it but he did not resist it unto the end And every technical Grammarian can distinguish the Act which is imply'd in the Participle from the Aptitude which is couched in the Adjective in bilis But to hasten towards the conclusion of my Readers sufferings there is also a final as well as total resisting of such a Grace as is sufficient for the attainment of Glory For not to speak of those men who resisted and sinned against all the means that could be used Isa. 5. 4. and who alwaies resisted the holy Ghost Act. 7. 51. and who would not be gathered after never so many essays Mat. 23. 37. how many Christian professors are now in Hell who when they were Infants were fit and suitable for Heaven Shall not I spare Nineveh in which are above 120000 souls which cannot distinguish betwixt the right hand and the left Ion. 4. 11. God speaks there of Heathen Infants toward whom his Bowels did yearn within him and that upon the Impendence of but a temporal destruction But I speak here of Infants born and baptized into a membership of the Church How many are there of such who in their harmlesse Nonage were babes of Grace and yet have outlived their Innocence so as at last to be transformed into vessels of wrath I will shut up this Paragraph with the words of Tertullian Saul was turned into a Prophet by the Spirit of holinesse as well as into an Apostate by the spirit of uncleannesse And the Devil entred into Judas who for some time together had been deputed with the elect And with the saying of S. Augustine That if the regenerate and justified shall fall away into a wicked course of living by his own will and pleasure he cannot say I have not received because he hath wilfully lost that Grace of God which he had received by that will of his which was at liberty to sin And how exactly that Father doth speak my sense of this businesse I leave it for any one to judge who shall consult him De praed. Sanct. l. 1. c. 14. De bono Persev l. 2. c. 1. 6. l. 2. c. 8. 13. And I would very fain know whether the lost Groat the lost Sheep and the prodigal Son do not signifie in our Saviours Parables that a true beleever may be lost and being lost may be found and again become a true beleever Which is as much as I desire to prove the thing under consideration CHAP. V. 54. HAving evinced to my self and that is all that I pretend to First that my will of it self is inclinable to evil and that secondly of it self it is not inclinable to good and that thirdly it is inclined by the singular and special operation of Grace to the refusing of evil and to the choosing of good and that therefore in the fourth place that singular Grace doth not work so irresistibly as to compel an unwilling will but yet so strongly as to heal a sick one not so necessitating the will of God's elect as that inevitably it must but yet so powerfully perswading as that it certainly will both believe and obey and after repentance persevere unto the end I should in civility to my Reader conclude his Trouble if I were sure that some men would not call it Tergiversation and if I were not obliged by those papers which have been so frequently sâ—…falsly that I may not say so maliciously transcribed and are threatned to be laid very publiquely to my charge and which I plead in the defence of this mine own publication which I should never have châ—…sen upon such a subject as I have least of all studied and am least delighted in of any other to remonstrate the utmost of what I think in these matters For I do stedfastly beleeve what I also asserted in that extemporary Discourse which was the innocent cause of this unacceptable effect That Gods Decree of Election from all eternity was not absolute and irrespective but in respect unto and in praescience of some qualification without which no man is the proper object of such Decree And this I prove to my self from these waies of Reasoning 55. First I consider with my self that there is no salvation but only to such as are found to be in Christ Iesus in the day of Death and of Iudgement Which no man living can be unlesse he be qualified with such conditions as without which it is impossible to be so found such as are Faith and Obedience and Repentance after sin bringing forth such fruits as are worthy of Repentance and perseverance in weldoing unto the end That God will save none but such is all men's Confession And that he saves none but such whom he decrees to save is every whit as plain Therefore none but such are the object of such Decree For if he decreed to save any without regard or respect to their being such he might actually save them without regard or respect to their being such Because whatsoever is justly decreed may be justly executed as it is decreed But it is granted on all sides as I suppose that God will save none except such as are found to be in Christ with the aforesaid qualifications and therefore it should be agreed on all sides that he decreed to save none but such as they And what is that but a respective and conditional Decree made in intuition of our being in Christ and of our being so qualified to be in Christ So that although our election is not of works but of him that calleth yet good works are required as a necessary condition though utterly unworthy to be a cause of our election Nor can it be without respect to the condition of the Covenant that the Covenant is made and the promise decreed to be fulfilled 56. Secondly I consider that the Decree of the Father to send the Son to be a second Adam was in respect and regard to the backesliding of the first Adam Without which it was impossible that the Son of God should have been sent to be the Saviour of the world And the decree of God Almighty to save the first Adam was in regard of and respect to the meritoriousness of the second Adam For God adopteth never a childe nor doth acknowledge him for his own so as to give him eternal life unlesse it be for the sake of his only begotten Son First God pitied a woful world then he loved what be pitied next he gave his own Son to save what he loved and upon the condition of beleeving in his Son he gave it a promise of eternal life For so beleeving is interposed betwixt love and life in the 3. of S. Iohn vers. 26. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life From this Text it appeareth that God loved the world before he gave his Son to it for
therefore gave he his Son because he loved it But it was not a love by which he loved it to life everlasting for with such love he only loved it in his Son And the world is not capable of such a love without the condition of beleeving It was therefore in praescience of our beleeving in Christ that God elected us to life eternal For Christ is not only the means as some affirm but the meritorious cause and the Head of our Election Christ was foreknown 1 Pet. 1. 2. and we in him Rom. 8. 29. Christ was praedestin'd and we by him Eph. 1. 5. 57. Thirdly I consider that there must be a Difference before there can be an Election Love indeed is an act of favour but Election is properly an act of Iudgement a preferring of the better before the worse They that say God Elected such a number of men without the least intuition of their qualifications by which they are differenced from the reprobated crew do speak illogically to say no worse how much safer is it to say That because such men as are in Christ by Faith are better then such as are out of Christ by Infidelity therefore those are taken and these are left Nor doth this derogate from God or arrogate to man to say he chooseth his own gifts any more then it doth to say he crowns them For God doth give us the advantage of our being in Christ as well as choose us for that advantage First he giveth us his Son next he giveth us his Grace whereby to enable us to believe in his Son and so beleeving he doth elect us So that here is no matter for man to boast on he having nothing which he hath not received no not so much as his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} It is God that makes the difference as well as God that chooseth And it seems this very argument from the Nature and Use of the word Election did prevail with S. Austin and Oecumenius S. Austin saith expresly that Iustification precedeth Election and his reason is because no man is elected unlesse he differ from him that is rejected 58. Fourthly I consider that the whole Tenor of the Scriptures in the Iudgement of all the Fathers who are best able to understand them teacheth no other Praedestination then in and through Christ which is respective and conditional First the Scripture gives us none but conditional promises such as If any man keep my saying he shall never taste Death Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap And we shall reap if we faint not If any man will hear my voice and open the doore I will come in to him c. Nay even the very Texts which are wont to be urged for irrespective Election do seem very precisely to evince the contrary For when God is said to praedestine according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} rendred good pleasure doth not signifie the absolutenesse but the respectivenesse of his will For it relateth to something in which God is well pleased and that is Christ It being impossible for God to please himself with mankinde or for men to be acceptable and well pleasing to God any otherwise then in him of whom it was said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Besides all those Scriptures which doâ—… teach universal Grace and Redemption which I suppose hath been proved in the prosecution of my first Principle do seem to me most clearly to inferre a respective and conditional Election For if it is true that Christ did offer up himself not only sufficiently but intentionally for all if he did earnestly desire that every one would come in upon the preaching of his Word and receive the benefit of his Death and Passion if his warnings were not in jest and his invitations serious if depart from me ye cursed was therefore foretold that every one might beware and not obtrude himself upon that sentence if he is unwilling that any one should be caught in the Serpents snare who shewes to all without exception a certain way to escape if as S. Austin speaks he is desirous not to strike who bids us look to our posture and stand upon our Guard if as S. Austin speaks again he shews his power to punish none but only those that refuse his Mercy and would not damn any one without respect to sin who gave his own Son to die for all then his refusing of the Goats in respect of that which makes them differ from Sheep infers his Election of the sheep in respect of that which makes them differ from Goats And I have made the more haste to make this Inference because as the respectivenesse of Election needs not otherwise to be proved then by the respectivenesse of Reprobation so they are both taken for granted upon the supposition of Christ's having dyed not only sufficiently but intentionally for all Towards which having discoursed so largely of it already I will only offer this one consideration which meets my pen as I am writing and even obtrudes it self upon me to be delivered It is briefly this That since our Saviour upon the Crosse did very heartily pray even for those very homicides and parricides and Deicides that Kill'd him we have no reason but to beleeve That he laid down his life even for them that took it away and that he dyed for all for whom he prayed And yet we reading of their Murders but not of their Repentance I should be loth to tell my people that those crucifying wretches were precious vessels of Election in complyance with that opinion that Christ died only for the Elect lest they should comfort up themselves in the most â—…rimson sins that can be named like some in the world as well consisting with their pretensions to the Kingdome of Heaven And yet in my shallow Iudgement which because it is shallow I do submit to those of deeper and profounder reach how dogmatically soever I may seem to have spoken in many places of this Discourse I say in my shallow Judgement Christ dyed for all for whom he prayed and he prayed for them that curst themselves His bloud be upon us said they and yet said he Father forgive them He made his Murderers Execration become his prayer He took the poyson out of their Curse and made it wholsome for them He wished as well as they that his bloud might be both upon them and upon their children but in his own most merciful not in their barbarous and cruel sense for they meant the guilt He the benefit of his bloud and would have it â—ight on them not to accuse but cleanse them And yet I dare not affirm that they were all a portion of God's Elect. 59. Lastly I consider that the main stream of the Fathers doth run this way And not to trouble my Reader with such
Principle It is taken from the nature and use of Punishment which as soon as it is nam'd doth presuppose a Guilt for as every sin is the * transgression of some Law so every punishment is the revenge of some sin upon which it followes that if a mans sin is from himself 't is from himself that he is punisht And as the Law is not the Cause but the * Occasion only of sin so God is not the Cause but the inflicter only of punishment for so saies the Apostle Sin taking occasion by the Commandement wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law sin was dead That which is good not being made death but sin working death by that which is good God and his Law are each of them the Causa-sine-qua-non the Condition without which sin and punishment could not have been for without Law no sin and without God no Reprobation but not the Energetical efficient Cause of which sin and punishment were the necessary effects For if God had made a Hell by an absolute purpose meerly because he would that some should suffer it and not in a praevious intuition of their sins Damnation had been a Misery but not a Punishment as if a Pâ—…tter makes a vessel on purpose that he may break it which yet none but a mad man can be thought to do or if a man meerly for recreation cuts up Animals alive which yet none ever did that I can hear of except a young Spanish Prince it is an Infelicity and a torment but no more a punishment then it is any thing else Indeed the Common people who do not understand the just propriety of words make no distinction many times betwixt Pain and Punishment not considering that Punishment is a Relative word of which the correlative is Breach of Law and therefore is fitly exprest in Scripture by the mutual relation betwixt a Parent and a Childe when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin sin being perfected bringeth forth death * Iam. 1. 15. which is as much as to say according to the propriety of the Apostles words sin is the parent and death is the childe Now there cannot be a Childe without a parent for they are relata secundum esse much lesse can the childe be before the parent for sunt simul naturâ dicuntur ad convertentiam Upon which it followes that punishment could not be ordained by God either without sin or before it or without respect and intuition of it which yet the great * Mr. Calvin does plainly say I say it could not because it implies a contradiction For though God could easily make Adam out of the earth and the earth out of nothing yet he could not make a sinful Cain to be the son of sinful Adam before there was an Adam much lesse before there was a sinful one because it were to be and not to be at the same time Adam would be a Cause before an entity which God Almighty cannot do because he is Almighty So that when the Romanists assert their Transubstantiation or the posterity of Marcion their Absolute decree of all the evil in the world both pretending a Reverence to God's omnipotence they do as good as say those things which are true may therefore be false because they are true or that God is so Almighty as to be able not to be God that being the Result of an Ability to make two parts of a contradiction true so said Austin against S. Faustus and Origen against Celsus Whensoever it is said God can do all things 't is meant of all things that become him So Isidore the Pelusiote But to return to argument in the pursuit of which I have stept somewhat too forward if Gods praeordination of mans eternal misery were in order of nature before his praescience of mans sin as Mr. Calvin evidently affirms in his Ideo * praesciverit quia decreto suo praeordinavit setting Praeordination as the Cause or Reason or praevious Requisite to his Praescience either mans Reprobation must come to passe without sin or else he must sin to bring it orderly to passe which is to make God the author either of misery by itself without relation to sin or else of sin in order to misery The first cannot be because God hath * sworn he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner Ezek. 33. 14. much lesse in his death that never sin'd And because if it were so the Scripture would not use the word Wages and the word Punishment and the word Retribution and the word Reward Hell indeed had been a Torment but not a Recompence a fatal Misery but not a Mulct an Act of power but not of vengeance which yet in many places is the style that God speaks in Vengeance is mine and I will repay Rom. 12. 19. Nor can the second be lesse impossible it having formerly been proved that God is not the Author of sin * he hath no need of the sinful man whereby to bring mans Ruine the more conveniently about and most of them that dare say it are fain to say it in a Disguise Some indeed are for ligonem ligonem but the more modest blasphemers are glad to dresse it in cleaner phrase A strange {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Divinity to put the 1 childe before the parent the 2 wages before the work the 3 end before the means the Reprobation before the sin yet so they do who make the Decree of Reprobation most irrespective and unconditional and after that say that whom God determines to the end he determines to the means To put the horse upon the Bridle is a more rational Hypallage for by this Divinity eternal punishment is imputed to Gods Antecedent will which is called the first and sin to his consequent will which is the second The first {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the other only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} punishment chiefly and sin by way of Consecution Men are bid not to sin ex voluntate signi or revelata but are determin'd to it ex voluntate occultâ or beneplaciti Distinctions very good when at first they were invented for better uses The former by S. Chrysostome from whom it was borrow'd by Damascene and from him by the Schoolmen But I say they all were us'd to very contrary purposes by them and by these who endevour'd to repel those Fathers with their own weapons as the elaborate Gerard Vossius does very largely make it appear I am sorry I must say what yet I must saith * Tertullian when it may tend to edification That the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering abundant in goodnesse and truth who is all Bowels and no gall who hateth nothing that he hath made who in the midst of Iudgement remembreth mercy ever forgiving iniquity transgression and sin is exhibited to the world
by the Authors and Abettors of unconditional Reprobation as a kinde of Platonick Lover of so excellent a Creature 's everlasting misery Which if Mr. Calvin himself confessed to be a * Horrible Decree who yet beleev'd it how frightful must that opinion appear to me who did therefore leave it because it frighted me into my wits For to say that God is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a slayer of men from all eternity who is the Lamb slain that is a Saviour from the foundation of the world Rev. 13. 8. is to affirm that of him which he affirmed of the Devil who is called by our Saviour A Murderer from the beginning Ioh. 4. 44. Which the Devil could not be if God had absolutely willed the Death of any without respect or relation to the snares of the Devil it being impossible to murder the Dead or to slay those that were killed long before they were born I know by whom it is answered That God doth will sin not as it is sin but as it is a Medium for the setting forth of his Glory and so Damnation But whilest men finde out Distinctions to excuse God Almighty they do imply him to have offended Which I am so weary even to think on that I hasten for some refreshment to my third proof of this Inference from the suffrage of Antiquity 18. Before I name any particular I will take the confidence to say in general That all the Greek and Latine Fathers before S. Austin and even Austin himself before his contention against Pelagius and even during that contention in some places of his works besides those many Fathers who lived after him were unanimously of this Judgement That God did not absolutely decree the Reprobation of any Creature but upon praescience and supposition of wilful rebellion and impenitence I have not liv'd long enough to read them all but I have dipt into the most and by the help of such Collectors as I have gotten into my Study whereof Vossius hath good reason to be the Chief upon this occasion and I the rather use him because I find him so very punctual in every one of the quotations which I have had means and opportunity to make trial of I say by the help of such credible Compilers I shall give in a cloud of witnesses I hope sufficiently Authentick I do as little love to be Voluminous as Callimachus would have me {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and therefore shall set down only the substance of what the Fathers have said referring the Reader by my Citations to the larger fields of their Discourses {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Pluribus pereuntibus quomodo defenditur perfecta bonitas ex majore parte cessatrix paucis aliqua pluribus nulla cedens perditioni partiaria exitii Quòd si plures salvi non erunt erit jam non bonitas sed malitia perfectior magis autem non faciens salvos dum paucos facit perfectior erit in non juvando suae potestatis invenio hominem à Deo constitutum lapsúmque hominis non Deo sed libero ejus Arbitrio deputandum I wonder Vossius did not remember Tertullian then whom there is not any one more directly for this purpose Iustin Martyr also was ill omitted and so was S. Ignatius {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Ignem autem aeternum non illis quibus dicitur discedite à me maledicti paratum ostendit sicut regnum justis sed Diabolo Angelis ejus quia quantum adse homines non ad perditionem creavit sed ad vitam aeternam gaudium Note that Chrysostome Theophylact and Euthymius interpret those words of Christ as Origen doth {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Ideo venit Dominus Iesus ut salvum faceret quod perierat Venit ergo ut peccatum mundi tolleret ut vulnera nostra curaret Sedâ—…quia non omnes medicinam expetunt sed plerique Refugiunt ideo volentes curat non adstringit invitos Non injustè judicat quia omnes vult salvos fieri manente justitia Deus utique vult omnes salvos fieri Cur non impletur ejus voluntas Sed in omni locutione sensus est conditio latet Vult omnes salvos fieri sed si accedant ad eum non enim sic vult ut nolentes salventur sed vult illos salvari si ipsi velint nam legem omnibus dedit nullum excepit à salute * {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Miseratur humano generi Deus non vult perire quod fecit Vult Deus quaecunque sunt plena rationis consilii Vult salvari omnes in agnitionem veritatis venire Sed quia nullus absque propriâ voluntate servatur liberi enim arbitrii sumus vult nos bonum velle ut cum voluerimus velit in nobis ipse suum implere consilium Constat Deum omnia bona velle sed homines suo vitio praecipitantur in malum {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Duae sunt voluntates in Deo Una misericordiae quae non est cogens nec aliquid libero arbitrio aufert Quâ omnes homines vult salvos fieri quod tamen in liberâ voluntate illorum positum est Est alia quae est de effectibus rerum de quâ dicitur omnia quaecunque voluit fecit huic nemo potest resistere De quâ dicitur Voluntati ejus quis resistit atque haec est duplex permittens respectu mali approbans respectu boni Itaque homines resistunt voluntati misericordiae non resistunt voluntati justitiae Postea in hunc sensum Orat ergo fiat voluntas tua sicut in coelo ubi non resistitur sic in terris ubi resistitur Deus ex se sumit seminarium miserendi Quod judicat condemnat nos eum quodammodo cogimus ut longè aliter de corde ipsius miseratio quà m anivadversio procedere videatur omnibus offertur in communi posita est Dei misericordia nemo illius expers est nisi qui renuit If after all these testimonies I have S. Austin and Prosper to side with me in my assertion I know not why I may not seem to those who think me in an error at least to have rationally and discreetly erred and though Grotius gives a reason why S. Austin is the unfittest to be a Iudge in these matters yet if Prosper who best knew him may be allowed for his Interpreter I am very well content that he be one of my Iury for of four Expositions