Selected quad for the lemma: work_n
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A45138
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The middle-way in one paper of election & redemption, with indifferency between the Arminian & Calvinist / by Jo. H.
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Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing H3689; ESTC R20384
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34,415
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44
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charity is that which disposes to good works Good works therefore he counts must be of grace and Gods spirit and to follow justification which is with him this infused grace But as for beleeving which is the first thing upon which the Spirit it self is given to infuse this grace from whence our good works doe spring this must arise he accounts from mans free will or else the fault will not be in himself which is the argument convinces him but it must lye on the will of God onely that he hath not the spirit and so no grace and so does not well and is not saved Whether this argument be irrefragable or no we shall see by what will follow 2. There are two questions raised together by the Apostle Who maketh thee to differ from another and What hast thou O man that thou didst not receive The chief difficulty lyes in answering the former question for by that is the second to be regulated Now if that we have from God is onely this middle faculty which we may use to beleeve or not Who is it makes the difference in one mans using it to faith and another's to infidelity That which is the less the Posse velle The power to will shall be of God that is of Nature and so of God but the Ipsum velle The will or willing it self which is the greater and which indeed saves us shall be of our selves 3. The Scripture is express concerning faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God If the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there referrs to the whole sentence we have other texts No man cometh to me that is beleeveth in me unless the Father draw him To you it is given not only to believe but to sufther for his name This is the work of God that you beleeve Who hath first given to him Of him and to him are all things I obtained mercy That I should be faithfull not Because I was faithfull But ye beleeve not because ye are not of my sheep Again As many as were ordained to salvation beleeved It seems here that the cause why some beleeve and some beleeve not is their being or not being of the number of those who are ordained to be of his flock The like text in reference to works as these to faith is that to the Ephesians He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy It is not therefore mans faith or holiness is the cause of Gods Election but it is Gods election is the cause of mans holiness and faith A prime and eternal cause say our Divines cannot depend upon the self same temporal effects which are thereby caused If therefore the Ordination of God be the cause from whence mans faith and holiness are derived his foreseen-faith or foreseen-works are not to be imagined antecedent causes merits conditions or motives unto the Divine Predestination 4. We have St. Augustine acknowledging himself to have bin herein in an errour So that these arguments must be no longer against Augustine but against those who have taken up that opinion he forsook In nullo gloriandum est dixit Cyprianus quoniam nostrum nihil sit Quod ut ostenderet adhibuit Apostolum Quid autem habes quod non accepisti Quo praecipue testimonio convict us sum cum errarem putans fidem qua in Deum exedimus non esse donum Dei sed a nobis esse in nobis per illam nos impetrare Dei dona quibus temperanter juste pie vivamus in hoc seculo Quem errorem nonnulla opuscula mea satis indicant It was the saying of blessed Cyprian that we may glory in nothing because that which is ours is nothing This he proved by the words of the Apostle By which testimony I was first convinced when I erred thinking that faith was of our selves and then good works obtained by it Which errour several of my former pieces do sufficiently shew De praedestinatione sanctor c. 3. I wish he had mentioned the book here which I am citing as he does one or two other that I might have known his solution to the difficulty which himself hath urged but left unanswered upon our hands To return then to the Father's question Whether the Voluntas qua credimus The will whereby we beleeve be of our selves or God's gift I must not choose the first with him in that book but the last according to other of his works Nevertheless we must carefully distinguish the two things whereof he hath made two questions Vtrum fides in nostra constituta sit potestate Whether faith be in our power in one chapter and Vtrum voluntas qua credimus donum sit Dei an ex libertate arbitrii Whether the will whereby we do beleeve be the gift of God or the effect of our own liberty in another I do apprehend here that both these two things are to be held That faith is in our power and That the will whereby we beleeve is not of our selves but of Gods grace or gift The holding both these is that which cuts the thread of all difficulties in this matter For the one That faith is in mans power we are beholding verily to that Father A thing is in a mans power which he may do if he will Hane dicimus potestatem ubi voluntati adiacet facultas faciendi When he accounts Faith then to be in mans power he understands this That he may beleeve if he will And this is a truth of great necessity yet hath difficulty But when he proceeds hereupon so farre as to make the will therefore whereby we beleeve to be of our selves it was a step which himself saw need to draw back There are many things that are possible which yet never shall be as this Father himself gives instances of upon another occasion in the first chapter of this book There are likewise many things which a man can do that yet he never will or is like to do without some speciall cause moving him to it Such is the business of mans Conversion There is no man we are to hold with him but he may beleeve I will adde repent and be saved if he will yet is this to be known and held also That there is no man for certain ever will unless it be from that one special cause which is Gods grace or the Spirit 's motion that works his heart thereunto Now then Shall a man remain an unbeleever and impenitent and perish the fault shall lye upon himself and God shall be just because we place faith in his own power He may believe and repent and be saved if he will If God would and he will not he may thank himself Again if he do believe and repent and is saved he shall have no cause to boast or glory in himself because that though he might believe and repent if he would yet would he never have repented while the world lasted
that my people had bin thus and thus or would be thus and thus Thou art a gracious God and mercifull slow to anger and of great kindness and repentest thee of the evill And why may we not frame our notion of God from such texts of Scripture as these as well as from others and rather than from the definition of the Schools Especially if we can make God more lovely to our selves more adorable than by their conceptions There is nothing that God does will now but what he did decree always And why so Because the Schools say there will else be composition in God the composition of an essence and accident and God is a pure act ens simplicissimum But what if the Conceptions of those holy men who would have God like to man in regard of the Scripture expressions wherein they were so zealous as we have a famous Ecclesiastical story about it should not be so injurious on one hand to the Almighty as such Conceptions as these on the other which do quite puzzle our Intellectuals and leave us without any quick sense at all of him It is certain that God is Good Righteous Vnchangeable but we must have a Conception of goodness righteousness and unchangeableness and that which is agreeable to that herein which we esteem perfections in our selves before we attribute them to him When we make God then to be always gracious to those that do well and displeased with evil and so brings or determines to bring a Judgment on one and bestows a Blessing on another according as he sees at the present the Provocation of the one and Obedience of the other without any other determination before besides that of his Law why is not this an Vnchangeableness more worthy the Divine Excellence than that by which he being conceived a pure act must be made never to will any thing else than what he wills at once from all Eternity Upon the like Hypothesis as this one may also propose a sutable notion of Praedestination To wit that the Scripture being skanned to the bottom Election perhaps may be found indeed nothing else but Gods determination to save Men and Women by the Covenant of Grace and not by the Covenant of our Greation or by the Righteousness of God declared in the Gospel and not by the Righteousness of Works This definition should be founded on such Texts where the purpose of God according to Election is said to be not of Works but of him that calleth And He hath called us not according to our works but according to his purpose and Grace It should be founded also on the instances of Isaack and Jacob in whom the Children of the Promise are Elected in opposition to the Children of the flesh that is those that look for Justification by the deeds of the Law And thus have we the example of the Jews rejection upon that account And thus when a Pharisee hath lived so Righteously that as to the whole Law he is blameless and so trusts to his Righteousness shall say And why am I rejected for all this and such a Publican onely for his repenting and trusting on the mercy of God through Christ is accepted it may be answered the reason is plain because it is God that makes the difference by decreeing and appointing what terms he pleases upon which one shall be saved and not another Hath not the Potter power over his Clay of what sort he will to make Vessels of honour and dishonour so that it is not of him that Willeth or Runneth it is not upon such terms as a man himself sets or would set of works but it is of Grace of him that sheweth mercy Well! But what would be the Consequent of such Doctrine as this Why the Consequent no doubt must be the same in effect with the Pelagian which is Vniversal Grace and Free will to purpose But I confess my self to have imbibed the Doctrine of St Augustine from my younger years that I am convinced by it believing that nothing can be set up against it with any strength which is short of Vorstius while Pelagius and Vorstius both are names we know that do so male audire Are of such ill report in the Church as the Arminians themselves will not bear For our apprehensions then of God according to the Schools it must be acknowledged that he is said in holy Scripture to dwell in the Clouds and thick darkness and into such darkness or those Clouds will I account indeed that he is put while he is made to be actus purus and wrapt in their notions which if they served no other they do yet serve this end even most reverendly and exceedingly to hide him from us and render him thereby but as he is very truly incomprehensible to us To reflect then back on the difficulty before as to the Consequent of Election our way if any say they are not satisfied with what I have said because a power never produced into act is as good as none I answer if I propose that which they would have and it be all can be had there is a measure in things which when we have set in any point so as the Determination cannot be passed but we shall run into the extreams on one side or the other which we seek to avoid we ought to be satisfied Especially when such a power alone as this which in the effect without Grace is none will do our work If we allow not a power to man how shall God be just how shall God condemn any which is that lyes at bottome still of of what is said for not doing that which was not in his power or which was not possible If when a man hath Power he does also exert that power and wills of himself how shall such Scriptures be true which have been urged It is God that makes us to differ Of him we have the Will and the Deed Nay such Texts more especially as speak expresly of a Cannot when the true intent and meaning of them is this that we do not and never will as I have had it before till God prevents us by his effectual Grace Without Christ we can do nothing All our sufficiency is of God No man can come to him unless he be drawen Si non est liberum arbitrium quomodo Deus judicabit mundum Si est liberum arbitrium quomodo salvabit mundum If man have not Free-will how shall God judg him If he have how shall he save him This is the difficulty of the Father If then there be such a liberum arbitrium to be found out which quodam modo is sine libero arbitrio such a power as in the effect is no power that is such as without Grace which also is efficacious comes to nothing then can we decide this business for him Suppose a Magistrate for some fault shall cut off a Malefactors hands and then command him to write and promise him great