Catholic Theology Plain Pure Peaceable

They deny the Unregenerate to have any power to believe, repent or to do any good: And so they feign God to command men things impossible, and to condemn men for that as Sin which they could not possibly avoid, and for not doing that which they could no more do than make a World; and so to put men under a necessity of sinning and being damned.

This is in sense the same with that about Liberty fore-going, though under the other notion (of Power.) But the truth is, it is the very core and true sum of all our Controversies, and if I prove this to be nothing but words, I shall prove them all so, about the four first Articles.

I will here take it for granted that you speak not of any mere Passive or Obediential Power (as it's called) but of a proper active Power, and that truly so called, and not only hypothetically on supposition of things to make it up, which are not existent, nor to be supposed.

I know of nothing in the Soul of man for our enquiry, but 1. The natural-faculties, or virtues, inclined naturally to their necessary Objects. 2. The right disposition, or adventitious inclination or habits of these faculties. 3. And the Acts. Tell me first, Do you know of anymore?

Not that I can remember.

It is therefore the Faculties or Dispositions that we differ about, or nothing: (For it is not the Acts). Tell me then, Quest. 1. Do you • now of any that deny all men's Souls to have the three faculties of Active, Power or Life, Intellection and Volition (which the Thomists say are Accidents immediately and inseparably emaning from the Essence; and the Scotists better say, are the very formal Essence of the Soul itself,) without one of which a man is no man?

No, none doubt of this in sense, though some number them as three, and some but as two.

Do we differ about the second? Do you believe that a Drunkard hath the habit of Sobriety, or a Fornicator of Chastity, or at least, that an ungodly man hath a holy habit or disposition to love God, and trust him above all, and to believe in Christ, and repent of Sin, and live in Holiness.

No; no man saith that he hath such a habit: But he hath a power to do them, though not a habit.

Is it anything that you call a power besides the natural faculties, and their habits or dispositions?

No: but the natural faculty is still a power to believe, love God, live holily, &c. without a habit.

Do you not believe that an ungodly man is disposed, yea habituated to the contrary, viz. To a fleshly and worldly mind and life, and against a life of Faith and holy Love?

Yes: at least some are: And I will not deny Original Sin, and therefore grant such a dispositive pravity in all, though not so much as in some is superadded: But yet these ill dispositions and habits are not so strong, but that the Sinner can for all that believe and repent, &c.

No doubt but if he believe not, it is not for want of natural faculties. He hath an Intellect, a Will and a vital and executive power; And these all have that force or strength of natural activity which is necessary to Faith, Love, and every holy Duty: For these are the unalterable Essence (or Properties) of man as man; And if Sin deprived us of them, it should change our Species; And if Grace gave them, it should restore our Species, and we should be men by Grace only, and not by Nature. But you confess that these powers want their right disposition to act.

But yet I say that this undisposed ill-disposed Soul, is able to act contrary to its accidental disposition.

I tell you once for all, that the shaming and ending of all the Controversies between the Synodists and moderate Arminians (or Jesuits) lieth in the true opening of the ambiguity of this one syllable [Can]. And unhappy is the Church when its Pastors have neither skill nor love enough, to forbear torturing and distracting it, by one poor ambiguous syllable, not understood by the Contenders. But to compel you to conviction,

Quest. 1. Do you mean by [Can] or [Able] or [Power] anything besides the natural faculty and the disposition?

No: I mean the natural faculty as related to this Act or Object now in question, e. g. believing and loving God.

Quest. 2. Is not natural strength or power a thing belonging to man as man, which Sin destroyeth not, and Grace restoreth not. And have not all the Churches disowned Illyricus though a very learned, laborious, godly Divine, for making Original Sin the substance of the Soul itself?

All this is granted you.

Quest. 3. Therefore if Adam had natural power to love God, and if the sanctified have it yet, doth it not follow that all men have it? Because it belongeth to man as man, and is not changed by Sin and Grace, except in its Dispositions and Acts?

Thus you make all the wicked able to love God.

Yes; As to that sort of Ability which is but the natural faculty they are all able; but there is somewhat else they want.

But the Name [Power] you confess yourself is Relative to something that is to be done, or to an Act with its Object; And when the natural faculty is not changed, but is the same in all men, yet the Relation of [Power] in it may be changed; as by a change of the Object, medium, helps, concauses, &c.

You say true: But remember still that this is from no change in the natural faculty, as you confess: For it was never in any man a power, e. g. to act without dependence on God, nor to act without an Object in Specie, nor to act on an incongruous uncapable Object, nor without a due medium, and necessary concauses. Now if you mean that the change is not on man's faculties, but on the Objects, Medium, Causes, &c. that men do not love God while unholy, you are notoriously mistaken. For it is Sin that hindereth. And God is the same God, and Christ the same Christ, and the Word the same, and oft the preaching the same to a Believer and an Unbeliever. So that though outward helps and hindrances do much, the inward cause is most considerable. And if all were right within, it were no sin in us to be disabled by outward changes; It is no sin not to hear without a Preacher, or not to see that which is invisible, or not to understand that which is not Intelligible, or not to love that which is not Amiable, or that which is by distance or unfit mediums made no Object of our Acts; no more than not to touch the Moon, or not to see into the bowels of the Earth. Therefore though it's true that the Will is related as a power to capable Objects, and not as a power to things that by incapacity are no Objects; yet the change that is made on itself by Sin and Grace, doth not make it no power and a power in this natural essential sense. It is one thing that is called natural power or faculty, and another thing that is called, Aright disposition or habit: Therefore as to the first, the Soul of every man hath a true natural power to repent, believe and love God, and they omit it not for want of natural power, but of something else.

Call it then a moral power if you will.

We must so call it: But you must know what that is. It is not a power of the same sort with the natural power. The very word [Power] is equivocal or analogous to them. Else Grace should increase the Essence of the Soul, or make a man to be more a man, than he was before. And Dr. Twisse derideth the Arminians for saying that potentia fundatur in potentia, viz. Moralis in naturali, which were very just if it were powers of the same kind that were spoken of; but now being otherwise it is unjust: for no doubt but potentia moralis is in potentia naturali, as health is in the Body.

Quest. 4. But I further ask you, Do you think that any men do now in an unregenerate state love God above all, and live a holy heavenly life, yea or effectually and savingly believe, by the mere power of their natural faculties, till they are changed?

No; that's a contradiction; to be unholy and holy. I am none of those Pelagians that make Grace unnecessary to man's cure.

Are you not convinced then that where the natural power is existent, something is wanting without which the acts of Holiness will not be performed? Tell me then what that is?

That which is wanting to a man that hath sufficient Grace, is nothing but his own Concurrence or Will; For without any special Grace differing from sufficient he can believe. But that which is wanting to them that have it not, is sufficient Grace itself for believing, which they want for abusing the antecedent Grace sufficient for preparation.

We speak not now of Grace as efficient, ex parte Dei agentis; But of Grace as it is in us, or an effect of the former: what is it in man that is wanting to believing? Is it a natural Power, or a right Disposition, or what?

Till a man have sufficient Grace to believe, it is proper strength or power itself that he wanteth, and sufficient Grace is such a power: But when he hath it, he wanteth nothing but the Act, which he can excite and doth not.

I confess I find Arminius, Arnoldus, Corvinus, and others granting, that all men are unable to believe till Grace enable them, and more than so, saith Arnoldus, There is more strength or power necessary now to believe in Christ, than was necessary to Adam to keep all the Law, partly because of the mysteriousness of Faith, and partly because we must first be restored to a new ability, which requireth more power than to keep what we had. (A sly equivocation, turning the question from the potentia operata to the potentia operans: If it did require more power in the efficient so to renew us, it followeth not, that he thereby putteth more power into us than Adam had: But God's Power hath no degrees.) But that which I ask you, is, whether this new power given by sufficient Grace, be of the same Species with our natural powers, or of some other.

What if I say, It is of the same sort.

Then (as I have hinted) you must make the Soul to have either two orders of natural powers of the same Species, one founded or subjected in the other (which is it that Dr. Twisse derideth;) or else indeed to have two Souls, (For I have else-where at large proved with the Scotists that the faculties are essential to the Soul;) or else you must make the specific powers of the Soul to have degrees, and Souls to be augmented, and so that they have more Soul that have Grace than they that have none, and so Grace is a kind of generation or augmentation of Souls.

What if I say that it is of another Species?

Then we must consider what it is. Is it of a superior Species or subordinate, or co-ordinate? If you say with some Friars and Fanatics, that it is the Spirit of God in Essence, or God himself, it would be Omnipotency. If it be not any created Spirit or Substance, (which would alter our Species, or make each one two) it must be an Accident (as all confess it is, and therefore not ejusdem speciei with the faculties that are essential:) And if so, tell us what this power is?

The Soul of man is itself so little known to itself, that we cannot easily tell what its natural powers be (as the difference between Thomas and the Scotists showeth:) much less can we tell how to conceive aright of the quiddity of the Accidents of a Soul, who know so little of the Accidents of Bodies, or of Bodies themselves. Let me hear what your own conceptions are of the matter, if they tend to elucidate or reconcile.

He that will take up with the bare words, [Can] or [Cannot] and confess that he knoweth not what they signify, should not with the blind confidence of too many Contenders, trouble the people's ears in Pulpits, and set them on fire against one another, and by raving distract the Churches of Christ, with such [Can's] and [Cannot's] [Able] and [Unable.] And yet this one poor word is the Granade or Fire-Ball. If I pretend to understand it no more than you, yet I will be ashamed to vex and ensnare men's Souls with what I understand not; but will use the easiest intelligible words. But to answer your desires distinctly.

1. The Soul is, as you say, so little known to itself, that no man living, I think, hath a true formal conception of, that first accident or effect which it receiveth from God's Spirit, nor yet of the true nature of a habit or disposition following it. He that readeth but what our Metaphysics and School-men have said of Habits, will find this to be true; and that their quiddity is past his understanding. To say that they are qualities by which we are prompt to act, is but to name a general notion no better understood than the quaesitum, (Quality); and to name the effect (promptitude) and not the form or thing itself.

II. The nature of fire seemeth to be a kind of likeness to Spirits. And in this sensible thing we cannot tell what it is that is added by excitation and incension. And they that talk of generation of fire, know not what generation signifieth: whether the production of a new simple substance that before was nothing? or the introduction of a new form into a pre-existent substance, by mixture, or how? or only a new motion? or if they say, It is a generation of new Qualities, they know not what the word [Quality] signifieth. But this much is apparent, that whether it be done by Collision or however, to kindle a spark or latent fire into a flame or incendium, is to excite a pre-existent active nature; And this excitation is by motion. And as we have some (very defective) conception what motion received is, in Bodies, and how by contact when it cometh from force, motus motum causat, & vis per motum vint quandam imprimit; so by some Analogy, we may conceive how Spirits move Spirits: and such as is the (inexpressible) action of one Spirit on another, such is the thing thereby imprinted and received; A kind of spiritual motus. And as in bodily motion the first thing received is the very thing moved by contact, qua talis, as itself in motion, or act; so Spirits sno modo seem, qua agents & attingentes transcendently, to be the first received by the moved Spirits; And the second thing the vis impressa, and thence followeth the ipse motus. But if it to this day (most certainly) surpass the wits of the greatest Philosophers, formally to conceive what it is that adhereth to the res mota to contiue its motion, and what that is that is called Vis impressa, and in what subject it moveth the projectum, &c. (For the Cartesian fancy that motus inceptus nunquam cessabit nisi impeditus, either tells us nothing of the continued cause, or supposeth moveri to be no effect, and to need no more cause than negatio motus, which is unworthy a confutation), what wonder then if it surpass the conception of all mortal men to know what that spiritual Vis impressa on a Soul is? But whatever it is, this much is the best notion that we can have of that which the Divine Action first communicateth, that it is influxus Dei Receptus; vel excitatio facultatum exe •• ata, as distinct from excitatio Dei excitans; It is passive excitation, or a spiritual Vis impressa, whence Action followeth.

III. But it hath also a similitude to the Agent in more than simple motion, Even as the Sun or Fire doth kindle fire on combustible matter (which had also a latent fire before, or else it's not combustible); which is not (as the Cartesians feign, by motion alone, but by the operation of a three-fold virtue in the Sun, viz. the motive, lucid and calefactive, producing the same in the Receiver: so the Spirit of God doth in this excitation at once communicate to the three faculties of the Soul, an impressed force for Vital-activity, Intellection and Volition; so that the three natural faculties by this received impress and excitation are suscitated to holy Activity, Knowledge and Love; the habit of which is holy Life, and Light, and Love abiding.

For it is certain that it is not one only, but all the faculties of the Soul that are vitiated by Sin, and therefore all that must be repaired by sanctifying Grace. The Vital-active-power (as it is a faculty of the rational Soul) is as it were sleepy, dead and impotent, and must be quickened with spiritual life and strength. The Intellect is dark, and must be illuminated. The Will is carnal and unholy, and must be turned from the Flesh to God by mortification and by holy love. And all this the Holy Ghost doth by Action, but not mere Action in genere, but by a suitable communicative Action, quickening, illuminating and converting, or touching the Soul with love.

IV. The first effect of this received Influx or vis impressa that we know of, is, The Act excited itself. It is Action that God doth suscitate the Soul to, and Action next followeth.

V. As there is a difference between a Spark, or Candle, and a great incendium or flaming-fire; so is there a marvelous difference between the Souls Actions (upon the same Object and of the same kind) in the degrees: As we perceive by daily experience. In a dream, the same thoughts stir us not up to execution, as when we are awake will do it. And a man that heareth a cold Preacher, and coldly thinketh over all the same Truths, and mentioneth them, and subscribeth and professeth them (as of the evil of particular sins, the need of Christ and Mercy, &c.) yet feeleth no power in them; nor will all his knowledge overcome a small Temptation, or set him upon Duty; but he knoweth, and thinketh, and talketh, as if he did it not. And at another time, when his Soul is suscitated or awakened to seriousness, the same thoughts wholly take him up, and make him wonder at his former stupidity, and command his life with great facility.

VI. Experience telleth us that usually this effectual suscitation of the Soul to more powerful lively apprehensions and Volitions is done by a suitable external means: As by a more clear and lively awakening Ministry, by some notable Providence, especially by surprizing sufferings and distress. A Thief when he is taken, or judged, a Fornicator when he is found in the shame of his Sin, a Prodigal in Jail or want, a Drunkard or Glutton when he is brought by it to the Gout or other pain and sickness, &c. have quite other apprehensions usually of the folly of sinning, than ever you could bring them to before, by any other the certainest convictions.

VII. As we are certain by experience that the Acts called Intellection and Volition now, are such operations of the Soul as ever stir and use the Spirits, and we perceive both together as if it were a compound operation, and know not by experience what any Knowledge or Volition is which useth not the Spirits; so we find by true experience, that the suscitation of the said Spirits (or igneous particles) in us, much conduceth to the suscitation of the faculties of the Soul: By which fervent speaking, and awakening Providences do much: And also that they that have clear and quick Spirits, are easiliest awakened.

VIII. We find also by experience, that the internal sensitive faculty hath a great share in these effectual operations: For the certainest apprehensions of the Intellect, work but defectively on the Will, unless they are accompanied with, or stir up some Sense, Affection or Passion; either Fear, Hope, Love, Desire, Delight, Anger, or some other proper passion. And Volitions themselves are but sluggish ineffectual Acts, as to the imperium or command of the executive Powers or Thoughts, unless they stir up some Passion to their aid; And therefore lifeless wishes are common with sluggish and unreformed men.

IX. The Spirit of God can, and we have reason to think, sometime doth stir up the faculties of the Soul to holy Cogitations, Apprehensions and Volitions, without any other means, known to us, than what the person before used uneffectually: And when means are effectual to sanctifying Acts, it is principally by the operation of the Holy Ghost, and less principally the aptitude of the means.

X. The first received influx ad actum is not it which we call a Habit: For a Habit is a fixed promptitude to act.

XI. An habit in the Intellect is skill, or intellectual promptitude to Act rightly and easily. An habit in the Will, is inclination, and love itself radicated, or aversation and radicated hatred. And a habit in the vital executive Power, is a promptitude and vivacity to the right executing of the Wills commands (and first exciting it to act).

XII. A habit infused is of the same Species with acquired habits, though it be otherwise caused, and of a more excellent use. And in both we have reason to think that the Act goeth before the Habit; Though the Holy Ghost can fix a Habit by one Act, when acquired Habits are caused but by custom or many Acts.

XIII. In the strict sense, as Acts so Habits are specified by their Objects, and are not found but in such Species: But in a larger sense and less proper we may say that there are more universal Habits, not denominated at all from any sort of Objects, that is, the right Diposition of the Soul to its due operations: But this is but an inadequate universal conception of the same Habit, and not another thing I think.

XIV. A habit of the Intellect about Principles is a Disposition to the knowledge of conclusions or consequents: And a habit of the Will ad finem, is a Disposition to the choice and use of the known means; but not strictly a habit to them.

XV. Motion tendeth to further motion. One Act of the Soul disposeth it to or furthereth another: And as water that hath got a Chanel and is set in motion, floweth still the same way, and fire by burning, the more forcibly proceedeth to burn; so the Soul by acting, the more readily holdeth on that course of action.

XVI. The Soul hath at once more Acts than one, and upon more Objects. As at once it understandeth and willeth, so at once it operateth on and towards the end, and on and in the means. But one of them (specially ad finem) is usually deep, and not observed sensibly by the Agent; And the other is uppermost, and using the sense and fantasie more, and the Spirits, is easily perceived. And so a man in his travel, hath a deep unobserved but most constant and ruling Knowledge and Volition of his end or home; though yet he seem to himself seldom to think of it, but only of things obvious in his way.

XVII. By all this its easy to perceive how hard it is to have the formal knowledge of the quiddity of a Habit: when we have presupposed all this before-said, 1. That the Soul is essentially of an active nature, and as naturally contrary or averse to cessation or non-action as a stone is to action: 2. And that it hath inseparably in its nature, an inclination to Truth and Goodness as such, and to its own felicity: 3. And that it hath multitudes of exciting Objects, and extraordinarily awakening Preachers, and Providences, specially dangers and sufferings, naturally apt to excite the Soul into act: 4. And that it hath the use of the sense, and sensitive passions, which things sensible are apt to excite, by which it may be itself excited: 5. And that it hath a certain degree of necessity of knowing by simple perception things received by the sense and fantasie; men may know much of Good and Evil, Duty, Sin, Danger, whether they will or not: 6. And that the Will hath a natural inclination to follow the Intellects apprehensions about Good or Evil, in its Volitions and Nolitions (though not always necessarily:) 7. And that the Soul excited to one Act is the more apt to another of the same sort: 8. And that a cursus actionum with the fore-said inclinations, is like a course of corporal motions, which strongly tendeth to continuation; (so that they that are accustomed to do evil, hardly do well:) 9. And that the potentiae secundae, the sensitive powers, and the Spirits by custom attain the same propensity to that way of action in themselves, and so become to the active Intellect and Will, what the Chanel (worn by course) is to the Torrent or River, which with the natural gravity causeth the continuance of its course that same way: Or as a Horse, trained by custom who hath got his own peculiar habit is to the Rider: 10. And that the Soul hath its profound, or not noted Action which is constant, and maketh so little use of the spirits, sense, imagination or passion, as that it is unobserved, while it is predominant, (such as is the aforesaid intention of the end in the use of means: And doubtless the Soul is never unactive an instant, no not in sleep; but hath this kind of deep insensible action. It is knowing itself, loving itself, intending its own Felicity, deeply, secretly, insensibly, without using the memory and imagination, to the Act; and this deep insensible Act is such, as that a man may doubt whether it be not the very thing which we call a habit:) I say now, all these ten things being presupposed (which yet are none of them commonly taken to be the habit of Grace,) How hard is it to us to know, what a habit is indeed beyond all these, and what it is that it addeth to these? We are sure that it is a Disposition, Propensity and Aptitude to holy Action in Specie; But what that Disposition and Propensity is, besides all this fore-named, it is not easy to understand. And yet undoubtedly it is the Operation of the Holy Ghost.

XVIII. How hard then must it be to know how much Power, or what kind of Power (and in what sense so called) it is that this superadded habit containeth, beside all the ten fore-mentioned excitations and propensities? And whether it be properly called Power, and how it differeth from the potentiae naturales?

XIX. But yet our great Disputes being more about the first act of Faith, which antecedeth the habit, than about any of the acts that follow the habit, the case will be yet harder, what that Power is which the Holy Ghost giveth before the habit of Faith, as to the performance of that particular act. That it suscitateth the natural • aculty to act is certain: Therefore in order of nature it must be disposed or inclined to that act, before it act. That the Soul receiveth the Divine influx is certain: But no mortal man knoweth what that is. We commonly conclude that ex parte Dei it is nothing but God himself. By God himself is meant his Act; By his Act is meant his Essence as in Act: But how his Essence is always immutably in equal Act, and yet produceth a world in time, which it produced not from eternity, and how the equal Act or Agency of the Essence is natural, necessary and eternal, and the Effect free; How the Volition is necessary in se, and yet free in every termination and effect ad extra; How a natural-equal-eternal Agency, can produce such wonderful diversity of Effects; And how Souls are said to receive God's Influx, if it be nothing but his Agent Essence; All these are past the reach of Mortals.

XX. And it addeth to these difficulties that we are uncertain what use it is that God maketh of Angels in operating on the Soul. They are ministering Spirits for the good of them that are Heirs of Salvation, about the matters of their Salvation. It is absurd to think that Devils (whose very powerful Operations on our imagination we surely feel,) have more power to put evil thoughts into us, and stir up evil passions in us, than Angels good ones. And seeing a Spirit is more active than a Body, they that take the Sun to be a Body, and perceive that its Beams and Virtue, of Light, and Heat, and Motion, is extended to this Earth and incomparably further in a minuite, should not take an Angel to be like a stone or staff, that moveth nowhere but where it corporally toucheth, and is nowhere, but where it moveth.

XXI. And all Motion and Action hath so many impediments in the world, and all Active Natures (as fire) have so strong a natural inclination to act when they are not hindered by a greater Power, that we little know how much of the action of the Soul is promoted by removing impediments, internal and external: As they that dam up the water all ways save one, do force it to rise, (if it be a stream) till it flow that one way. Embittering all other things to a Soul, doth much to turn its thoughts towards God; and dispair of any delight or felicity on Earth, maketh Heaven regarded.

XXII. Seeing all naturally-necessary Concauses, Objects, Media are supposed to the Ratio formalis of Power, (which is Relative ad possibile) he that giveth or taketh away any one of those necessaries, doth give or take away Power, though he never change the Soul or faculty at all. And this is called A moral collation or causation of Power (not a moral Power). As when a man bringeth a Light into a dark Room, he enableth us to see; or if he bring in a Book, he enableth me to read that which else I could not have read: If he open the Windows, or if he cure me of blindness, by cutting a Suffusion, &c. So he that preacheth the Gospel to them that had not heard it, and God when he gave Christ and the Gospel to be an Object of Faith, did make the natural faculty to be more in sensu naturali, potentiam ad hoc, to which before it was no power, but hypothetically only.

XXIII. The Will is not a Power of choosing or willing an unknown good: Therefore it may be truly said to be naturally unable to will that which the Intellect perceiveth not to be good. And he that giveth knowledge to such a Mind, doth truly give more power to the Will, as the loss of knowledge▪ is its loss of power. Though the Will itself should receive no habitual alteration by it.

XXIV. We must not conceive of the suscitation of an active nature, as we do of the motion of dead matter, which is merely passive: But as of that which is passive indeed from God and superior Causes, but active in itself, and on inferiors; (And I think like the Sun beams, passive from no lower nature, save by stop or resistance of its own activity.)

XXV. As the Scotists distinguish Passive (Receptive) Power, into natural (which is naturally disposed to the form received), and violent (which is averse or opposite to the form) or neutral (which is indifferent), and affirm the Soul to have the first sort of passive power (natural) to the love of God and supernatural felicity; so the distinction is sound, and their assertion is true as to the nature of the Soul in itself considered, (for it was made to love God). But accidentally by reason of adventitious pravity, it is but potentia passiva violenta: for the the carnal mind is enmity to God, and neither is nor can be subject to his Law. So that it is both natural and violent in several respects.

XXVI. As for the great question, what is a moral Power? I answer, 1. Power may be called Moral ab objecto, because it is ad mores, and so our natural power is moral, and actus humanus and actus moralis are oft put for Synonima's.

2. Power may be called moral from the way of effecting it. And so our natural Powers also are moral; not in the Essence of the Soul, but in the Relative form of the power in specie vel individuo ad hoc objectum: For he that causeth or revealeth the Object, doth by moral causation give us a natural power ad hoc.

3. Power is called moral, formally; In that of itself it is a moral Virtue or Vice, Good or Evil: which yet could not be true if it were but mere power: For morality consisteth formally and primarily in the Will or Voluntary: And to be able to do Good or Evil, as such, is not formally any moral Good or Evil, (but natural): But Disposition is.

4. Power is called Moral, Analogically and Reputatively, as causa finalis is said to cause, when it is called a moral cause, and the operation metaphorical, or as he is called a moral cause who persuadeth to the End or Object. And so we take the word [Moral Power] in our question. And so the received Impress or Influx of Divine Agency, as also the habits of Grace in the Soul, are an Analogical Power; because they are necessary to the natural powers performance of the Act: And so the suscitation (as received) of a dormant active power, may be called Analogically a Power: And the right disposition of a power may be called a power: And the deep fore▪described Action of the Soul, may be called a power to other sensible Acts.

XXVII. Next to this moral power, is potentia logica which is but the name of Power given extrinsically from some other thing, without which the effect will never be, though it be possible, and the Causes have power sufficient. And the name of Impossibility de effectu is oftener and more tolerably here used, than of impotency as in the cause. So we say that whatsoever God willeth or decreeth is possible, and what he nilleth absolutely is impossible: And thence some say, That God can do it because be will, and he cannot do what he will not: And so we say, that in sense • composito an undisposed or averse Will cannot love or will aright; when perhaps no more than a Logical impotency is meant, viz. That these two Propositions cannot possibly be both true [Judas is undisposed to Love and Justice] and [Judas at the same time doth exercise Love and Justice] speaking of a predominant disposition. And this is but a denomination of the same sense, as necessitas consequentiae vel logica is, as distinct from necessitas consequentis vel effecti. And so we say, that he that is fore-decreed, yea or fore-known to be good cannot be bad: The meaning is not that he wanteth true power to be bad: But that in ordine dicendi these two cannot possibly be true, [Peter is decreed by God, or fore-known to be a Saint,] and [Peter will not be a Saint]. And this logical impossibility is meant oft in Scripture, as Joh. 12. 39. Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah saith, &c. not that this hindered them: but logically de consequentia, both these could not be true [that Esaia 's Prophecy should be true, and yet that the Person prophesied of should be Obedient]. And so the words [the Scripture must be fulfilled] and [that the Scriptures might be fulfilled] are oft used, as to the inference.

XXVIII. Thus by extrinsic denomination and connotation, impotency is oft imputed to the Agent from the incapacity of the Recipient: As it is said, Mark 6. 5. That Christ could do no mighty work there, because of their unbelief: When as this was not from a disability in Christ to have done it, if he would: But here it is first supposed that God hath ordinately fore-decreed to do no such Works, but where the persons were so qualified as to be capable of them; And then that the persons there were unqualified: And so the Effect was logically impossible, in sensu composito. Thus we say, That [God cannot save Unbelievers, he cannot hear the prayers of the Wicked, he cannot forsake the Faithful]: that is, [His Ordination and Decree supposed, logically such a thing cannot consist with it in verity.]

XXIX. When something else, and not impotency, doth ascertain an event, by omission, or something besides Power ascertaineth the contrary efficiently, yet the effect is oft denominated possible or impossible, and ascribed to Power or Impotency, by a conjunction of this moral and logical denomination. So we say, That [God's pure eyes cannot behold Iniquity, that God cannot love the Workers of Iniquity as such.] Not for want of Power, but by reason of his perfect Will and Nature. So God cannot lie, Tit. 1. 2. And it is impossible for God to lie. God cannot deny himself, 2 Tim. 2. 13. God cannot be tempted with evil, Jam. 1. 13. So Joh. 10. 35. The Scripture cannot be broken. Isa. 1. 13. Your Assemblies I cannot away with. No wonder also if this be said of men: As, 1. Joh. 3. 9. He cannot sin, because he is born of God. Not for want of power, but partly he will not, and partly logically these cannot consist. So of the wicked, Joh. 7. 7. The World cannot hate you—.

XXX. Oft times the word [Cannot] is taken politically, I cannot, that is, I must not, or I cannot lawfully: Quod turpe, impossible. Gen. 19. 22. I cannot do anything, till thou be come out. Act. 10. 47. Can any man forbid water, &c. that is, lawfully. 2 Cor. 13. 8. [We can do nothing against the Truth,] that is, by Authority from God.

XXXI. Oft times in Scripture the word [Cannot] is meant only of that which a man cannot do without suffering, or loss, or difficutly. So Act. 4. 16. We cannot deny it,] that is, without the shame of falsehood. Luk. 14. 20. I cannot come,] that is, without such inconvenience as I am unwilling to bear. Jer. 29. 17. They cannot be eaten,] that is, without loathing. 1 Sam. 25. 17. He is such a Son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him,] that is, without inconvenience by it. 2 Sam. 23. 6. They cannot be taken with hands,] that is, without hurt. Gen. 34. 14. We cannot do this thing,] that is, without God.

XXXII. Oft times this inconvenience procuring unwillingness, this unwillingness is named like impotency, and it is said, Men cannot, because they will not. And so it is in divers of the last cited instances. Joh. 3. 9. They cannot sin,] that is, They will not. Luk. 14. 20. I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come,] that is, I will not, because I cannot without this inconvenience. Neh. 6. 3. I cannot come down,] that is, I will not. Gen. 44. 26. We cannot go down. Josh. 24. 19. Ye cannot serve the Lord; for he is a holy God: that is, you are not disposed to do it holily, and then he will destroy you. Joh. 6. 60. This is a hard saying, who can hear it?] that is, willingly. Isa. 49. 15. Can a woman forget her sucking-Child?] that is, will she forget it? Jer. 2. 32. Can a Maid forget her Ornaments? Mar. 2. 19. Can the Children of the Bridegroom fast? &c. Mar. 9. 39. Can ye drink of the Cup that I drink of, and be baptized? &c. 39. They said unto him, we can,] that is, Have you Wills disposed for such sufferings, and will you go through them?

And this unwillingness when it is habitual and prevalent, is it that is commonly called man's moral impotency, as to believe, love, obey, &c.

XXXIII. This impotency which is the moral pravity of the Will hath divers degrees: And the same degree of received help from God, will not cure it in one that will in another. The godly have some of it, and the ungodly more, and some of them more than others. But we use to call it absolutely a moral impotency, when the indisposition of the Soul is such, as that none such ever do believe and consent without more help of Grace than yet they have received. And we use to say that he is morally able, or hath power, whose indisposition is not so great nor Grace so small, but that some in that case by that same help do believe and consent, though it be rarely. But that power is morally called impotency, which no man ever reduceth to act.

XXXIV. This moral Power is yet short both of Act and Habit; For a Habit is not only a power to Act, but to Act promptly, and easily, and aright.

XXXV. By all this you may partly see how to answer the common questions about men's power or impotency to believe, and to love God.

You have been so tedious and numerous in your Distinctions and Observations, that no plain man is able to follow you. Do you think that poor Christians must be puzzled with all this, and lost in a multitude of distinctions, before they can know the truth, Whether a man can believe and repent, or not?

I expected to hear your own mouth condemn you. Quest. 1. Is there any of these distinctions which are unnecessary to the decision of the present Controversy? If there be, name it and lay that by. 2. Is a general and an ambiguous term better understood by the bare ambiguous name, than by opening the particulars contained in it, and the ambiguities? Than Catechisms, and Commentaries, even on our baptismal Covenant, the Creed, Lord's Prayer and Decalogue, are hurtful. Do you understand yourself what you mean by your [Power] and [Can] and [Cannot Repent] without considering of the ambiguity? 3. Will it satisfy you, if we use your words [Can] or [Cannot] what sense soever we take them in? Is that all that you contend for? Must the Church be fired about a word, which neither Side much stick at, could they have their sense of it? 4. But the truth is, You open your own shame: that must trouble the ears of honest plain Christians, with words which cannot be understood without all this ado; and will choose such terms as have so many meanings, to confound, or bewilder men, and that without explication; and even in strict disputes, and not only in Oratory; when as there are plainer enough at hand, which speak the matter as we are agreed.

You tell us a great deal of habits of the Will, which are more than Power (in order to Action). But I find that some men of our Party hold, that there is no such thing in the Soul as an habit or disposition which is not merely a Power or an Act: They know no more.

The truth is, too many on the other side, who know not how much they destroy their own work by over-doing, and use to fear but one extreme, do harp so much upon this string, that no wicked man is able to repent, or hath power to believe, or c • n forsake his s •• ▪ that they have ignorantly given you the advantage which you lay hold on, 1. To call Grace still by the name of a mere power, and 2. Then to disgrace their Opinion, who say that God damneth men for doing that which, they are utterly unable to do.

What is the advantage which you think we take by this?

The greatest that you have against your Adversaries. 1. By the first you make Grace to be no determiner of the Will at all, habitual or actual: For Grace, you say, giveth men but a power to believe and repent▪ And so whether a man will use that power or not, and will actually repent and believe or not, is never the more ascertained for Grace, if it give men but a power. For you leave it still to Free-will to use that power or not use it. (I speak but of some of you.) 2. And hereby you contrive Grace into this conception, that it is but some common thing like nature, and as a man that hath power to sit, or stand, or go, may use that power as he will himself; so all men where the Gospel cometh have a power to obey it, which they may use as they will: But to the Will itself Grace giveth but this power: And if that were true that a habit of the Will were but a power to will, fair fall Pelagius.

It's well you charge us not all with that Opinion; But I confess I am not yet satisfied that it is false, and that the Will hath anything but power and act: But power facilitateth the act.

You may say it facilitateth, because • it maketh it possible, which is easier than that which is impossible? Is that facility? But mark.

1. If that Opinion be true, then 1. God's inward workings are not suitable to his outward means: For his means are Perswasions, and Exhortations, and Mercies, and Corrections, which are not only to make men able, but willing: And if they make them willing, they do in primo instanti dispose them to be willing, and then procure actual willingness, and then fix the Will in an habitual propensity.

2. If that Doctrine be true, then a habit hath no moral good or evil in it, it is no Virtue or Vice: And then there is no Virtue or Vice, that is, no such thing as moral Habits, but only Acts. For no man should call mere power or impotency, which is neither habitual, dispositive or actual willingness or unwillingness, by the name of Virtue or Vice. It is not goodness merely to be able to do good, nor evil to be able to do evil; unless as eating, walking may be good or bad materially by participation, so far as voluntary.

3. If that Doctrine be true, the Will as a Will should be an unsanctified or unrenewed faculty, further than it is found in action. For its disposition is its holiness and rectitude.

4. And a man should have no Grace in his sleep, or when he is minding natural things alone; unless you will say, as I hinted before, that sleeping and waking he hath still a Latent insensible Volition in act, which is it that we call a habit: But if you acknowledge such a habit, (even a fixed latent deep constant act inclining to other holy acts) the strife then is but about a name.

5. It is certain, that the Soul hath in it besides power and observed acts, a natural inseparable inclination. The form of the Soul is not only potentia, but potentia seu vis vel virtus inclinata; Man is not only able to love good as good, and felicity as such, and sensible Pleasure as such, but he is inclined to it. And if there be such a thing as natural inclination or propensity, besides power and act, then 1. It is possible and probable there may be a gracious inclination. 2. Yea and if the whole Soul be sanctified, must not its inclination be sanctified?

6. Why else are we said to be New Creatures, and have soft and tender hearts, and to be made partakers of the Divine Nature? Nature in active things, is a principle inclined to action, and not only able for it. And surely a Divine Nature can signify no less than an inclination to holiness and the love of God.

7. Whence can you imagine that a wicked man should rise every morning so ready to go on in wickedness again (that sleep doth not end his sin,) yea that he is so obstinate in such acts, if besides the act he hath nothing but a power to do evil? If you say that it is also a disability to do better or forbear; 1. You will extenuate his sin, by saying that he can do no better. 2. Experience telleth you that his sin is sensuality: And Appetite (inordinate which ruleth him) is more than Power, Impotency or Act; It is also an inclination to that Act.

8. No doubt but each faculty hath Grace suited to its nature and use: And therefore as the potentia vitalis activa & executiva, hath its power and vivacity, so the Intellect hath Illumination, and the Will holy Love, in disposition and in act.

9. Lastly, The Scripture calleth that which is given us by the name of the Spirit of God, (and I would the Church would hold to that name, and say, Men have or have not the Spirit of holiness:) But the word Spirit cannot be judged to signify nothing but power and act. Yea it is expressly named in reference to our three sanctified faculties, the Spirit of Power, and of Love, and of a sound Mind, 2 Tim. 1. 7. And the Spirit of Love or Adoption (Gal. 4. 6. Rom. 18. 16, 26.) is not only a power to love: A Child hath more than a power to love a Father; It is a filial loving nature which is called our regenerate state. And if it were only the Act also, why is it called a Spirit and Nature.

To confess the truth you have said much to prove that we have ill managed this Controversy about Power and Impotency, to repent and believe: And for my part I mean hereafter to use most the common and Scripture phrase, and say as to the efficient, that men have or have not the Spirit, and as to the effect, that Power, Disposition, or Inclination, Act or Habit, are things to us observable in the Soul, and that cannot and will not, must not be confounded. And if it be moral or logical Power that I speak of, I will mention it properly as it is in the effect or event, called Possible or Impossible, rather than as it connoteth the faculty called Potent or Impotent thereto, lest I deceive men: And I will let them perceive an impossibility of consequence, from an impotency of sufficiency: For I know that when it's true, that logically in ordine dicendi it cannot be, (that is, be true,) that [God fore-seeth or decreeth that Peter will not sin,] and yet that [he will sin]; yet it is not true that [Peter had not power to sin]. But I proceed.

They make man so corrupted, and that by Adam's sin without his own consent, as that there is no good in him; But he is dead in sin: And so all men should be utterly and equally wicked.

The answer to the former might serve to this: But still I see that Names must be our quarrel. Is the question of the Thing, or of the Name, whether it be to be called Good? 1. As to the thing, they deny not that there are first notices and common principles of morality in all men's understandings. 2. Nor that the Intellect is inclined to truth as truth. 3. Nor that the Will is inclined to good as good. 4. Nor that natural Conscience doth somewhat for God and Duty, and against Sin in bad men. 5. Nor that a Heathen may have as much good as experience proveth some of them to have had, as Antonine, Alexander Severus, Cato, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch, Socrates, Plato, &c. 6. Nor that common Grace when the Gospel cometh may prepare them for special Grace, and make them almost sanctified Believers. In a word, almost all agree, that 1. Nature, as now upheld by Mercy, may have all the good aforesaid. 2. That common Grace with the Gospel may go further. 3. And that it prepareth for special saving Grace. If you deny this, you accuse them contrary to the fullest evidence that you could expect, whilst our British Divines at Dort tell you so largely how far universal or common Grace goeth in this preparing work; and when there are such a multitude of Treatises, written by the strictest English Antiarminians on two Subjects, 1. Of preparation to Conversion. 2. How far an Hypocrite (or unregenerate Person) may go in Christianity, (the Title of one of Perkins 's Books.)

2. But if it be de nomine, whether this may be called good, it is a question unfit to trouble the Church with. All are agreed that is materially something commanded by God, partly conformable to the Law of Nature or Scripture, and that it tendeth towards the well-fare of him that hath it, and of others; and is better than its contrary. But if we m • st set up a metaphysical Theater to dispute de ration Boni, by that time (on as good reason) we have prosecuted our disputes de ration entis, uni • s & veri also, we may fall out with all that agree not, in Suarez his Metaphysics, or at least in Aquinas or Buridanes 's Ethics. I pray you begin yourself, and tell me what is bonum, goodness, in your question?

You shall not tempt me into so difficult a metaphysical or moral dispute, which I know the learned are so little agreed in: For you would but make use of it to insult over me.

And yet is this one of your Accusations of your Brethren, that they agree not with you in the sense of such a word, as you dare not definitively tell your own sense of?

Moral good in man is his conformity to the holy regulating Will of God, by resignation of ourselves to him as our Owner, subjection to him as our Ruler, and love to him as our End, or perfect Good, with all the exercise of these. Now, 1. In the strictest sense, men say, Bon • mest ex causis integris, and so where there is any sin, there is not good in that sense; that is, unmixed perfect good: And in that (with a more transcendent) sense Christ saith, That none is good save God only: I hope you will not quarrel with him for it. And yet the Papists commonly reproach the Protestants, as teaching that all that we do is sin, and no good, because we say that all is mixed with sin, and imperfectly good. I profess for myself, that I never loved, trusted, feared, obeyed God in all my life without imperfection: And I take that imperfection of my love to God, &c. to be the great and grievous sin of my Soul; so that I groan out all my days; the last dying-words of Arch-bishop Usher, Lord, forgive my Sins of Omission; And if the School-men almost agree, that moral evil is privatio boni, methinks a Papist should hardly dream that his greatest Faith and Love have no degree of such privation.

2. But as the word [Good] signifieth that which is sincerely so though imperfectly, being more predominant in heart and life, than the contrary evil, and proveth the persons acceptation with God, and right to Salvation, and is the imperfect Image of God's holiness repaired, so all and only the sanctified are good.

3. But in the third sense, as goodness signifieth, such Inclinations and Actions as are good but in a low degree, and bad predominantly; so none deny but bad men have some good Inclinations and Actions. And de nomine here Divines agree not, either Protestants or Papists: some (and most commonly) call all such Actions good in their degree; Others say, That quia finis deest, none of it is to be called properly good. It may end all, to say that it is good analogically, as accidens is ens: or secundum quid, though not simpliciter.

They damn multitudes of Infants for Original Sin, which they could not avoid; yea and the Adult too as necessitated by it to sin, for the prevention or cure of which they have no remedy; especially all the Heathen World, in comparison of which, from Adam's days till now the rest are very few: so that they make the World to be made or born purposely for unavoidable damnation in Hell fire.

Here are several things which must be distinctly spoken to, I. Of Infants. II. Of the state of the Heathen World. III. Of the necessity of sinning. IV. Of the necessity of punishment for sin. Of these in order.

1. For the case of Infants, there are three questions to be handled, 1. Whether they have Original Sin? 2. Whether they are worthy of punishment for it? 3. Whether they are punished for it, and how many, and how?

1. For the first, I have proved in a peculiar Disputation, that Infants have Original Sin, that is, moral Pravity in disposition, with their participation in the guilt of Adam 's sin, as being seminally and virtually in him. And I find you not yet denying it.

2. For the second, no Christian doubteth, I think, but that all sin deserveth punishment; But the desert of Actual Sin and of Original Sin are as different as the nature of the sin. Habitual or Dispositive Pravity is a Dispositive preparation or worthiness of punishment: And actual Sin, is an actual preparation for it, but all deserve it; that is, are Subjects morally fit for it, to demonstrate holy Justice.

3. For the third, Scripture and experience put it past controversy, that Infants suffer: For, 1. They are deprived of the Spirit of Holiness, as quickly appeareth by their early practice. Which privation is the greatest punishment here. 2. They are hereupon left to the power of their own Corruption; which desertion is a grievous punishment. 3. They have pain and sorrow. 4. And they die.

And if they have all this suffering here, it is unlikely that they are wholly free hereafter, if not pardoned: Because, 1. They have immortal Souls that are capable. 2. And future as well as temporal death or misery is the wages of sin.

And that their suffering is for sin, is undoubted, from Rom. 5, &c. And the Pelagians scarce deny but that Adam 's sin caused it. And if it be proved that they have moral pravity, or sin of their own, then it is for their own sin. And if so, it is their own punishment.

All the doubt then is, Whether all Infants are forgiven. And for that, 1. We see that the temporal punishment is not forgiven them. 2. We see as soon as they come to action, that to many at least, the foresaid penal desertion and privation of the Spirit of Sanctification is not forgiven them: And 3. Without holiness none can see God. 4. They that affirm it must prove it: which they neither do, nor can do. There is no word of Scripture which telleth it us. How then should that be part of our Faith, which is no part of God's Word?

If you say that Christ, being the second Adam, saveth the World from all the sin and misery brought on them by the first Adam; I answer, 1. Conditionally he doth: He hath purchased Salvation to be given men on the terms of the Covenant of Grace, and all that perform the Conditions shall have Salvation. But 2. His bare Sacrifice itself without such application saveth none, any further than to bring them under the terms of the said Covenant. It is apparent by experience, that Christ doth not undo all the hurt that Adam did; immediately to all, or any one in the world, no not till death, no nor till the Resurrection. Sin and misery is still upon us. Infants show as soon as they come to the use of reason, that they were not brought to the Innocency that Adam had before the Fall. You yourselves distinguish the Impetration from the Application of Salvation as to the adult, and the reason is the same as to Infants, though the condition be not the same. Shew us a promise of the Salvation of all Infants, and we will believe it.

5. Indeed they are saved conditionally as the adult are; and the condition is expressed in Scripture, [That they be the Children of the Faithful, dedicated to God.] The Parents and their Seed are in the same Covenant. And this is all that God revealeth of them.

But whether God do also, without a Promise, save any of the Children of the Heathen World, or of wicked Parents? and how many? and with what Salvation? and also what degree of punishment they have in the life to come, we take for unrevealed things, which we are so far from making Articles of our Faith, that we take it to be presumptuous arrogancy to dispute it, and meddle with the Secrets of the Almighty. The Papists themselves are not agreed whether Infants have only the poenam damni as shut out of Heaven, or also poenam sensus? Jansen and many more (yea most) have written for the first; and Petavius and others for the latter. But secret things belong to God.

We cannot prove that all Infants are saved, nor do we presume to tell you what Salvation it, is that they shall have; But we hope the best: And I am glad to find that you take the Salvation of true Believers dying Infants to be sure (by the same Covenant which pardoneth their Parents), and that you do not peremptorily condemn all the rest.

You know that the Synod of Dort have said the same that I do of true Believers Children, Art. 1. Sect. 17. and the rest they meddle not with.

But I pray you tell me your thoughts, Whether Infants themselves do perish for Adam's sin alone? And what remedy is provided for them?

The whole tenor of the Scripture putteth me past doubt, that Divines have strangely erred, by over-looking the common Interest and Communion of all Parents and Children, and appropriating our Original Guilt to Adam 's sin alone: But this requireth a larger Disputation by itself. At present consider, 1. That no Text of Scripture doth so appropriate it, or make Adam only the Corrupter of our Natures: But only maketh him the Original of our Guilt and Pravity, as he was the Original of our Nature: And so he only is the Original of our Death and Punishment.

2. That the whole scope of Scripture containeth Promises and Penalties to Children with the Parents, for and by the Parents sins, more plainly than any was antecedently expressed of Adam 's Posterity as his: Yea the very Moral Law in the Second Commandment, and in the Proclamation of God's Name and Nature to Moses, Exod. 34. 6, 7. which nothing but prejudice and partiality can deny to be a valid proof, of a secondary Birth sin derived to us. And he that will read the Sacred History from the Curse on the Seed of Cain, and Cham, of the Case of Ishmael, Esau, Moab, Amnon, Saul's Grand-Children hanged, and so on to Matth. 23. 38. [On this Generation shall come all the righteous blood, &c.] And [His blood be on us, and on our Children,] with all the Promises to the Seed of the Righteous only, and Threatning to the Houses and Seed of the Wicked, with the reason of Infant-Baptism itself, 1 Cor. 7. [Else were your Children unclean, but now are they holy]; will soon be convinced that we are born under more guilt and punishment than what we derive from Adam.

3. And even Adam 's sin could not be, or is not made ours immediately, but as we derive it from our nearer▪ Parents: For our nature is no otherwise from him. Why am I guilty of what Adam did, but because I have a nature that was seminally in him? And was it not proximately in my nearer Parents? And can they convey their part of Adam 's guilt and pravity to me, and no other?

4. And few sober men can deny, but that the Children of some Glutto • s, Drunkards, Fornicators, &c. derive extraordinary diseased, and viciously-inclined temperaments from their nearest Parents.

5. And no peculiar reason can truly be given for our guilt or pravity from Adam, which reacheth not to prove the derivation of the like from our nearer Parents, save only, 1. That Adam only was the Original. 2. And in Adam we sinned under a Covenant that gave no pardon: But now under a Covenant of Grace.

If this hold, it will make easy the Doctrine of Original Sin, which I confess to you that I have been inclined to doubt of, by your Divines fastening all upon God's Arbitrary Imputation, rather than from the Children's seminal in-being.

Doubtless they have much tempted Arminius, Episcopius, Arnoldus Corvinus, Bishop Jer. Taylor, and others, to say so much against Original Sin as they have done, by feigning an (unproved) arbitrary Covenant of God made with Adam and his Posterity which was no Law of Nature, nor is made to any other since, (according to the change of the Covenant), and by which God imputeth Adam 's sin to us, not because we were in his Loins (for then it would extend to others), but because it was his Will to do so; As if it had been God and not Adam that defiled our Natures, and made us all Sinners, by an unnecessary, if not ungrounded imputation. By which also they have kept men from knowing their secondary birth-sin. The Church of England prayeth not for the Dead, but for the Living, when it saith, Remember not our Iniquity, nor the Iniquity of our fore-Fathers: And Nehemiah and Daniel were of the same mind.

But they say that then our Sins would increase as Ages go on, and the last Age would be the most sinful.

Men will say almost anything in their partiality, while they look but on one side. 1. The Covenant is now changed which men sin under: Not so as not to extend to Children: But it is now a pardoning Covenant; And when the sins of the Fathers are pardoned to themselves, they are pardoned to their Infants dedicated to God in the same Covenant, even by the same. 2. But where they are unpardoned, there is a certain sort and degree of guilt increased on the Posterity; and so no wonder if many Kingdoms of Heathens and Infidels feel it. 3. But as it is not so much to have a nature essentially derived from Parents, and to be seminally in them, as it is to be a sinning person, so the guilt proportionably differeth. 4. And there is a pardon of some temporal punishments which God giveth some bad men in this life. 5. And as to the punishment in Hell, there is a certain degree, that God will not exceed in hi • execution, and that human nature, as it is, is capable of no more. And a man may have many Obligations to one and the same punishment, as he may to the same duty; and so a man is but hanged or put to death that hath deserved death seven times over among men: For the ends of punishment set the bounds in all executions.

Well, but what say you to the second; The perishing state of Heathens.

II. I have said so much in the First Book, that I must refer you thither; Now only saying, 1. That it is first to be considered what Law they are under; 2. And next how they keep it; 3. And then how they are judged by it.

1. Undoubtedly all the World is now under the Law of Grace, as to the essentials, as it was made with all men in Adam and Noah, though not as to the mutable part, which bound men to expect a future Messiah. That Law was made with all Mankind, Gen. 3. 15. and is never reap •• ed to Mankind. The World was under it (as to Obligation) before Christ's Incarnation; And Christ took no benefit from them which they had. Clemens Alexandrinus, and other Fathers, erred not in this to much as some have charged them to do: No man is now under the Covenant of Innocency alone.

2. But how all men keep or break their proper Conditions of this Law of Grace, as they are under it, he that knoweth every man in the World, and all their hearts and deeds can tell, but not I.

3. And no doubt but they are judged as they kept or kept not the Conditions of that Law of Grace which they were under. What difference there is, 1. Between the Conditions to the Christian-Church now, and the Jewish of old. 2. And between the Conditions to the Jewish of old, and the rest of the World, I have shown partly, Lib. 1.

But because many self-wise persons are bitterly censorious against me, or any man that speaketh of any possibility of the Salvation of any, save Jews formerly and Christians now: I beseech the sober but to think of this one thing, that Abraham thought there had been fifty righteous persons in Sodom, even when God had told him how much worse it was than other places. How many then proportionably did he think there was in Canaan and all other Countries of the World. By which Abraham 's judgment about the Salvation of others is manifest, though he was mistaken in thinking Sodom better than it was. And I desire to be a Son of Abraham, and am not wiser than he.

This seemeth plain truth, however the World take it: And it is a wonder to me that any good man should take it ill to have so much of God's certain Grace acknowledged. But what say you to the third point, The necessity hence of sinning.

I have answered it to you before: I now add, 1. It is not a physical necessity from the principles of Nature, but a moral necessity from the pravity of Nature. 2. It is not caused by God, but by sinful man. 3. It is not a necessity of committing all sin, or every particular sin, nor of omitting every duty. 4. It is not an uncurable necessity. 5. God of his free Grace hath provided the remedy himself, and tendered it in some degrees to all. 6. And he appointeth to all men certain duties and means to be used to this end, which they can use. 7. Therefore it is no necessity of being damned.

This answereth the fourth Question as to the Adult. But what remedy is there for Infants, especially among Heathens and Unbelievers?

The same that is for their Parents: They have no sin but by their Parents, and God hath told us of no remedy, but that they be the Children of Believers dedicated to God. It is meet that their remedy come as their sin did. They have no Wills of their own, but be at the will of others. They are in Infancy, as if they were members of their Parents: And as the Hand and Heart doth fare as the Head conducteth them, so may Infants here.

But it's sad that all Infants shall be unsaved, if the Parents consent not.

It is sad that men destroy themselves: And it is sad that they corrupt their Infants. But what way else would you wish God to save them?

Certainly to save all dying in infancy.

1. And why not as well all at Age? 2. Then men would be tempted to think it the greatest act of mercy in the World, to go with an Army and kill all the Children of Infidels and Heathens, certainly to save them.

So you may say by the Children of Believers then, if they be saved.

No: for they have holy Education, under God's Promise, Ordinances and Blessing, and so are in great hope of being publicly serviceable to the Church, and also of attaining a greater degree of Glory. But it's an hundred to one but the Children of Heathens and Infidels, are bred up to be also such themselves.

They suppose that no man can do anymore good than he doth, nor forbear anymore evil, than he forbeareth; Because he is not only predestinated to do just what he doth, and no more or less, but also predetermined physically in the practice, so that he cannot possibly do more or less than God predetermineth him to; And 1. God's Decrees having fixed all future events, all that man can do will not alter them: Beverovicius may tire the World of Divines with his question de termino vitae before he will ever get satisfaction, how Physic can prolong a predestinated term of life. And 2. By this means God who set man upon a course of impossibilities or vain means, with great and urgent exhortations, is made a dissembler, and his revealed Will and his secret supposed contradictory, and the latter false: And how then can such a God be believed?

These are but the bold effusions of a misunderstanding contentious temerarious passion. Here are set together several things, which must distinctly be considered: I. Whether man can do no more good, and forbear no more evil than he doth? II. Whether means to lengthen life or save Souls be vain? III. Whether God's secret and revealed Will be contrary, and the revealed false.

I. As to the first, this unhappy syllable [CAN] by its ambiguity is the cause of all our silly quarrels. 1. If by [CAN] you mean [a physical power or faculty] man cannot only do more good than he doth, but he can repent and believe who doth not. 2. If you mean a moral power, that is, such a degree of disposition to good as may be excited, or such an indisposition as may be overcome as to the act, without anymore supernatural Grace than he hath; so all men can do more good and less evil than they do. And therefore the Synod of Dort rejecteth your accusation as a calumny. And men should know their own minds best. 3. If by [Cannot] you mean only a logical impossibility that these two Propositions be both true [Judas will believe and be saved] or [Herod will not be eaten with Worms.] And [God decreeth that Judas shall not be saved] and [that Herod shall be eaten by Worms] I confess your charge; and say that Arminius saith the same upon the supposition of God's fore-knowledge. And how are you concerned to prove God to be either fallible in his fore-knowledge, false in his Predictions, or mutable in his Purposes. By this rule all Prophesies take away men's power, and make it impossible to do the contrary. But you mistake: For they assert man's power: He that fore-knoweth and fore-telleth that Judas will abuse his power, and decreeth to damn him only for abusing his power, doth imply that he hath such power—. But —Ergo.]

II. Beverovicius (and other men's) question, de utilitate mediorum need no very learned Pens to determine it. He did well to make that learned and pious Lady Maria Van Schurman one of his Casuists. What can be plainer, than that means are made most necessary, and also the liberty of our Wills in the use of means, when God doth make this one Decree; e. g. [Peter shall hear, believe, repent freely but certainly, and be saved.] [Noah shall make an Ark freely, but certainly, and be saved from the deluge.] [Noah shall plant a Vineyard, and water and dress it in due season, freely but certainly, and it shall bear him fruit.] And [fore-seeing that Judas will freely betray his Lord, I will condemn him.] [Such a Sluggard will not plow and sow, and therefore shall have no crop.] [Such a man will not use any meet remedy against his Disease, and shall die by it.] It's strange that nothing can please you unless God be ignorant, or mutable, and over-rule not all the World.

III. I have made it plain, that there is no show of contradiction between God's secret and revealed Will. What contradiction is it to say, [Judas, I command thee do not murder thyself,] and [I know that Judas will betray his Lord, and will dispair, and do that which tendeth to his own murder, and for his sin he shall be so self-murdered]. Or [Judas will betray Christ, and shall be damned for it,] and [I forbid Judas to betray Christ.] Plainly, 1. About punishment, God's revealed Will in his Law, speaketh only de jure (vel debito) in forbidding it. 2. God's revealed Will by Prophesy sometime fore-telleth that this Law will not be kept; and God's Decree is, that the punishment eventually be inflicted: so that one speaketh only de debito, and the other de eventu. And about sin it is but God's fore-knowledge de eventu, and his Law de debito, that seem to you contradictory, without any reason.

But this belongeth to the first Articles, where you had enough of it before: And man's true power to do more good, and forbear more evil than he doth, is so far from being denied, that it is asserted in all, and your charge denied generally by the Calvinists, unless perhaps by some rash contentious Disputer of a shallow brain, who cannot distinguish between physical, moral, and mere logical impossibilities. You may read the Synod of Dorts express renunciation of it, that man can do no more good than he doth, nor forbear more evil: And do you know their judgment better than they know their own? And will you go on to charge them with that which they abhor?

Some of them deny Original Sin, and so make man need no Savior to pardon it, no Sanctifier to cure it, no Means or Duty on our part for the cure, no true Baptism for Infants, no true Repentance for such Sin; and so are true Pelagians.

1. Those [some] I undertook not to prove of the same mind with you and me: But let us charge no more with it than we can prove guilty. That's nothing to all the rest: The Jesuits and Lutherans differ not from you herein as far as I can find, nor the generality of the Arminians. Those that are chiefly charged with it, are Arminius, Arnoldus, Corvinus, Episcopius, and Bishop Jeremy Taylor: Arminius expressly owneth it: Thes. private. 31. n. 9, 10, 11. pag. 299. Quoniam vero ratio-foederis a Deo cum hominibus primis mihi haec fuit, ut si ipsi in favore Dei & Gratia, per praecepti istius & aliorum observationem permanerent, ad posteros dona in illos collata transmitterentur, eadem gratia divina quae illis obligat: si vero illi eorum se indignos facerent per inobedientiam, posteri quo{que} ipsorum iis carerent, & contrariis malis obnoxii essent: Hinc accidit ut omnes homines qui naturaliter ex ipsis propagandi fuerint, morti temporali & aeternae obnoxios evaserint, & do • o isto spirit • s sancti si • e justitiae originally vacui: quae paena priva • io imaginis Dei & peccatum original appellari solet. An vero praeter carentiam justitiae Originalis aliqua contraria qualitas constituenda sit, tanquam pec • ati Originalis pars altera, disquiri permittimus: Quamquam arbitramur vero similius illam solam carentiam ipsum peccatum Originale esse, utpote quae sola sufficiet ad quaevis peccata actu •• ia committen • um & producendum.

Mark that he saith, but peccatum Originale appellari solet.

1. But he disowneth it not. 2. He owneth the name in the next Thesis. 3. While he confesseth the thing, the lis est tantum de nomine, if he had denied the name.

Also in Disp. private. Thes. 67. de Baptis. p. 334, 335. he is for Infants Baptism to wash them in the blood of Christ, and give them the Holy Ghost. And he maketh this to be a washing from sin. What else should it be?

But he taketh it to be but Privatio Justitiae Originalis.

1. He taketh it to be doubtful. 2. Remember that he calleth it not Negatio, but Privatio. 3. Almost all the School-men, and most or very many Calvinists say the same (though I do not).

But in his Articuli perpendendi in fine, lib. p. 780. col. 2. he saith, that Peccatum Originis non est illud actual peccatum quo Adam legem de arbore scientiae boni & mali transgressus est, & propter quod nos omnes peccatores constituti sumus & rei facti condemnationis & mortis.

1. Mark that he expressly maketh us by Adam 's sin to be Peccatores & rei constituti. 2. So in the next Thesis. An peccatum Originis sit tantum carentia justitiae Originalis, & sanctimoniae primaevae, cum inclinatione ad peccandum, quae & antea in homine fuit, licet non ita vehemens, aeque & inordinata ut nunc est, propter amissum favorem Dei, maledictionem ejusdem, & amissionem ejus boni, quo in ordinem redigebatur; An vero contrarius quidam habitus justitiae & sanctimoniae infusus (vel ingressus, acquisitus) post peccatum perpetratum, Dub. Here he confesseth also a positive Original Sin in the inordinateness of the sensual inclination. 3. When he denieth Adam 's Act to be our Original. 1. He denieth not (for no Christian denieth it) to be the Original Sin, that is, the first sin and the cause of ours. 2. And he seemeth but to mean that Adam 's Sin individually was not ours: which is most certain: For the same Accident cannot be in two distinct Subjects: If our persons be not everyone Adam 's person, it is impossible that the same individual sin or guilt should be his and ours, anymore than the same individual Soul. If God did arbitrarily (merely because he would do it) impute Adam 's fact to all Mankind, and to everyone personally, this would make it as many sins as there be persons; One man's Original Sin would not be another's, and none of theirs the same quoad formam numericam with Adam 's. Adams is Adams, and yours is yours, and mine is mine. We cannot therefore be heretic men for such doubtful forms of speech, in which we differ among ourselves.

The plain truth is, the matter is not so well opened commonly among us, as to allow us to condemn others till we have better done our own parts. My thoughts are these: 1. That we were seminally and virtually really in Adam; having the very essence of our Souls derived from him; not being in him only as the House is in the head of the Architect, but as an essential form is in the generater; though we call both, esse in causa. 2. That we were not personally in Adam (though seminally) that is, we were not natural persons in him, when he sinned. 3. God supposeth no man to have been what he was not, or done what he did not: For he erreth not. 4. God is not the Author of Sin: Therefore he doth not by arbitrary imputing of Adam 's act, and reputing us to have done what we did not, make all men Sinners, which Adam could not do. 5. But God doth truly repute us to have been seminally in Adam, and to have no Essence but what is really derived from his Essence: And as when a man is guilty, no part of him is innocent, ne{que} semen ne{que} sanguis, though they have not a distinct guilt, but participative qua partes rei; so we were Sinners in that act, and guilty of that act, so far as we were partes Adami, and in him. 6. This was not to be at that time guilty as distinct persons; for we were not such. 7. But we that were then only seminally inexistent, after became real distinct persons, and then that guilt even of Adam 's fact, adhering still to us, became reatus personae, because the Subjects of it are personae. Even as if Eve had been made after the Fall, of Adam 's Rib, that Rib at first was guilty, not by another, but the same numerical guilt that Adam was, as part of a Sinner: For it was a capable Subject of no more: But when that same Rib was made a person, it would be a guilty person; For it lost not the guilt by that change. But then it is not only or chiefly our Bodies which are from Adam (which are from the elements in our daily food) but our Souls. And therefore the adherence of the guilt to a rational spirit essentially flowing from another's essence, is more easily understood and defended than that of the corporal Rib could be. 8. I do (contrary to excellent Jos. Placeus) suppose that in primo instanti, this our participation in Adam 's guilt is in order before our qualitative pravity: And that God doth therefore deny us his Spirit first, to make us originally holy, not only because Adam, but because we in Adam (as aforesaid) did forfeit and expel it. 9. I think that men's assertion of a Decree or Covenant of God, that if Adam fell, anymore should be imputed to his Off-spring than they were thus really guilty of themselves, is the bold addition of men's invention, of greater audacity than the addition of Ceremonies to the Worship of God, which yet some are more sensible of. 10. I think that if Adam had not sinned that same first sin, but had sinned another sin the next hour, or day, or month, or year, or any time before Generation, it would have been equally ours, as this first was, because we were equally in him, and no Scripture-Covenant makes a difference. 11. I think that whereas Adam 's sin had twenty particular sins as parts of the whole, we were guilty of all, as well as of the first act or part; else we should not be guilty of his eating the forbidden • ruit; for doubtless that was not the first: His incogitancy, and non-Nolition and sinful Volitions were before it. Yea I doubt not but we are guilty of all the sin that Adam committed, from his first sin till the making of the New-Covenant, at least. 12. I doubt not but if Adam had never sinned, yet (supposing the same Covenant to stand) if his Sons after him had sinned, we should have been guilty of it as we are of his sin: yea had it been but our nearest Parents. 13. I doubt not but that we are still so guilty of our nearer Parents Sins, further than as the introduction of the new pardoning Covenant, and the oft pardons by it, and the incapacity of nature, to bear anymore punishment, may make a difference. This is not a place voluminously to prove all this. But if any Arminians be tempted to speak doubtingly of this Original Guilt, while they confess Original sinful pravity, 1. Blame your own additions to God's Covenant, and your obscure writings of the thing; 2. And say not that they deny Original Sin, but express the matter as it is. It seemeth that Arminius by Peccatores & rei constituti sumus meaneth as we do.

I must confess your explication is rational and concilatory: But how can you excuse Corvinus?

See but how he defendeth Arminius against Tilenus, as holding our Original Sin to be truly Sin, and a punishment for Sin, and you will think that he denieth it not himself: See also what Twisse supposeth him to grant, Cont. Corvin. p. 253, 254. Indeed he doth two much obscure and extenuate the formalem rationem peccati in comparison of the ratio poenae in it. But I much suspect that there is much Logomachie in the controversy, and that it is mostly de nomine peccati non de re. For I perceive some of them conceive of peccatum as a word that hath only an active signification from peccare: And because an Infant doth not peccare actualiter, therefore they say that Original Sin is not strictly called Peccatum, meaning that the Name properly agreeth only to an evil Act. And can a Controversy de nomine make a heresy? Ask them these Questions? 1. Whether an Infant be not animal rationale liberum, as having the same natural faculties with the Adult? 2. Whether he be not then capable of virtuous and vicious Dispositions? 3. And whether these are not bonum & malum morale? If he be not capable of malum morale, than neither of bonum morale? And if so, then not of Holiness, nor any moral aptitude for Heaven, anymore than a Beast. This they all deny▪ and therefore must needs say that their vicious inclinations are malum morale, adapting them not only physically for physical evil, but morally for punishment. And truly if they will call Sin such a moral evil, I will not break communion with them about the sense of Peccare.

But Ames tells Grevinchovius, that it may be proved by good witnesses that he denied Original Sin: which Dr. Twisse many times over and over reciteth contra Corvinum.

As the instance of three or four single persons is nothing to my business, so I am no judge of any such Reports, unless I had heard the witnesses myself. I have had so many notorious lies confidently reported of me by men not contemptible, that it hath taught me to be backward in receiving any Accusations, and judging before I hear the accused. Especially a man that writeth much is more to be judged of by his Writings, than by Back-biters Reports.

But Episcopius is no way to be excused, Nor Bishop Jer. Taylor, who copiously plead against Original Sin.

Therefore they are not the persons that I have now to do with; but have else-where as copiously proved Original Sin, and confuted such Arguments as they use; But the chief of my Arguments they touch not.

They say that man before regeneration can do that which is spiritually good; and hath power to use his naturals well, so that by degrees he may thereby come up to a state of saving Grace, or be fitted to be a Believer: And that some can believe and repent that do not. Whereas the Scripture maketh men dead in sin, and out of Christ we can do nothing.

This unhappy [CAN] I tell you is our Cannon that battereth our Peace and Love; and pardon me if I tell you as I did them, that I doubt whether you understand well what it signifieth. Tell me,

Quest. 1. Have not wicked men natural life? Or are they dead?

No man doubteth of that.

Quest. 2. Have they not natural powers or faculties for natural Acts?

Nor is that denied by any man.

Quest. 3. Is it not the same natural faculty of Intellection by which we understand and believe things common and spiritual? And the same natural faculty of willing, by which we love or will them both?

Nor is that questioned by any.

Quest. 4. Is there not such a thing as common Grace, distinct from, and short of true Regeneration or Sanctification?

Yes, we are all agreed of that.

Quest. 5. Is there any Nation or People in the World, that are not obliged by God to use some means towards their own Conversion, and to forbear their Sin?

No doubt of it, but they are obliged to perfect Obedience, and they are specially obliged to repent, and use some means thereto.

Quest. 6. Is there not such a thing in the World, as a true power to do something that never is done, and forbear what is not forborne?

I know not what to say to that: An hypothetical power, and secundum quid so called there is: But of proper power I doubt. Dr. Twisse against Hord, li. 1. p. 71. saith, [Suppose all men had power to do any good: If God will not give them velle quod possunt, —is it possible that they should velle bonum, if God will not work it in them.]

It is a logical impossibility of consequence (nothing to the purpose) which also fore-knowledge would infer: But as to real power, denominating the Object possible, it is a palpable contradiction, to say I have true power to do an impossible thing: when to say I have power to do it, and to say, it is possible to me, are all one. Else-where Dr. Twisse can say, that God's velle eventum is not necessary ad possibilitatem, sed ad eventum. Do you doubt whether Adam was able to have forborne the sin, and so sinned for want of power to do otherwise?

An obediential and passive power he had, and faculties that were able hypothetically if God had predetermined them by premotion and effectual Grace: But of the rest I doubt.

We will not be diverted with empty words: A dead man hath an obediential passive power (as the School mean it). An hypothetical or conditional power is no power when the condition is not existent. If you say Adam could not but sin, you make his standing a natural impossibility, and God the cause of all his sin, whom he could no more overcome therein than make a World: And will men then believe that God hateth that sin which he unresistibly causeth, and sent Christ to die for it? and will damn men for not doing natural impossibilities?

Well! suppose (as commonly we do) that Adam was able to have stood? and consequently that there is a true power in the World that's never acted.

Quest. 7. Is no man by Nature with common helps and Grace able to do more good than he doth, and forbear more sin?

No doubt, he can if he will; But the doubt is of his Will.

Quest. 8. Is no man by Nature and common Grace able to will the doing of more good, and forbearing more evil, than he so willeth.

His Will hath natural power; but it is contrarily disposed.

Quest. 9. Can no man by Nature and common Grace, notwithstanding the undisposedness of his Will, yet so far restrain or prevail against his undisposedness, as actually to will and do more good and less evil than he willeth and doth.

If▪ Adam could have forborne all sin, I must think common Grace to be no Grace, if by it a man could forbear no sin, nor do any good.

Quest. 10. Cannot every man desire to be happy? and to escape Hell?

Yes: For all do it in some sort or other.

Quest. 11. Cannot some men without Holiness, forbear Murder, Treason, Theft, Adultery, and pass by a Tavern-door when they go in?

Yes; for we see many forbear such sins: and therefore more might do it.

Quest. 12. Cannot such a one go to a Sermon, and read good Books, when he goeth to a Tavern or a Play-house?

Hobbes will say no, who thinks that every Volotion is necessitated as the motion of a Watch is by the Spring: but so will not I. He cannot be willing to attend God's Ordinances as the godly do; but he can will to use them sometimes in his manner.

Quest. 13. Cannot he by common Grace understand the meaning of the words heard or read, and remember them?

Yes; and be a famous Expositer and Preacher too.

Quest. 14. Cannot a man by common Grace know that he is a Sinner, and miserable by sin? and that he needeth Mercy and a Savior?

Yes; or else he could not despair with Judas?

Quest. 15. Cannot he think of his own sinful and miserable condition? yea and think how to get out of it and be saved?

Yes: despairing men cannot forget it: And a wicked Preacher, for common ends, can force his thoughts, most of the year, to meditate on God's Word, and holy things.

Quest. 16. Can he not wish and desire that he had mercy and a Savior, and so much Grace as to keep him from Hell, and so make him happy when he must go hence? And can he not by some earnest prayers speak out these desires?

Yes: All men have not saving Grace, that go but so far.

Quest. 17. Cannot a man by common Grace do all that which our Divines commonly say, an Hypocrite may do, or a half or almost -Christian? such as Mr. Perkins, Bolton, Rogers, Hooker, Mead, Byfield, and abundance more describe.

Yes; they that have so much common Grace can go so far.

Quest. 18. Are not the best of these men, by common Grace, more prepared for Conversion than some others?

Yes: else what good did that Grace do them? and why should we write (as Mr. Hooker) of the Souls preparation for Christ? and Christ told one, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.

Quest. 19. Doth God command all these men to use the means of their full Conversion and Salvation utterly in vain?

No: it is not in vain, if he bless them to whom he will.

Quest. 20. Lastly, Then tell me, if you acknowledge all these [CANS] or Powers, what is the power which you deny?

A power to things spiritually good.

Ambiguous words must not destroy Love and Churches. What mean you by [Spiritual?]

That which is done by God's Spirit, to spiritual ends, and in a spiritual manner.

Here are three things: The Efficient, the End, the Manner. 1. Is not the Spirit of God the Author of common Grace?

Yes, that is not denied by any.

2. If by a spiritual end you mean, the foresaid saving of the Soul from Hell, you confess common Grace may give it. If you mean loving and intending God above all, do not the Arminians say as well as you, that none but the Regenerate can do it?

I confess they do.

3. What mean you by a spiritual manner? If you mean it, of doing all from that love to God, and intention of that end, the answer is the same.

Man can do nothing of himself, without God.

Did ever man in his wits think otherwise? Was it ever a controversy, whether we have any power that is not both given and still maintained by God? All the question is, but how God giveth it? and not whether we have it without him. One thinketh that he giveth more by the way of Nature than others do: And another thinks that he giveth more by the way of common Grace than others do: Mistake not yourself: you ascribe no more to God, than any even Pelagian doth; but only he ascribeth more to God by the way of natural conveyance than you do. I only except the Dominican Predeterminants, that ascribe all man's circumstantiated Volitions to God. Lay therefore the controversy where it is.

But we can do nothing without Christ and Grace.

I am more for that than you are. I doubt you think that we can do the works of Nature without Christ; For I find that many of you will not have so much as Magistracy to depend upon him derivatively. But all things are now delivered into his hands, and Nature is reprived and continued by some degree of Grace, that is, of Mercy contrary to Merit. But tell me, do men do that without Christ, which they do by his common Grace?

The words signify, [Joh. 15. Out of me ye can do nothing.]

And do you differ about that? Do not you before confess how far men out of Christ as to regeneration may go? Come to the point, and tell me where you differ?

We differ here; that they think that God hath promised saving Grace to men prepared by common Grace, and we say, No.

Very good: Is all come but to this? Tell me what is this to the question of man's power or impotency? This is only about God's Word. Quest. 1. Do you not believe that God hath made it the duty of all the Unregenerate, to desire, and beg, and seek his special regenerating Grace? and use means to get it? and avoid impediments?

Yes: it is their duty; otherwise the omission of it were not their Sin.

Quest. 2. Hath God commanded them to do all this in vain?

I told you, that it is not in vain, if he convert but some few of them.

My question was not, whether the command be in vain, but whether the duty commanded be in vain. And how doth one man's good use of common Grace, prepare another man for conversion, and not himself. It is for himself that God commandeth and earnestly exhorteth men to be reconciled unto God. And is this in vain to themselves if they do it? If they repent when commanded it is not in vain? If they use common Grace in seeking God, how prove you that it shall be in vain? If you say to your Servants, [Come and ask me for your Food and Raiment when you want them], they would think that Command did not set them upon a vain asking. If an able Physician that could cure a Disease at his pleasure should say, [Take this Medicine for the cure of your Disease] or [this preparative] it would be supposed not in vain. In this Command God is both Rector and Benefactor: As Rector, the right government of mankind is his end; which is not done by setting them on vain duty: As Benefactor, the good of his Creature is his end (as we may call it, under his Glory therein). And vain duty is an evil, and not a benefit to any. If the King sent to you to come and ask him for preferment, you would take it to signify half a promise. Now God's Promises are not strictly Obligations, any further than the notification of his Will, and giving the subject a right, is an Obligation; where God's Perfection is instead of an Obligation. And is such a Command [Ask, Seek, Accept,] no notification of his Will that our labor shall not be lost? I do not call it a Promise: But is it not a signification that God the Rector and Benefactor of the World, will not let the performer lose his labor.

He loseth not his labor if he get by it but temporal mercies, and an abatement of his pains in Hell.

Do you thus paraphrase God's Command, [Seek for Grace, and thou shalt have Health or Riches: or seek for Conversion and Salvation, and thou shalt have an easier Damnation.] This is still a duty that's vain as to the commanded End.

I confess it were not in vain if they could do it as he commandeth: for God commandeth them to do it in faith, and spiritual sincerity, which they cannot do.

Do you thus paraphrase the Command, [Seek Faith in Faith, and seek Sincerity in Sincerity] that is [You that have not Faith and Sincerity, if you have them already, seek that you may have them.] Did not you confess that they that have not special Grace are bound to seek it in the use of certain means?

They are bound to do it, but they are not able.

Did not you confess that they were able by common Grace to do the works of common Grace? and that in abundance of instances? What is common Grace for, if they can do nothing by it?

It is equal to nothing, for it is not acceptable to God.

Did not you confess that it is a preparation to special Grace, and may bring them nearer to the Kingdom of God?

But without Faith it is impossible to please God.

But there are several sorts of Faith, and several degrees of pleasing God. We grant that without special Faith it is impossible so to please God, as to have Justification, Adoption, or any Title to Heaven, as the members of Christ have. But by a common Faith men come to be less displeasing to God than grosser Infidels and Rebels; and are more prepared for converting Grace. You know that this is the common Doctrine both of our practical and polemical Divines, as you may see in their Books, and the Synod of Dort.

But our Divines against the Arminians oft say, That a man that hath but nature and common Grace, cannot use them well.

I am resolved not to be cheated by ambiguous words. To use them well signifieth, 1. To use them in love to God as the Ultimate End, and so none but the godly use anything: And do not all the Arminians grant you that? 2. Or it is to use them so much better than worser men, as that they draw nearer God, and are more prepared for special Grace? And do not all our Divines grant that they may so far use them well? where then is the difference?

The prayer of the Wicked is abomination to the Lord.

By [wicked] is meant, either one that is yet unregenerate as such, or one that is actually set upon wickedness, progressively, and is not about returning to God. And by [abomination] is meant, either that which God accepteth not so far as to pardon and save him that doth it, though he judge him more prepared for Grace than others; or else that which he totally abhorreth as being no preparation to his Grace. A man that is unregenerate may so far seek mercy in a returning degree yet short of saving Grace, as that it shall not be in vain. Even an Ahab had experience of this; And so had Nineveh and many others: And why else do you still confess a state of preparatory Grace? Is God's preparatory Grace abominable to him? Doth Christ give abominable Grace? or is preparation to Conversion an abominable thing? 2. But the Text speaketh of a wicked man as wicked: He that goeth on in a wicked life, and thinketh by Sacrifice and Prayers to pacify God, and make him amends, his Sacrifice and Prayers are abominable. But wicked men may have somewhat in them that is better than wickedness: They may have such a belief that God is, and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him; yea such a Faith in Jesus Christ, as shall move them to that sort of repentance and reformation as that they shall be almost true Christians, and not far from the Kingdom of God. And the wicked man that doth this, doth it not as wicked, but by common Grace. And though it be so far abominable as not to prove him justified, it is not so far abominable as to be all in vain.

But when you have said all, yet they have no Promise.

1. You know, I suppose, how hard it is to understand certainly many Texts of Scripture, whether they be Promises to such or not! Matth. 7. 8. Everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, &c. Lam. 3. 25. The Lord is good to the Soul that seeketh him. Amos 5. 4. Seek me, and ye shall live. Luke 11. 13. God will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him, &c. I only say that there is difficulty in these and such other Texts. 2. But you confess that God hath formerly made Promises of Church-Privileges, and of temporal things to unsanctified men: Therefore if he did make a Promise of further helps of Grace, to them that well use former helps, it were no more incongruous. And 3. Truly I understand not what it is that moveth some men to be so much against such a conception, that God should make any Promise of further Mercy, to the obedient use of former Mercy, when it is so agreeable to his Rectorship and Bounty, and to the common interest of Mankind. 4. But yet I assert no such Promise: All that I plead for is, that you will state the difference aright as it is, and not misreport it, as if it were greater.

How is it that you would have it stated?

1. You are all agreed, that by Nature man can do natural actions; and by common Grace, he can do the actions of common Grace; and by special Grace, he can do the acts of special Grace. Are you not all agreed of this much?

Yes, this cannot be denied.

2. And you are agreed that the acts of common Grace are such as consist in a commanded seeking of, or preparing for special Grace.

Yes, that also is agreed on.

3. And you are agreed, that the best state of common Grace is in the nature of the thing, certainly and always, a state of preparation or greater moral aptitude for special Grace, whether it certainly follow or not.

Yes, that is not denied neither.

The difference then is but this. One Party saith, That

You have truly stated the difference: And I confess that if I were comforting an afflicted Conscience ready to dispair, I should tell such, that a Command to seek Mercy, implieth a certainty that he that so seeketh it shall find it; And if we could but say to men, as the people to the blind man, Behold he calleth thee, It would be near to a promise that he will heal them.

But forget not that all this is but your anticipation of the Controversies about Grace, or God's Promises, and is no part of the Controversy about man's power or corruption.

But there is a further difference yet. For they say, That man's Will hath power to resist the Grace of God, and frustrate it, which else would be effectual, if man did not overcome it.

You have brought the Controversy now to a strange kind of power, and further confirm me that this empty [CAN] is the sum of the Controversy, which is nothing but a sound. This which you call power is nothing but natural power as morally corrupt and impotent. If it be non-agendo, that you mean they can resist, as by not-believing, not loving God, &c. What power is necessary to it? Is it an act of power, not to love God? Next say, that a dead man hath power not to live, and a dumb man hath power to be silent; and a blind man is able not to see. If it be agendo that you mean that they resist, the act as an act in genere is an act of that natural power which God himself giveth, upholdeth, and by universal concourse acteth: and so far it is no resistance. But as that act hath the prohibited Object, rather than another, so it is sin: And your meaning is that they say, Man can sin. And indeed is this the Controversy? Have you been blaming the Arminians, advancing man's natural Power and Will, and now do you become the advancers of it? Who advanceth or praiseth man more? He that saith, He can sin? Or he that saith, He cannot sin? Even now you pleaded, that men cannot believe, and will you now plead, that they cannot choose but believe? Is it a power to sin, that you accuse them for asserting?

They cannot believe without special Grace: But they cannot choose but believe if they have it.

It's true: Because it is not that which we call special Grace, if it cause them not to believe: And so it were a contradiction to say, That they have Faith, and they have not Faith. But this [cannot choose] is not an impotency [for to believe is an act of power]: But it is merely the name of a logical impossibility that these two should consist, [He believeth and he believeth not.] He that by Grace believeth, hath that natural power which of itself is able not to believe (if you will call it ability): But it is power determined to believe; and so Faith is become necessary, when a man hath it necessitate existentiae. But the asserting power to sin, and to be an Unbeliever, I will never charge on the Arminians, when I would blame them for advancing man.

But it is a power to overcome God's Grace, which they assert.

Read but Dr. Twisse his judgment of Resistance, and you will call it no more an overcoming; any otherwise than a weight overcometh my strength, which I can lift up, and will not. But I tell you, I will not be cheated with ambiguous words. 1. Either you mean an active or passive overcoming. 2. And either you mean an overcoming of God's utmost exerted Power by a greater Power; or you mean an overcoming of God's Will, and his Power exerted with an absolute Will of efficiency; or you mean the non-efficiency or non-prevalency of such an Act of God, as cometh without any Decree or absolute Will of prevailing, but with a Will of leaving the success to man's free Will: (as in Adam 's case.)

1. Speaking improperly, you may say that all men that are not softened, convinced, converted by the means which God thereto appointeth, overcome God, in that they overcome the means.

2. Thus in not-repenting, not-believing, not-loving, &c. the less power any man hath, the more he passively overcometh: (as a hard stone overcometh the Hammer that breaketh it not.)

3. No Arminian holdeth that man is stronger than God, and overcometh his Power by a greater Power: Out of Bedlam none have such thoughts that are awake.

4. None of them think that any Act of God's Power is overcome, or is unsuccessful, which is exercised with his absolute Will or Decree of prevailing, or of the effect.

5. But they think that in some cases, yea ordinarily God's Will is freely to exert no more of his power towards the causing of a commanded act, than what shall give man a power to obey, with some assisting motives, and leave the success or effect to his free Will. That God doth so sometimes, is proved by the case of Adam. Now whether you will call this overcoming or not, and whether you will say, Adam overcame God's Grace, or God's Grace overcame not Adam 's Will, is but a Logomachy. The thing in question, is nothing but sinning against that degree of Grace, which enabled man to have done better. But all this belongeth to the controversy of Grace, and not of man's power: unless you think sin a powerful honorable act.

At least in this they over-value man's power, in that they hold, That man's Will hath power to determine the influx of God, and so man shall rule his Maker: when God's influx or premotion shall but leave it to the Will of man, what shall be the success.

This toucheth physical predetermination; and needeth no other answer than is oft given. 1. You wrong them: They hold not all (properly) that man's Will determineth God's Will, either as to the essence of the Divine Will, or as to the Act, connoting the mere Object: But only that it can determine of a common effect, which God's and man's Free-Will would produce if both concur. 2. They do not think that m ••• Will hath any the • least operation causally on God's Will in itself; but only that variations are made by variety of recipient dispositions, where the influx of the Agent is universal and equal: And so that man's receptive indisposition may be a cause that God's Influx work not the same effect on him which it would do on a disposed subject. 3. And they say not this of God's absolute Will and Power, but of his power operating restrai • edly by his own free Will; when he will exert no more, than what shall be successful only on a free concurring and disposed Subject, and not on a resisting undisposed one.

It pleaseth God that the Sun shall operate but with a common Operation, variable in the effects, by the various disposition of Recipients. The Flowers spring and are sweet, and Weeds stink, Trees grow, and Stones grow not; humanity is acted by it in men, and not in Fruits. God could have made the Influx of this Sun to have been causa specialis, and to have turned a Weed into a Rose, or a Stone into a Tree, if he had pleased: but he doth not. Now will you say that we are erroneous, and over magnify the recipient, if we say that its disposition is the cause of much of this diversity? and that the stone is stronger than the Sun and overcometh it? No: the Sun did all that was properly intended: Its beams came down on the Stone, as well as on the Animals and Plants. It warmed it, though it did not quicken it. So God doth his work on the Will of Sinners: His Influx is terminated on their Will, and had he sent it with a resolution to convert him, it should have done it. But seeing he sent it limitedly, only to