3. And as he actually made that Law which made these penalties the sinners due so far God hath a Positive Decree and Volition that these persons shall be damned And moreover as improperly or morally his not sanctifying them and not saving them is called his Act and is really their penalty even so may his not-willing to save or glorifie them be called his Decree and will to damn them if you will 519. By this time we are ready to answer our first question What are the objects of these several acta of God so far as connotatively we must call them several And 1. * * * Besides all before cited against Volitions de nihilo see Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 6. §. 1. p. 36. Antiquorum gravissimi sentiunt Deum non omnia Velle sed ea duntarat bona quae in aliqua differentia temporis existunt proinde possibilia que nunquam futura sunt non amari à Deo â—â—â—â— Mala inde Deum not esse omni-volentem nâ—llam creaturam à Deo amari necessario Ita Albertus Alexand. Boâ—â—vent Richard Gaby Bannez Zumel Molina Valentia Scotus Against which he bringeth frivolous reasons and asserteth that God willeth as a material object the Goodness which the Creature would have if it were made and this as to all Creatures which never will be What putid contradictions are here to will Goodness which is no Goodness of all Creatures which are no Creatures as material objects which are nothings God willeth his own Power whence man calleth that Possible which is nothing But was there from Eternity any Possibles not-future to be willed What was there from Eternity but God And are all theâ—e Nothings God himself Gods not giving the Gospel to any persons is no Act and so hath no object But reductively or improperly the object is Man sinning against the grace of the first edition of the Law of Grace that is These are the
but rather than another 603. As the Wind hath its natural course and so hath the Water and the Miller Causeth neither of them but supposing them doth so set his Mill to Wind and Water that by the meer receptive qualification of the patient they shall fulfil his will and he is the Cause of the effect viz. that they turn his Mill and grind his Corn so is it easie for God to use mens sins permitted to his ends without willing them * * * Even Vasq in 1 Tho. q. 23. d. 49. c. 8. pag. 758. saith that Of mens non respondere vocationi God is Causa per accidens ut removens prohibens dum negat auxilium efficax congruum But this is but a Controversie about a Logical name causa per accidens which Gibieuf and many others do with as good reason deny to be fitly applicable to God as to mans sin 604. Next the Doctor cometh with Reasons And the first is because †††Pet. Alliac Cam. 1. q. 14. A. Secundum Bradward alios qui tenent quod Deus vult mala culpae quod respectu cujuslibet rei habet Velle vel nolle nec habet solum non velle Deus illo modo non permittit mala culpae fieri sed ideo secundum hunc modum dicitur permittere quia non approbat ea neâ— impedit ea fieri cum possâ—t sed secundum Magistrum Deus permittit ea quia nec vult ea fieri nec vult ea non fieri quia si nollet non fierent sed solum non vult per consequens non habet actum voluntatis respectu hujus quod est malum culpae fieri Saith Bonaventure that plain and honest Schoolman li. 1. dis 47. dub 2. Diâ—â—ndâ—m quod non est sigâ—um quod Deâ—â— velit illud quod â—â—â—â—â—iâ—â—itur sed quod velit illud quod ex â—o elicitur Alliâ—co â—â— q. 14. A. 1. Permittit qui. nec prâ—cipit nec â—â—â—â— nec consulit sed indulâ—â—t talis Permissio est signum Voluntatis Dei quia aliquem actum significat in siâ— permittente ita Deuâ— non permittit mala culpae â—â— Permittit fieri quia nec habet Velle nec habet nolle sed solum non Velle ut flat Et talis Permissio non est signum Divinâ— Voluntatis quia â—ullum actum Volendi significat in sic permittente isto modo secundum Mag. Deus permittit mala culpae Permission is a sign of Willingness as well as command And what is permitted and that for good infallibly cometh to pass Answ All this is before confuted * * * If he really holâ— with Bradward li. 1. c. 33. that God willeth all that he permitteth why is it denyed that he willeth the formale peccati as much as the materiale seeing he permitteth it But his citation of Bradwardine I think not my self obliged to regard nor do I coâ—sent any more to that doctrine in Bradwardinâ— than in him See Alliaco before of Bradward It 's false that non impedire efficaciter is a sign that one wills the thing The King that only forbiddeth drunkenness or murder by a Law with penalties could also lock up or guard some men and effectually keep them from the sin And doth he Will it because he doth not so And it 's false that all cometh to pass that is not hindered 605. His second argument is spoken very plainly and grosly viz. Both sides confess that the substrate act is done God not only willing it but effecting it v. g. Absalom 's congress with his Fathers Concubines Yea not only the congress as an exercised imperate act but that the Volition of congress the internal elicite act was efficiently and Principally of God why then should it be denyed that the very evil and deformity of the act was done God willing it though not effecting it or any way failing of his duty Especially when the Malice and Deformity doth necessarily follow the substrate act in respect of the Creature though not of God Answ Hobbes could desire little more But we vehemently deny that the substrate act is of God as it is morally specified that is as it is exercised on this forbidden object rather than another lawful one ex parte eligentis God did not as a principal efficient cause Absalom to Will that Congress with his Fathers Concubines nor to Act it The nature of the Wind and Water and God as the Cause of Nature cause the wind and water to act and to act as they do on their own part But that they turn this wheel and milstone and run in this Channel rather than another is long of the Miller Absalom's Motus qua motus and qua cupido ordinata was natural from God but not as acted hic nunc towards this object And the Reception of the Act by that Object supposing his lust and action might be morally and penally from God 606. If you here bring forth the common Medusa's head and tell me that It is injurious to God that his act be determinable by a Creature and so dependent I confidently answer you for God 1. No man is injurious to himself And God did not wrong himself when by making a Creature with free self-determining Power he resolved so far partially to suspend his own operation so as not to necessitate the will no more than he wrongeth himself by a Greater suspension in making no more Worlds or Creatures 2. You quite mistake We do not at all alter or limit Gods Acts or influx nor determine it but terminate it and determine of that effect which requireth both Causes God and Man and cannot be ordinarily by one alone because God hath otherwise appointed And again I beseech the adversaries to note How great and innumerable changes are made in the world by the various Disposition of Recipients The Rose and Vine and Weed and Dunghill do not at all Change the Action of the Sun but their various Reception and co-operation is the Cause that its Act hath such various effects And it is the Millers work in making a various and special Receptivity in his Channel Wheels c. which causeth the variety of effects And God hath enabled men Variously and freely to Receive his Influx 607. His third Argument is God giveth not that effectual Grace without which he fore-knoweth sin will not be avoided ergo he is willing that it be done Answ I deny the Consequent It only followeth that he doth not Absolutely and effectually Nill it If the King have several subjects inclined to eat a luscious poyson And his Children he effectually keepeth from it one he locketh up another he committeth to a Keeper another he keepeth the poison from But to a Traytor he saith I once forgave thee and saved thy life and I now command thee that thou avoid this poison and if thou do not it will torment and kill thee but if thou wilt take
what they are All created Justice and Holiness is such that is Good for Goodness is their essence because Gods efficient will made them so And then Gods final will taketh complacency in them or Loveth them because they are so But if they talk of Goodness or Justice c. as it is in God there is in him no effect and so no cause of himself or any thing in himself 642. But some things God maketh moral duties by the very work of Creation and Ordination of the World without any other Law And these are called Duties by the Law of Nature because the very Natura rerum is a Law that is a signification of Gods will constituting mans duty It is mans essence to be an Intellectual-free-agent It is impossible that such an agent Created of God should not be Gods Creature and Gods own and dispositively a Moral governable agent and that he should not owe God all that he is and hath and can do and that God should not have the Jus Dominii Imperii over him and Jus ad summum ejus Amorem * * * Deus non posset obligare nos ad hoc quod teneatur sibi non obedire Quaero enim an tenetur obedire an non si sic habetur propositum quia tenetur non tenetur quod est impossibile Consequentia patet Quia teneri non obedire est teneri ad aliquid Pet. de Alliaco 1. q. 14. T. Yet after he thinketh it possible for God to have made a Reasonable creature not obliged As if his very nature were not obligatory His instance of the Mad is vain for they are not actually Reasonable Ockam presumptuously concludeth that God could command a man to hate God and make it meritorious it being no contradiction His follower Greg. Arim. confuteth him And Cameracensis invalidateth the confutation and leaveth it doubtful But it is a contradiction to be a man and not obliged by Nature to Love God And a contradiction to be bound by nature to Love him and yet stante natura bound to hate him And a contradiction to hate God and be good or happy It is a contradiction to be a Created Man and not Gods Own and his obliged Subject and Beneficiary Therefore it is a contradiction that submission obedience and Love should not be his Moral duty and good and that self-alienation rebellion or disobedience and hatred should be no sins 643. To dispute then as he doth with Camero and his followers Whether it be good ex natura rei or by Gods meer free-will is a strange dispute and of most easie resolution Either they speak of Gods creating will or of some other subsequent Volition Man is made man by Gods free creating will And the foresaid Relations and duties are made such by making him Man And the duties of Love and Justice to others are made such by his Creators placing him in a world where his Neighbours are about him who are due objects as a part of the society This he himself confesseth pag. 329 330. like a Wheel in a Clock The Creators will is before Nature and therefore before natural duty as the Cause before the effect God could have made beasts instead of men who had owed him no more than beasts can do But from the Nature of a Man coexistent with God his said duties to God so necessarily result that it could not be otherwise nor did there need any subsequent act of Gods will to make that duty 644. But those that are not Duties by Nature must have moreover a Vid. Durand 1. d. 38. qi 4. n. 9 10 11. Scot. 3. d. 37. q. 1. Gabr. 3. d. 37. a. 2. Suarez de Legib. l. 2. c. 15. Aquin. 1 2. q. 94. a. 5. q. 100. a. 4. further act of Gods will as signified to make them so As the Mosaical Ceremonies our Sacraments c. 645. And many Natural Laws and duties are mutable towards one another because the very Nature and Natural Location or Order of the Things from which they did result are mutable And a word of God can make a change when yet before such antecedent mutation the duty must be duty still 646. As to Mr. Rutherfords oft saying that Omnis actus entitativus simplex est moraliter de se indifferens neque bonus neque malus And then that per actum simplicem he meaneth such as include not the object It is ludicrous or vain talk There is no such Act as hath not an object any more than physical form without matter Quicunque movet aliquid movet Quicunque intelligit aut vult aliquid intelligit aut vult vel seipsum vel aliud An Act without its object is but a partial or inadequate Generical conceptus of that Act which hath an object or an abstract partial notion of an act Why then doth he talk of that which is not Had he said that every act is in the first instant rationis or abstract-partial conception an Act in genere before it be intelligible as this or that act about this or that object he had spoken intelligibly as other men do 647. Such another question many called Arminians much use Whether Whether Justice c. be eternally good or have rationem boni aeternam Justice c. be eternally good Or An dentur rationes boni mali aeternae indispensabiles which needs no other solution than this last There is no such thing as an Universal existent per se and not in some Individual And so no such thing as Love Justice c. Bonum Malum which is not alicujus Justitia Bonum c. There was no Creature from Eternity being Just or unjust good or bad But Gods perfect Nature But that Gods own eternal perfection hath in it that root of humane virtue truth justice c. which therefore analogically have the same name our holiness being Gods Image I would prove to the Reader by this weighty reason Because else we have no certainty that Gods word is true For all our certainty is hence that God cannot lye But if Veracity be not in God we cannot prove that And if he have not that which is eminenter Justice mercy c. how can we prove that he hath Veracity might be called Eternally Just in that he must necessarily be Just if he had been a governour And necessarily was Just when he freely became a governour And also this proposition was Eternally true if there were eternally propositions Si Homines existerent Justitia in ipsis debita foret quandocunque Homines fuerint Justitia in ipsis debita fuerit But when all the sense of these questions is no more but what Duties are natural and what superadded called Positive and what natural duties are immutable and what mutable it 's an unhappiness that the world must be troubled with such uncouth forms of speech as make the question unintelligible till unravelled 648. As to
si tamen Deus solus illâ—â— causaret sicut potest illum causare solus non esset actus neque odiâ—m Deâ— vel mendacium But whatever he thought I have before answered this difficulty of the Entity of the acts of sin I mention Ariminensis judgement the rather because the Learned Calvinists commend him And I remember when I once askt Arch-Bishop Usher which of the Schoolmen he most valued as the soundest he said Greg. Ariminensis 714. Is not all this doctrine from these men cited conformable to the doctrine of the Synod of Dort Who in the conclusion name many positions which they and all the Reformed Churches with them do toto pectâ—re detestari abhorr with all their hearts Among which one is Deum nâ—â—â— puroque Voluntatis arbitrio absque omni peccati ullius respectu vel intuitâ— maximam mundi partem ad aeternam damnationem praedestinasse creasse And another is Eodem modo quo electio fons est causá fidei ac bâ—norum operum reprobationem esse causam infidelitatis impietatu Another is Multos fidelium infantes ab uberibus matrum innoxios abriâ—â— tyrannice in Gehennam praecipitari adeo ut iis nec Baptismus nec Ecclesiae in corum baptismo preces prodesse queant And it is much to be noted that in conclusion they desire all men to judge of the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches not by Calumnies nor by the Private sayings of some Dâ—ctors antâ—ent or later but by the publick Confessions of the Churches â—â—â— and by the Declaration of this Synod Therefore not by the extreams of Beza Piscator Spanhâ—mâ—â—s Twisse and Rutherford but by what the Articles of the Churches subscribed by the Pastors do contain Otherwise we shall be far more foolish than the Papists who will not expose their Church to obioquy or division by standing to the sayings of Alvarez or Molina or any private Doctor whosoever 715. And it is notorious to any impartial-peâ—user that the whole foâ—â— of the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Articles Catechism Liturgie Homilies and all their publick Writings was drawn up by men of Augustines judgement who were for absolute Election and Universal sufficient Redemption and Grace ad posse but for no Reprobation but on foresight of sin 716. And it is greatly to be noted with grief of heart that among Good men it is partly General prejudice but chiefly the Interest of their Reputation with those among whom they live which is the great impediment of the Churches Concord The name of a Calvinist is so hateful among the Papists that even the Predeterminant Dominicans who go higher than ever Calvin did and the Jansenists who go as high in the main cause and higher than the Synod of Dort do yet find it a matter of necessity to rail at Luther Zuinglius Calvin c. lest their party should think that they are turned Hereticks And the Protestants that agree in some points with the Papists are fain to rack the Papists words to a worse sense than is meant lest their fierce opposers should make men believe that they are half Papists or err with them And the moderate Calvinists are fain to stretch hard that they may seem to differ more from the Arminians than they do lest a self-conceited reviler should blot their names with the suspicion of Arminianism O doleful case of all the Churches But where Protestants are few and made odious by the Papists as differing from them further than they do there Reputation is not so great a temptation And there they freely confess their concord where they do not differ And so in Colloquia Torunensi c. 4. de grat depuls Calum sect 5 6. all the Reformed Churches of Poland with Joh. Bergius the Duke of Brandenburgs Chaplain and others did profess Falso accusamur quasi Mortis Meriti Christi prâ— omnibus sufficientiam negemus aut virtutem imminuamus cum potius idem hic quod ipsa Synodus Tridentina ses 6. cap. 3. doceamus viz. Etsi Christus pro omnibus mortuns sit non omnes tamen mortis ejus beneficium recipere sed eos duntaxat quibus meritum passionis ejus communicatur Causam etiam seu culpam cur non omnibus communicetur nequaquam in merito morte Christi sed in ipsis hominibus esse fatemur Here was no partial interest to make them afraid of being suspected to comply with Papists 717. I end with this request to all my Brethren who by their averseness to the Doctrine of Common or Universal Grace do keep open the Churches dangerous wounds 1. That they will give Scripture leave to rule their judgements and try whether it be possible to build special Grace on any other foundation than presupposed common Grace and whether to deny this be not to deny the very tenor of the Gospel and pull up the foundations of our Religion 2. That they will but read over Davenants two dissertations and the second Tome at least of the Learned Dallaeus his Apology against Spaâ—hemius that is The words of an hundred and twenty antient Writers and Councils beginning at Clemens Romanus and ending with Theophylact and sixty three Protestant Divines and Synods to which I think I could add as many more that speak more plainly to the point or near it And if after all this they have so great a zeal to contract the Glory of Gods Mercy and deny his Grace as that they will cast off the judgement of all the antient Churches of Christ and so many later rather than acknowledge it I shall cease disputing with them and seek to quench the fire which they kindle in the Churches of Christ by Prayers and Tears The End of the First Part. THE Second Part OF GODS GOVERNMENT AND MORAL WORKS WHEREIN Of his Laws or Covenants of Redemption of sufficient and effectual Grace of Faith Justification Works Merits Perseverance certainty of Salvation c. so far as the Church-troubling-Controversies do require LONDON Printed for Nevil Simmons at the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1675. The CONTENTS of these THESES cannot be well given you without reciting too great a part of them But rather than none take this imperfect summary following Sect. I. OF mans first State and the first Law and its penalty Whether Adam had a promise of Life and whether that Promise or Covenant be now ceased as to all men Page 27. Sect. II. Of the first Edition of the Law or Covenant of Grace that it was made with all Mankind in Adam and Noah Of the Promise to Abraham Of the Terms of the first Edition of the Universal Covenant of Grace How far it is a Law of Nature How far those without the Israelitish Church were under it Of the Israelites Covenant pag. 31. Sect. III. Of Christ's Incarnation and our Redemption The Law of Mediation What Christ undertook for us How far he represented usâ— The true nature of his Satisfaction Of his Righteousness and Merits pag.
naturally happy is proper to God therefore Adam was to be led to it freely by a Covenant An. To be happy necessarily and independently and primarily is proper to God But you can never prove it any contradiction or impossible for God to make a Creature naturally happy nor that there are not such § 9. Here the M. S. citeth some words of his Gibieuf making our Being in God initially and finally to be our state of amplitude and liberty and our going out from God to be our particularity and state of necessity as if we were pre-existent in God and our individuation ceased upon oâ—â— return into him as our End An. But these are Platonick Phantasms And Gibieuf who was a devout Oratorian and talketh too oft of our Deification as Benedictâ—â— de Benedictis Barbanson Baker and other Fryers that talk phanatically must be read with caution and exception and as the Soul need not fear too near a Union with God as the loss of its individuation so neither must it desire or hope for such § 10. M. S. An unchangeable state of Happiness in the love of God is called Eternal Life An. No doubt but that is called Eternal Life in the fullest sense which actually endureth to eternity as to that particular Subject And so 1. The life of Glory perfectively 2. And a confirmed state of Sanctity here initially are usually called Eternal Life But 3. Whether the lossable state which the Angels fell from and Adam fell from or that measure of Grace which the ancient Fathers thought the justified may fall from be never so called also I cannot prove § 11. M. S. Adam's promised Happiness was 1. Essential in this perfect holiness or love of God 2. Complemental in the enjoying God iâ— all the sanctified Creatures in that Paradise but not to be translated to Heaven which Christ only procureth us An. I inclined to that Opinion 26 years ago when I wrote the Aphorisms which you oppose But I now incline more to the contrary and rather think man should have been translated to Heaven as Henoch and Elias were upon many reasons which I now pass by Though I take it yet to be scarce certain to us § 12. M. S. The Holiness of God is his loving himself as his End And the third Person proceeding by a reflex act of the infinite Will and self-love of God is therefore called the Holy Spirit An. 1. This notion of Gods Holiness that it is his Self-love is not to be contemned It seemeth to be so with this limitation that you confine not his Holiness to this but take this only as the most eminent among the inadequate conceptions of it For his whole Transcendency in Being Life and Knowledg as being adoreable by the Creature and its End and the Fountain of all created Goodness and specially of Morality is also Gods Holiness 2. But the saying that God is his own End seemeth improper though tolerable if spoken but analogically For God neither hath nor is to himself a Cause nor an Effect a Beginning nor an End 3. That the third Person proceedeth by a reflex Act of the infinite Will many School-men boldly say And so some say that he is Gods actual self-love which is â—he same that you call his Holiness And some say that he is the Divine Will or Love considered in it self as distinct from Vital Power and Intellect or Wisdom But of this I have spoken more largely else-where § 13. M. S. Adam's promised Reward was to be fixed in an unchangeable state of pleasing God by this Holy Spirit not by infusing any new quality which should unchangeably fasten him to the Rule for no created thing can unchangeably keep a man from falling An. 1. The promise to Adam is very obscure But Happiness it must needs be and everlasting 2. But it is past my reach to conceive how the Spirit of God can fix man in perfect holiness without any fixing quality as it 's called on his Soul A constant Act the Soul must have And 1. If that Act be caused by any Divine Impulse disposing the Soul so to act then that disposition is a quality 2. And if there be not both disposition and habit then the Soul will not in Glory be habitually or qualitatively holy but only actually 3. And a habit-acting being perfecter than an act without a habit or inclination the Soul will be more imperfect in Glory than in this state of Grace 4. Operari sequitur esse God fitteth all his Creatures to their works And as when he will give Immortality he will give a Nature fit for Immortality even indissoluble and incorruptible so when he giveth perpetuity of Love he giveth a nature or habits fit for perpetual Action Christ saith A good Tree bringeth forth good fruit and an evil Tree evil fruit Make the Tree good and his fruit good 5. The Operations of Love in Glory should be ex potentia aut violentia aut neutra if there were no intrinsick disposition or inclination to them In a word it is a contradiction for a Soul to be perfectly holy and not have the perfection of inclination to its Acts. 3. But if the meaning were that no holy quality alone sufficeth without Gods Influx that were no more than what must be faid of every Creature without Divine Influx no Creature can be or operate a moment No created thing of it self without God can continue How then should it keep a man from falling But if the Soul have any more goodness of nature or inclination in it than the Devils have it must be a created thing or God himself If only God that proveth not a Saint to be himself better than a Devil as to nature or disposition but only that God in him is better His reason why the Sun is naturally fixed to its Operations but not a glorified Soul is § 14. M. S. that one is a natural and the other a voluntary Agent One as Gibieuf saith Non agit sed agitur the other doth agere non tantum agitur An. 1. Gibieuf and you were deceived in thinking that such naturals non agunt Passive matter doth not Act ex principio essentiali unless Dr. Glissons and Campanellas Doctrine hold true But the three Active Natures Intellectual Sensitive and Vegetative and so Fire and the Sun do ex principio Activo essentali agere but nothing doth Act without an Antecedent Influx to action from the first Cause in which it is passive For no Creature is Independent 2. Voluntas est quaedam Natura quamvis libera To move naturally only and not freely is proper to Agents meerly natural distinct from free But to move freely and yet from a fixed principle which shall infallibly determine the Soul to act freely is not a contradiction nor that which Gibieuf should deny to the glorified § 15. M. S. Man though a Creature is the first Cause of his own action He moveth and sets himself on work else he were
sinned by Omission 3. But that Law giving life eternal only to Obedience to the end of his time of trial he merited not that life by initial Obedience This was initial imperfect Righteousness wanting perseverance but not a medium between Just and Unjust except as Just signifieth the merit of Life by persevering Righteousness to the last And so I never denied but in a disobliged Subject there is a medium Adam was not bound to do a years work the first hour and so was neither just nor privatively unjust as to the future years work but as to what he was presently obliged to he was either Righteous or a Sinner Here you come short of necessary accurateness Perseverance is a part of our Condition of Glorification Yet he that is not dead is just if he be a Believer and obedient And if God now call him by death he shall be glorified But he hath not now done all that is to be done till his death if he live longer So that his Right to the present possession of Glory before death is not justifiable but his Right in case he now die is § 41. M. S. Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere cannot be put in exchange for fac hoc and therefore justified only as it relateth to him who hath suffered and done for all that will receive him An. 1. Exchange is an ambiguous word Here is no proper exchange Faith is not a fulfilling of the Law of Innocency nor so reputed by God Christ did both satisfie for our not-fulfilling it and also by that and by fulfilling it himself not in our persons but his own did merit the free Gift of Life to us to be ours upon new Covenant terms and Faith and Repentance are the Conditions of that New Covenant and so are that Duty which is laid on our selves to do instead of perfect Obedience supposing Christ's Satisfaction and Merits which are instead of it quoad precium or principally as our said acts are instead of it as to what is necessary in our selves And the Apostle who so oft saith Faith is imputed to us for Righteousness doth neither by Faith mean Christ nor mean that Faith is imputed as a fulfilling the Law of Works But that having no such merit of our own or Righteousness our believing in him that hath satisfied and merited for us is reckoned to us instead of a Righteousness or Merit as being all that now is necessary to our Justification in our selves our persevering Obedience being afterward necessary to our Glory 2. No doubt Faith relateth to Christ and here connoteth him as its Object It were not Christian Faith else But it is also related to the New Covenant as its Condition and in that form hath its place to our Justification which cannot be denied Therefore you untruly say Only as relating to Christ and your words confute your self You say Who hath suffered and done for all that will receive him You speak either of secret Decree and that giveth no Right or of Covenant Donation And to say He and his benefits are given in Covenant to all that will receive him is all one as to say The Covenant giveth them on condition that we receive him which is true § 42. M. S. 5. It is impossible that the terms of the Covenant of Grace can be any other than they are because nothing but receiving him can make him mine An. 1. That proveth not that Faith is not the Condition but that it needs must be so 2. It is impossible now the Covenant is so made viz. ex necessitate existentiae But that God could have made it no otherwise is not a thing for man to say 3. Confound not passive Reception with active moral Reception Justificari is passively to receive Justification and to be first related to Christ as mine or to be one that he is given to is passively to receive Christ Active moral receiving is the Wills consenting thus to have him on all his terms and is the means of the other It is this and not the other that is Faith And could not God possibly have made Christ ours by any alteration of the terms sure they that confine Faith to the receiving of Christs imputable Righteousness will grant that God could possibly have put one act more of Faith into the Condition or onâ— act of Gratitude Desire Love or Repentance And Dr. Twisse thinks he could have given a man a Right to Life without Christ's Satisfaction and to Christ without Faith and that so he doth to Infants § 43. M. S. There is no Righteousness in point of Justification but only in conformity to the Rule Do this that only brings a man under the approving Will of God An. 1. But what is the Do this that you mean Adam's Law said Do this and live Moses Law said Do this and live The Law given to Christ said Do and suffer this and I will give thee Power over all Flesh to give eternal life to as many as I give thee and believe The Law of Christ to Sinners saith Do this and live This is the work of God that ye believe c. But all these Doings are different for all that It 's an unknown Faith or Repentance which is no Act or Duty 2. There is no Righteousness but the conformity to the Rule of Righteousness if you speak only of that Righteousness which is of that species But there is another sort He that is justifiable is just so far If Satan say Thou art condeâ—nandus to be damned to Hell and shut out of Heaven for breaking the Law of Works I must deny it not by saying I did not break it but keep it by another or I did not deserve damnation but by alledging He that is pardoned is not to suffer any pain of sense or loss I am pardoned by the New covenant through the Merit of the Satisfaction and perfect Righteousness of Christ Adam's Law will not justifie you nor Moses's Law neither The Law requireth personal perfect Obedience It never said Thou or another for thee shalt obey It knoweth no Surety To give a Surety and to accept his suretiship is the act of the Law Giver as above his Law not fulfilling that Law but securing the ends of Government and of it by another way To pardon a Sin and Penalty is not to fulfil the Law that threatened it but to dispense with it which Justice can do upon a valuable consideration securing the ends of Government And Veracity is not impeached by it For 1. The sense of silius mortis is Death shall be thy due and so it was 2. And death was actually inflicted on man himself though not all that which he deserved If the Law of Innocency justifie you you need no Redeemer you need no Pardon you need no New Covenant to justifie you nor can it do it 3. We are justified by Doing though not by our fulfilling the Law of Works by our selves or another We are justified
by two sort◠of Doing Principally by the Merit of Christ's perfect Righteousness and subordinately by our fulfilling the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace which Baptism celebrateth 4. Gods Will approveth of all that is good so far as it is good It approveth of habitual Holiness in Adam and would have done in his Infants had he stood and doth so in all Christians now And I will believe that Christ before he actually obeyed was under Gods approving Will. But not as one that had merited by Obedience For God doth not suppose any to do that which they do not nor oblige them to do to-morrows work to-day § 44. M. S. The issue in a word is 1. Suffering for Sin is not doing nor equivalent in point of Justification 2. Nor can God having satisfaction for what was done cross to his Law lay aside that in order to the conveying of Life and substitute believing instead of it Therefore Faith justifieth ratione objecti only Now we Do in another Christ instead of doing in our own persons An. I doubt this is another Gospel than the Apostles delivered us though I hope that practically we meet in one 1. To the first I answer It 's true but you do ill to intimate that we think otherwise Suffering by the Sinner never satisfieth because it must be everlasting Suffering by Christ satisfieth not meerly as suffering but as the voluntary suffering of God-Man aptly glorifying Justice and Love and securing the ends of Government This Satisfaction is not equivalent to doing in Justification For Doing all required would have justified us against this Charge Thou art a Sinner by Omission and Commission and thou hast deserved Death and hast not deserved Life according to the Law of Works Against this Charge I look for no Justification but confess it is all true But Christ's Satisfaction justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee by paine of loss and sense or else he is not just because thou hast deserved it And Christ's perfect Righteousness also justifieth us against this Charge God must damn thee and deny thee life because thou didst not merit it by perfect Obedience The Justifier says No because Christ's Merit in Doing and Suffering hath glorified the Law and Justice of God instead of my Merit and hath procured us Pardon and Life given by the New Covenant 2. To the second I answer 1. God did not lay aside his first Covenant but man by sin did lay it aside by making the Condition impossible 2. You overturn the Gospel too much by thinking that the Law is not laid aside as a Covenant or Promise though I grant that the Precept as a Rule of Life continues To say that the sense of Adam's Law was Thou or another Christ for thee shalt obey And that we are justified by that Law is to confound Law and Gospel and make a Gospel of that Law and make the Covenant of Works not to condemn us or both to condemn and justifie and to feign man to live and be judged by the Covenant that is ceased God saith now to no man living Be innocent and so merit life that thou maist live And God doth not repute us innocent at all 3. To the third I answer It is notoriously untrue that Faith justifieth only ratione objecti unless you mean that efficiently it justifieth not at all which is true For we are justified by it also ratione foederis because that which is materially Faith in Christ a justifying Saviour and so connoteth its Object as the meritorious Cause of the free Gift and Pardon is by reason of this aptitude made the Condition of that New Covenant or Gift which is its nearest interest or reason of our being justified by it And it is the Law of Grace by which we must be judged and justified And at that Bar the question which Life or Death dependeth on will be supposing Christ's Merits whether we are penitent Believers or impenitent Unbelievers and so have part in Christ or not And if Satan accuse us as being impenitent Unbelievers and the question be whether we have true Faith or not my Opinion is that we cannot be herein justified by pleading the Object when the Act is questioned and saying That Christ fulfilled that Law unless you could prove that he justifieth impenitent Infidels and as Saltmarsh said repented and believed for us But the grand Case remaineth Whether we are justified by the Law of Innocency by fulfilling it and meriting in another without any sort of doing of our own by our selves Mr. Wotton Mr. Gataker and abundance more have long ago said much to confute your Error besides Mr. Bradshaw whom you name But I add I. I have before proved that by the deeds or sentence of the Law of Adam or Moses no man can be justified 1. He that hath sinned against it cannot be justified as not having sinned For factum infectum fieri is impossible to God himself 2. The Law that condemneth us doth not justifie us 3. What Paul Rom. 3. 4. frequently saith against Justification by the Law of Moses will hold here a fortiori And Christ keeping Moses Law as far as he was capable of Obligation that also would else have been imputed and so we should have been justified by that Law also which the Scripture copiously denieth He that saith He hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a lyar and the truth is not in him And the Law of Adam justifieth no man that hath sin II. We did not fulfil it and merit in Christ But Christ did in the Person of a Mediator voluntarily undertaking it on his Fathers terms and not as our Instrument or in our Persons I have else-where given abundance of Arguments against that which I must not here repeat This Author took notice of my Objection that he that is reputed perfectly Innocent and Obedient is uncapable of Pardon and needeth no satisfaction or remitting or rewarding Covenant besides that which he kept but answereth it not This subverteth the Gospel and Religion Quer. If there be no Reward nor Life but of Justice and no Reward but for Christ's Merits and all Believers equally merited in Christ as fulfilling all the Law 1. Whence cometh the inequality of Grace and Glory 2. How come any Believers to be left long under sins and weakness of Grace and temporal punishments III. The Merits of Christ have procured us the New Covenant sealed in Baptism by which we have a new Rule offiicii judicii for such is every Law Christ is not the only Subject of God He made us not lawless or Rebels God still ruleth the Church by a Law or Covenant This is the Law or Covenant of Grace Deny this Covenant and you deny the Gospel This Covenant or Law obligeth us to Duty And it promiseth and giveth Pardon and Life in and with Christ This Covenant hath Conditions various conditions of various Benefits Our first true consent which Baptism celebrateth that is
whether he be a true Christian and must judge of his sincerity and right to Christ Justification and Salvation as he is or is not a sincere consenter to it truly understood in the essential parts SECT V. Of the Gift and Works of the Holy Ghost 72. There are three sorts of Operations of the Holy Ghost one common and two proper to them that shall have or already have Justification 1. The first is preparing common Grace which maketh men fitter for special Grace which yet they may have that perish 2. The second is that Grace of the Spirit by which we perform the The Thomists make the act of contrition and chariâ—y to be the ultiâ—ate disposition to Justification which is with them the habit And yet they say that it floweth from that habit And if the distinction of Alvaâ—ez Disp de Aux 59. p. 264. possim be not contradiction I understand it not Eadem contritio quae est ultima dispositio ad gratiam in genere causae materialis antecedit illam in genere tamen causae formalis efficientis est effectus ejusdem gratiae Though that which is the effect of one act of Gods Love be the Object of another act first Act of special Faith and Repentance called commonly by Divineâ— Vocation which goeth before any special habit but not before any holy seed Because the very influx of the Spirit on the Soul is as a seed which exciteth the first act before a habit though not ordinarily before some preparations This Faith is commanded us as our duty first and made necessary to us as the Condition of the Covenant And when we know it to be thus required of us and hear in the Gospel the Reasons which should perfwade us then the Holy Spirit moveth us by his Influx to believe and consent where God and man are conjunct Agents but man subordinate to God 3. The third sort is the Spirits Operation of the habit of Divine Love and all other Graces in the Soul which is called his In-dwelling and Sanctification This is that Gift of the Spirit besides Miracles of old which is promised to Believers To this Faith is the Condition To this upon believing it is that we have Right given us by Gods Covenant and thus it is that by Baptism our right to the Spirit as an in-dwelling Sanctifier and Comforter is given us 73. This third Gift or Work of the Spirit eminently so called is in the same instant of time given us as the second but not of nature or at least immediately thereupon when we believe But yet they are not to be confounded on many accounts 74. But yet though some degree of the Spirit be presently given to every Believer it is usually but a spark at first And there are further means and conditions appointed us for the increase and actual helps from day to day And he that will not wait on the Spirit in the use of those means doth forfeit his help according to his neglect 75. Hence it is that most if not all Christians have lower measures of the Spirit than otherwise they might have and that judicially as a punishment for Sin However God is free herein and if he please may give more even to them that forfeit it 76. This Covenant of Grace being a conditional pardon of all the world The extent of the New Covenant is universal in the tenor or sense of it It is of all Mankind without exception that Christ saith If thou confess with thy mouth and believe iâ— thy heart thou shalt be saved No person antecedently is excluded in the world 77. And as to the promulgation of it Christ hath commissioned his Ministers to preach this Gospel to all the world and to every Creature So Matth. 28. 19 20. Mark 16. 15 16. that to the utmost of their power they are to offer and publish it to the whole world And Princes and people are all bound in their several places to assist them and to help to propagate the Gospel throughout all the Earth So that the restraint of it is not by the tenor of the Law 78. Those Nations which despise and refuse the Gospel are justly deprived of it penally for that rejection 79. Those Nations that live inhumaâ—ely and wickedly against the means and mercies which they have do forfeit their hopes of more 80. As God in all Ages hath visited the sins of the Fathers on the Children as the instances of Cain Cham Nimrod and others commonly shew and hath proclaimed it as his Name Exod. 34. and put it in Tables of Stone in the Second Commandment and not only of Adam's sin so may he justly deal by the Posterity of the Despisers of the Gosâ—el in denying it them Though he may freely give it the unworthy when he pleaseth 81. All the rest of the world who have not the Gospel and the Covenant The state of those that have not the Gospel of Grace in the last Edition are left by Christ in as good a state â—at least if not better than he found them at his Incarnation He took â—way no mercy from them which they had 82. Therefore as it is before proved that before Christ's time none Of Zuingliu's Opinion of the Salvation of Heathens by name Hercules Theseus Socrates Aristides Antigonus Numa Camilli Catonâ—s Scipiones c. Vid. Montaâ—ut exercit Eccles 1. Sect. 4. Twissum contra Corvinum pag. 371. col 1. Omnium temporum una est fides Deum esse eundemque Justum Bonum Remuneratorem sperantium in se omnium plene meritis respondentem ante legem sub lege sub gratia Nemini rectum sapienti venit istud in dubium sine ista nemo unquam ingressus est ad salutem Rob. Sarisberiens Polycrat de nugis curial Pol. Peucer Hist Carcerum against the Lutherans Concord saith p. 715. Etsi nec ad Ethnicos ante natum Christum nec ad Judaeos post natum Christum misit singulares ministros sonuit tamen vâ—x doctrinae de Deo patefactae utroque tempore Hoc modo adhuc sonat ut exaudiatur nunc etiam a Turcis Judaeis Nec fuerunt unquam exclusi prorsus a gratia miserecordia Dei ante Christum Ethnici E quibus innumeri ex omnibus gentibus fuerunt ad Deum conversi Post Christum natum Judaei Panciores ex his tamen of the world were left desperate under the meer violated Covenant of â—nnocency but that the tenor of that New Covenant as made to Adam â—nd Noah extended to them all so are they still under all the Grace of â—hat Edition of the Covenant further than they are penally deprived of â—â— for violating it The Law of Grace in that first Edition is still in force â—nd the Law by which the world shall be governed and judged They â—re all Possessors of Mercy which leadeth to Repentance and bound to use â—he means afforded them in order
believe in him as the purchaser of pardon and to believe in him as the Teacher and Ruler of the Church as to believe in him as the justifyer of believers The inseparableness of these acts is commonly confessed 110. Indeed it is essential to this faith 1. To be the act of the three essential faculties of man's Soul the Vital Power the Intellect and the Will 2. And to have for its object God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and that in Christ all that is essential to him as a Saviour be its object And therefore 1. That it be an Assent Consent and practical Affiance 2. That it be a believing in Christ as God and Man and as the Teacher Priest and King of the Church revealing the Gospel reconciling us to God and Ruling us in order to Salvation 111. To say that some one only of these parts of Christ's office as they are Concept us inadaequati of a Saviour is the only object of justifying faith and to say that justifying faith is only one Act of the Soul or many acts of one only faculty or to say that we are justified only by such a one and that to expect to be justified by Assent Consent and Affiance or by believing in Christ as our Teacher and Ruler as well as Priest and as a justifying Judg as well as a Justifying Sacrifice and as a fulfiller of the Law is to expect justification by Works as Paul denyeth it This is a vain distinguishing a falsifying the Doctrine of faith and justification a departing from the Scripture simplicity by corrupting seeming subtility and one of those humane inventions which have wronged the Church And it is no wiser than to say that when we speak of taking or receiving a Man to be a Husband a Physician a King it is but one physical aâ— of the Soul that is meant or about one only physical conception in the object which is inadequate Whereas all such Moral or Civil acts coâ—tain many physical acts and are suited to all things in the object which are essential to it in its moral or civil nature or relation 112. And it is but the same deluding subtility and vain curiosity â—â— a playing with deceitful words to say that we are justified by faith Quatenus recipit Christi Justitiam As it believeth in Christ's Sacrifice and perfect obedience only and not As it believeth in him as Teacher Ruler Sanctifier Judg or as he intercedeth for us in Heaven c. when the Scripture saith no such thing at all but simply maketh faith in Christ supposing Faith in God the Father to be that by which we must be justified 113. This distinction is founded in another falshood supposed which is that the effects of all Christ's saving works are as distinctly to be ascribed to several Receiving Acts of faith as they are to the several procuriâ— acts of Christ the object of faith which is another corrupting additioâ— to God's Word One part of the work of our Salvation was done by Christ's humiliation and another by him in his exaltation one by his overcoming the Devil and another by his overcoming the World one by his Cross another by his Grave another by his Resurrection another by his ascension another by his making the new Covenant another by his sending the Spirit another by his sending the Apostles another by his intercession in Heaven another will be done by our Resurrection and another by his last Judgment and our Glorification one by hiâ— as an obeying-subject another as a Sacrifice for sin many by him as a Prâ—phet many as a Priest and many as a King and Judge But to say therefore that our acts of faith as Receptive have as various respects to the effects or benefits and that we are justified by him only as we believe iâ— him as Righteous or a Justifyer and that we are adopted as we believe in him in another respect and sanctifyed as we believe in hiâ— in another respect c. these are the dreams of corrupting curiosity For that Christ who by all these several works hath done all the office of a Redeemer to procure these several effects is preached and offered to us to be entirely as such a Redeemer believed in and received and upon the condition of such an entire faith only Christ and all these benefits conjunctly are by one Covenant given us and no otherwise And believing in Christ as Christ who by all those acts hath himself procured us this Covenant and these gifts is that by which we are justified as it is one undivided faith And the quatenus here as to Christ's own procurement of the effects hath its place but as to the Act of our faith and Christ as the object constituting that faith there is no such diversity or order to be feigned as if the several effects were accordingly to be ascribed to our several Believings or Receiving acts 114. The ambiguity of the very word Receiving hath drawn many into this error Receiving signifyeth sometimes a Physical reception which is meerly Passive or the Relation of the Patient as such to the Act and Agent And this is twofold 1. The Reception of a real being and so to be sanctified is to Receive Sanctification 2. The Reception of a Relation such as all Jus Right to a thing is and so to be pardoned justified and adopted and to Receive pardon justification and adoption is all one 2. Sometimes it signifyeth Moral or Civil receiving which is nothing but 1. The consent of the mind called Acceptance 2. And as to corporeal objects sometime the voluntary act of the body as the Hand taking that which is offered Now if the Receiving in question were physical either rei vel juris ad rem then indeed it would be so neerly related to the thing received which as received is no object because Receiving so is no act as that this quatenus in question might be applyed to it For it may well be said I receive Justification quatenus Justificatus sum as I By this you see the answer to what Mr. Lawson in his excellent Theopolitica hath said against me on this point Of which see fullyer my answer to Mr. Warner in my Disputes of Justification am justified and I receive Sanctification as I am sanctified and vice versa for they are but various words signifying the same thing But of Moral Receiving the case is otherwise For this is not physical Reception but only a Moral Act which is made a necessary medium or Condition to Physical Reception and thence is called Receiving so Accepting or Consenting is a moral means or condition of that Having or Possessing which is consequential And this Acceptance hath relation immediately to the thing as Given only to be made ours according to the Will of the Giver and not made ours according to the order of the things given That is 1. The Ratio proprietatis the Reason that they are ours is the will of the Donor
custody 2. That the confirmed are necessitated to good but the meer persevering do it freely 3. That confirmation is only a more intense degree of the same Grace 4. Meer perseverance is by ordinary Grace with Gods custody and congruous means but confirmation is by Grace of it self most effectual though not necessitating 5. That confirmation is by a participation of the Gratia et charitas patriae Malderus resteth in this difference that the confirmed have such a measure of Divine help and heavenliness as is stronger than the strongest Temptations But the gift of perseverance only is with such a degree of Grace as would not serve if God did not keep such from stronger Temptations So that confirmation is a middle state between meer Perseverance and Glory which are too strong for him For 1. He that habitually preferreth God to the Creature and his life may yet fall into such an act as Peter did And by acting contrary to his habitual disposition and resolution may weaken the habit and forfeit Divine assistance and deserve desertion 2. And he that valueth Heaven and the love of God before his life may yet by the nearness of an alluring Object by the violence of sense and passion be drawn to a fleshly sin and thinking that he may have the pleasure of that particular sin without losing Gods love he may be drawn first to less and by degrees to greater 3. And he that is resolved for God and Glory and Christ and Holiness may meet with such subtile Arguments of Infidels or Sensualists which he is unable to answer and consequently unable to overcome And his Understanding being deceived his Will may follow so that perseverance must be by the avoiding of Temptations 345. The greatest sins after Conversion which are truly repented of are pardoned by God And must be pardoned by the Church in order to Communion if the manifestation of Repentance be such as answereth the ends the signification of its reality and the removing of the scandal and the dishonour of Religion of the Church and of Christ 346. The Sin against the Holy Ghost seemeth unpardonable by the Text though the Papists expound it by hardly pardonably And it is an obstinate insidelity and rejection of Christ as a Deceiver upon a setled conceit that he did his Miracles by the power of the Devil when they are convinced that they were actually done and so a blasphemous fathering of Gods great attestation upon the Devil and a rejecting his last Witness to the Truth which must convince those that ever will be convinced But I have wrote a Treatise of this Sin and so shall pass it by 347. If a true Believer should be supposed to fall quite away from the belief of Christ it seemeth hard to imagine how he can do it without this blaspheming the Divine attestation of the Spirit by which before he was brought to believe And it seemeth that therefore Heb. 6. 10. this Apostacy is made the same with the unpardonable blasphemy of the Holy Ghost which yet proveth not that it ever cometh to pass but what it would be if it did 348. Repentance which cometh from fear alone without the love of God and Holiness is no sign of justification nor consistent with it nor is such attrition sufficient to forgiveness For the heart is not changed to God without love 349. Though where there is more love to the Creature than to God there is no true Sanctification speaking of rational and not of sensual love Yet where there is more fear of God than love to God there may be Grace though weak so be it God be loved above the Creature 350. A Death-Bed or late Repentance is then acceptable and sufficient to pardon when it is the Heart or Love that is thus turned from the Creature to God habitually so that if the person did recover he would live to God otherwise it is uneffectual not because too late but because unsound But because fear is usually the principle of such mens Repentance it is much to be suspected though not dispaired of 351. The day of Grace is never past with any man while life continueth so as that if he truly repent he shall not be forgiven For that is contrary to the Gospel-Covenant But it is so far past with some as that after their obstinate forfeiture the Means Help and Grace of Repentance shall not be given them nor brought so near them as they were SECT XXVI Of final Justification and how Paul and James agree about Justification by Works 352. Having said this much of constitutive Justification and the not-losing of it and assurance of it and its continuance and touched the second and third sorts of Justification sentential and executive as they are here in the way I need not say much of them as after this life because it may be gathered from what is said of Pardon and Justification constitutive Yet a little I will add And 1. At death a particular doom is passed on the Soul as separated But whether only by execution and self-conviction we know not 353. The Resurrection as such is a common effect of Redemption in right antecedent to mens well or ill deserving And therefore all are raised Joh. 5 22 25 26 27. by Christ 354. The Justification of Believers at the last day will be that great Justification to which all that went before were but means and imperfect 355. Christ will be here both Judge and Advocate and as both justifie Believers And he will be the condemning Judge of the Wicked 356. All men shall be then judged according to their Works or Deeds done in the Body whether Good or Evil. * * * It is a gross over-sight of D. Petavius Elen. Ther. Vincent c. 27. p. 110 111. to acknowledge no other Reatus but obligation ad poenam when as there is 1. Reatus facti 2. Culpae which is the violation of the Precept 3. Ad poenam which resulteth from the threatning And worse p. 110. that non omne peccatum est culpa sed hoc solum quod ex voluntate id est libero arbitrio alectione committitur nec imputatur in culpam nisi ex deliberatione libera voluntatis electione trocedat A'as that God's Law must be thus denied or depraved that sin may be made no sin and so to need no Christ or Pardon Cont. 1. Analogically it is peccatum in an Ox to go out of the furrow But properly nothing in man is peccatum but culpa And all breaking a Law is culpa and nothing else is peccatum 2. Not to deliberate is a great and usual sin 3. The omission of the Wills election or intention is sin as well as an ill election Woe to him that repenteth not of these and is not pardoned them 357. To be justified then will not be to be judged sinless as is aforesaid but to be judged one that by Gods Law which must be the norma judicii is not
to be damned to Hell but to be glorified in Heaven or to be sentenced to endless life and acquit from this Accusation that we are damnandi or to be punished in Hell And in order to this to be sentenced such as have the true causes and conditions of Right to Impunity and Life which are 1. Immediately the gift of this Right by God himself in his Covenant with Christ the Fountain of it 2. A true Right and Relation to Christ as our Head and Saviour and the only Meriter of this Covenant-Gift and Justification and Adoption by his habitual active and passive Righteousness and Sacrifice advanced in dignity by Union with his Divine perfection 3. True Faith and Repentance with Love Obedience and Perseverance as the title-conditions required by the donative and condonative Covenant 358. As I have before said that a man must be justified at that Day from the charge of Infidelity by his Faith it self and not by Christ's Merits and from the charge of Impenitence by his Repentance it self So I add that he must be justified from the charge of Hypocrisie by his sincerity and from the charge of Rebellion by his subjection and from the charge of wickedness by final godliness and obedience and from the charge of Apostacy by perseverance But from the charge of his wickedness before Conversion and his pardoned sins and weakness since only by Christ's Sacrifice and meritorious Righteousness and the Pardon purchased thereby and given in the New Covenant And from the accusation that we are Sinners in general we have no Justification at all 359. Judgment is the Genus and Justification and Condemnation are the Species Therefore to be judged according to our Works is to be justified or condemned according to our Works 360. As I said that it is God's Justice and Mercy and Christ's Redemption of us which are chiefly to be glorified at that Day but it is our personal Gospel-Righteousness or performance of the Conditions of the New Covenant which is then to be tried and we and not Christ that are to be judged So I add that the New Testament referring to this fore-seen doth usually speak accordingly of justifying us by Faith by our words or by our works that he that doth righteousness is righteous c. And it speaketh of that same Righteousness as constituting us just first by which we must be judged just at last 361. It is very easie therefore where prejudice blindeth not men to see the concord of Christ's saying We are justified by our words and Paul's by Faith and not by Works and James by Works and not by Faith only Christ speaketh of a particular Justification from a common great Crime a wicked Tongue as the sign or product of a wicked Heart And this must be part of the personal material Righteousness by which we must be justified as true Christians * * * Tolet in Rom. 3. Annot 17. Estius in Rom. 3. 28. Vega de justiâ— qu 3. p. 899. say of Justification by Faith as the Protestants do Vid. Stapleton de Justifi li. 8. c. ult Bellarm. de Justif l. 2. c. 7 10 11. Suarez de Grat. l. 7. c. 7. n. 29. Topper art 8. de Justif p. 25 26 27. Vasqu in 1. 2. disput 202. c. 6. n. 45. Coster Enchir. p. 292. Paul speaketh of our being justified by being Christians and not by keeping Mose's Law or doing any Works which will be to us instead of a Christ or a free-given Pardon and Righteousness by him And James speaketh of the full condition of Justification as continued final and compleat as it consisteth of its essential parts 362. The Key of Understanding Paul's Discourses of Justification is to know 1. That the grand question which he first manageth is Whether the Gentiles may not be saved without keeping the Jewish Law as well as the Jews with it 2. To prove the Affirmative he proveth that the Jews themselves cannot be saved or justified meerly or primarily by the Law notwithstanding the divinity and great excellency of it but must be justified by a Saviour and free-given Pardon and Right to Life and to which the sincere keeping of Mose's Law was intended to be but subservient 3. That therefore it appeareth that the Jews did so fondly admire the Law and their national priviledges under it that they thought that the exact keeping of it was necessary and sufficient to Justification and Salvation And they thought the Messiah was not to be their Righteousness as a Sacrifice for Sin and Meriter of free Pardon and the Gift of Life but only a great King and Deliverer to redeem them by Power from all their Enemies and Bondage 4. That it was not Adam's Covenant of Innocency or Perfection which the Jews thus trusted to or Paul doth speak against as to Justification though a minore ad majus that also is excluded For the Jews knew that they were Sinners and that God pardoned Sin as a merciful God and that their Petavius de Leg Grat. li. 1. c. 7. Well openeth the various senses in which the Law doth or doth not promise life eternal And through his two Books is much worth the reading of the difference of the Law and Gospel See Mr. Allen's Treat of the Two Covenants with my Preface And Mr. Truman's Great Propitiat with the Append. Law had Sacrifices for Pardon and Expiation with Confessions c. But they thought that so far as God had made that Law sufficient to political ends and to temporal Rewards and Punishments it had been sufficient to eternal Rewards and Punishments and that of it self and not in meer subordination to the typified Messiah Therefore they thought that he that kept the Law so far as to comit no sin which the Law punished with death or abscission and that for all his other pardonable sins performed the required Penances and Sacrifices was by this which is called The Works of the Law that is the keeping of the Law a righteous justifiable person 5. That the thing therefore which Paul disproveth them by is 1. That the Law was never made for such an end 2. That even then it stood in subordination to Redemption and free-given life 3. That the free Gift or Covenant of Grace containing the Promise of the Messiah and Pardon and Life by him was before the Law and justified Abraham and others even without it 4. That their Law was so strict that no man could perfectly keep it all 5. That every Sin deserveth death indeed though their Law punished not every sin with death by the Magistrate 6. That their Law was never Obligatory to the Gentile world who had a Law written in their Hearts and therefore not the common way of Justification * * * Jansenius Aug. To. 2. c. 4. asserteth That the chief difference between the old Law and the new is that the old was written in Stone and Tables and the new only in memory and
Creatures and their various species of being is after by PROVIDENCE to manage them as Active or Passive in their several Capacities And the ACTIVE Natures are threefold which he hath made to operate on the threefold Passives viz. INTELLECTUAL SENSITIVE and IGNEOUS or VEGETATIVE in its proper matter upon AIR WATER and EARTH § 12. GOD is so Active as not to be at all PASSIVE All the Active Creatures are first Passive as receiving the Influx of the first Cause and Inferiours from the Superiour second Causes But they are Naturally Active in that dependence and supposing that Influx § 13. The works of Providence about the Existent Creatures are MOTION causing Motion GUBERNATION causing ORDER and ATTRACTION or meet objective Termination satisfying their Appetites and giving them their Ends. * * * Cyprianus sie explicat Act. 17. In ipso sumus movemur vivimus In Patre sumus in Filio vivimus in Spiritu Sancto movemur Pater est sons omnis essentiae Filius est Vita Spiritus Sanctus est agitator seu motor unde apud Hebr. nomen habet Ruah quod significat endelechiam continuam perennem agitationem Vid. Strigel in Melanct. Loc. com pag. 294. § 14. MAN being endowed by his Creator with his Image in Vital-Active-Power Intellect and Free-will a Threefold Virtue in One as the formal Essence of his soul is peculiarly fitted for such acts of Providence as he must be under § 15. As the higher and Nobler Natures are under God the Immediate 1. Movers 2. Governours of the Inferiour so also are they 3. Their Immediate or nearest End having a Goodness in them fitted to attract terminate and satisfie the Appetites of the Inferiour God is not the only end of Appetites § 16. The Acts of Divine PROVIDENCE about MAN-existent are 1. Action or Motion 2. Special Government 3. Love From whence God is Related to Man the fundamental Relation of CREATOR supposed †††I hold with Bradwardine li. 1. c. 2. cor 3. Quod necesse est Deum servare quamlibet creaturam immediatius quacunque cansa creata Et c. 3. cor 3. Quod nulla res potest aliquid facere nisi Deus faciat illud idem immediatius quolibet alio faciente Et c. 4. cor 3. â—adem de Deo Motore â—aking immediation for proximity and facere movere for the action as such and not for the meer moral specification and comparability 1. As ACTOR vel MOTOR 2. As RECTOR 3. As AMICUS vel FINIS Lover Benefactor and End 1. ACTION as such is from God in the first relation 2. Action as ORDERED is by him in the second 3. Action as TERMINATED FINALLY and in perfection is in him in the third § 17. Creation inferreth Propriety and making us Good and inter bâ—na and ad bonum inferreth that God is our Benefactor So that ab origine he standing in these three Relations to us from what is past he is to dispose of us by Providence accordingly § 18. Gods Omnipotence is most conspicuous in Creation propriety and Motion His Wisdom in Governing and Order and his Good will in our Benefits efficiently and our Perfection finally in mutual Love § 19. MOTION is caused by Moving â—â—â—ce impressed ORDER moral by LAW or signification of Gods Will de debito And PERFECTION by attingency and union with our END § 20. From the first resulteth NECESSITY properly so called From the second Moral RECTITUDE In the third is FELICITY as to single persons § 21. From the first viz. God as Actor upon Many or the Universe ariseth CO-OPERATION or Concurse All things work together as the Wheels in a Watch. From the second Divine ORDERING ariseth HARMONY and from the third UNIVERSAL PERFECTION and Melody of the whole Creation and to man perfect Love § 22. Motion is unresistible unless by a greater or unequal Contrary Motion or passive impedition and its effect as such not free but Necessary Government by Law is resistible and obedience free Final Goodness or Love do perfect and felicitate necessarily and freely not effecting for so they are not now considered but satisfying so far as they are enjoyed § 23. The Creation being past and Beings existent except what Generation and Composition make unfearchably and Gods fundamental RELATIONS setled we shall confound and be confounded if we distin-guish not Gods after-actions according to the Relations in which he worketh them and their foresaid differences in themselves SECT II. The Order of Divine Operations § 1. GOD is the Immediate Cause of all things and actions caused * * * Bradwardine ib. p. 172. seemeth to favour Averrois saying that God is Forma omnis formae forma maxime essentialis principalis cujuscunque formati and so acteth all things And indeed when we deny him to be the form of any creature we mean that he is More and not Less And that we have not a fitter Analogical conception of God than that he is eminently more than the soul of the world And c. 14. p. 210. he calleth Necessarium the most proper name of God But when he saith c. 17. that Gods Essence Omnipotence Intellect Naturally precede Gods Knowledge and cause it and so putteth Causes and Effects in God he is too bold by him as to the Proximity of God to the effect For he is every where present in Essence and as near to every Being and Action as it is to it self We must not conceive of Gods using means as we do of mans where the Pen the Saw the Knife c. is between the hand and the effect God is as near and as total a Cause of what he doth as if he used no second cause § 2. They that say God is thus Causa Immediata Immediatione Suppositi seu Essentiae Virtutis speak true but not aptly because it ill insinuateth as if Gods Virtus were not his Essence when as in God they are all one only as inadequate conceptions we may distinguish suppositum à virtute but not otherwise And it is not as quid creatum that we speak of Virtus § 3. Since the Creation in the Motions of Providence God who at first made the Universe to be One by conjunction and co-operation of parts as truly as a Clock or Man is one hath setled a course of second Causes that one thing may act upon and move another and though he work upon the Highest of these Causes immediately without any other subordinate Cause yet on all the rest he ordinarily worketh by superiour created Causes which are some of them Necessary and operate in one constant course and some of them Voluntary and Free and operate more mutably and contingently § 4. The course of Necessitating Causes is commonly called NATURE and the Influence of Angels and other Voluntary Causes distinguished from Natural But they all operate as second Causes under the Influx and Government of God upon us that are here on earth § 5.
c. and the latter they call the formal nature of Grace viz. quatenus Deo gratiosi seu amati sumus So Alvarez de Aux disp 60. p. 275. Gratiam augeri in esse gratiae similiter charitas in esse charitatis nihil aliud est quam quod per illam acceptetur justus ad majorem gloriam By which he decideth the question whether Grace or Charity be increased by remiss acts or only by intense acts saying that 1. Gratia in esse gratiae similiter Charitas in esse Charitatis statim augentur etiam per actus remissos that is We are made more acceptable to God for greater glory But augmentum gratiae charitatis in esse Habitûs quod homo meretur per actus remissos dabitur postea in primo instanti glorificationis And it seems that so they sometimes take Charitas too both for the Habit and Act of our Love and for our Amability or Dearness to God Now this is ill done For these equivocal words signifie these not as one but as two distinct things Amor Amabilitas or Dearness are two things Though Love be materially our Loveliness yet not formally the latter being an obâ—ective relation resulting from the former Wisdom and Goodness are Inadequate conceptions of One God so all together are a more perfect expression of him than one of them alone Now in all these the former is still implyed in the latter as to the very sense of the word but not contrarily Power doth not alway signifie Wisdom or Love but Wisdom signifieth the wisdom of one Potent including power for there is Potentia Intellectiva And Will or Love include Power and Act. So Action may be without ORDER or Rectitude and Perfection but the order and perfection of Acts include or suppose the Acts. § 8. It is therefore the glory of Gods SAPIENTIAL work of Government which eminently shineth forth in the communications of Grace by the Spirit of Christ But not that Government which was fitted to the state of Innocency but that which stands nearer to the End as more demonstrating Love and tending more effectually to it § 9. Therefore it is much to be noted that all this frame of Grace as tending to Glory is usually called in Scripture The Kingdom of God and The Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 13. 45 c. which containeth the whole frame of Political Order and Government § 10. This Kingdom is the state of Relation between God and the Mediator as the Head or Ruler and Man as the Subject as he is to be guided by Grace to Glory God who is Physically neither Pars nor Totum maketh himself here as it were a Relative Part being the supream Head and the Mediator the supream official Head or general Administrator who hath under him a course of Political means for the accomplishment of this his work § 11. As Christ himself is the Head Means or second Cause so under him are Prophets and Apostles eminently qualified to make them fit to do this work so as tendeth to success § 12. These Prophets and Apostles were endued with that special infallible Spirit by which they certainly delivered Christs doctrine and actions and faithfully discharged all their trust § 13. They had the power of working Miracles many wayes to confirm their doctrine as the Truth of God Besides Christs Mâ—racles § 14. The Scriptures are Gods Record which they left us to be the continual standing signifier of his will § 15. In these Scriptures are his Doctrine to teach his precepts to make duty and oblige and forbid sin by prohibition his own and servants examples to move his threatnings to drive his promises to draw formed into a Covenant strongly to engage the Records also of his Judgements and Mercies upon others that they might every way be fitted to their sanctifying use § 16. He hath also instituted his Sacraments by which the mutual Covenant might be celebrated the more obligingly for its effects § 17. He hath appointed his ordinary Ministers as his standing officers through all generations to preach this word And he endoweth them with special gifts thereto and chargeth them vehemently to preach in season and out of season with urgency and importunity even to all mankind 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Mat. 28. 19 20. whatever it cost them and whatever they undergoe § 18. He hath appointed also Prayer as his Means to obtain Grace by preparing the heart to a due receptivity by the excitation of desires after it And Praise and Thanksgiving to sweeten it to us in the review when we have received it § 19. He hath commanded exercises of humiliation confession bringing down the body to fit us to receive it by a due sense of our sins unworthiness and wants § 20. He hath appointed the publick assembling of his servants that concurse might augment the Sacred flame in the performance of all this Sacred work § 21. He hath instituted the Lords day to be wholly employed in such works and helps that it be not neglected and lightly done § 22. He hath commanded every private Christian to be a helper to others by conference exhortation and good example § 23. He hath made Pastoral discipline a great ordinance to promote the due performance of all the rest § 24. He hath commanded us by secret Meditation Consideration Examination c. to preach to our selves and night and day to think on Scripture God Christ Glory c. and to stir up all Gods graces in our selves and to reprove our selves for all our sins § 25. He hath made it the duty of Parents to teach their Children diligently his word lying down and rising up at home and abroad Deut. 6. 11. and to educate them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord having bound them first in Covenant to God and the Mediator § 26. He hath made it the duty of husband and wife to help each other herein and of masters to help their servants and all relations to sanctifie their places and opportunities to this use § 27. He doth by multitudes of mercies and deliverances further all this work to make known the more his Love to win the hearts of men § 28. He greatly promoteth it also by seasonable afflictions to humble the proud and awake the sleepy § 29. He maketh it mens great duty to tame the body and mortifie concupiscence and make no provision for the flesh to satisfie the lusts thereof Rom. 13. 13 14. 8. 13. Gal. 5. 21 22. § 30. He commandeth us to avoid the company of the wicked and to joyn in the Communion of Saints and walk with such as will be our helpers toward Heaven § 31. He commandeth us to avoid all Temptations of Satan and the world and flesh and to live in a continual war against them § 32. He maketh all the world about us the book or glass in which we may see our maker and his will yea even our own natures and every
Creature doth preach him to us and all things must be sanctified and used to this holy end § 33. He setteth Death continually before our eyes assuring us of the shortness of our lives and shewing us how we must leave this world that we may read Vanity upon all and not be deceived by it § 34. By all this we see that this Kingdom of Christ is a sapiential frame of Moral Causes designed for the Government of man in right ordering his internal and external acts and glorifying eminently the wisdom of our Ruler § 35. And he that will think rightly of this excellent frame must have all these things in his consideration 1. That Christ himself is not only a Justifier and Actor of us but a Prophet Priest and King and that the Government is laid upon his shoulders Isa 9. 6. 2. That we are not only Patients and pardoned sinners but also Subjects and engaged Covenanters 3. That Christs Church is not like a Statuaries shop but a Kingdom and a School where all must learn and obey 4. That Christ hath not only Motive power but Laws Promises Threatnings c. to work by 5. That his great blessings of Glory are his Rewards and Hell at last after those here are his punishments foretold to work on souls 6. That he hath a day in which as Rector he will judge the world in righteousness according to what we have done in the body 7. That faith is wrought by Preaching and Love and Hope and obedience are the ends and uses of faith 8. That the felicity of individuals and in them of the Heavenly Society in one Glorified body with Christ is the end of all where Gods Remunerating Justice is to be glorified and his governing Wisdom and Love for ever § 36. From all this I conclude That they that slight all this work of God by the contemptuous name of Moral Suasion and take it to be a diminutive term as to the honour of it to call it Moral and by Means and talk of Gods work of Grace on the soul as if there were no more in it very honourable than a physical Motion and God Converted souls but as Boyes whip their Tops or Women turn their Wheels or the Spring moveth the Watch are Cartesian blind Theologues and overlook the very nature of that Theologie which they profess which is the Doctrine of the Kingdom of God over man And while they see little but Matter and Motion they are fitter mechanically to treat of or deal with Stones or Bricks or Timber than men â— being unfit to treat of humane Government much more of Divine SECT IV. How far God useth Means § 1. CHrist who is the chief means is used in all the Conveyances of Grace to any one in the world § 2. God hath a double work in Illuminating and Converting souls One by activity of exteriour appulsive causes The other within us on the Agid. Column Rom. Quodl 1. qu. 2. p. 5. citeth Dioâ—ys de div nom l. 3. as holding that every order of second causes is like a beam of light streaming down from God as so many cords let down to men to draw them up to God And if a man should take hold of one of them and ascend to Heaven he might imagine that Heaven did bow down to him when indeed it moveth not but he would draw himself up to it so when upon Prayer or other second Causes God doth us good he seemeth to incline and bend to us but it is not so but he is unchangeable and it 's we that are drawn and moved to him and by the use of means by us we are conjoyned to Gods purpose that the things may be done for us which he hath decreed Vid. reliq where he confuteth the contrary errours faculties of the soul without those causes I cannot better illustrate it than by the causing of sight hearing c. The Light without us is not only a terminating object as some dream but an Active thing or Action which operateth by appulse upon the eye And the Sun and Aire are the causes of it The eye is not only a passive Receiver as some dream but an Organ where the visive spirits and soul are Active And God worketh internally on this visive faculty by his influx to sustain it in its activity And by a congress of these two fires or Active causes the sensitive soul doth see Now we all know that God giveth the external light only per media by the Sun c. But how he sustaineth and actuateth the Visive faculty is more difficult His own influx or Causation is undoubted And that the same Sun ut causa universalis cherisheth and moveth the visive spirits But whether God move the sensitive faculty or soul it self by any superiour spirit or mediate cause in its motion or action towards and on the exteriour light is past our knowledge Though the order observed in other cases maketh it not improbable Even so in the Illumination of the mind and conversion of the will we are sure that beside the terminative object there is an external motion which by the foresaid means is made at least on the senses and imagination whatever it do further on the Intellect But in the superiour Influx on the soul it self what use God may make of Angels or other superiour spirits or causes we cannot tell We are sure as is said that if there be a second cause yet as to proximity it is never the less neerly from God And souls being Intellectual and for ought we know of the highest nature of Creatures though not the highest Degree neither is improbable that God moveth us by a second cause or that he doth it without § 3. But as Christs fore-described mediate Causality is still supposed so it is certain that God doth not only work as some think concomitantly with the word but by it as his Instrument Though his wayes of co-operation are past the reach of man yet this much is sure 1. That he adapâ—eth the means to do their work both word Minister c. 2. And that his concurse maketh the due Impression on the sense and imagination 3. And though no Philosopher certainly know whether the Images in the phantasie be meerly passive as to the Intellect or what use is made of them and the passions to Intellection and Volition yet such use as is naturally to be made of them for these ends God maketh and manageth them accordingly by skill and power § 4. But here MOTION the effect of Active force and ORDER of motion as the effect of GOVERNMENT must be well distinguished For it is not so much the second Causes of the souls Action as such that we are now enquiring after But of the ORDER and Rectitude of its Actions which is done by Government § 5. That God doth work Grace on man by means ordinarily as ordinarily he causeth natural effects by means and Miracles are rare may be proved by all
of the great alterations in the World being admirably fetcht from the various Passive or Receptive dispositions of matter no wonder Cum Thomistae dicunt Deum suo auxilio efficaci physice praedeterminare Voluntatem ad actum bonum non excludunt Motionem Moralem sed eam praesuâ—â—â—â—â—â— Alvarez de Aâ—xil disp 23. p. 108. â—â— if it be so with mans soul also A spark of fire which long was unseen if you put Straw Gunpowder or other fuel to it may burn a City or Kingdom when yet the fuel is not an efficient cause save the fire that is in it but an objective Matter What work doth a Student find all his life among Books What abundance of knowledge doth he learn by them which he had none of in his Infancy And so do Travellers by viewing the actions of the World And all these are but fuel to the fire The soul only is the Agent and all these are signs and objects that do nothing really on the soul at all You may lead a Beast up and down and govern them by objects which yet act nothing on them So Satan doth by the Drunkard Glutton Fornicator Gamester Covetous c. What Reputed work do objects make on them by doing nothing Thus Verâ—m Bonum are said to work And the case is this The Active Spirit is not only Naturally Active but Essentially Inclined to some certain objects Truth and Goodness And this Inclination being their very Nature when the object is duly presented to it and it self delivered from all false objects and erroneous Action on them and ill habits thence contracted it will Naturally work accordingly And therefore duly externally and internally to bring God and Holy objects to the prospect of the soul is the way of working them to God And sure the World would never make such a stir about Preaching to get fit men and to perswade them to diligence and to keep sound doctrine c. if these objective causes as fuel to the fire did not do much by occasioning the Active soul to do its proper work 9. Yet still remember again that Jesus Christ is the Political Head of Influx if not more who sendeth forth the Spirit as he please but ordinarily upon his setled Gospel terms to work on souls by his threefold fore-mentioned influx with and by these means according to them but in an unsearchable manner As God doth in Nature by the Sun and other Natural Causes SECT XI What Free-Will Man hath to Spiritual Good c. § 1. THe understanding of the Nature of the Power and Liberty of the Will is the very key to open all the rest of the controverted difficulties in these matters But having spoken of it so much before in the former part of this Book and more elsewhere I shall no further weary the Reader with repetitions than to note these few things following § 2. If any like not the name of Free-will Libera Voluntas let them but agree about these two the Power of the Will and Free-choice * * * Nolite esse adeo delicati ut abhorreatis ab usâ— vocabuli Lib. arbit Hypocritarum propriâ—m est rixari de vocabulis Nemo offendatur hoc titulo quia August in multae Volum singulis fere pagellis ad fastidium Lectoris hoc vocabulum inculcat Melancth Loc. Com. de lib. arb c. 1. Liberum arbitrium and they need not contend about Free-will § 3. 1. As to the first It is the very Essence of the Will to be a natural Power or faculty of Willing Good and Nilling evil apprehended by the Intellect and commanding the inferiour faculties either politically or despotically difficultly or easily perfectly or imperfectly according to its resolution and their Receptivity § 4. 2. The Liberty of choice is not only Libertas Voluntatis but Libertas Hominis when a man may have what he chooseth or willeth Here the Act of choosing is the Wills but the object is somewhat else either an Imperate act of some inferiour faculty or some extrinsick thing So we say truly that the unbeliever or unconverted sinner may believe may repent may have Christ and life if he will as Dr. Twisse frequently asserteth § 5. 3. But the Liberty of the Will it self is but the mode of its self-determination as without constraint it is a self-determining principle in its elicite Acts considered comparatively § 6. The Liberty of the Will is threefold 1. Liberty of Contradiction or exercitii 2. Of †††Note that the Papists confess that by Christs Case it is proved that Libertas specificationis inter bonum malum is not necessary to merit So Pet. â— S. Joseph Thes Univers pag. 90. Contrariety or specification in the Act 3. Of objective specification which is Liberty of Competition 1. The first Liberty is to will or not will to nill or not nill 2. The second is Liberty to will or nill this 3. The third is Liberty to will This object or That or to nill This or That * * * Of the real difference of these three see Rob. Baron Metaphys I take not that which many Schoolmen call Liberty of Complacence to be another sort of Liberty Though I distinguish Liberty of simple Complacence from Liberty of election as being a prior distribution And I deny not but that Liberty of Complacency specially may stand with necessity of immutable disposition yea and with some sort of necessitating operation of God as is in Christ and the Glorified And in this large essential sense Liberum and Voluntarium are all one supposing Voluntarium to be the act of a self-determining unconstrained will So that the word Free-will being so exceeding ambiguous as my foresaid Scheme sheweth we must be sure that we pretend not the Controversies de nomine to be de re But it is the Indifferency of a Viators will that we have now to do with and not that state of perfect determination or that Amplitude or advancement of the will which Gibieâ—f and such others talk of And note that by Posse agere vel non agere which we put into the definition of free-will we must not mean that Potentia moralis metaphorica which is nothing but the wills moral disposition or habit but the Potentia Naturalis And so it may be said of Christ and the glorified that their not sinning or not willing sin is not ex impotentia naturali but ex perfectione § 7. The Will hath not all these sorts of Liberty about every object For it cannot will known evil as such c. But it hath all these about several objects § 8. By this power and Liberty the Will is made of God to be a kind of Causa prima secundum quid of the Moral ORDER or specification of its own acts Not simply or strictly a Causa prima For 1. It was God the first Cause that gave man this self-determining Power 2. It is God that upholdeth it And so it
Some of you will grant that as motion causeth motion by contact of bodies so the first effect on the soul can cause the second And others of you will deny it and say that Gods Actions being diversified only by the diversity of effects and objects that which causeth the second effect is to be denominated a second Action and not the same numerically which caused the first no nor specifically if the effects specifically differ And so as scholastick wits here exercise their curiosity without respect to Arminianism or Calvinism you will here fall into notional Controversies in the way § 20. 2. But granting that the first effect is that efficacious Grace which must cause the second how shall we know what the first effect is and what the second Gods Grace like the Sun is still shining though we are not still receiving it When it worketh but the commoner sort of effects these tend to more and more The first Gracious effect may be forty years before Conversion But this is not your meaning But I suppose you will say that it is the first special effect or gratia operata that is proper to the saved which you mean But to pass by that Augustine Prosper Fulgentius much more their predecessors held that sincere faith Love holiness Justification present right to Life if they so dyed are not proper to the saved but that some lose all these If you say but proper to the Justified or Sanctified or Converted or it be the first effect which is proprium Justificandis which you mean Are we agreed what that is § 21. Either the first effect on the soul or the first Gratia operata is the Act of faith it self or somewhat antecedent If the Act as many subtilly maintain then it were a foolish question to ask Whether the Act of faith be Effectual to cause it self and How Therefore it must be somewhat antecedent or we can find no matter for our Controversie de efficacia Gratiae ad credendum § 22. If somewhat antecedent to the Act it is either a Disposition or Infused Habit or an Impression Impulse or Influx which is neither Disposition nor Habit. * * * Dico 1. Non certo constare ex divinis literis esse hujusmodi Habitus supernaturales 2. At baptizatis infunditur Gratia â—o sensu quod efficiuntur Dâ—o grati consortes divinae naturae renati 3. Conceditur Dei adjutorium ut credamus velimuâ— diligamus per inspirationem infusionem spiritus sancti 4. Dei adjutorium desuper infusum est omnino necessarium ut credamus diligamus c. non tantum ut facilius credamus Medina in 12. q. 51. p. 282. See many definitions of a Habit confuted in Medina 1. 2. p. 271. and that which he resteth in is Aristotles Qualitas quâ rectè vel malè afficimur § 23. 1. A proper Habit of faith it is not Though Mr. Pemble singularly seem so to think yet he meaneth but a seminal disposition And it 's commonly held that the Habit is given by sanctification after the Act given in Vocation 2. But if it were otherwise the Habit is not alwayes sufficient to ascertain the Act. For holy men oft sin against a Habit and believers do not alwayes exercise it Habits Incline per modum naturae but do not certainly determine to the act 3. And of a Disposition it must be so said much more § 24. 2. And if it be an Impulse or Influxus Receptus as I think we must affirm this is but a general notion of which our understanding is very crude or small A meer Motus it is not For as was said in the beginning the Divine Influx is threefold viz. From Vital-Activity or Power Wisdom and Love to Life Light and Love in man Now as I said if there be no such Impulse besides the Life Light and Love produced our Controversie is at an end For these are not efficacious or efficient of themselves But if such a different Impulse there be it 's hard to know what it is in man I conceive it best expressed by all these inadequate notions conjunct 1. An inward urgency to this threefold act which is called in the Schools both auxilium concurse and Influx 2. By which Urgency the soul is more Disposed to the Act in hoc ordine than it was before 3. Which Disposition containeth in it a Moral Power to that Act so ordered and somewhat more even some Inclination to perform it If any man can tell me better what that Divine Impulse is which is antecedent to mans Act I am willing to learn § 25. Now if this be the question Whether this Divine Impulse which is the first effect of Gods spirit be of its own nature efficacious to produce According to Jansenius the first Grace is Necessary Delectation or Love in act before that which is free and full And if so then there is no grace causing this grace and so none to be the subject of this question Whether it be more or less sufficient or effectual operating or co-operating grace which maketh one man love God initially rather than another For it is no Grace bâ— Gods essential will this Love be the first Grace and no received Impulse antecedent to it our Faith Love c. as the second effect I answer 1. Sometimes Gods Impulse is so Great as propriâ vi doth change mind and will and overcome resistance and procure our act 2. Sometimes it is so strong as that it prevaileth against the contrary ill-disposition so far as to give man a Moral Power to the Act with some Inclination which yet contrary habits and temptations do overcome and the Act doth not follow which yet was not for want of Power to have done it And this is called sufficient Grace 3. We have great reason to believe that as in some Instances Gods greater Impress is the chief differencing Cause so in other Instances an equal Impulse of God on unequally disposed subjects doth produce the Act of faith c. in one of them which it produceth not in the other through the incapacity of the recipient 4. Therefore there is a double degree of efficacy or Vis One which only so far moveth and helpeth the will as that it can do the act and sometime doth it without more Another which is so strong as that the second effect alwayes followeth it 5. But whenever the Act of faith is produced by force or Impulse more or less God is the first and principal cause of it and man but the second and the praise of it is accordingly due And I think this decision accommodateth both sides of our contenders § 26. The foresaid Impulse or first effect is only the work of God and the means and not ours But the Act of Faith Love c. is Gods work and ours and ours as Free-agents Therefore that Impulse of God which is Aptitudinally efficacious on supposition of mans due reception and self-excitation
his overlooking and undervaluing Gods Design in Making and Governing free Intellectual agents by his Sapiential Moral Directive way He supposeth this way to be so much below that of Physical Motion and Determination as that it is not to be considered but as an instrument thereof As if it were unworthy of God to give any creature a Meer Power Liberty Law and Moral Means alone and not to Necessitate him Positively or Negatively to Obey or Disobey And this looking only at Physical Good Being and Motion and thereby thinking lightly of Sapiential Regency is the summ as of his so of Hobbes Spinosa's Alvarez Bradwardines Twisses Rutherfords and the rest of the Predeterminants errors herein And had not I other thoughts of this one thing I should come over to their Opinion For I confess the case to be of very great difficulty § 28. I think that as the Divine Life and Power glorifieth it self eminently in the Causation of the Being Motion and Life of the creatures so the Divine Wisdom eminently glorifieth it self in the Order of all things and in the Moral Directive Sapiential Regiment of Intellectual free agents And that Gods Laws and Doctrine are the Image of his Wisdom and an admirable harmonious and beautiful frame And that all would think so and be wonderfully delighted in them were they compleatly printed on our Minds and Hearts § 29. II. And accordingly I think that the glory of his governing Wisdom and Punishing and Rewarding Justice is a great and notable part of that glory which man must give him now and for ever And that this Justice is not his physical using all things according to their physical aptitude only But his Judging and Executing according to that moral aptitude commonly called Merit by Punishments and Rewards And that to deny God the glory of all this is no small error in a Philosopher or Divine § 30. III. Accordingly I think that God made man a free self-determining agent that he might be capable of such Sapiential Rule And that it is a great Honour to God to make so noble a Nature as hath a Power to determine its own elections And though such are not of the highest rank of Creatures they are far above the lowest And that God who we see delighteth to make up beauty and harmony of diversities doth delight in the Sapiential Moral Government of this free sort of Creatures And though man be not Independent yet to be so far like God himself as to be a kind of first-determiner of many of his own Volitions and Nolitions is part of Gods Natural Image on Man § 31. IV. Accordingly I take Duty to be Rewardable and Laudable and sin to be odious as it is the Act of a free agent And that the Nature of Moral Good and Evil consisteth not in its being the meer effect of physical premotion but in being a Voluntary Conformity or Disconformity to the Sapiential Rule of duty by a free agent that had Power to do otherwise § 32. V. Free-will then is not only the same with willing it self or a meer agency according to Nature by the premotion of the first determining necessitating Mover It is not only such a freedom as Fire Water Beasts and every moved thing hath to be moved according to the first Moyers action which is in the will of man But it is a Power to be a first determining Specifier of its own acts as Moral Not that it is never predetermined but that it can do this § 33. VI. Accordingly I judge of Guilt and Shame and the Accusation of Conscience which will not be a bare discerning what God made us do or be but what we voluntarily did or were when we could do otherwise § 34. VII And I am past all doubt that he grosly mistaketh the nature and distinction of Law and Gospel 1. To think that Gods Law when it is not accompained with physical predetermination is but to shew us that we are creatures that cannot but sin 2. Yea hereby he wrongeth the glory of the Creator that made no creature with a power to do any thing but evil unless predetermined physically thereto 3. It 's gross to say that all the Doctrine of Redemption and Faith and Justification by Christ as a meer signum Letter or Law is the Law or Covenant of Works and so that every Command is the Covenant of Works and Physical Efficiency of Good in us is the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For that which we call the Gospel is not true if this be true For this Gospel is a preached word spoken by mans mouth which some believe and some believe not but reject and disobey and therefore perish Matth. 4. 23. 11. 5. 24. 14. 26. 13. Mark 16. 15. Luke 4. 18. 1 Cor. 9. 14 16 18. Heh 4. 2. 1 Pet. 1. 25. 1 Pet. 4. 6. 2. Thess 1. 8 10 11. Matth. 13. 10. Acts. 13. 7. It is a Law by which men shall be judged to life or death Rom. 2. 16. Mar. 16. 15 16. 2 Thes 1. 8. Rom. 10. 16. John 3. 19 20 21. 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. It is a word which some pervert Gal. 1. 7. and many sin against Gal. 2. 14. 1 Pet. 4. 17. The rejecters of it are to speed worse than Sodom and Gomorrah and they cannot escape that neglect so great salvation Whereas by his description 1. No man ever yet sinned against the Gospel or Covenant of Grace For it is not that Covenant or Gospel further than it is a physical effect on the soul 2. And every Heathen that hath any good effect on his soul by Common Grace hath so much Gospel 3. Yea why is not then all Gods Creation being a physical effect the Covenant of Grace if that he doth be it and all that he commandeth as such be the Law of Works 4. And how then can the Law of Works and Grace be two if every proper Law be the Law of Works For a Law is sub genere signi and a produced event is another thing 5. And what sense will be found throughout the Scripture if we must hold that It is the Covenant or Law of Works which telleth us that the Law of Works is abolished and calleth us to believe in Christ for free Justification and not to expect Justification by the Works of the Law and offereth us pardon and life in Christ c. But I will add no more seeing the plainness of the matter makes it needless § 35. The truth is he distinguisheth between the Law and the effect of the Law and Spirit of God and calleth one the Law of Works and the other the Gospel whereas the Scripture only maketh it the excellency of the Gospel that by it the Spirit effectually worketh on the soul more usually and more excellently and no meer Law of Works or Grace will renew us without the Spirit § 36. VIII And if Redemption be nothing but Physical efficiency by Christ who as a creating Mediator
Popery p. 287. It 's necessary that we mention them and repent of them p. 288. Wherein these Sectaries agree with the Papists while they over-oppose them p. 289. The great mischief that is done by railing at Truth as Popery and calling good things Anti-Christian and prating thus before they understand p. 289. More of such mischiefs with Counsel to the Guilty p. 291 c. Horrid Lies of Papists against Protestants instanced out of Tympius should warn us that we imitate them not More Objections answered p. 296 c. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A. an Arminian and B. the Conciliator THE First Days Conference ABOUT PREDESTINATION A. I perceive by your Writings that you would make men believe that the differences between the Arminians and Calvinists are matters of no such moment as they are commonly judged to be * Ista quae nullus in dubium vocant Christianis omnibus mee judicie sufficere deberent absquo ulteriori curiosiori investigations tum intimae naturae libertatis humanae tum modi quâ— gratia in nobis operatur quo ejus efficacia cum arbitrii nostri libertate concilianda est de quibus nulla diserto clara expressa extant in Scripturis or acula But if they will needs be medling he wishes them modesty and moderation Le Blank de distinct Grat. Thes 83. and that the distance is very small if men understood themselves and you would have it thought that you are the man fit for so great an undertaking as the conciliation of these differing Parties is But to deal freely with you I take it to be but the effect of your own Ignorance not understanding the Controversies and of your Pride in overvaluing your own Parts and Apprehensions Or else you would never dream that you can come after such wits as Augustine and Pelagius and Celestine such as Aquinas Scotus Ockam Gregory Armi. Durandus and their Followers even such as Cajetane Bannes Zumel Alvarez c. such as Suarez Vasquez Molina Fonseca Ruiz c. such Conciliators as Ariba Gibieuf Guil. Cameranius Scotus Pennottus Petr. Ã St. Joseph Ludov. Ã Dola Jansenius and his Followers with abundance such and do that which none of these could do But you are not the first Undertaker that hath miscarried B. If I have been guilty of vain boasting cite my words and I will retract them If not these expressions speak but your prejudice But I pray let us spend no time upon such Impertinences but speak that to the matter which tendeth to edifie that one of us may become the wiser at least I first desire you to tell me Q. Whether the ending or narrowing this difference be not exceeding desirable could it be attained A. Yes there is no man doubts of that B. Q. 2. And is not despair the enemy of all endeavours and will any thing be done without some hope A. And it 's as true that vain hopes cause labour in vain B. The worst then will be but the loss of my labour And I will tell you of what moment I judge the work 1. In regard of the sinfulness of the Contentions 2. In regard of the Calamitous consequents 1. The sinfulness I take to lie 1. In the matter 2. And in the manner of prosecution I. Thâ—â—e things I judge to be sinful in the â—atter â— 1. That many differences are pretended to be where indeed are none 2. Differences about woâ—â—â—s and second â—otions and rationâ— Enâ—â—ties arâ— pretended â—o be differences about real Doctrines 3. Little Differences are aggravated into great ones 4. Unsearchable things are disputed which no mortal man can understand â— As to the mannerâ— it is done 1. Preposterously preferâ—ing these Disputes before the greater business of the Ministry * Read in Procli Analect pag. 646. the Epistle of Cyril Alex. to Proclus against the censuring of Theodor. Mopsuest and his works lest it tend to division and tumult in the Churches Et Ep. 7. ibid. Joan. Antiochini ad Cyril It would make one ashamed of humane nature to read how basely the Dominians and some others Alvarez de Aux Disp 115. p. 468 469. saepe Zumel and many more and Jansenius Arnoldus c. yea Gibieus c. do abuse Luther and Calvin meerly to make other Papists believe that they differ from them where they do not And all through a carnal factious fear of losing their interest in their own Popish Party as if we differed not enough but must perswade the world that we differ where we do not See but Alvarâ—z l. 12. Disp 121. pag. 492. where he citeth six Errors of Calvins as differing from him whereas the â—our first are but one lye variously worded and the two last no better for in all of them Calvin saith not one joâ— more in sense than the Dâ—minicanâ— do what-ever harsh word he may find in him and the generality of the Calvinists as they are called by scorners say much less 2. Perversly wasting abundance of time and study about them by which the Church might have been better served and writing so many great Volumes of them in crabbed Scholastick stile I as must needs tempt multitudes to a lamentable loss of their precious time before they can come to know that they lose it 3. And by sidings and factioâ—s and sharp reflections on each other quenâ—â—ing Christian Love and destroying Concord and weakening the Church II. The calamitous Consequents are 1. The long and yet unhealed alienation of Contenders minds 2. The foresaid time and toil which those Volumes cost 3. The abundance of idle talk and lost studies about them by the generality of Students 4. The dangerous Factions made by it in the Churches 5. The tempting each Party to confuse slander and blot the Names of one another 6. Multitudes of Prelates and Pastors have been tempted by it into Persecutions 7. Yea wars and blood-shed in more Countries than one hath followed â—â—â—tly by this incension 8. And hereby the poor people on each â—â—â—e are kept in bitter uncharitable thoughts of one another and especially of those Pastors who are against their mind And because things nearest us are first discerned begin at home and try whether all this be true or not 1. Hearken to the Ministers and people on each side Do you not hear that it seemeth enough to them to sleight each other with uncharitable alienation when it 's said O such a one is a Calvinist or such a one is an Arminian yea perhaps the Jesuite shall come in Read over the many writings about Mountague's time on his part and against him by Yates Carlton Watton Burton c. But especially read Peter Heylin his writings on this Subject and above all his Life of Arch-Bishop Laud where he perswadeth us that this very Controversie was a grand part of the difference which on both sides was prosecuted till it brought us to our doleful War 2. Go but to the Low-Countries and see what work it hath made there from
of all true profit to us no more true natural entity in my choosing the forbidden one than in my choosing the commanded one To hate God and love sin hath no more natural entity than to love God and hate sin To speak an Oath or Lye than to speak Truth and Holily To will a forbidden Act than to Nill it and to will a good one So that it is no deifying man to make him a first cause of that which hath no natural entity that is of an Act not as an Act but comparatively as rather this way than that way exercised And Dr. Twisse hence saith That moral specification of Acts is no true specification of them And it 's true that it is not a Physical specification 2. If you say that we have a Liberty ad exercitium as well as of specification or of Contradiction as well as of Contrariety Even to will or not will do or not do And in this case to do or will when forbidden is more than not to do or will I answer 1. The Soul is naturally an active vital power and it is as natural to it to be in act as to a stone to lie still And the Cartesians will tell you that Action needeth no more cause than Rest But I rather say that God never forbiddeth Action in general to the Soul but only this or that Action upon this or that Object at an undue time So that no man ever sinned by meer Action as such whether Vital Intellectual or Volitive The Action which God commandeth he willeth The Action which he forbiddeth is but this or that upon an undue Object Adam had this liberty of contradiction to will or not to will this particular Act of eating the forbidden fruit but not to will or not will simply Now for Adam to will to eat that fruit instead both of nilling it and of willing to please God by nilling or refusing it had no more natural entity in it than if he had not willed it but willed somewhat else at the same time 3. An Action it self is not properly Res but modus Rei and if any should say that God is not able to make a Creature that supposing God the cause of its Power continued shall be the first cause of its own Act or exercise of that Power he saith that which no mortal man can prove The Glory of Gods Works is their likeness to Himself And as Intellection and Free-will are parts of this likeness we know not just how far God can go in such Communications I see no contradiction in it to say that a faculty maintained by God in its natural force with necessary though not determining concurse can determine it self without any more causation And if it be not a Contradiction God can do it 4. But this is all prevented by considering that mans Soul is never out of Act. It s active force is never idle though it act not always the same way nor with the same extension or intension so that to reduce it into act is not to reduce it from a meer potentia in actum but from a power acting one way or slowly to act another way or more intensly 5. Yea this is all answered by considering that as I said while God continueth the Soul in its nature it continueth a naturally active force or power inclined essentially to activity So that though I say that Action needeth more cause than non-action that is here done in God still causeth the active disposition But supposing that upheld I say that there is oft more need of other causality or strength to keep it from Action than to cause it to act Whatever the world talketh against Durandus they are never well able to answer à Dola though in sense they that factiously oppose him mean the same as he And if a Rock hanged in the Air by something that might be cut off or removed as a threed supposing God to continue the nature of it and all things else there is more strength and causality needful to hold it from falling than to make it fall when the threed is cut It was a work of Gods Power to keep the fire from burning the three Confessors Dan. 3. and the Lions from devouring Daniel Dan. 6. and the Sea from flowing on the Israelites and the Sun from moving in Joshuah's fight 6. And yet consider that it is not so much as an Action which is but modus rei that is in question but only the comparative circumstantiating of that action so that it is but modus modi rei 7. And lastly The denial of the matter of our power and liberty in this I have else-where proved overthroweth the certainties and fundamentals of all our Religion Now whether any man should deny all our Religion and certain necessary Truths for such a metaphysical uncertain notion as this that God is not able to make a Creature that can cause a modus modi in determining its active nature to this Object rather than to that without Divine predetermination let sobriety be judge C. But thus you make man the specifier of his good acts without Gods determination as well as of the evil B. Jansenius is in the right in this we have more need of Divine help to the willing and doing of good than of evil We cannot do evil without his natural support and concurse But we cannot do good especially spiritual saving good unless we have moreover his medicinal special Grace To the specifying of good actions there must ever concur Gods natural help Gods gracious help and mans free-will or self-determination It is not two or three determinations of the Will which are made by these several Causes but one determination So that under God man is the specifying determiner of his Will to good or else he were not a Believer nor rewardable or punishable And that he cannot determine his Will to good as well as to evil proceedeth not from the Original nature of the Will for with that such a determination was consistent but from its Pravity or Corruption But how Grace and Free-will concur is after to be handled C. Dr. Twisse Vindic. Grat. lib. 2. p. 190. Vol. minoris hath a full digression 4 to prove that God willeth that sin shall come to pass he permitting it and saith Nostri Theologi affirmanâ— Arminiani â—ontificii negant * This Digression of Dr. Twisse is answered in the first Book His Friend Alvarez de Aux li. 11. disp 110. p. 442 c. discusseth the Qu. An detur ex parte nostra causa reprobationis and concludeth that Reprobatio qua Deus statuit non dare aliquibus vitam aeternam et permittere peccatum eorum non est conditionata sed absoluta nec praesupponit in Deo praescientiam demeritorum ipsius reprobi 2. In Angelis qui ceciderunt nuâ—la datur causa reprobationis ex parte ipsorum quantum ad integrum effectum c. 3. Et ita de reprobatione parvulorum
certain that nothing in God is effected by a a Creature nor his Essence by himself C. He is neither Beginning nor End efficient nor final Cause of himself but of his Works or Creatures only B. Therefore not of his Volitions or Decrees which are himself not of any of his Actions meerly as Agentis because they are himself but as they are in the effects But how can God be the Creatures end The Creature is no means either that God be God or that he be perfect or that he be glorious in himself or that he be just or merciful It is the highest blasphemy to say it C. You know all our Divines say That Gods end in decreeing is the Glory of his Mercy in the Salvation of the Elect and of his Justice in the damnation of the Reprobate †Bannes's order is thus 1. q. 23. a. 2. pag. 266. Actus qâ—os nos possumus imaginari esse in mente divina tam communes quam proprioâ— circa praedestiâ—atos hi sunt Cognovit Deus omnes homines possibiles ex quibus quosdam dilexit quantum ad esse naturae hos voluit creare ex quibus adhuc quosdam dilexit ad finem supernaturalem quae divina electio dicitur quatenus ex aliis quos creare volebat isâ—os seperavit sibi denique hos electos praedestinavit hoc est providet ordinavit ut per quaedam media supernaturaliter efficaciter pervenirent in finem supernaturalem That nothing but God himself can be the objectum formale of Gods Volition see Ruiz de Vol. Dei disp 15. sect 6. p. 165. Ruiz de Vâ—l. Dei disp 22 23 24. pretendeth to more accurateness than others in ordering Gods Decrees and other Acts. Denying with others all real distinction but asserting a distinction secundum rationem ratiocinatam and would perswade us that he knoweth what that is what the fundamentum in re is he refuteth many others Opinions de ratio ordinis Molina's Vasquez Zumel Driedâ—s c. especially Aureolus and concludeth sect 5. that inter divinas operationes ordo prioris posterioris ex eo est quod â—nus actus sit requisitus ad alium vel sit alterius ratio vel conditio He confessetâ— all these to be fictious and that there is no real diversity and disp 11. sect 1. on the qu An in Deo sit proprie libera Volitio effiâ—ax dicit Nullius animus tranquilla paâ—e quiâ—scit solutionibuâ— hac usque inventis nec aliis se satisfacisse put at quâ— nec sibi satisfecerit Yet against Ockam he would have these fictions thought to be of very grâ—â—â— use when as all his prophane tremendous presumptions are but enquiring after a cause of the first cause under the name of Ratio vel conditio while he denieth that indeed there is any cause Their question is why Gods Will is terminated on this Object rather than on that And is not this to ask a cause of it of the first cause say but that Deus volitione â—nica vuiâ— diversa diver si mâ—de ordinata and you have said enough Had they meant only the Ratio receptiva increatis ratio constituâ—ivâ— alliâ—â—â—m diviâ—arum ut in effectis vel pâ—sso â—â— extrinâ—eâ—uâ— denominatâ—rum it had been sense But in God himself there is diversitas rationum volendi B. Here are a multitude of Errors or Ineptitudes together 1. That the name of the means Salvation and Damnation is put into the end 2. That one little parcel of the means only is put as if it were the whole If we must speak so low as to ascribe an End to God we must say that Ultimately he hath but one And that one must needs be more than the glory of his Mercy and Justice towards man Is all the rest of the world Angels and Men Heaven and Earth and Christ himself no means in which he will be glorified 3. That quid creatum is made Gods Ultimate End For this Glory of his Mercy and Justice is no other but a created demonstration or apprehension of it 4. And why are Mercy and Justice only named as though the glory of his Power Wisdom and Goodness it self were here no part C. If you like none of this tell me your own sense of it B. 1. I suppose that Intendere finem is spoken of God only in a transcendent sense and not at all as it is of man And 2. I suppose that Gods Being hath no Beginning or End nor any thing in him 3. I suppose that Gods Free-will by communication of Essence and of Perfections is the Original free Cause of all things He necessarily is what he is but he freely made what he made 4. Therefore I suppose that the same Will which is the Beginning of all is the End of all So that Gods Will as efficient is the Beginning and Gods Will as fulfilled and pleased is the end of all his Works 5. This may be called finis Dei improperly after the manner of men but tollerably and with the least impropriety and such as we must use 6. This is more properly the commanded and appointed end of the Intellectual Creature and analogically the end that all things tend to 7. God is never without his end For his Will is ever fulfilled and pleased For pro hic nunc he willeth nothing but what is 8. But there are degrees of Perfection in Gods Works and the narrow Creature hath lower ends besides the Ultimate inseparable from it And so man must intend his own felicity and above that the perfection of the Universe and above that the complacency of Gods Will. 9. And because all the parts are to contribute to the perfection of the whole and so all the parts of the means do make up one perfect Universe in the state of Glory and there and then the whole world shall bear the liveliest impress of the Divine Perfections this Impress or objective Splendor and Image of God together with the active Vision Love and Praise of the glorified which is part of the said Image or Impress is called Gods Glory which shineth in part in every part and perfectly in the whole perfected world 10. So that in a word the perfection of the Universe being the medium compleated is called Gods End in the lower material notion And the fulfilling and pleasing of his Will in the perfected world is called his End in the formal and higher notion And we can say no more of Gods Velle finem C. I confess your explication of Gods End and Intention seemeth to be most agreeable to the Principles of Theology B. And do you think that it is wise and Christian-like dealing to fill the Church with Contentions and make others odious to the people about the Order of Gods Decrees secundum intentionem while men know not whether God do Intendere finem or not or what his End is or what his Intention is or while they mistake all Will you make
never read that any mans damnation was any whit the more increased for not performing these acts And again page 170. It is true there is a Faith infused by the Spirit of God in regeneration But who ever said that any man was damned because he doth not believe with such a Faith As much as to say that non-regeneration is the meritorious cause of damnation C. I am amazed at this especially his supposing that no man ever said that which I thought no man of us had denied B. I would think that his meaning is that men are not condemned for want of Gods infusing act but their own believing act or for the privation of Infusion but for the privation of Faith or of Faith not quatenus infused but as they ought to have believed without infusion But he was not so wanting in accurateness but that he knew how to have exprest himself had that been his meaning And then I know not how his words will consist with this sense I never read that any mans damnation was the more increased for not performing these acts where changing their own hearts is one And whoever said that any man was damned because he did not believe with such a Faith Here it is the Faith as such which is supposed spoken of the privation whereof is not the meritorious cause of damnation And indeed though the power of this Faith would have been in us had there been no Sin or Saviour yet there would have been no obligation to believe in Christ as Mediator And therefore if the Law of Innocency had stood alone even the want of an acquired Faith in Christ would have been no sin But this is the unhappiness of such as must read Controversial Writings There is no end of searching after the Writers meaning But the thing it self I think is plain c. that only an effectual special Faith will save us and it is such a Faith of which Christ speaketh Mat. 16. 16. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned though he believe with any other Faith whatsoever which he calleth acquired Perhaps this his opinion hath some dependance on what he saith before ibid. He punisheth the disobedient with eternal death True but according to what Covenant Not according to the Covenant of Grace that is only a Covenant for Salvation but according to the Covenant of the Law the Covenant of Works Woful error and confusion The Covenant of the Law is almost as bad a phrase as the Covenant of the Covenant 1. Gods Law of Innocency was a Law and Covenant in several respects 2. So was the Jewish Law which Paul meaneth by the Law of Works 3. So is the Christian Law of Christ and of Grace No man is now condemned by the Jewish Law of Works as such it being ceased and never did it bind the Gentile world The Law of Nature and of Innocency indeed condemneth the disobedient but the Law or Covenant of Christ or of Grace doth condemn them to much sorer punishment Luke 19. 27. Those mine enemies that would not I should reign c. Mark 16. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned Heb. 10. 29. Mat. 25. throughout But this confounding of the Covenants I must not here rectifie But yet I hope he meant only that men suffer not for want of Gods Regenerating Infusing Act but for want of their own act of Faith The fifth Crimination C. I find Dr. Twisse ibid. alibi saepe charging it on them as holding that Grace is given according to Works which is Pelagianism For they think that God looketh at some preparation in the Receiver and giveth it to some because they are prepared for it and denieth it to others because they are unprepared whereas it is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in him that of his meer good pleasure sheweth mercy B. There is enough said of this after about differencing and effectual Grace But if we must say more I ask you Quest. 1. Do you by this phrase according to Works mean to urge the Scripture that speaketh in that phrase in its proper sense or do you Vulgatum illud facientâ— quod in se est Deus non denegat Gratiam intelligitur de faciente â—â— gratia auxilie Pet. â— S. Joseph Thes Univers de auxil pag. 83. Idem pag. 90. Nequidem ipsius Christi opera fuerunt actu meretoria citra promissiâ—nem Dei usi ex se essent valoris inâ—â—â—iti which needeth explication only use the phrase in some other sense of your own C. I use Scripture phrase in Scripture sense because I rest on its Authority B. Quest 2. Are we not also saved without Works in Scripture sense And would it be contrary to Paul to say we that we are saved by Works yea or according to them in that sense that he speaketh of them See James 2. 14 c. Tit. 3. 5. Ephes 2. 5 8 9. Gal. 3. 2. 5. 10. Acts 15. 11. c. and 16. 31. Rom. 5. 10 And yet saved according to Works in another sense James 2. 14 c. Phil. 2. 12. Gal. 6. 4. Rom. 20. 12 13. 2 Cor. 5. 10. C. In several senses of Works we deny it not B. Quest 3. At least you will grant that we are not justified by Works and yet that we are justified by Faith yea in another sense by Works Quest 4. Is not believing and repenting in order to Justification and all holy obedience in order to Salvation as truly opâ—â— a work and in a far nobler sense than preparation for Faith is C. That cannot be denied B. Then you cannot affirm that the phrase not according to Workâ— which excludeth not Faith Repentance holy Obedience to justification and salvation doth intend the exclusion of all preparation in order to Conversion or Faith in Christ when by Works excluded it meaneth the same thing or sort in all C. But saith Dr. Twisse ibid. page 154. Pardon and Salvation God doth confirm only on condition of Faith and Repentance But â—â— for Faith and Repentance doth God confer them conditionally also If so whatsoever be the condition let them look to it how they can avoid the making of Grace to wit the Grace of Faith and Repentance to be given according to Works B. I know he frequently saith the same But 1. I speak now only of the sense of that Scripture and say that this goeth upon a most false and dangerous supposition that Justification and Salvation are given according to Works though Faith and Repentance be not whereas in the sense of Works there meant by Paul no man can be justified by Works And though Christ saith This is the work of God that ye believe in him whom the Father hath sent yet it is not that which Paul meaneth Let not therefore Scripture words be abused to mislead mens understandings 2. But as to the matter of the Controversie I spoke to it enough
But there is yet another thing of great moment commonly overlooked C. What is that B. The great importance of that common saying Recipitur ad modum recipientis on which had I time I would write a Book of Instances Causa Receptiva is not well understood Aristotle maketh Privatio to be one of his three Principles in Physicks By Privation must be meant not Absentia formae sed Dispositio materiae And whether you will call it a third Principle or only the due qualification of the first Matter to make it immediately Receptive of the form the matter being de nomine â—umero is small But it is most certain that the wonderful diversity of alterations or effects of motion in the world is very much to be ascribed to the diversity of Receptive Dispositions And accordingly as in Physicks the three Active Natures Intellective Sensitive and Vegâ—tative which its like is Ignis are to be defined per virtutes suas Activas so the Passive Elements Earth Water and Air are to be defined by their several contextures or constitutions which make up Dispositionem Receptivam Influxus Activorum unicuique propriam which is their very form In Physical cases God doth first as Creator make all things in wonderful variety of natures quantities figures and contextures And secondly he causeth an Universal Cause to Influence them generally such as is the Sun for one what other we know not well whose â—râ—ple influx Motion Light and Heat affecteth all things according to their several Natures and Receptivities The special Active principle in every living thing is both cherished and suscitated by this universal solar influx But the diversity of effects is not from the Sun but from the diversity of Recipients The Sun by its influx is the cause that all things live and move But that one thing hath a life and motion Intellective and another Nonsttive and another Vegetative that by the Suns influx an Aâ—orn bringâ— forth an Oak and every Seed it s own kind of Plant that a Horse â—â—â—â— as a Horse a Dog as a Dog a Sheep as a Sheep c. that the â—osa hath one smell colour shape the Carnaâ—ion another the Tulip another â— that the Dungâ—â—l sâ—â—keth that the Clay is hardened the Waâ— softened c. the innumerable different effects in the inferior creatures are all caused by the Sun as to their general nature the received Influx of a Motive Illuminative and Calefactive Virtue but they are none of them in specie vel gradu unde differentia qua talis oritur caused by the Sun alone but also by the variety of the suscitated vital forms in animals And in things inanimate though not the Recipient but the solar Influx be the efficient cause of the variety of alterations and effects yet the Ratio diversitatis is more in the Disposition of the Recipient The Suns Influx is the same in it self without any difference on the clay and wax on the dunghill and the rose Let the question then be what causeth the different effects Answ 1. The Suns influx causeth all the Motion Light and Heat which they all receive as the Efficient cause 2. The Material Recipients I have marvelled oft why Elisha called for a Ministrel when the spirit of Prophecy was to come upon him And so Musick help'd Saul I am sure that Satan worketh on the minds of Melancholy Cholerick c. persons by and according to the temper of the spirits and humors and cannot do the same things without them And perhaps the spirit of God who can work as he list will do it ad modum recipientis and so Elisha's spirits must be brought up into an harmonious elevated preparation that the mind may be made fit to receive the spirits extraordinary work are the several things named as Material 3. The said Recipients being of divers Natures and Shapes c. have their variety of Receptive Dispositions 4. The forma Recepta a sole is nothing but its triplex influxus Motus Lux Calor 5. These are variously Received according to the various Dispositions of the Recipients 6. Hence follow the Variety of the second effects By the motive Influx some things are moved when stones and houses stir not By the Lucide Influx the eye seeth when the hand doth not the flowers appear in various colours according to their various Receptivities and some things give little reflective appearance of their Reception of it The Calid Influx cherisheth the living and burneth by a burning-glass when the dead stir not by it and some unapt recipients are little altered by it I call these the second effects which are thus various For the first effects are still the same viz. the Motive Illuminative and Calefactive efflux of the Sun is still sent forth and some how or other reacheth every capable recipient in general But the Alterations which are thereby made are diversified according to the diversity of Receptivities But yet these Receptive Dispositions are no efficient Causes of this difference or of any of the alterations But they are the Receptive Material Causes without which the efficient doth not make them and according to which he doth make them So that the Sun though but Causa Universalis yet is also the Universal Cause and sole efficient of all these Particular motions and alterations And yet the Ratio differendi is not to be given from it but from the different Receptivities according to which it still produceth them So the Rain falleth equally on the stones on the earth on vessels of various shapes and sizes The stone retaineth none The vessels variously retain it As they are round square long great or small so are they variously filled The efficient cause of the difference is the descent of the rain The material constitutive cause is the different quantities and shapes of the water But yet the Ratio differendi is to be assigned from the diversity of Receptive dispositions in the vessels And that you may see that these Receptivities are no efficients and yet contain the chief Rationem differendi note that the Reason to be given from them is ex alter a differentium parte still Negative or Privative as on the other it is Positive E. g. Why doth the Sun make the Rose smell sweet and not the stone or dunghill Because the stone or dunghill have not those odoriferous particles to be suscitated by it as the Rose had Why doth the Sun move the Flies and not the Stones Because the Stones had not that vital principle to be suscitated as the Flies had Why did not the rain fill the Stones as it did the Cisterns and this Vessel as that Because they had not the same Receptive and Retentive shapes C. Well! but what is all this physical Discourse to our present Controversie B. 1. The constancy of God in operating according to an established Order in the world doth shew us that the God of Order delighteth so to do 2. Therefore we
by it self anon Before we come to that these things I here conclude of 1. That the Diversity of Nature or Receptive Dispositions being presupposed God hath an established order of means and a congruous established universal Concurse which quantum in se as far as belongeth to it to do worketh equally on all 2. That this established measure of aid or concurse recipitur ad modum recipientis and operateth variously as to the effects according to the various disposition of the Recipients from whom the ratio diversatis is to be fetcht and not from it 3. That this established measure of Concurse or aid may by the greatness of the Passive and Active Indisposition and Illdisposition of the Recipient be both resisted and overcome or frustrate 4. That as Adam did resist and overcome such Grace so do all wicked Hi praecedanâ—i effectus virtute verbi spiritusque in hominum mentibus producti rebellis voluntatis vitio suffocari penitus extingui pâ—ssuâ—t in multis solent adeâ— ut nonnulli in quorum mentibus virtute verbi spiritusque impressâ— fuit aliqualis notitia veritatis divinae c. mutentur plane in contrarium c. And even Alvarez Disp 18. n. â—0 saith Si non operatur actione qui est in praeceptâ— imputabitur illi ad culpam eo quod suâ— culpa se impedivit ne dareter illi auxilium efficax quod necessarium erat ut actualiter operaretur sicut si Deus imponeret homini prâ—ceptum volandi quantum est ex parte sua offerret illi alas adjutorium necessarium uâ— volaret ipse autem responderet Dâ—mine nec vâ—lâ— alas accipere nec volâ—re meritâ— reputaretur reus etiamsâ— non possit absque alis volare qâ—ia sua culpaâ—se impedirit ne illi dâ—narentâ—r a Deâ— men in some cases now And so do all godly men in most of the sins if not all which they commit 5. As God rarely worketh Miracles and we hardly know when he violateth his established course of nature though we may know when he worketh beyond the power of any second cause known to us and when he leaveth his ordinary way but ordinarily keepeth to his established course and use of the second causes even in his wonders So it is very probable that in the Works of Grace Recovery and Salvation he ordinarily keepeth to his established order his Ordinances and fixed degree of Concurse 6. Yet as God is still above all his Works and a free Agent and is no further tied to one constant order and measure of Concurse than he tieth himself by his Wisdom and Free-will so God is free in the conveyance of his Grace and can when he please forsake that order and work Miracles by Grace as well as on natural things above nature He can strike down Saul and convert him by a voice from Heaven and in a word can do what he will 7. And as in most wonders its past our power to know whether and when God doth indeed forsake his established order and work contrary to it or without such second causes as are unknown to us though we can tell when he acteth unusually So is it in this case about his works of Grace A Comet or Blazing Star is an unusual thing whose necessary antecedent cause we know not And yet it is but a natural effect of second causes operating in their established course so are ecclipses better known and unusual Tempests and terrible Lightnings c. So great and sudden unusual and wonderful changes may be made by Grace on sinners and yet all in Gods established course of working and by those second causes which are to us unknown C. But God is not a natural but a voluntary Agent and Grace is hiâ— immediate work or off-spring B. 1. He is a voluntary Agent in Creation Preservation and in all the works and changes of nature and yet he operateth constantly in his appointed course 2. It s unknown to us what means he useth out of our reach in his operations upon souls as well as in nature 3. We find that Grace keepeth a harmony with nature yeâ— as morality is but the modality of things natural so we may conceive that God may possibly work it by the modifying of physical Agents and their actions and the recipients 4. Immutability and constancy is one of Gods perfections and the expression of it in the constant order of his Works is part of his glory in the world Though our mutable Free-wills are better than the fixed or necessitated appetite of Bruits that is not as they are mutable and the acts contingent but as they have a higher object But the fixed unchangeable wills of the Glorified Angels and Saints are far better than ours And why should we think unsetled mutability of efficiency to be the best discovery of Gods Immutability 5. But yet we grant that God is free to do what he please C. But it is by fixed second causes that God keepeth a fixed order of natural productions and alterations in the world But you can name no such universal second cause of Grace affording under God a resistible Influx as the Sun doth in Nature B. What will you say if I name you such a second universal cause though if I could not it followeth not that therefore there is none such I think I can name you one that all Christians should know and yet it seems is not well by Divines themselves considered JESUS CHRIST as MAN and MEDIATOR is Gods Administrator General of the humane world and is compared to the Rising Sun which illuminateth all the world with a light suitable to it and them So Christ is the light of the world the Sun of Righteousness that ariseth with healing Grace and enlightneth every man that cometh into the world or as Crotius and Hammond render it which coming into the world enlightneth every man supposing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the Nominative Case and Neuter Gender and not the Accusative Masculine In him was Life and the Life was the light of men not only to the sanctified who received but uneffectually though quoad se sufficiently the light shined in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not The world that was made by him knew him not He came to his own and his own received him not yet he came to them But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God John 1. 3 10 11. It is apparent in Scripture that all power in Heaven and Earth is given to Christ Matth. 28. 19 20. that all things are delivered into his hands John 13. 3. and God hath given him power over all flesh John 17. 2. and he is head over all things to the Church Ephes 1. 22 23. C. We all grant that Christ is an universal light and Saviour 1. Objectively 2. And as to his Doctrine Covenant and Example But what 's that to internal efficient Grace which is immediately from God
equality with the wise Do we not see that as man is so is his strength and work operari sequitur esse The strong do as the strong and the weak judge and do as the weak Why else doth God give men strength of Grace sure they that think the habit of Grace must needs be before any act will not hold that all our lives after the Acts from immediate divine production go beyond the degree of the habits We know that God is the chief cause of our perseverance and all our works that are good But he causeth them by disposing and quickening strengthening illuminating and sanctifying our faculties to do them which is habitual Grace B. What is your own judgment in this point A. Our judgment is 1. That he that truly at the present preferreth the pleasing of God and his Salvation before all this World is sincere and justified 2. That of these some have well setled apprehensions and resolutions but others have such shallow Conceptions and weak Resolutions as that a very strong Temptation would change their minds and overcome them 3. But if they escape such Temptation and be not overcome they shall be saved For God will not damn men for possible Sin and Apostacy which they were never guilty of but only for that which they did commit 4. And that it is no certain sign of hypocrisie that they would have fallen away had their Temptations been great but only a proof that they were weak 5. Else to pray Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil should be rather discover not our sincerity or hypocrisie by temptation 6. Therefore God useth to proportion mens trials to their strength And that young and weak Believers may persevere he exposeth them not antecedently to their provocation to great Temptations as he doth the strong Even as while a young Tree hath little rooting it hath also but a little top else had it the top of a great Tree and but the roots of a Plant the first great Wind would overturn it 7. Even strong Christians might possibly have some Temptations which would over-match their strength and turn them from Christ if God should not keep them from such Temptations 8. Therefore there are some Temptations so far above the very nature of man by such Grace as is not a meer Miracle to be overcome as that God doth not suffer Mankind to be tried with them As to be most exquisitely tormented many moneths or a longer time And in that unusual trial of the poor Christians in Japon though many endured those torments many weeks yet nature could not sustain them to the last but when they had suffered as much as many Smithfield burnings to death at last almost all denied Christ so that Christianity is now there extirpated Now if Rogers Bradford Hooper shewed sincerity by suffering death why should we not think that these did so that suffered far more than they though afterward the degree was greater than their strength 9. We hold that Gods Punishments and Mercies to men in this World are very much exercised in either permitting or not permitting great Temptations * The same Bradwardine l. 2. c. 16. holdeth that the cause of the damneds obstinacy in sin is not only themselves and Gods not-willing to cure and save them but also Gods positive Will by which their obstinate wills are for ever continued in the act But I see not why we should assert Gods positive Will of Sin in Hell or Earth when his not-effectual willing to cure it is enough And that for great sin he oft delivereth men up to Satan and giveth him the greater power over them Yea that the nature of sin it self is such as giveth greater advantage to the Tempter As he that will with Achan look on the wedge of Gold or that will please his tast with delicious Drinks and Meats or that will permit his eyes immodest Spectacles hath thereby let in the Devil into his Imagination and will not easily thence cast him out And on the other side he that pleaseth God and conquereth one Temptation obtaineth that Grace by which he is much saved from the next and the Tempter is the more disadvantaged and restrained 10. Lastly We therefore hold That seeing Temptations do not only try our sincerity or hypocrisie else we should desire them for self-examination but also tend to change mens minds and make them worse the way to persevere is to pray against and avoid Temptations and resist those that cannot be avoided This is our judgment In which you see that we hold that all weak Christians that are sincere may have assurance of their present Justification though they are not strong enough to stand the greatest trials And that they may well hope that God will save them from over strong Temptations while they sincerely do his Will B. But Christ saith That he that forsaketh not all that he hath and hateth not his own life cannot be his Disciple And what greater trial can there be than the loss of life it self A. Though some taking it to be hard that none are true Christians that would not be Martyrs were they tried have said that this Text speaketh de necessitate praecepti non medii You must grow up to this at last if you will be my Disciples yet I will not so force the Text but say as you do But 1. There are far stronger Temptations than the love of Life Though not from Interest yet from false reasonings which may deceive the judgment And one that would die for Christ while he believeth in him may possibly have so strong Temptations to unbelief as shall exceed in danger his fear of death 2. And all men that at the present would forsake Life and all for Christ yet have not the same fixedness of Resolution nor the same degree of Faith and Love No doubt but the Martyrs in the same flames had various degrees of Grace Now a less firm and fixed measure may be loosened by degrees or shaken by Seducers and mutable man may after be overcome by that same Temptation which once he could have overcome So that I accuse their Doctrine as utterly inconsistent with true Christian Comfort on both these account And such is the success of those men that will overdo and devise means of their own for extraordinary comforts which God never gave them B. The comfort of poor Christians it seems standeth but on slippery terms in the Opinion of both sides while each Party thinks that there is no true comfort in the others way * Whether we may be morally sure of our present Justification the Papists Doctors agree not among themselves Bellarmine and many others affirm it and others deny it as Aureolus cited by Brianson in 4. q. 4. fol. 36. and others that say no man can know whether his Habits are infused But doth not experience confute you Do you not see that many have true Christian comfort that are not of
was made to the Israelites in special that there should be more Grace given them so that they should not depart from God to Idolatry at their return from Captivity as they had done which is the true meaning I think of the Text But I ask of you Q. 1. Doth the promise called Absolute of taking away the heart of stone c. give any person a Right before-hand to the benefit C. Not such a Right as that any one can claim it as his own due or know that he is the person to whom it belongeth But such a right as that he is really the man to whom it shall be given B. So you may say of Gods meer secret Decree or of a meer Prophecy Q. 2. What comfort then can any man have by that promise before it is performed when he knoweth not that he is one that it belongs to C. No more than that which you say before they grant Q. 3. Is not this cited by you of the same sort C. In respect to the first part it is I will put my fear into their hearts but not as to the second part They shall not depart from me For men that have Gods fear may know that it belongs to them B. It is strange that all the ancient Doctors and Churches for a thousand years were ignorant of this plain Promise if it mean that none that have Gods fear shall depart from him But if one say that it speaketh only of the Jews after the Captivity not turning from God to Idols and another say that it conjoyneth two distinct benefits promised to certain persons whosoever but doth not make them as receivers of the first to be formally the Subjects of the second and so doth not promise to all that have Gods fear but to those meant in the Text only that they shall not depart and if a third say that the promise is conditional I am not now to decide this controversie Augustine thought that it was spoken only of the Elect and not of all that truly feared God And as Gods promise to the Israelites that they should be brought out of Egypt and brought to the Land of Canaan did not mean that every man that had the first should have the second As the promise to the Apostles that they should have the Spirit of Miracles or Tongues and should be saved did not mean that every one that had that Spirit should be saved so doth Austin expound Rom. 8. 30. limiting all the following sayings to those that Verse 28. are said to be Called according to his purpose But to decide this is not my present work The fifth Crimination C. They make a second Regeneration necessary unless with the Novatians they will deny pardon to those that fall after the first B. Do they say so expresly or is it only a consequent of their Doctrine C. It followeth plainly though they say it not B. 1. There will be no end of odious accusations if the Adversaries shall choose what Doctrine men shall be said to hold as he spineth out consequences what if they think that your Doctrine unavoidably brings in Anabaptists the denyal of Infant Baptism I mean C. That were strange indeed Some men can draw quid vis ex quo vis B. Answer this series of connexed Theses 1. No one falleth away from a state of Justification that 's your Ground 2. Many Baptized in Infancy prove wicked at Age. 3. Therefore none of those were justified in or before Baptism 4. Therefore the Justifying Covenant was not sealed to them as to consenting persons by themselves or Parents who have a present right to this benefit else Gods Covenant should be false or fail 5. Therefore they received not Christian Baptism For 1. Christ never instituted a Baptism to seal any other Covenant but that which giveth pardon and Justification 2. Christ never instituted Baptism to give only a future pardon to future consenters but only to invest Sacramently present Consenters or Covenanters by themselves or Parents with present pardon These two are certain verities easily proved whatever some talk of future pardon by Baptism 6. Therefore they are to be rebaptized I think I can loose the links of this chain or confute the last conclusion But I leave you to your proper work Davenant and Ward thought it must be done by denying your first Thesis I assure you the trifling distinctions of an outward and an inward Covenant and of the benefit of Church Priviledges sealed to all and Salvation only to the Elect or of present and future Justification sealed will not do this difficult business You must do better or be Anabaptists 2. Either it is quoad Nomen or quoad rem that they infer a second Regeneration not as to the Name For they so deny it As to the Thing 1. Some hold that men indeed may totally fall from special Grace but that no such are ever recovered Though other Grosse Sins which are not such a total Apostacy may be pardoned These cannot be said to hold two Regenerations 2. The rest say that the word Regeneration like Generation and Creation doth not only signifie the causing of Holiness in the Soul but the Order of doing it that it be Now first done and not before As Christ's raising Lazarus was neither Creation nor Generation So say they Grace indeed is after infused de novo but not first Therefore it is to be called Repentance and not Regeneration So that the change they confess but the Name of Regeneration they reject as incongruous The sixth Crimination C. They go against the Doctrine of Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius B. This is the rashest charge of all the rest Beyond all controversie these three Fathers held that all the Elect persevered but that some were Justified Sanctified Loved God were in such a state that had they dyed in they had been saved who yet are not Elect but fall finally away and perish and that none can ordinarily be certain of perseverance and Salvation at least but strong confirmed Christians which Vossius thinketh he excepted but I cannot prove it If you cannot have leisure to read Austin himself read but 1. What I have said lib. 1. 2. What I said in my Treatise of Perseverance 3. What Vossius saith Hist Pelag. de Persever 4. And the very words in the Jansenists Paulus Eryn in his Trias Patrum In a visible matter of fact which all the world may see that man who will deny this as yet many have done and even Dr. Kendall till Bishop Usher in my hearing and at my motion satisfied him doth but tell us how men otherwise pious abuse Gods Church by trusting to their Leaders and mis-reporting visible and copious Writings and founding bitter censures and invectives upon such dreams and yet thinking that all this is the Work of God The Lord pardon and heal his Servants hasty partial judging of things and persons and the bitterness uncharitableness injuries contentions and divisions that
reason to vex himself with any such fears as consist not with a life of greater hope and peace and comfort And that living by faith on Christ and his Spirit and General promise they should comfortably Trust him with their souls 5. It 's granted that the more Faith Love Holiness and obedience any hath the nearer they may come to full assurance of persevering and may live the more confident and joyful lives 6. Many with Austin hold an Antecedent absolute special Election to faith and perseverance and that no such elect ones fall away 7. Many hold that besides Election a degree of Grace called Confirmation doth settle some in a certainty of perseverance and neither the Elect nor Confirmed fall away And that the confirmed may be certain of their own election perseverance and salvation And this seemeth to be the opinion of Origen Macarius and divers Antients Even that God doth with Believers as he did with the Angels and Adam to whom he would have given confirming Grace had he at first overcome And where faith hath kindled so much LOVE to God and Heaven and Holiness as that it is become a Divine nature in the soul and operateth as the Love of Children to Parents above meer Reason as a fixed Habit like a nature then Grace seemeth to some Confirmed and not loseable All these Concessions laid together and more which I could fetch from the most learned Schoolmen do shew that though here the difference be real it is in a point and a degree where humane frailty and the difficulty and the non-necessity of a fuller understanding it do fully prove to all sober self-knowing loving believers that it is their duty to bear with one another without the quenching of brotherly Love or denying Christian-communion to each other But the wicked will do wickedly and none of the wicked will understand but the wise shall understand Dan. 12. 10. The Eleventh Dayes CONFERENCE Of Christs Righteousness imputed of Faith Justification and mans duty their several parts to a Christians Comfort Speakers Saul Paul a Libertine Teacher CHAP. I. S. SIR I am now come to you in a greater straight than I was in before I have met with a Teacher that tells me you are a deceiver and have all this while misled me and have taught me to build upon the sand of my own Righteousness and set me on doing to my own undoing and that I have not built on the Righteousness of Christ and therefore all will end in my overthrow and ruine I was not able to answer him And I have prevailed with him to come to you that I may hear you speak together P. Did not I tell you before-hand of such temptations and give you instructions for your preservation against them S. I confess you did But I find my self insufficient to use them without help when it comes to tryal P. The truth is Infant Christians will still need the help of their Elders and of Christs Ministers when they have been never so well fore-armed as you need a Physicion in your sickness after all the preventing directions which he can give you And you have done well to bring him and to hear both sides together Had you trusted to your own understanding and only disputed it out privately with himself you might have been enfnared to your danger I shall willingly conferr with him on these two conditions 1. That you remember that it is You and not Him that I am to satisfie and therefore when I have satified you I have done For to follow him as long as he will talk will waste more time than we have to spare 2. That when you are delivered from this snare you will remember that you must meet with many more such in the world The Anabaptist will say as much to you for his way and the Papist much more for his way And most of them will affright you with the danger of damnation if you turn not to them Therefore when ever you are assaulted by any of them bring them to me and hear us together as you now do Lib. I am sorry to see how you abuse poor souls and build them not on Christ but on themselves What a deal have you said to this man of Doing and of Working and how little of Believing You have set him on tasks of Duty and he thinketh now to Do this and Live and to be saved in his own doings his repenting his praying his keeping the Lords day c. while the poor man knoweth not Jesus Christ and submitteth not to the Righteousness of God You will needs be a Teacher of the Law and bring back poor souls to bondage that Christ may profit them nothing but trusting to their own works and righteousness for life they may fall from grace and be found in their nakedness and sin P. Sir these General exclamations do but tell us that there is something that you differ from us in but tell us not what If you are a lover of truth and will speak to edification tell us distinctly what are the points of our doctrine which you dislike and let us debate them one by one Lib. Among many others the chief are these I. That you must not have men come to Christ till they are prepared II. That you set men on Repenting and Doing and Working for salvation and so teach them to trust in a Righteousness of their own and do not tell them that All Christs Righteousness is ours being imputed to us and that Believing is our Conversion to which you are to call men If they Believe they have a perfect Righteousness in Christ III. That you overthrow the Gospel in making it a Law IV. And you make the new Covenant to be made with us when Christ is the only party in Covenant with God V. And you make the new Covenant to have Conditions and so to be the same with the old VI. You make Justifying faith to be a believing in Christ as a Teacher and Law-giver that you may lead in works and not a meer Believing in him for Righteousness VII You make Faith to justifie as a condition of our performance and not meerly an Instrument of our Justification or apprehending Christ VIII You make faith in it self to be imputed to us for Righteousness and not Christ only the object of faith IX That God is made Mutable by you and forgiveth and justifieth them when they believe whom he did not justifie from eternity X. That a justified man must be afraid lest his sin should unjustifie him again XI You make men think that they are able to believe of themselves XII You call men to Duttes and to Mortification before they believe and are regenerate XIII Instead of the Witness of the Spirit you comfort men by the Evidence of their own holiness and righteousness These with abundance more are the errors by which you corrupt and deceive poor souls P. Because Christ would have his Servants as Teachable as
15. 58. And they work out their salvation with fear and trembling laying up a treasure in Heaven Matth. 6. 20. and laying up a good foundation for the time to come and pressing forward for the prize Phil. 3. 8 9. and laying hold upon eternal life Lib. All this leadeth us to our own works and sets up the Law and taketh down Christ and his righteousness and is meer Popery for humane Merits P. If this be Gods Word and Christs own Law and Doctrine then you inferr that Christ taketh down himself and his own righteousness and sets up man and humane merits But give me leave to tell you that if you deny the Reward of Evangelical duty and the Rewardableness or Worthiness or Merit of such duty as it is but our Merit or Worthiness of the free Gift of Christ and Life given by Paternal Love and Justice to believing Penitent accepters according to the tenour of the Covenant of Grace 1. You do contradict so much of the most express Texts of Scripture as alloweth us to suspect that really you believe not the Scripture to be true or that it is not it but your own contradicting fancy that is the measure of your belief and you may on such terms hold the vilest absurdities even what you list as in despight of Scripture while you pretend that it is for you 2. You will deny the honour of Gods Image on man and the work of the Holy Ghost and the design of Christ who came to destroy the works of the Devil and save his people from their sins and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works 3. You will disgrace the Church of God which Christ washeth and sanctifieth and render it too like to the unsanctified world 4. You will leave man no ground for true assurance of Justification or Salvation while the difference between the worthy and unworthy is taken away 5. You will harden the wicked in their false presumptuous hopes and teach them to say We are but unworthy and so are all 6. You will destroy the comfort of well doing by denying the reward and making it seem to be in vain 7. Hereby you will take down all holy diligence in our Christian race and warfare while you deny the prize and recompence of reward Heb. 11. 26. We run for an incorruptible Crown 1 Cor. 9. 25. Phil. 3. 14. 8. You will strengthen all Temptations while you take down that which should be set against them See Luke 12. 4. Heb. 4. 1. 12. 28 29. Matth. 6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 19 20 c. Matth. 5. 10 11 12. 9. You will disgrace the Word and Ministry and all Means if after all we are never the more accepted 10. In a word you deny Gods Government in denying his Governing Justice and Judgements and that is to deny God to be our God Yea you deny all Religion all the Kingdom of Christ all Law all Judgement all Retribution Heaven and Hell all the true difference between Good and Evil Holiness and Sin all Praise and Dispraise while you deny the Reward and Rewardableness of holy obedience by the Paternal Government of the Law of Grace and that glory honour and peace is to every one that doth good both Jew and Gentile Rom. 2. 7 10. Lib. You would perswade us that holiness is good for nothing if it be not Rewardable as if you knew of no other use of it so ignorant are natural men of the things of God which are spiritually disâ—erned I will tell you that which your carnal mind cannot understand 1. Holiness Faith Love Obedience c. are Gods free Gifts excellent in themselves without a Reward 2. They are Fruits of the Spirit and marks and signs of our future felicity though they deserve it not 3. I told you that they are Rewards to Christ and Gifts to us P. 1. That they are Gods Gifts we doubt not But are not Faith Love and Obedience also the Acts of man by that Grace which is the gift of God Lib. Yes they are mans acts but it is God that worketh them in us P. And tell me if you can 1. Why God cannot Reward those acts which are done by his own Grace Cannot God make the Promise of a Reward to be a fit Moral Means for his Spirit to work by Nay doth not the scope of the Scripture tell you that he doth so 2. Is there ever the less worthiness in it because God causeth it Tell me without shifting Is an honest man no more worthy of a Princes favour than a Thief If you are no more worthy of liberty and protection and life than Atheists and Rebels why do you call men Persecutors for using you as if you were such Why call you men Malignants for hating deriding and opposing godly men if they deserve no better than the worst Lib. They deserve better from men but not from God P. Do you deny Rulers to be Gods Officers and that they are to make this difference by his appointment and therefore it is done by God 3. But without shifting tell me Doth not every good action or inclination deserve praise from God and man Doth it not deserve to be accounted and called just as it is Lib. All our Righteousnesses are as menstruous rags and what praise then do they deserve Can that deserve praise which deserveth Hell P. 1. Come on then let Conscience be a while unmuzzled Why do you so much praise those of your own Church or Opinion Why praise you so much the Ministers and people that are of your way Why do you make a difference between them and such as are against you 2. Why do you so aggravate the sin of those that vilifie deride and persecute you Why call you the Saints the precious ones on earth Gods treasure and peculiar people 3. Why were you lately so angry with the Ecclesiastical Politician the Debate-maker and other such Books which vilifie men whom you and I have better thoughts of if they deserve no more praise than the vilest men 4. Why were you so angry lately when you heard of one that reproached you and so pleased with one that proclaimed your wisdom and goodness and took your part 5. And if good actions deserve not praise from God himself why doth he praise them so greatly in his Word Why will he say before all the world Well done good and faithful servant c. 1. Dare you call God Ignorant Legalist or charge him with mistakes 2. Doth not every thing and person deserve to be thought and called just as it is Else lying or silence must be the virtue and Truth the Vice 3. Is there no more good in a Saint than in a Devil If there be doth it not deserve to be called just as it is 4. May not he who deserveth Hell by the Law of Works or Innocency be yet Morally fit for that is Worthy of Heaven according to the Law of Grace which pardoneth his sins
and freely giveth him Christ and Life 5. Doth not God praise his Servants more than the Devil or wicked men do And will you not please the Devil and Malignants to tell them the contrary And is it not the mark of a just man that a vile person is contemned in his eyes but he honoureth them that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. Doth not God himself praise Abel Enoch Noah Abraham Moses Joshua David Job c. Wrangle not against the unresistible Light Our light must so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our heavenly Father Matth. 5. 16. Christ will come at last to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that do believe because the Gospel was believed by them 2 Thess 1. 10 11. No man hath seen God at any time in his Essence but we see him here in a glass and that is in his Works and Image in which it is that his glory shineth And to say that Gods Works and holy Image are not worthy or Morally fit to be praised is to deny God his praise and glory on earth He that despiseth you despiseth me saith Christ and consequently him that sent me Luke 10. 10. Lib. Faith Love Holiness Obedience Patience are worthy that God should be praised for them but not Man for they are worthy as Gods works but not as ours P. 1. They are none of our works as the chief agents but only second causes under God And are not second causes to be praised in their places and degree Will you not praise Sun and Moon and Stars and all Gods works that he may be praised for them Do you not praise a good Servant a good Horse or Dog a good House or Land yea and your Friend or Teacher Do you not praise your own party when you say that they are wiser and better than others 2. Believe and regard the Word of God Do none of these Texts following speak of Praise as due to men in subordination to God Deut. 26. 18 19. The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people and to make thee high above all Nations in Praise and in Name and in Honour and that thou maist be an holy people to the Lord thy God Prov. 27. 21. As is the fining pot for Silver and the furnace for Gold so is a man to his praise Isa 62. 7. Give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth Zeph. 3. 19 20. I will get them praise in every land c. I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth Rom. 2. 29. Whose praise is not of men but of God John 12. 43. They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God 1 Cor. 4. 5. Then shall every man have praise of God 2 Cor. 8. 18. The brother whose praise is in the Gospel c. Phil. 4. 8. If there be any praise think of these things 1 Pet. 2. 14. Governours are sent by him for the praise of them that do well See Prov. 27. 2. 28. 4. 31. 30 31. 1 Cor. 11. 2. Prov. 29. 23. Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit 21. 21. He findeth life righteousness and honour Psal 149. 4. This honour have all his Saints Prov. 3. 16. 4. 8. 8. 18. 15. 33. 20. 3. 22. 4. Eccles 10. 1. John 5. 44. Rom. 2. 7 10. They that by well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life Glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good 9. 21. 12. 10. 13. 7. 1 Tim. 5. 17. The Elders that rule well are accounted worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 6. 1. 1 Sam. 2. 30. Them that honour me I will honour Psal 91. 15. John 12. 26. If any man serve me him will my Father honour 1 Pet. 2. 17. Prov. 13. 18. Do you believe and regard no one of all these words of God Lib. I grant that God will praise the good but not because we are worthy of it P. 1. Have I told you that he himself calleth his servants worthy and will you contradict Gods Word 2. Dare you yet deny any thing to be worthy to be called what it indeed is Is not a Christian worthy to be called a Christian and a sober man to be called a sober man and an honest man to be called an honest man Must humility make us lyars Tell me Are you worthy your self to be accounted and called an Infidel a Heathen an Apostate a Heretick a wicked ungodly man that never repented nor did good Lib. That were to lye or slander to call one what he is not P. Are you not worthy then to be called contrarily that is what you are Lib. â—â—ought so to be called but not for my worthiness P. Must God and man account you such as you are not fit or worthy to be accounted And will you go on to accuse and contradict Gods Word Your fancy hath got some harsh conceit of the sense of the word Worthy and that cometh still into your mind as if it meant a worthiness which supposed not that all that we have is of mercy and grace when the Scripture meaneth no such worthiness but such as is that of a loving dutiful thankful Child of the inheritance A moral fitness Lib. Well suppose that our actions and we are worthy of Praise that is to be called as they are yet they are worthy also of dispraise that is to be accounted as menstruous rags defiled with sin and deserving Hell and is not this a pittiful praise P. Did you ever hear us deny any of this Why talk you of that which we are all agreed in But 1. It is not holiness but the faulty imperfections of it and the sin that is contrary to it which deserveth Hell 2. And the faults of sincere believers deserve not Hell according to the Law of Grace by which we are to be judged so as to be lyable to it but only so as to be accounted condemnable had we not been pardoned Lib. But if our faith and holiness deserve some praise what 's that to the deserving of salvation or being worthy of Heaven P. All these words your obstinacy hath put me to use to convince you that Faith and Holiness is worthy of any thing at all and that the word Worthy which God himself useth of them is not abused by God nor false But what it is that God will account the righteous worthy of the Scripture must determine where I have shewed you before that the words are plain They are counted worthy of God 1 Thess 2. 12. and of his Kingdom 2 Thess 1. 5. Worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection Luke 20. 35. They shall walk with Christ in white for they are worthy Lib. Still I grant it in the Scripture sense but not in yours P. To end this tedious talk with one that seemeth loth to understand say Yea
faith mentioned so oft in Scripture that is Upon and by believing we are first made just by free-given pardon and right to life and true sanctification with it and we are sentenced just because so first made just But this is not without our Faith and Repentance 2. And that Faith and Repentance are a Righteousness Evangelical that is a performance of the conditions on which the Covenant of Grace doth freely give us right to Christ pardon and life and so are the Constitutive causes of that subordinate Justification Lib. But your subordinate Righteousness hath no hand in our Justification P. This is but singing over the old Song by one that will not consider what is answered Have you thought on all the Texts even now cited Hath faith no hand in our Justification Hath the performance of a Condition and the Moral Disposition of the Receiver no hand in the Reception of a Gift What think you is the meaning of Christs words Matth. 12. By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned What meaneth St. James that a man is justified by works and not by faith only Are men justified by that which hath no hand in their Justification Lib. Christ meaneth before men and so doth James and not before God P. This is notoriously false as contrary to the plain Text Christ speaketh of the Account to be given of our words in the day of Judgement vers 36. And James speaketh of that which men are saved by vers 14. and that Justification which Abraham had and that in an instance where Man did not justifie him and of that which was faiths life and perfection vers 17 22. and of Gods imputing faith for righteousness as to a friend of God vers 23. And is this nothing but Justification before men Lib. This is not the justifying of the man but of his faith P. 1. You contradict the Text which saith Abraham Rahab A man is justified by Works 2. You contradict your self For if the faith be justified the man is justified to be a true believer For how could a man that fulfilled the Law as Christ and Angels did be justified but by justifying his actions And how can he that fulfilleth the Gospel conditions be justified in that point but by justifying that he fulfilled them Lib. At least I may say that this is not the great and notable Justification which is only by Christs Righteousness P. We are not contending for its preheminence but its truth and necessity in a subordinate place Indeed we have one Justification by our Judges sentence which hath many parts and causes God as Donor is one cause and God as Judge another And Christ as meriting is the only meritorious cause of the Justifying Gift and Covenant and Christ as Intercessor another cause and Christ as Judge another And our Righteousness as it is our Right to Impunity and life another and our faith and Repentance are conditions All this is sure Lib. But the Justification by faith is our Universal Justification and that can be only by Christs Righteousness And we are not to trust to a Righteousness mixt of Christs and ours nor doth Christs Righteousness need to be patcht up with our menstruous rags P. 1. No question but Christs Righteousness is perfect and ours imperfect and ours is no patch or supplement to Christs He is not made righteous by our righteousness but we by his 2. But that which is perfect in him is not made perfectly ours nor formally ours in it self as distinct from its merited effects It is not ours as it is Christs Christ that is our Righteousness is also made of God to us wisdom and sanctification And will you say therefore that we are not to be Wise or Holy by any Wisdom or Holiness of our own for fear of adding our patch to Christs 3. You use to say that Christs Righteousness is ours as Adams sin is ours and say some as Adams Righteousness would have been had he persevered But 1. Adams Righteousness would have indeed made an Infant initially just by propagation that is the innocent Child of an innocent Parent But as soon as that Infant had the use of Reason and Choice he must also have a Righteousness of his own or perish And this is no patch to Adams righteousness And indeed in his Infancy he must have a seminal Holiness of his own to justifie him as well as the relation of a Son of Adam 2. So also though we are guilty of Adams sin by propagation yet we have with that guilt 1. An inherent pravity of our own 2. And at age our actual sin And both these are our unrighteousness as well as Adams sin imputed to us Even so Christ the second Adam is a Root of a righteous seed Our Contract by faith is as to him what our Natural propagation is as to Adam that is the Condition of our Interest in his merits We have as believers an initial righteousness in our relation to Christ But we have also from him 1. Inherent habitual righteousness 2. The actual righteousness of faith and true obedience and love And these have their proper use and office without which we must perish 4. And I must tell you that the word Universal is too big to be properly given to any mans justification or righteousness but Christs Properly he only is Universally justified or righteous who hath no unrighteousness at all imputable to him and is justifyable in all things But the best believer 1. Was once a sinner originally 2. Did oft sin actually 3. Hath still sin in him 4. And for some sin may be punished by the Magistrate 5. And for sin is judged and punished by chastisements and death by God 6. And the earth still cursed for our sake 7. Yea which is worst of all we are still under the penaâ—ty of some privations alas how great of Gods Spirit and its Grace and our Communion with God And all this must be confessed And such a one is not Universally justified or just Lib. But still our own Righteousness doth but make us such as thankful persons must be for their Justification by Christ and is no part of that Justification by faith For if faith it self be that Righteousness we have not faith by faith and faith is not imputed to faith but Christs Righteousness is it that is imputed P. Of Imputation in due place 1. What need you talk against that which none of us assert Do we not all hold that our personal Gospel-Righteousness is subordinate to Christs and is by his Gift as ouâ— Wisdom and Sanctisication is Who dreameth that our faith is any part of Christs Righteousness But why do you waste time in vain cavilling against plain certain truth Is there any thing in Name or Thing asserted by us that you can deny or question Quest 1. Do you deny that Scripture commandeth us to Believe that we may be justified Lib. No. P. Quest 2. Or
but the Baptismal Covenant where sure the condition is notorious and every Baptizing Minister prerequireth the profession of it CHAP. VII Whether Justifying Faith be a Believing in Christ as a Teacher Lord c. or only a Receiving of his Righteousness P. VI. AS to this your sixth Charge I have said so much elsewhere in my Disputations of Justification and in other Books that I cannot justifie the tiring of Readers by repeating it And will say now but this little following 1. That Paul doth not distinguish between justifying faith and saving faith but excludeth the Works excluded by him from being the causes either of Justification or Salvation 2. That if Receiving Christs Righteousness be meant by them properly and physically it is no sort of faith at all but only the effect of the donation which they call Justificari or passive Justification But if it mean a moral metonymical Reception that is nothing but Consent to have the offered gift And if only Consent to have Christs Righteousness be Justifying faith then all the Assenting part is excluded in which Scripture much placeth it and most Divines in part and many in whole besides Camâ—ro and his followers And so also all the Affiance or Fiducial â—cts are excluded which almost all include even that which they call Recumbency being distinct from Consent 3. All these acts following are essential to Justifying faith as well as this Consent to be Justified 1. An Assenting belief in God in the baptismal sense 2. An Assent to the truth of Christs Person Office and Doctrine 3. A belief in the Holy Ghost 4. A belief of Pardon Sanctification and Glory as possible purchased and offered by Christ 5. A Consent that God be our God in Christ 6. And a Consent that Christ be our Teacher 7. And our King and Ruler 8. And our Intercessor 9. And our Judge and Justifier by sentence and as our Advocate 10. A belief of his Resurrection Power and Glory 11. A Trusting to the Father and the Son according to these forementioned Offices 12. A Consent to be Sanctified by the Holy Ghost 4. Plainly our Justifying and Saving Faith in Pauls sense is the same thing with our Christianity or becoming Christians And the same thing with our Baptismal faith and consent 5. To believe in Christ as Christ is in Scripture Justifying faith But to accept his righteousness only and not to believe in him as our Lord and our Teacher and Intercessor c. as aforesaid is not to believe in him as Christ 6. In my Answer ubi sup to Mr. Warner and elsewhere I have detected the fraud of their quibling distinction who say that All this is in faith quae justificat but not quà justificat as supposing a falshood that any act of faith quà talis justifieth 7. They that say that only our Acceptance of Christs Imputed Righteousness is the Justifying act of faith and that to expect to be Justified by any other viz. by Believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost and believing a Heaven hereafter and believing the Truth of the Gospel and of Christs Resurrection Ascension Glory c. and by taking him for our Teacher Ruler Intercessor c. is to expect Justification by Works in Pauls disclaimed sense and so to fall from Grace I say they that thus teach do go so far towards the subverting of the Gospel and making a Gospel or Religion of their own as that I must tell them to move them to repentance not only the adding of Ceremonies is a small corruption in comparison of this but many that in Epiphanius are numbred with Hereticks had far lesser errors than this is CHAP. VIII Of Faiths Justifying as an Instrument P. VII ANd I have said so much in the foresaid Disputations of Justification and other Books of Faiths Instrumentality and the reason of its Justifying interest that I cannot perswade my self now to talk it out with you all over again but only to say 1. That I have fully oft proved from many plain Scriptures that pardon and salvation are given with Christ in the Covenant of Grace on Condition of a penitent believing fiducial acceptance And therefore that it is most certain that faith is a Condition of our Justification and so to be profest in Baptism 2. The name of An Instrument given to faith and its Justifying as an Instrument are of mens devising and not in Gods Word 3. But as to the sense It is certain that faith is no Instrument of our Justification Gods or Mans if it be meant properly of an Instrumental efficient cause 4. But if it be taken Metaphorically for an Act whose Nature or essence is An Acceptance of a free Gift and so by Instrumentality be meant the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere that is Faith 's very Essence in specie then no doubt it is what it is 5. Or if by an Instrument be meant A Moral aptitude or Disposition of the person to be justified answerable to the Dispositio Recipientis vel materiae in Physicks then it is such an Instrument But how well this is worded and what cause there is to contend for a word both of humane invention and metaphorical and this as if it were a weighty Doctrine I leave to sober judgements 6. But it is certain that the Accepting Act of faith is but its Aptitude to be the condition of the Gift and therefore that its being made by Christ the Condition is its Moral nearest interest in our Justification CHAP. IX Whether Faith it self be imputed for Righteousness Lib. VIII WHat do you but subvert the Gospel when you put faith instead of Christ or of his Righteousness When the Scripture saith that we are justified by Christs Righteousness Imputed to us you say it is by faith imputed P. Do you think any sober Christians here really differ or is it only about the Names and Notions Which ever it be 1. Of the name Is it not oft said that Faith is and shall be imputed for Righteousness Rom. 4. 22 23 24. James 2. 23. Lib. Yes I must grant the words but not your meaning P. Where doth the Scripture say that Christs Righteousness is Imputed to us Remember that it is only the Name that I ask you of Lib. It saith that Righteousness is Imputed and what Righteousness â—an it be but Christs P. I tell you still it is only the phrase or words that we are first trying Are these the same words Righteousness is Imputed and Christs Righteousness is Imputed If not where are these latter words in Scripture Lib. Grant that the words are not and your words are P. Then the question is Whether Scripture phrase or mans invented phrase be the better and safer in a controvertible case And next Whether you should deny or quarrel at the Scripture saying that faith is imputed to us for righteousness and not rather confute our misexpounding it if we do so Lib. Well Let us examine the sense then What
whom I recite to shew that he is not singular Alex. Alens 1. p. q. 39. m. 1. Scot. in 1. d. 46. q. 1. in solut arg Richard art 1. qu. 1. Durand q. 1. Palud q. 1. art 1. Capreol in 1. d. 45. q. 1. art 1. Concl. 14. art 3. ad arg S. Thom. 1. contra g. c. 39. ibid. Ferrariens Hosius in Confess Polon c. 73. Ruard art 11. Sot 3. de nat grat c. 7. 3. de Justit q. 5. art ult ad 1. Cajet in hunc art Joh. Bunder in Compend Concert tit 6. art 7. Gabr. Biel supplem in 4. d. 49. q. 4. art 4. dub 3. Bonavent in 4. d. 46. art 2. q. 1. ad 2. S. Thom. 1. 2. q. 114. art 1. Conrad ibid. Durand iterum in 2. d. 27. q. 2. Perrar cont Gent. 3. c. 179. Then because some words of Medina and Cajet and Romaus seem for Commutative Justice he sheweth that it was not their meaning Next he vindicateth Scotus and Gabriel as having no such meaning in some words of theirs Then he cometh to the case of Christs own Merits and saith that some say Christ satisfied for us in rigour of Justice But that Aquin. Bonavent and such ancients use not that form of speech but only teach that Christs satisfaction was perfect that is needed no Acceptilation but to this it is not necessary that it be according to Justice properly but that it was of equal condignity by way of Merit And other Schoolmen that speak as aforesaid mean not that in Christ there was proper Justice towards God but that the equality which he kept by the way and similitude of Justice in his satisfaction was according to rigour that is needed not Gods liberal acceptation but was altogether of equal condignity which is true I except but some late ones who contend that in that satisfaction there was proper justice whom he opposeth But they speak only of Imperfect Justice such as is found in Creatures which is not in God In Cap. 3. he layeth down several foundations against Commutative Justice and confuteth Cajetan and Medina who said that indeed between God and man there was no Commutative Justice but inter res that is inter meritum praemium there is which he sheweth is a contradiction of the former In Cap. 4. he disputeth against commutative Justice in God to man and that 1. Because there is not aequalitas dati accepti and to be short he brings against it the very same arguments as Protestants urge against Merit which sheweth that both sides mean and oppose the very same thing And he is so much against any Merit of ours from God in Commutative Justice that he labours to prove that Christs satisfaction was not such nor can any Creature so merit of God much less is mans penance or satisfaction such yea indeed he goeth too far in his reasons as I think For he argueth that where there is no Damnum damage in the sin against God there is no proper injustice but a common sort of it and therefore there can no merit in proper justice by satisfaction by Christ or us and that our sin bringeth no damage to God ergo c. But I deny his Major There may be injury where there is no Damage and consequently injustice Suppose a King or Father so far above his subject or son as that all his disobedience would no way hurt or damnifie him yet it would injure him because the father hath Right to the sons obedience and love and Juriâ— denegatio est injuria So that I confess that God cannot possibly give us anything by Commutative Justice in a strict and proper â—ence because we can so give him nothing in commutation But I see not but that by sin man sinneth against proper Justice in not giving God his Own or Due to his Injury though not to his damage But I confess the term Commutative nothing mutual Right is improper and their distinction of Commutative and distributive Justice is narrow ambiguous inepâ— and therefore â—eedeth and not endeth Controversies The true distribution of Justice is from the three Grand Moral Relations Dominii Imperii Beneficii vel Amicitiae 1. God hath the true proper Right of Propriety in us and to our service 2. He hath a proper Right of Imperium Rule and so to our obedience 3. By his Goodness Love and Benefits he hath a proper Right to our greatest Love and Gratitude And he that sinneth denyeth God all these and so doth violate proper Justice denying him that to which he hath Right But to return to Vasquez having said That our Merit and Satisfaction can be no benefit to God nor our sin his damage nec ulla inaequalitas inter ipsum nos constituta est quae sit objectum injustitiae proprâ—ae he addeth that his punishments are no parts of commutative justice in resarciendis vindicandis injuriis because here is no reparation of damage as Thom. 2. 2. q. 108. art 2. And Cap. 5. he proceedeth to prove his doctrine from the Condition of God and the Creature we being as Children and slaves absolutely his own therefore there can be no proper justice between us And he cometh to the great objection that As free our Actions are our own and so may merit of Justice and answereth No because the Value of our works to which the Reward is given dependeth on Gods grace which he freely giveth and conserveth to us though as free the actions are of us as Causes And because that Liberty is only a fundamentum of merit but giveth not the work its Value or worth therefore we cannot make God our Debtor by any meritorious work of which he himself is the author and Cause And hence he is so much against this merit of Justice as to inferr that Christ himself could not satisfie God according to strict Justice properly by the works of his Humane nature because the whole Value came from the Godhead it self sanctifying the humanity and making his works worthy Cap. 6. he proceedeth to shew that though it be not true that some say that full equal satisfaction may be refused it being not the ipsum debitum and that he proveth that a full equal satisfaction to proper justice cannot in justice be refused and if it be refuseable it is unequal though it may be equal condignitate meriti quae ad justitiam propriè non pertinet Yet even from Gods promise it self it is no obligation of proper justice that is on God to us Confuting Sotus that saith that Gods Fidelity is not to be referred to the virtue of verity but properly belongeth to commutative Justice If this be not enough Disput 86. he cometh to the other branch Whether God have distributive Justice to us and denyeth this also in proper sence And proveth it by the authority of Bonavent in 4. d. 46. art 2. q. 1. ad 1. Scotus qu. 1. Durand ib. q. 1. in
by the free disposition of a gift Scotus holdeth our acts are called Merit as relating to Gods free Covenant or Promise to reward them and not otherwise but he absolutely denyeth yet that God is thereby made our Debtor 4. d. 46. Major 2. d. 27. not only followeth him but saith God may deny Glory to good works but he meaneth as the rest Richard 2. d. 27. q. 3. a. 2. ad 3. seemeth to deny even Debt upon the title of promise Bonâ—vent 2. d. 27. a. 2. q. 3. saith but that God is quodammodo in some sort obliged to glorifie them that love him Ruiz who is against all this and maketh Gods Promises to be proper promises and Covenants and more than bare assertions and that God is become a kind of Debtor by his Promise and so it is not his Veracity only that is our security as Suarez thinketh yet holdeth that It is but the Things promised that are Due or obliged to us and that Gods obligation is properly to Himself that he hath indeed true Governing or Legal Justice but tanquam objectum Formale primarium respicit universalissimum bonum praestantissimum quod est Ipse tanquam Materiale secundarium objectum respicit universale bonum totius mundi constantem ex omnibus creaturis quod praeponit particularibus bonis singularum creaturarum Indeed he saith that this Justice in God is that Quae solo naturâ— lumine demonstrari potest ac proinde nullam supponit liberam Dei promissionem aut pactum nullumque supernaturalem concursum aut gratiam But this is meer confusion by ambiguous words These men talk as if they considered not that Creation was a free act of God and made man a Law in the Nature of himself and the circumstant creatures And in this Law of Nature is a signification of Gods will to do good to the good and reward the obedient and this is a Natural promise There could be no obedience and so no merits were there no Law And if there be a Law of Nature and so God even by making us Rational free Governable Creatures was himself our Governour these things supposed to be done by the very act of Creating it is a contradiction to say that God is our Governour and not a Just Governour being perfect as he is God or to be Just and yet not Resolved to use the obedient better than the disobedient To be Governour is to be the Orderer of Moral Agents And what Moral Order is there where the good and bad are not differenced in retributions But the Papists conceits of all Promises to Adam and his merits being meerly supernatural confound them in many such dispuâ—atiâ—â—s L. But do they not hold that a man may merit the remission of his own sins yea and of the sins of others and justification also R. Let Medina answer you in 12. q. 113. a. 1. p. 651. Ad authoritates sonantes quod non meremur Remissionem peccatorum nec vero justificationem non oportet satisfacere Nam omnes convenimus in hanc sententiam Catholicam irrefragabilem quod non meremur remissionem peccatorum ut Augustin Nulláne sunt merita justorum Sunt plane quia justi sunt sed ut justi fierent merita non fuere None merit Remission or Justification with them L. Not by merit of Condignity but they say that by merit of Congruity a man may merit Remission and Conversion and Justification R. Medina ibid. p. 652. Sed cum Meritum de Congruo non innitatur Justitiae sed Congruentiâ— proprie appellationem meriti non meretur And so say many others of them L. But at least they hold that we may prepare our selves for Justification or Conversion without Grace or special Grace R. Preparatory Grace is not the same that the Grace to which it prepareth us But let the same Medina answer you q. 109. p. 592. Deus expectat nostrum consensum inquit Pelagius ut nos convertat ergo ex parte voluntatis nostra est prâ—paratio ad gratiam suscipiendam Sed hâ—c sententia est haeretica contra Scripturas Concilia Veritas Catholica est quod Gratia Justificans datur sine meritis quod nemo se valet ad â—am praeparare sine auxilio speciali Et p. 593. Ultima dispositio ad gratiam ad quam infallibiliter se quitur Gratia non habetur ex facultate naturae sed tantum dono Dei speciali Do you say any more against Preparation for Grace without Grace or against mans power to prepare himself or against merit than all this L. But sure Luther and his fellow Reformers had never so much inveighed against the Papists in the point of Works Merits and Justification if they had all taught no worse than these which you have cited There are sure many others that say worse R. No question but the Ignorance of the Priests was so great and the carnal ends so powerful with covetous proud men which were served by the abuse of the Doctrine of Merits and Good Works that multitudes of such did ordinarily abuse it If all Protestants taught the Protestant Doctrine uncorruptly we should not have had so many differences and divisions as we have had nor would one condemn another as you do us L. But though the old Schoolmen might mean better those that Luther had to do with did sure speak much worse R. I tell you the Carnal and Ignorant sort of Priests and Fryers did each man talk according to his model and so do all Sects Few had the Wit and Skill to open aright the common Doctrine But 1. Our Dr. Field of the Church undertaketh to prove that excepting the tyrannical Papal faction and the carnal and ignorant that served their ends and by violence bore down the rest the chief of the Doctors in the Church of Rome it self did hold the great Doctrines which the Protestants against the Papists do assert 2. To tire you now with no more I will cite but two of Luthers own adversaries in his dayes 1. The first is the Learned Cardinal Contacenus who lived in the time of Luthers Reformation Read but his Notes on Luthers Articles and his Tract of Justification Free-will and Predestination and you will see that he saith almost as much for what you plead as you would do your self I am loth to tire the Reader with the citation of his words at large Turn to them and read them and see where he differeth from us I confess the man was moderate but never accused as differing herein from the Church of Rome as in an Article determined of by their Councils But their Doctors variously express themselves The other is Fisher Bishop of Rochester one of the chief Martyrs of the Roman Cause beheaded by Henry the Eighth for denying his Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical who in Opuscul de fiducia misericordia Dei Printed Colon. 1556. speaketh as much and plainly for the interest of Faith and
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
still have heard Obey and live or Sin and die And if Adam â—ad obeyed till his translation to Glory or confirmation in the Reward I find not in Scripture any Promise that this should have been imâ—uted to his Posterity as the full performance of the Condition of their Life or confirmed Happiness but that still their own sinning would have been a possible thing and death would have been the wages of their Sin You seem not to set Adam's Merits and imputed Righteousness any â—igher than Christ's And I am too sure that the justified Members of Christ do sin and must ask daily pardon And whether or not they be confirmed against total Apostasie I am sure few if any of them are confirmed against the possibility or existence or futurity of Sin And if you say that Adam's Posterity though confirmed should have sinned too but should have been pardoned as we are It would be another presumptuous addition and contradiction of Scripture to assert Pardon without a Saviour and a pardoning Covenant 3. Adam's Obedience would have justified his next issue from this false Accusation You are born of a sinful Parent or not of a righteous Parent But it would have justified no man against this Accusation You are personally a Sinner or have not personally loved God and obeyed him Therefore it would have justified any man against this Charge You are to be condemned for Adam's sin But it would have justified no man against these Charges You are to be condemned for your own personal Sin or you have no right to Glory by Gods Promise to the adult which maketh their personal Obedience the Condition 4. And though I cannot again here have time to deal with Confounders who think that Imputation or Justification are words which have but one sense I must say that even so Christ's Righteousness is not so imputed to any man as to be to him in stead of his personal Obedience to the Law or Covenant of Grace which he is under But it will justifie any Believer from these Accusations You must be cast into Hell for breaking the Law of Innocency or you must be shut out of Heaven because you deserved it not by perfect Obedience or you have no perfect or sufficient Saviour or you are such as God cannot pardon without wrong to his Truth Wisdom or Justice It will justifie no man from any of these Charges You are Sinners you deserve condemnation by the first Law you are Impenitent or Unbelievers or Hypâ—crites or have not performed the conditions of life in the Law of Grace The two first we must confess and not justifie our selves by a denial And against the last we must be justified by our own Repentance Faith and sincere Obedience He that will say to the Accuser that chargeth him with final Infidelity Impenitency or Unholiness I am justified by the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness will but add to his sin 5. There are all these differences between our Justification according to the first Law had we been capable of it and that which we now have 1. One would have been by God as Creator and Legislator to the Innocent The other by Christ as Redeemer and Legislator to the sinful World 2. One would have been for personal perfect persevering Obedience The other for Christ's Merits as purchasing a free Pardon Grace to penitent Believers and upon our own Faith and Repentance as the Conditions of the new Covenant 3. One would have been without pardon and the other chiefly or much by pardon In one if our Publick Root had perfectly obeyed we must also have perfectly obeyed or die In the other because our Publick Root did perfectly obey Faith and sinceere Obedience to the end is all that is required of us to ouâ— Glory 4. In one the personal matter of worthiness or merit must have been all that perfection which God in justice could require of man In the other it is only The acceptance of a free Gift according to its nature and use and after the thankful use and improvement of it with other such differences § 34. M. S. What Christ did as surety is imputed to us but not his Suretiship or being a publick Person Ans This is true if you understand Imputation in Scripture sense or soundly and not in their sense who presumptuously say That God reputeth us to have done all by Christ which he did for us in his Obedience to the Law § 35. M. S. Christ did not all that he did as Surety but only that which answered the Law An. I suppose you mean that which the Law requireth of us But the word Surety is ambiguous and after here explained and whether you understood it sano sensu I know not He did all that he did as the Mediator and Sponsor for mans Redemption And we are pardoned and justified by the merit of all his own Covenant-keeping with the Father even of such acts as the Law required not of us And some which the Law required of many he did not because it required them not of him § 36. M. S. The Law said not That Christ must be a holy Husband or Father c. The Imputation of one Act of Christ's Obedience is sufficient to our Justification and Merit of life though it need not be curiously set in this or that part of his life § Still more presumption 1. Where saith the Scripture so 2. You must not assert absurdities or presumptions and then think to put off the detection of them by calling it curious If this be true doubtless it was Christs first act of Obedience which merited Glory for us And so it is that first only that must be imputed to us to that end And who ever thought so before you The Fryars have some of them said That minima guttula sanguinis Christi One drop of his blood was enough to redeem all the World And our Divines say Why then was the rest shed So I ask you 1. Why did Christ do all the rest of his Obedience after the first Act Hath none of it the same end and use 2. How shall we be sure that a Sinner must not plead or trust to any of Christ's Righteousness but the first act for his Justification and Reward or must he trust for it to that which was never by Christ intended for it 3. This is contrary to the Scripture which layeth our Justification on his whole Righteousness as meritorious and on his Obedience to the Death and on his rising again and on other parts first Rom. 4. 24. 5. throughout c. 4. Sure they that are so curious as to tell us which physical act of Faith justifieth in specie numero for some say only the first instantaneous act doth justifie will not think it curiosity to enquire which one Act of Christs Obedience justifieth us when according to your Doctrine it is evident that it must be the first And they that say It is Justification by Works to
be justified by any act of Faith in specie besides the recumbency on his Righteousness to be imputed to us or by any numero besides the first will likely say that it is Justification by another Righteousness than that which the Scripture saith is imputed to us to be justified by the Imputation of any but the first Act of Christ's Obedience Or else that if all be imputed we have a redundancy of Righteousness and deserve many Heavens or one oftener than needs But when men have received some unsound Principles all things must be forced to comply with them § 37. M. S. Towards the end the M. S. summeth up my Assertions and setteth down some as contrary to them In reckoning up mine he sheweth candor and ingenuity and a good memory having not the Book at hand But I must advertise his Readers 1. That he taketh all from my Aphorisms the first Book I wrote in my youth when my Conceptions of these things were less digested wherefore I have above twenty years ago retracted that Book till I had leisure to correct it and have since more fully opened my judgment in my Confession and in my Disput of Justification and other Writings and most fully in my Methodus Theologiae unpublished 2. That he over-looketh my asserting our Adoption to be by the Merits of Christ's Active Obedience yea and our Justification too as well as by his Passive 3. That reciting my words that it is by Gods Will in the form of his Donation or Covenant that Faith hath that use to Justification which is nearest it viz. the formal Reason of a Condition he leaveth out my other assertion that Faith 's material disposition or aptitude to this form or office is the very nature of it as fitted to that use about its Object Christ which Gods design and our case required His Assertions as against me are as followeth § 28. M. S. 1. There is no way to Life but by Doing It is not enough that the Law be not dishonoured but it must be glorified An. Doing is a word of doubtful sense It 's one thing to Do all that the Law of Innocency required and another thing to do all that the Law of Grace maketh necessary to life It 's one thing to Do all our selves and another thing for a Mediator to merit Pardon and Life to be given conditionally by a new Covenant by Doing all in kind and much more than all that we should have done for us though not in our persons The way to Life now hath many parts 1. Christ's perfect habitual active and passive Righteousness fulfilling the Law of Innocency and the Law of Moses and the peculiar Law of the Mediator to merit Pardon Spirit Adoption and Glory to be given by the New Covenant on its terms 2. The said New Covenant as the donative Instrument and Law of Life and Pardon and Adoption by it 3. Our doing or performing the Conditions of the New Covenant by Grace But our personal Doing all according to the Law of Innocency really or reputatively to be justified by that Law is none of the way of Life which you think the only way And I hope we shall both meet there § 39. M. S. It 's clear as the light of the Sun that their fundamental distinction is absurd to make sinning and suffering equivalent to doing because he that hath born the utmost penalty hath done no more towards living than he that never sinned or suffered else Adam in Innocency should have been sentenced worthy of life If a Servant instead of his Service steal and restore it he meriteth not his wages c. An. 1. It 's certain that you mistake and wrong us I never put sinning among the things that are equivalent to doing or meriting Of this before 2. I doubt you noted not sufficiently that no Creature can merit commutatively as a Proprietor of God as a Servant doth his wages nor can have any thing of God but what in respect of such merit and the value of the thing is an absolute free Gift free as to commutation And that all Gods Laws of Life are but a prescription of the wise Order in which he will give his free benefits As a Father will give Lands to the Son that will behave himself decently and thankfully and not to the contemptuous Rebel So that as to commutation no Man or Angel hath other merit than not to commerit the contrary perdition God is never the better for our Doing If you dream of meriting commutatively from a Proprietor by work for wages I can soon tell you what we set up instead of such merit I hope you had no such thoughts but want of due distinguishing But as to Doing and Merit in respect to Paternal Justice that which I set instead of fulfilling the first Law is a◠aforesaid not sinning and suffering but 1. Christ's Satisfaction and the Merit of his compleat Righteousness 2. The Gift of Pardon and Life by a new conditional Covenant merited and made by him 3. Actual Pardon of all sin thereby 4. Actual Adoption 5. Our fulfilling the Condition of that Covenant that these may be ours And thus the Law was dishonoured by our Sin but is glorified by Christs Obedience and Satisfaction And Gospel-Justice but specially Mercy glorified in our personal Obedience to the Gospel without such Doing indeed Christ's as Principal in fulfilling the Law in the Person of a Mediator and ours as subordinate in obeying the Gospel there is no Glorification And I think this is plain truth But in your instance of a Servant deserving his wages you seem to look at Commutative Justice when we have to do only with governing Paternal Justice And you should have remembred that if the Servant do not his Work in order of governing Justice it is his crime And if he have no fault he hath no fault of Omission And he that hath no Sin of Omission hath done all his Duty and so deserved the Reward As for Adam 1. In the first instant of his life he was bound to no present Duty before he could do a moral Act. 2. But afterward I think he merited in tantum pro tempore and had not the Condition of the Promise been of further extent than one act he had merited life But a Reward for a years Duty is not merited by an hours § 40. M. S. There is a medium between just and unjust He was non-justus He was not actually just though habitually He had done nothing for which the Law could justifie him else why did he not live for ever An. 1. Habitual holiness fits a Soul for Glory where no more is due as if one die immediately And so it would have done Adam had God translated him instantly and made him no Law of actual Duty 2. But afterward that Adam in Innocency did that for which the Law would justifie him in tantum for that time He fulfilled all the Law for so long else he had